LITMIR.BIZ

      Chapter 11

      IN the middle of July the Elder from the village belonging to Levin’s sister (which lay fifteen miles from Pokrovsk) came to see Levin and report on business matters and on the hay-harvest. The chief income from his sister’s estate was derived from the meadows, which were flooded every spring. In former years the peasants used to buy the grass, paying seven roubles per acre for it. When Levin took over the management of the estate he looked into the matter, and, concluding that the grass was worth more, fixed the price at eight roubles. The peasants would not pay so much, and Levin suspected them of keeping other buyers off. Then he went there himself and arranged to have the harvest gathered in partly by hired labourers and partly by peasants paid in kind. The local men opposed this innovation by all the means in their power, but the plan succeeded, and in the first year the meadows brought in almost double. The next and third years the peasants still held out and the harvest was got in by the same means. But this year the peasants had agreed to get the harvest in and take one-third of all the hay in payment. Now the Elder had come to inform Levin that the hay was all made, and that for fear of rain he had asked the steward to come, and in his presence had apportioned the hay and had already stacked eleven stacks of the landlord’s share.

      From the Elder’s vague replies to Levin’s questions as to how much hay the largest meadow had yielded, from his haste to apportion the hay without waiting for permission, and from the general tone of the peasant, Levin knew that there was something not quite square about the apportionment, and decided to go and investigate the matter himself.

      Levin arrived at his sister’s village at noon and left his horse with a friendly old peasant, the husband of his brother’s nurse. Wishing to hear particulars of the hay-harvest from this old man, Levin went to speak to him in his apiary. Parmenich, a loquacious, handsome old man, welcomed Levin joyfully, showed him over his homestead, and told him all about the swarming of his bees that year; but to Levin’s questions about the hay-harvest he gave vague and reluctant answers. This still further confirmed Levin’s suspicions. He went to inspect the hay, examined the stacks, and saw that there could not be fifty cartloads in each. To put the peasant to the proof Levin ordered the carts on which the hay was being moved to be fetched, and one of the stacks to be carried to the barn. There were only thirty-two loads in the stack. In spite of the Elder’s explanations that the hay had been loose, but had settled down in the stacks, and his swearing that all had been done in a ‘godly way’, Levin insisted that the hay had been apportioned without his order and that he would not accept the stacks as containing fifty loads each. After lengthy disputes it was settled that the peasants themselves should take those eleven stacks, counting them as fifty loads each, and that the owner’s share should be measured afresh. These disputes and the apportioning of the haycocks went on till it was time for the evening meal. When the last of the hay had been apportioned, Levin entrusted the rest of the supervision to the steward and seated himself on a haycock marked with a willow branch, looking with enjoyment at the meadow teeming with busy people.

      Before him, within the bend of the river, beyond a marsh, moved a line of gaily-clad women, merrily chattering in their ringing voices, while the scattered hay was quickly forming into grey waving ridges on the light-green meadow. Men with hayforks followed the women, and the ridges grew into tall, wide and light haycocks. To the left, carts rattled along the bare meadow, and one after another the haycocks vanished, picked up in enormous forkfuls, and their places were taken by heavy carts with their huge loads of scented hay overhanging the horses’ backs.

      ‘Make hay while the sun shines, and you’ll have plenty,’ remarked the old beekeeper, sitting down beside Levin. ‘It’s more like tea than hay! See them picking it up, like ducklings picking up the food you’ve thrown to them!’ he added, pointing to where the hay was being loaded on the carts. ‘They’ve carted a good half since dinnertime… . Is that the last?’ he shouted to a lad who was driving past, standing on the front of a cart and flicking the ends of his hempen reins.

      ‘The last one, father,’ shouted the lad, reining in the horse and smilingly turning to a rosy young woman who, also smiling, sat inside the cart; then he drove on again.

      ‘Who is that? Your son?’ asked Levin.

      ‘My youngest,’ replied the old man with a smile of affection.

      ‘A fine fellow!’

      ‘Not a bad lad.’

      ‘And already married?’

      ‘Yes, just over two years.’

      ‘Have they any children?’

      ‘Children! All the first year he didn’t understand anything; and we chaffed him,’ answered the old man. ‘Well, this is hay! Regular tea!’ said he again, in order to change the subject.

      Levin looked more attentively at Vanka Parmenich and his wife. They were loading their cart not far away. Vanka stood inside the cart patting and stamping down evenly in the cart the enormous bales of hay which his young wife first passed to him in armfuls and then pitched up on the fork. The young woman was working with ease, cheerfulness and skill. The fork could not at once penetrate the broad-bladed compressed hay, so she first loosened it with the prongs, then with a quick and springy movement, putting all the weight of her body on the fork, quickly straightened her red-girdled figure and stood erect, her full bosom thrown forward beneath the pinafore, and turning the fork dexterously, she pitched the hay high up into the cart. Vanka, with evident desire to save her every moment of unnecessary exertion, hurriedly caught the hay in his outspread arms and smoothed it evenly in the cart. When she had lifted the remaining hay to him with a rake, she shook the chaff from her neck, straightened the kerchief that had slipped from her forehead, which showed white where the sun had not reached it, and crawled under the cart to help rope up. Vanka showed her how to do this, and burst out laughing at something she said. Strong, young, newly-awakened love shone in both their faces.