Anna Karenina

Chapter 25
In the Surovsky district there was no railway nor service of post horses, and
Levin drove there with his own horses in his big, old-fashioned carriage.
He stopped halfway at a well-to-do peasant's to feed his horses. A bald,
well-preserved old man, with a broad, red beard, gray on his cheeks,
opened the gate, squeezing against the gatepost to let the three horses pass.
Directing the coachman to a place under the shed in the big, clean, tidy
yard, with charred, old-fashioned ploughs in it, the old man asked Levin to
come into the parlor. A cleanly dressed young woman, with clogs on her
bare feet, was scrubbing the floor in the new outer room. She was
frightened of the dog, that ran in after Levin, and uttered a shriek, but began
laughing at her own fright at once when she was told the dog would not
hurt her. Pointing Levin with her bare arm to the door into the parlor, she
bent down again, hiding her handsome face, and went on scrubbing.
"Would you like the samovar?" she asked.
"Yes, please."
The parlor was a big room, with a Dutch stove, and a screen dividing it into
two. Under the holy pictures stood a table painted in patterns, a bench, and
two chairs. Near the entrance was a dresser full of crockery. The shutters
were closed, there were few flies, and it was so clean that Levin was
anxious that Laska, who had been running along the road and bathing in
puddles, should not muddy the floor, and ordered her to a place in the
corner by the door. After looking round the parlor, Levin went out in the
back yard. The good-looking young woman in clogs, swinging the empty
pails on the yoke, ran on before him to the well for water.
"Look sharp, my girl!" the old man shouted after her, good-humoredly, and
he went up to Levin. "Well, sir, are you going to Nikolay Ivanovitch
Sviazhsky? His honor comes to us too," he began, chatting, leaning his
elbows on the railing of the steps. In the middle of the old man's account of
his acquaintance with Sviazhsky, the gates creaked again, and laborers
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came into the yard from the fields, with wooden ploughs and harrows. The
horses harnessed to the ploughs and harrows were sleek and fat. The
laborers were obviously of the household: two were young men in cotton
shirts and caps, the two others were hired laborers in homespun shirts, one
an old man, the other a young fellow. Moving off from the steps, the old
man went up to the horses and began unharnessing them.
"What have they been ploughing?" asked Levin.
"Ploughing up the potatoes. We rent a bit of land too. Fedot, don't let out
the gelding, but take it to the trough, and we'll put the other in harness."
"Oh, father, the ploughshares I ordered, has he brought them along?" asked
the big, healthy-looking fellow, obviously the old man's son.
"There...in the outer room," answered the old man, bundling together the
harness he had taken off, and flinging it on the ground. "You can put them
on, while they have dinner."
The good-looking young woman came into the outer room with the full
pails dragging at her shoulders. More women came on the scene from
somewhere, young and handsome, middle-aged, old and ugly, with children
and without children.
The samovar was beginning to sing; the laborers and the family, having
disposed of the horses, came in to dinner. Levin, getting his provisions out
of his carriage, invited the old man to take tea with him.
"Well, I have had some today already," said the old man, obviously
accepting the invitation with pleasure. "But just a glass for company."
Over their tea Levin heard all about the old man's farming. Ten years
before, the old man had rented three hundred acres from the lady who
owned them, and a year ago he had bought them and rented another three
hundred from a neighboring landowner. A small part of the land--the worst