Anna Karenina

Chapter 11
In the middle of July the elder of the village on Levin's sister's estate, about
fifteen miles from Pokrovskoe, came to Levin to report on how things were
going there and on the hay. The chief source of income on his sister's estate
was from the riverside meadows. In former years the hay had been bought
by the peasants for twenty roubles the three acres. When Levin took over
the management of the estate, he thought on examining the grasslands that
they were worth more, and he fixed the price at twenty-five roubles the
three acres. The peasants would not give that price, and, as Levin
suspected, kept off other purchasers. Then Levin had driven over himself,
and arranged to have the grass cut, partly by hired labor, partly at a
payment of a certain proportion of the crop. His own peasants put every
hindrance they could in the way of this new arrangement, but it was carried
out, and the first year the meadows had yielded a profit almost double. The
previous year--which was the third year--the peasants had maintained the
same opposition to the arrangement, and the hay had been cut on the same
system. This year the peasants were doing all the mowing for a third of the
hay crop, and the village elder had come now to announce that the hay had
been cut, and that, fearing rain, they had invited the counting-house clerk
over, had divided the crop in his presence, and had raked together eleven
stacks as the owner's share. From the vague answers to his question how
much hay had been cut on the principal meadow, from the hurry of the
village elder who had made the division, not asking leave, from the whole
tone of the peasant, Levin perceived that there was something wrong in the
division of the hay, and made up his mind to drive over himself to look into
the matter.
Arriving for dinner at the village, and leaving his horse at the cottage of an
old friend of his, the husband of his brother's wet-nurse, Levin went to see
the old man in his bee-house, wanting to find out from him the truth about
the hay. Parmenitch, a talkative, comely old man, gave Levin a very warm
welcome, showed him all he was doing, told him everything about his bees
and the swarms of that year; but gave vague and unwilling answers to
Levin's inquiries about the mowing. This confirmed Levin still more in his
suspicions. He went to the hay fields and examined the stacks. The
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haystacks could not possibly contain fifty wagon-loads each, and to convict
the peasants Levin ordered the wagons that had carried the hay to be
brought up directly, to lift one stack, and carry it into the barn. There turned
out to be only thirty-two loads in the stack. In spite of the village elder's
assertions about the compressibility of hay, and its having settled down in
the stacks, and his swearing that everything had been done in the fear of
God, Levin stuck to his point that the hay had been divided without his
orders, and that, therefore, he would not accept that hay as fifty loads to a
stack. After a prolonged dispute the matter was decided by the peasants
taking these eleven stacks, reckoning them as fifty loads each. The
arguments and the division of the haycocks lasted the whole afternoon.
When the last of the hay had been divided, Levin, intrusting the
superintendence of the rest to the counting-house clerk, sat down on a
haycock marked off by a stake of willow, and looked admiringly at the
meadow swarming with peasants.
In front of him, in the bend of the river beyond the marsh, moved a
bright-colored line of peasant women, and the scattered hay was being
rapidly formed into gray winding rows over the pale green stubble. After
the women came the men with pitchforks, and from the gray rows there
were growing up broad, high, soft haycocks. To the left, carts were
rumbling over the meadow that had been already cleared, and one after
another the haycocks vanished, flung up in huge forkfuls, and in their place
there were rising heavy cartloads of fragrant hay hanging over the horses'
hind-quarters.
"What weather for haying! What hay it'll be!" said an old man, squatting
down beside Levin. "It's tea, not hay! It's like scattering grain to the ducks,
the way they pick it up!" he added, pointing to the growing haycocks.
"Since dinnertime they've carried a good half of it."
"The last load, eh?" he shouted to a young peasant, who drove by, standing
in the front of an empty cart, shaking the cord reins.
"The last, dad!" the lad shouted back, pulling in the horse, and, smiling, he
looked round at a bright, rosy-checked peasant girl who sat in the cart
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smiling too, and drove on.
"Who's that? Your son?" asked Levin.
"My baby," said the old man with a tender smile.
"What a fine fellow!"
"The lad's all right."
"Married already?"
"Yes, it's two years last St. Philip's day."
"Any children?"
"Children indeed! Why, for over a year he was innocent as a babe himself,
and bashful too," answered the old man. "Well, the hay! It's as fragrant as
tea!" he repeated, wishing to change the subject.
Levin looked more attentively at Ivan Parmenov and his wife. They were
loading a haycock onto the cart not far from him. Ivan Parmenov was
standing on the cart, taking, laying in place, and stamping down the huge
bundles of hay, which his pretty young wife deftly handed up to him, at
first in armfuls, and then on the pitchfork. The young wife worked easily,
merrily, and dexterously. The close-packed hay did not once break away
off her fork. First she gathered it together, stuck the fork into it, then with a
rapid, supple movement leaned the whole weight of her body on it, and at
once with a bend of her back under the red belt she drew herself up, and
arching her full bosom under the white smock, with a smart turn swung the
fork in her arms, and flung the bundle of hay high onto the cart. Ivan,
obviously doing his best to save her every minute of unnecessary labor,
made haste, opening his arms to clutch the bundle and lay it in the cart. As
she raked together what was left of the hay, the young wife shook off the
bits of hay that had fallen on her neck, and straightening the red kerchief
that had dropped forward over her white brow, not browned like her face by
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the sun, she crept under the cart to tie up the load. Ivan directed her how to
fasten the cord to the cross-piece, and at something she said he laughed
aloud. In the expressions of both faces was to be seen vigorous, young,
freshly awakened love.
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