Anna Karenina

fter lunch Levin was not in the same place in the string of mowers as
before, but stood between the old man who had accosted him jocosely,
and now invited him to be his neighbor, and a young peasant, who had
only been married in the autumn, and who was mowing this summer for the
first time.

The old man, holding himself erect, moved in front, with his feet
turned out, taking long, regular strides, and with a precise and
regular action which seemed to cost him no more effort than swinging
one’s arms in walking, as though it were in play, he laid down the
high, even row of grass. It was as though it were not he but the sharp
scythe of itself swishing through the juicy grass.

Behind Levin came the lad Mishka. His pretty, boyish face, with a twist
of fresh grass bound round his hair, was all working with effort; but
whenever anyone looked at him he smiled. He would clearly have died
sooner than own it was hard work for him.

Levin kept between them. In the very heat of the day the mowing did not
seem such hard work to him. The perspiration with which he was drenched
cooled him, while the sun, that burned his back, his head, and his
arms, bare to the elbow, gave a vigor and dogged energy to his labor;
and more and more often now came those moments of unconsciousness, when
it was possible not to think what one was doing. The scythe cut of
itself. These were happy moments. Still more delightful were the
moments when they reached the stream where the rows ended, and the old
man rubbed his scythe with the wet, thick grass, rinsed its blade in
the fresh water of the stream, ladled out a little in a tin dipper, and
offered Levin a drink.

“What do you say to my home-brew, eh? Good, eh?” said he, winking.

And truly Levin had never drunk any liquor so good as this warm water
with green bits floating in it, and a taste of rust from the tin
dipper. And immediately after this came the delicious, slow saunter,
with his hand on the scythe, during which he could wipe away the
streaming sweat, take deep breaths of air, and look about at the long
string of mowers and at what was happening around in the forest and the
country.

The longer Levin mowed, the oftener he felt the moments of
unconsciousness in which it seemed not his hands that swung the scythe,
but the scythe mowing of itself, a body full of life and consciousness
of its own, and as though by magic, without thinking of it, the work
turned out regular and well-finished of itself. These were the most
blissful moments.

It was only hard work when he had to break off the motion, which had
become unconscious, and to think; when he had to mow round a hillock or
a tuft of sorrel. The old man did this easily. When a hillock came he
changed his action, and at one time with the heel, and at another with
the tip of his scythe, clipped the hillock round both sides with short
strokes. And while he did this he kept looking about and watching what
came into his view: at one moment he picked a wild berry and ate it or
offered it to Levin, then he flung away a twig with the blade of the
scythe, then he looked at a quail’s nest, from which the bird flew just
under the scythe, or caught a snake that crossed his path, and lifting
it on the scythe as though on a fork showed it to Levin and threw it
away.

For both Levin and the young peasant behind him, such changes of
position were difficult. Both of them, repeating over and over again
the same strained movement, were in a perfect frenzy of toil, and were
incapable of shifting their position and at the same time watching what
was before them.

Levin did not notice how time was passing. If he had been asked how
long he had been working he would have said half an hour—and it was
getting on for dinner time. As they were walking back over the cut
grass, the old man called Levin’s attention to the little girls and
boys who were coming from different directions, hardly visible through
the long grass, and along the road towards the mowers, carrying sacks
of bread dragging at their little hands and pitchers of the sour
rye-beer, with cloths wrapped round them.

“Look’ee, the little emmets crawling!” he said, pointing to them, and
he shaded his eyes with his hand to look at the sun. They mowed two
more rows; the old man stopped.

“Come, master, dinner time!” he said briskly. And on reaching the
stream the mowers moved off across the lines of cut grass towards their
pile of coats, where the children who had brought their dinners were
sitting waiting for them. The peasants gathered into groups—those
further away under a cart, those nearer under a willow bush.

Levin sat down by them; he felt disinclined to go away.

All constraint with the master had disappeared long ago. The peasants
got ready for dinner. Some washed, the young lads bathed in the stream,
others made a place comfortable for a rest, untied their sacks of
bread, and uncovered the pitchers of rye-beer. The old man crumbled up
some bread in a cup, stirred it with the handle of a spoon, poured
water on it from the dipper, broke up some more bread, and having
seasoned it with salt, he turned to the east to say his prayer.

“Come, master, taste my sop,” said he, kneeling down before the cup.

The sop was so good that Levin gave up the idea of going home. He dined
with the old man, and talked to him about his family affairs, taking
the keenest interest in them, and told him about his own affairs and
all the circumstances that could be of interest to the old man. He felt
much nearer to him than to his brother, and could not help smiling at
the affection he felt for this man. When the old man got up again, said
his prayer, and lay down under a bush, putting some grass under his
head for a pillow, Levin did the same, and in spite of the clinging
flies that were so persistent in the sunshine, and the midges that
tickled his hot face and body, he fell asleep at once and only waked
when the sun had passed to the other side of the bush and reached him.
The old man had been awake a long while, and was sitting up whetting
the scythes of the younger lads.

Levin looked about him and hardly recognized the place, everything was
so changed. The immense stretch of meadow had been mown and was
sparkling with a peculiar fresh brilliance, with its lines of already
sweet-smelling grass in the slanting rays of the evening sun. And the
bushes about the river had been cut down, and the river itself, not
visible before, now gleaming like steel in its bends, and the moving,
ascending, peasants, and the sharp wall of grass of the unmown part of
the meadow, and the hawks hovering over the stripped meadow—all was
perfectly new. Raising himself, Levin began considering how much had
been cut and how much more could still be done that day.

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.