Anna Karenina (Annotated Maude Translation) - Leo Tolstoy

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to say that his brother Nicholas’s health was getting worse, but that he would not submit to any treatment. In consequence of this news Levin went to Moscow, saw his brother, and managed to persuade him to consult a doctor and go to a watering-place abroad. He was so successful in persuading his brother, and in lending him money for the journey without irritating him, that he was satisfied with himself in this respect. Besides his agricultural pursuits, which required special attention in spring, and besides reading, Levin had another occupation. He had that winter begun writing a book on agriculture, the basis of which was that the character of the labourer was treated as a definite factor, like climate and soil, and that therefore the conclusions of agricultural science should be deduced not from data supplied by climate and soil only, but from data of climate, soil, and the immutable character of the labourer. So that in spite of his solitary life, or rather because of it, his time was completely filled up; only occasionally he felt an unsatisfied desire to share with some one besides Agatha Mikhaylovna the thoughts that wandered through his brain — for even with her he often discussed physics, agricultural theories, and especially philosophy, which last was her favourite subject.

      The spring had set in late. During the last weeks of Lent the weather had been clear and frosty. It thawed in the sunshine by day, but at night the thermometer went down to sixteen degrees Fahrenheit. The snow was covered with a crust of ice so thick that carts could pass even where there were no roads. Easter found snow still on the ground; but on Easter Monday a warm wind began to blow, the clouds gathered, and for three days and nights warm stormy rain poured down. On the Thursday the wind fell and a thick grey mist rose as if to hide the secret of the changes nature was carrying on. Beneath the mist the snow-waters rushed down, the ice on the river cracked and moved, and the turbid, foaming torrents flowed quicker, till on the first Sunday after Easter toward evening the mists dissolved, the clouds broke into fleecy cloudlets and dispersed, the sky cleared, and real spring was there. In the morning the bright rising sun quickly melted the thin ice on the water and the warm air all around vibrated with the vapour given off by the awakening earth. Last year’s grass grew green again and new blades came up like needle-points, buds swelled on the guelder-rose and currant bushes and on the sticky, spicy birch trees, and among the golden catkins and on the willow branches the bees began to hum. The unseen larks burst into song above the velvety fresh green and the frozen stubble, the peewits began to cry above the water brought down by the storm and still flooding the lowlying places and marshes, and high up the cranes and geese flew, uttering their spring call. The cattle, who had lost all but a few patches of their winter coats, began to low in the meadows; the crooked-legged lambs began to play round their bleating mothers, who were losing their wool; swift-footed children began to run along the quickly-drying paths marked with imprints of bare feet, the merry voices of women who were bleaching their linen began to chatter by the ponds, and the axes of peasants, getting ready their wooden ploughs and harrows, clicked in the yards.

      The real spring had come.

      Chapter 13

      LEVIN put on his high boots and, for the first time, a cloth coat instead of a fur, and went out to attend to his farm.

      Stepping now on a piece of ice, now into the sticky mud, he crossed the stream of dazzling water.

      Spring is the time for making plans and resolutions, and Levin, like a tree which in the spring-time does not yet know in which direction and what manner its young shoots and twigs (still imprisoned in their buds) will develop, did not quite know what work on his beloved land he was going to take in hand, but he felt that his mind was full of the finest plans and resolutions. First of all he went to the cattle-yard. The cows had been let out there, and, warmed by the sunshine, their glossy new coats glistening, they were lowing to be let out into the fields. After he had for a while admired his cows, all familiar to him to the minutest detail, Levin gave orders for them to be driven into the field and for the calves to be let out into the yard. The cowherd ran away merrily to get ready. The dairymaids, with twigs in their hands, holding their skirts up over their bare white legs, not yet sunburnt, splashed through the puddles into the yard, driving the calves, who were mad with the joy of spring.

      Having gazed with admiration at the exceptionally fine calves born that year — the older ones were as big as peasants’ cows, and Pava’s three-month-old calf was as big as a yearling — Levin gave orders to bring a trough of food for them and to put some hay into the racks outside. But it turned out that the racks, which had been put up in the yard and not used during winter, were broken. He sent for the carpenter, who was under contract to be with the threshing-machine, but it turned out that he was mending the harrows, which should have been mended the week before Lent. This was very annoying to Levin. It was vexing that the careless farm management, against which he had struggled so many years with all his might, still continued. He found out that the racks which were not wanted in winter had been taken into the farm-horses’ stable, and there had got broken, as they were lightly made, being meant only for the calves. Besides this, it proved that the harrows and all the agricultural implements which he had ordered to be examined and mended in winter, for which purpose three carpenters had been specially engaged, had not been seen to, and the harrows were now being mended when it was time to start harrowing. Levin sent for the steward, but instead of waiting went at once to look for him himself. The steward, in his astrakhan-trimmed coat, as radiant as everything else that day, was coming from the threshing-ground breaking a bit of straw in his hands.

      ‘Why is the carpenter not with the threshing-machine?’

      ‘Oh, I meant to tell you yesterday that the harrows need mending. It’s time to plough, you know.’

      ‘Why wasn’t it done in winter?’

      ‘But what do you want with the carpenter?’

      ‘Where are the racks from the calves’ yard?’

      ‘I have given orders for them to be put into their places. What is one to do with such people!’ said the steward, waving his arm.

      ‘It’s not a case of such people, but of such a steward!’ said Levin flaring up. ‘Tell me what I keep you for!’ he shouted; but remembering that this would not help matters, he stopped in the middle of what he was saying and only sighed. ‘Well, can we begin sowing?’ he asked after a pause.

      ‘It will be possible, beyond Turkino, to-morrow or the day after.’

      ‘And the clover?’

      ‘I have sent Vasily, he and Mishka are sowing. Only I don’t know if they will get through, it’s very sticky.’

      ‘How many acres?’

      ‘Sixteen.’

      ‘Why not the lot?’ shouted Levin.

      That they were only sowing sixteen instead of fifty acres with clover was still more annoying. To grow clover successfully it was necessary according to both theory and his own experience to sow it as early as possible, almost before the snow had finished melting, and Levin could never get this done.

      ‘There is no one to do it. What are you to do with such people? Three have not come. And now Simon …’

      ‘Well then, you should have let the straw wait.’

      ‘So I have.’

      ‘But where are the men?’

      ‘Five are making compote’ (he meant compost) ‘and four are turning the oats over. They might begin sprouting, Constantine Dmitrich.’

      Levin understood very well that ‘might begin sprouting’ meant that the English seed-oats were already spoiling. Here again his orders had not been obeyed.

      ‘Oh dear, didn’t I speak about it long ago in Lent… .’

      ‘Don’t worry, it will all be done in good time.’

      Levin waved his hand angrily and went to the barn to look at the oats; then he came back to the stable. The oats were not yet spoilt, but the men were turning them over with shovels whereas they should have let them run down from the loft. Levin ordered them to do this, told off two

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