LITMIR.BIZ

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ran splashing through the mud with bare legs, still white, not yet brown from the sun, waving brush wood in their hands, chasing the calves that frolicked in the mirth of spring.

      After admiring the young ones of that year, who were particularly fine—the early calves were the size of a peasant’s cow, and Pava’s daughter, at three months old, was as big as a yearling— Levin gave orders for a trough to be brought out and for them to be fed in the paddock. But it appeared that as the paddock had not been used during the winter, the hurdles made in the autumn for it were broken. He sent for the carpenter, who, according to his orders, ought to have been at work at the thrashing machine. But it appeared that the carpenter was repairing the harrows, which ought to have been repaired before Lent. This was very annoying to Levin. It was annoying to come upon that everlasting slovenliness in the farm work against which he had been striving with all his might for so many years. The hurdles, as he ascertained, being not wanted in winter, had been carried to the cart-horses’ stable; and there broken, as they were of light construction, only meant for feeding calves. Moreover, it was apparent also that the harrows and all the agricultural implements, which he had directed to be looked over and repaired in the winter, for which very purpose he had hired three carpenters, had not been put into repair, and the harrows were being repaired when they ought to have been harrowing the field. Levin sent for his bailiff, but immediately went off himself to look for him. The bailiff, beaming all over, like everyone that day, in a sheepskin bordered with astrachan, came out of the barn, twisting a bit of straw in his hands.

      “Why isn’t the carpenter at the thrashing machine?”

      “Oh, I meant to tell you yesterday, the harrows want repairing.

       Here it’s time they got to work in the fields.”

      “But what were they doing in the winter, then?”

      “But what did you want the carpenter for?”

      “Where are the hurdles for the calves’ paddock?”

      “I ordered them to be got ready. What would you have with those peasants!” said the bailiff, with a wave of his hand.

      “It’s not those peasants but this bailiff!” said Levin, getting angry. “Why, what do I keep you for?” he cried. But, bethinking himself that this would not help matters, he stopped short in the middle of a sentence, and merely sighed. “Well, what do you say? Can sowing begin?” he asked, after a pause.

      “Behind Turkin tomorrow or the next day they might begin.”

      “And the clover?”

      “I’ve sent Vassily and Mishka; they’re sowing. Only I don’t know if they’ll manage to get through; it’s so slushy.”

      “How many acres?”

      “About fifteen.”

      “Why not sow all?” cried Levin.

      That they were only sowing the clover on fifteen acres, not on all the forty-five, was still more annoying to him. Clover, as he knew, both from books and from his own experience, never did well except when it was sown as early as possible, almost in the snow. And yet Levin could never get this done.

      “There’s no one to send. What would you have with such a set of peasants? Three haven’t turned up. And there’s Semyon…”

      “Well, you should have taken some men from the thatching.”

      “And so I have, as it is.”

      “Where are the peasants, then?”

      “Five are making compôte” (which meant compost), “four are shifting the oats for fear of a touch of mildew, Konstantin Dmitrievitch.”

      Levin knew very well that “a touch of mildew” meant that his English seed oats were already ruined. Again they had not done as he had ordered.

      “Why, but I told you during Lent to put in pipes,” he cried.

      “Don’t put yourself out; we shall get it all done in time.”

      Levin waved his hand angrily, went into the granary to glance at the oats, and then to the stable. The oats were not yet spoiled. But the peasants were carrying the oats in spades when they might simply let them slide down into the lower granary; and arranging for this to be done, and taking two workmen from there for sowing clover, Levin got over his vexation with the bailiff. Indeed, it was such a lovely day that one could not be angry.

      “Ignat!” he called to the coachman, who, with his sleeves tucked up, was washing the carriage wheels, “saddle me…”

      “Which, sir?”

      “Well, let it be Kolpik.”

      “Yes, sir.”

      While they were saddling his horse, Levin again called up the bailiff, who was hanging about in sight, to make it up with him, and began talking to him about the spring operations before them, and his plans for the farm.

      The wagons were to begin carting manure earlier, so as to get all done before the early mowing. And the ploughing of the further land to go on without a break so as to let it ripen lying fallow. And the mowing to be all done by hired labor, not on half-profits. The bailiff listened attentively, and obviously made an effort to approve of his employer’s projects. But still he had that look Levin knew so well that always irritated him, a look of hopelessness and despondency. That look said: “That’s all very well, but as God wills.”

      Nothing mortified Levin so much as that tone. But it was the tone common to all the bailiffs he had ever had. They had all taken up that attitude to his plans, and so now he was not angered by it, but mortified, and felt all the more roused to struggle against this, as it seemed, elemental force continually ranged against him, for which he could find no other expression than “as God wills.”

      “If we can manage it, Konstantin Dmitrievitch,” said the bailiff.

      “Why ever shouldn’t you manage it?”

      “We positively must have another fifteen laborers. And they don’t turn up. There were some here today asking seventy roubles for the summer.”

      Levin was silent. Again he was brought face to face with that opposing force. He knew that however much they tried, they could not hire more than forty—thirty-seven perhaps or thirty-eight— laborers for a reasonable sum. Some forty had been taken on, and there were no more. But still he could not help struggling against it.

      “Send to Sury, to Tchefirovka; if they don’t come we must look for them.”

      “Oh, I’ll send, to be sure,” said Vassily Fedorovitch despondently. “But there are the horses, too, they’re not good for much.”

      “We’ll get some more. I know, of course,” Levin added laughing, “you always want to do with as little and as poor quality as possible; but this year I’m not going to let you have things your own way. I’ll see to everything myself.”

      “Why, I don’t think you take much rest as it is. It cheers us up to work under the master’s eye…”

      “So they’re sowing clover behind the Birch Dale? I’ll go and have a look at them,” he said, getting on to the little bay cob, Kolpik, who was led up by the coachman.

      “You can’t get across the streams, Konstantin Dmitrievitch,” the coachman shouted.

      “All right, I’ll go by the forest.”

      And Levin rode through the slush of the farmyard to the gate and out into the open country, his good little horse, after his long inactivity, stepping out gallantly, snorting over the pools, and asking, as it were, for guidance. If Levin had felt happy before in the cattle pens and farmyard, he felt happier yet in the open country. Swaying rhythmically with the ambling paces of his good little cob, drinking in the warm yet fresh scent of the snow and the air, as he rode through his forest over the crumbling, wasted snow, still

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