Leo Tolstoy - Leo Tolstoy - The Complete Novels (The Greatest Novelists of All Time – Book 4)

The work done was exceptionally much for forty-two men. They had cut the whole of the big meadow, which had, in the years of serf labor, taken thirty scythes two days to mow. Only the corners remained to do, where the rows were short. But Levin felt a longing to get as much mowing done that day as possible, and was vexed with the sun sinking so quickly in the sky. He felt no weariness; all he wanted was to get his work done more and more quickly and as much done as possible.

“Could you cut Mashkin Upland too?—what do you think?” he said to the old man.

“As God wills, the sun’s not high. A little vodka for the lads?”

At the afternoon rest, when they were sitting down again, and those who smoked had lighted their pipes, the old man told the men that “Mashkin Upland’s to be cut—there’ll be some vodka.”

“Why not cut it? Come on, Tit! We’ll look sharp! We can eat at night. Come on!” cried voices, and eating up their bread, the mowers went back to work.

“Come, lads, keep it up!” said Tit, and ran on ahead almost at a trot.

“Get along, get along!” said the old man, hurrying after him and easily overtaking him, “I’ll mow you down, look out!”

And young and old mowed away, as though they were racing with one another. But however fast they worked, they did not spoil the grass, and the rows were laid just as neatly and exactly. The little piece left uncut in the corner was mown in five minutes. The last of the mowers were just ending their rows while the foremost snatched up their coats onto their shoulders, and crossed the road towards Mashkin Upland.

The sun was already sinking into the trees when they went with their jingling dippers into the wooded ravine of Mashkin Upland. The grass was up to their waists in the middle of the hollow, soft, tender, and feathery, spotted here and there among the trees with wild heart’s-ease.

After a brief consultation—whether to take the rows lengthwise or diagonally—Prohor Yermilin, also a renowned mower, a huge, black-haired peasant, went on ahead. He went up to the top, turned back again and started mowing, and they all proceeded to form in line behind him, going downhill through the hollow and uphill right up to the edge of the forest. The sun sank behind the forest. The dew was falling by now; the mowers were in the sun only on the hillside, but below, where a mist was rising, and on the opposite side, they mowed into the fresh, dewy shade. The work went rapidly. The grass cut with a juicy sound, and was at once laid in high, fragrant rows. The mowers from all sides, brought closer together in the short row, kept urging one another on to the sound of jingling dippers and clanging scythes, and the hiss of the whetstones sharpening them, and good-humored shouts.

Levin still kept between the young peasant and the old man. The old man, who had put on his short sheepskin jacket, was just as good-humored, 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.

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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.”