第106章

Next morning Konstantin Levin got up earlier than usual, but he was detained giving directions on the farm, and when he reached the mowing grass the mowers were already at their second swath.

From the uplands he could get a view of the shaded cut part of the meadow below, with the grayish swaths and the black heaps of coats, taken off by the mowers at the place from which they had started cutting.

Gradually, as he rode toward the meadow, the peasants came into sight, some in coats, some in their shirts, mowing, one behind another in a long string, each swinging his scythe in his own way. He counted forty-two of them.

They were mowing slowly over the uneven, low-lying parts of the meadow, where there had been an old dam. Levin recognized some of his own men. Here was old Iermil in a very long white smock, bending forward to swing a scythe; there was a young fellow, Vaska, who had been a coachman of Levin's, taking every swath with a wide sweep. Here, too, was Tit, Levin's preceptor in the art of mowing, a thin little peasant. He went on ahead, and cut his wide swath without bending, as though playing with his scythe.

Levin got off his mare, and fastening her up by the roadside went to meet Tit, who took a second scythe out of a bush and gave it him.

`It's ready, sir; it's like a razor - it cuts of itself,' said Tit, taking off his cap with a smile and giving him the scythe.

Levin took the scythe, and began trying it. As they finished their swaths, the mowers, hot and good-humored, came out into the road one after another, and smirking, greeted the master. They all stared at him, but no one made any remark, till a tall old man, with a wrinkled, beardless face, wearing a short sheepskin jacket, came out into the road and accosted him.

`Look'ee now, master, once take hold of the rope, there's no letting go!' he said, and Levin heard smothered laughter among the mowers.

`I'll try not to let it go,' he said, taking his stand behind Tit, and waiting for the time to begin.

`Mind'ee,' repeated the old man.

Tit made room, and Levin started behind him. The grass was short close to the road, and Levin, who had not done any mowing for a long while, and was disconcerted by the eyes fastened upon him, cut badly for the first moments, though he swung his scythe vigorously. Behind him he heard voices:

`It's not set right; handle's too high; see how he has to stoop to it,' said one.

`Press more on the heel of the scythe,' said another.

`Never mind, he'll get on all right,' the old man resumed. `See, he's made a start.... You swing it too wide, you'll tire yourself out....

The master, sure, does his best for himself! But see the grass missed out!

For such work us fellows would catch it!'

The grass became lusher, and Levin, listening without answering, followed Tit, trying to do the best he could. They moved a hundred paces.

Tit kept moving on, without stopping, nor showing the slightest weariness, but Levin was already beginning to fear he would not be able to keep it up - so tired was he.

He felt as he swung his scythe that he was at the very end of his strength, and was making up his mind to ask Tit to stop. But at that very moment Tit stopped of his own accord, and, stooping down, picked up some grass, rubbed his scythe, and began whetting it. Levin straightened himself, and drawing a deep breath looked round. Behind him came a peasant, and he too was evidently tired, for he stopped at once without waiting to mow up to Levin, and began whetting his scythe. Tit sharpened his scythe and Levin's, and they went on.

The next time it was just the same. Tit moved on with sweep after sweep of his scythe, without stopping or showing signs of weariness. Levin followed him, trying not to get left behind, and he found it harder and harder: the moment came when he felt he had no strength left, but at that very moment Tit stopped and whetted the scythes.

So they mowed the first row. And this long row seemed particularly hard work to Levin; but when the end was reached, and Tit, shouldering his scythe, began with deliberate stride returning on the tracks left by his heels in the cut grass, and Levin walked back in the same way over the space he had cut, in spite of the sweat that ran in streams over his face and fell in drops down his nose, and drenched his back as though he had been soaked in water, he felt very happy. What delighted him particularly was that now he knew he would be able to hold out.

His pleasure was only disturbed by his swath not being well cut.

`I will swing less with my arm and more with my whole body,' he thought, comparing Tit's swath, which looked as if it had been cut along a surveyor's cord, with his own scattered and irregularly lying grass.

The first swath, as Levin noticed, Tit had mowed especially quickly, probably wishing to put his master to the test, and the swath happened to be a long one. The next swaths were easier, but still Levin had to strain every nerve not to drop behind the peasants.

He thought of nothing, wished for nothing, save not to be left behind the peasants, and to do his work as well as possible. He heard nothing save the swish of scythes, and saw before him Tit's upright figure mowing away, the crescent-shaped curve of the cut grass, the grass and flowers slowly and rhythmically falling before the blade of his scythe, and ahead of him the end of the swath, where would come the rest.

Suddenly, in the midst of his toil, without understanding what it was or whence it came, he felt a pleasant sensation of chill on his hot, moist shoulders. He glanced at the sky in the interval for whetting the scythes. A heavy, lowering storm cloud had blown up, and big raindrops were falling. Some of the peasants went to their coats and put them on;others - just like Levin himself - merely shrugged their shoulders, enjoying the pleasant coolness of it.