Part Three: Chapter 2

by Leo Tolstoy

　　Early in June it happened that Agafea Mihalovna, the old nurseand housekeeper, in carrying to the cellar a jar of mushrooms shehad just pickled, slipped, fell, and sprained her wrist. Thedistrict doctor, a talkative young medical student, who had justfinished his studies, came to see her. He examined the wrist,said it was not broken, was delighted at a chance of talking tothe celebrated Sergey Ivanovitch Koznishev, and to show hisadvanced views of things told him all the scandal of thedistrict, complaining of the poor state into which the districtcouncil had fallen. Sergey Ivanovitch listened attentively,asked him questions, and, roused by a new listener, he talkedfluently, uttered a few keen and weighty observations,respectfully appreciated by the young doctor, and was soon inthat eager frame of mind his brother knew so well, which always,with him, followed a brilliant and eager conversation. After thedeparture of the doctor, he wanted to go with a fishing rod tothe river. Sergey Ivanovitch was fond of angling, and was, itseemed, proud of being able to care for such a stupid occupation.

　　Konstantin Levin, whose presence was needed in the plough landand meadows, had come to take his brother in the trap.

　　It was that time of the year, the turning-point of summer, whenthe crops of the present year are a certainty, when one begins tothink of the sowing for next year, and the mowing is at hand;when the rye is all in ear, though its ears are still light, notyet full, and it waves in gray-green billows in the wind; whenthe green oats, with tufts of yellow grass scattered here andthere among it, droop irregularly over the late-sown fields; whenthe early buckwheat is already out and hiding the ground; whenthe fallow lands, trodden hard as stone by the cattle, arehalf ploughed over, with paths left untouched by the plough; whenfrom the dry dung-heaps carted onto the fields there comes atsunset a smell of manure mixed with meadow-sweet, and on thelow-lying lands the riverside meadows are a thick sea of grasswaiting for the mowing, with blackened heaps of the stalks ofsorrel among it.

　　It was the time when there comes a brief pause in the toil of thefields before the beginning of the labors of harvest--every yearrecurring, every year straining every nerve of the peasants. Thecrop was a splendid one, and bright, hot summer days had set inwith short, dewy nights.

　　The brothers had to drive through the woods to reach the meadows.Sergey Ivanovitch was all the while admiring the beauty of thewoods, which were a tangled mass of leaves, pointing out to hisbrother now an old lime tree on the point of flowering, dark onthe shady side, and brightly spotted with yellow stipules, nowthe young shoots of this year's saplings brilliant with emerald.Konstantin Levin did not like talking and hearing about thebeauty of nature. Words for him took away the beauty of what hesaw. He assented to what his brother said, but he could not helpbeginning to think of other things. When they came out of thewoods, all his attention was engrossed by the view of thefallow land on the upland, in parts yellow with grass, in partstrampled and checkered with furrows, in parts dotted with ridgesof dung, and in parts even ploughed. A string of carts wasmoving across it. Levin counted the carts, and was pleased thatall that were wanted had been brought, and at the sight of themeadows his thoughts passed to the mowing. He always feltsomething special moving him to the quick at the hay-making. Onreaching the meadow Levin stopped the horse.

　　The morning dew was still lying on the thick undergrowth of thegrass, and that he might not get his feet wet, Sergey Ivanovitchasked his brother to drive him in the trap up to the willow treefrom which the carp was caught. Sorry as Konstantin Levin was tocrush down his mowing grass, he drove him into the meadow. Thehigh grass softly turned about the wheels and the horse's legs,leaving its seeds clinging to the wet axles and spokes of thewheels. His brother seated himself under a bush, arranging histackle, while Levin led the horse away, fastened him up, andwalked into the vast gray-green sea of grass unstirred by thewind. The silky grass with its ripe seeds came almost to hiswaist in the dampest spots.

　　Crossing the meadow, Konstantin Levin came out onto the road, andmet an old man with a swollen eye, carrying a skep on hisshoulder.

　　"What? taken a stray swarm, Fomitch?" he asked.

　　"No, indeed, Konstantin Mitritch! All we can do to keep our own!This is the second swarm that has flown away.... Luckily thelads caught them. They were ploughing your field. They unyokedthe horses and galloped after them."

　　"Well, what do you say, Fomitch--start mowing or wait a bit?"

　　"Eh, well. Our way's to wait till St. Peter's Day. But youalways mow sooner. Well, to be sure, please God, the hay's good.There'll be plenty for the beasts."

　　"What do you think about the weather?"

　　"That's in God's hands. Maybe it will be fine."

　　Levin went up to his brother.

　　Sergey Ivanovitch had caught nothing, but he was not bored, andseemed in the most cheerful frame of mind. Levin saw that,stimulated by his conversation with the doctor, he wanted totalk. Levin, on the other hand, would have liked to get home assoon as possible to give orders about getting together the mowersfor next day, and to set at rest his doubts about the mowing,which greatly absorbed him.

　　"Well, let's be going," he said.

　　"Why be in such a hurry? Let's stay a little. But how wet youare! Even though one catches nothing, it's nice. That's thebest thing about every part of sport, that one has to do withnature. How exquisite this steely water is!" said SergeyIvanovitch. "These riverside banks always remind me of theriddle--do you know it? 'The grass says to the water: wequiver and we quiver.'"

　　"I don't know the riddle," answered Levin wearily.