jocose, and free in his movements. Among the trees they were continually
cutting with their scythes the so-called “birch mushrooms,” swollen fat in
the succulent grass. But the old man bent down every time he came across a
mushroom, picked it up and put it in his bosom. “Another present for my
old woman,” he said as he did so.
Easy as it was to mow the wet, soft grass, it was hard work going up and
down the steep sides of the ravine. But this did not trouble the old man.
Swinging his scythe just as ever, and moving his feet in their big, plaited
shoes with firm, little steps, he climbed slowly up the steep place, and
though his breeches hanging out below his smock, and his whole frame
trembled with effort, he did not miss one blade of grass or one mushroom
on his way, and kept making jokes with the peasants and Levin. Levin
walked after him and often thought he must fall, as he climbed with a
scythe up a steep cliff where it would have been hard work to clamber
without anything. But he climbed up and did what he had to do. He felt as
though some external force were moving him.
Chapter 6
Mashkin Upland was mown, the last row finished, the peasants had put
on their coats and were gaily trudging home. Levin got on his horse and,
parting regretfully from the peasants, rode homewards. On the hillside he
looked back; he could not see them in the mist that had risen from the
valley; he could only hear rough, good-humored voices, laughter, and the
sound of clanking scythes.
Sergey Ivanovitch had long ago finished dinner, and was drinking iced
lemon and water in his own room, looking through the reviews and papers
which he had only just received by post, when Levin rushed into the room,
talking merrily, with his wet and matted hair sticking to his forehead, and
his back and chest grimed and moist.
“We mowed the whole meadow! Oh, it is nice, delicious! And how have
you been getting on?” said Levin, completely forgetting the disagreeable
conversation of the previous day.
“Mercy! what do you look like!” said Sergey Ivanovitch, for the first
moment looking round with some dissatisfaction. “And the door, do shut
the door!” he cried. “You must have let in a dozen at least.”
Sergey Ivanovitch could not endure flies, and in his own room he never
opened the window except at night, and carefully kept the door shut.
“Not one, on my honor. But if I have, I’ll catch them. You wouldn’t
believe what a pleasure it is! How have you spent the day?”
“Very well. But have you really been mowing the whole day? I expect
you’re as hungry as a wolf. Kouzma has got everything ready for you.”
“No, I don’t feel hungry even. I had something to eat there. But I’ll go
and wash.”
“Yes, go along, go along, and I’ll come to you directly,” said Sergey
Ivanovitch, shaking his head as he looked at his brother. “Go along, make
haste,” he added smiling, and gathering up his books, he prepared to go too.
He, too, felt suddenly good-humored and disinclined to leave his brother’s
side. “But what did you do while it was raining?”
“Rain? Why, there was scarcely a drop. I’ll come directly. So you had a
nice day too? That’s first-rate.” And Levin went off to change his clothes.
Five minutes later the brothers met in the dining-room. Although it
seemed to Levin that he was not hungry, and he sat down to dinner simply
so as not to hurt Kouzma’s feelings, yet when he began to eat the dinner
struck him as extraordinarily good. Sergey Ivanovitch watched him with a
smile.
“Oh, by the way, there’s a letter for you,” said he. “Kouzma, bring it
down, please. And mind you shut the doors.”
The letter was from Oblonsky. Levin read it aloud. Oblonsky wrote to
him from Petersburg: “I have had a letter from Dolly; she’s at Ergushovo,
and everything seems going wrong there. Do ride over and see her, please;
help her with advice; you know all about it. She will be so glad to see you.
She’s quite alone, poor thing. My mother-in-law and all of them are still
abroad.”
“That’s capital! I will certainly ride over to her,” said Levin. “Or we’ll go
together. She’s such a splendid woman, isn’t she?”
“They’re not far from here, then?”
“Twenty-five miles. Or perhaps it is thirty. But a capital road. Capital,
we’ll drive over.”
“I shall be delighted,” said Sergey Ivanovitch, still smiling. The sight of
his younger brother’s appearance had immediately put him in a good
humor.
“Well, you have an appetite!” he said, looking at his dark-red, sunburnt
face and neck bent over the plate.
“Splendid! You can’t imagine what an effectual remedy it is for every
sort of foolishness. I want to enrich medicine with a new word: Arbeitskur.”
“Well, but you don’t need it, I should fancy.”
“No, but for all sorts of nervous invalids.”
“Yes, it ought to be tried. I had meant to come to the mowing to look at
you, but it was so unbearably hot that I got no further than the forest. I sat
there a little, and went on by the forest to the village, met your old nurse,
and sounded her as to the peasants’ view of you. As far as I can make out,
they don’t approve of this. She said: ‘It’s not a gentleman’s work.’
Altogether, I fancy that in the people’s ideas there are very clear and
definite notions of certain, as they call it, ‘gentlemanly’ lines of action. And
they don’t sanction the gentry’s moving outside bounds clearly laid down in
their ideas.”
“Maybe so; but anyway it’s a pleasure such as I have never known in my
life. And there’s no harm in it, you know. Is there?” answered Levin. “I
can’t help it if they don’t like it. Though I do believe it’s all right. Eh?”
“Altogether,” pursued Sergey Ivanovitch, “you’re satisfied with your
day?”
“Quite satisfied. We cut the whole meadow. And such a splendid old man
I made friends with there! You can’t fancy how delightful he was!”
“Well, so you’re content with your day. And so am I. First, I solved two
chess problems, and one a very pretty one—a pawn opening. I’ll show it
you. And then—I thought over our conversation yesterday.”
“Eh! our conversation yesterday?” said Levin, blissfully dropping his
eyelids and drawing deep breaths after finishing his dinner, and absolutely
incapable of recalling what their conversation yesterday was about.
