Another swath, and yet another swath followed - long swaths and short swaths, with good grass and with poor grass. Levin lost all sense of time, and could not have told whether it were late or early now. A change began to come over his work, which gave him immense satisfaction. In the midst of his toil there were moments during which he forgot what he was doing, and it all came easy to him, and at those same moments his swath was almost as smooth and well cut as Tit's. But as soon as he recollected what he was doing, and began trying to do better, he was at once conscious of all the difficulty of his task, and the swath was badly mown.
On finishing yet another swath he would have gone back to the top of the meadow again to begin the next, but Tit stopped, and going up to the old man said something in a low voice to him. They both looked at the sun. `What are they talking about, and why doesn't he go back?' thought Levin, without guessing that the peasants had been mowing no less than four hours without stopping, and that it was time for their lunch.
`Lunch, sir,' said the old man.
`Is it really time? Lunch it is, then.'
Levin gave his scythe to Tit, and, together with the peasants, who were crossing the long stretch of mown grass, slightly sprinkled with rain, to get their bread from the heap of coats, he went toward his horse.
Only then did he suddenly awake to the fact that he had been wrong about the weather and that the rain was drenching his hay.
`The hay will be spoiled,' he said.
`Not a bit of it, sir; mow in the rain, and you'll rake in fine weather!' said the old man.
Levin untied his horse and rode home to his coffee.
Sergei Ivanovich was just getting up. When he had drunk his coffee, Levin rode back again to the mowing before Sergei Ivanovich had had time to dress and come down to the dining room.
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TOLSTOY: Anna Karenina Part 3, Chapter 05[Previous Chapter] [Table of Contents] Chapter 5 After lunch Levin was not in the same place in the string of mowers as before, but stood between the old man who had accosted him jocosely, and now invited him to be his neighbor, and a young peasant, who had only been married in the autumn, and who was mowing this summer for the first time.
The old man, holding himself erect, moved in front, with his feet turned out, taking long, regular strides, and with a precise and regular action which seemed to cost him no more effort than swinging one's arms in walking, as though it were in play, he laid down the high, even swath of grass. It was as though it were not he but the sharp scythe of itself swishing through the juicy grass.
Behind Levin came the lad Mishka. His comely, youthful face, with a twist of fresh grass bound round his hair, was all working with effort;but whenever anyone looked at him he smiled. He would clearly have died sooner than own it was hard work for him.
Levin kept between them. In the very heat of the day the mowing did not seem such hard work to him. The perspiration with which he was drenched cooled him, while the sun, that burned his back, his head, and his arms, bare to the elbow, gave a vigor and dogged energy to his labor;and more and more often now came those moments of unconsciousness, when it was possible not to think of what one was doing. The scythe cut of itself.
These were happy moments. Still more delightful were the moments when they reached the stream where the swaths ended, and the old man rubbed his scythe with the wet, thick grass, rinsed its blade in the fresh water of the stream, ladled out a little in a whetstone case, and offered Levin a drink.
`What do you say to my kvass, eh? Good, eh?' he would say, winking.
And truly Levin had never drunk any liquor as good as this warm water with green bits floating in it, and a taste of rust from the tin whetstone case. And immediately after this came the delicious, slow saunter, with his hand on the scythe, during which he could wipe away the streaming sweat, take deep breaths of air, and look about at the long string of mowers, and at what was happening around in the forest and the field.
The longer Levin mowed, the oftener he felt the moments of unconsciousness in which it seemed that it was not his hands which swung the scythe, but that the scythe was moving together with itself a body full of life and consciousness of its own; and as though by magic, without thinking of it, the work turned out regular and well-finished of itself. These were the most blissful moments.
It was only hard work when he had to break off the motion, which had become unconscious, and to think; when he had to mow round a hummock or an unweeded tuft of sorrel. The old man did this easily. When a hummock came he changed his action, and at one time with the heel, and at another with the tip of his scythe, clipped the hummock round both sides with short strokes. And while he did this he kept looking about and watching what came into his view: at one moment he picked a wild berry and ate it or offered it to Levin, then he flung away a twig with the blade of the scythe, then he looked at a quail's nest, from which the bird flew just under the scythe, or caught a snake that crossed his path, and lifting it on the scythe as though on a fork showed it to Levin and threw it away.
For both Levin and the young peasant behind him, such changes of position were difficult. Both of them, repeating over and over again the same strained movement, were in a perfect frenzy of toil, and were incapable of shifting their position and at the same time watching what was before them.
Levin did not notice how time was passing. If he had been asked how long he had been working he would have said half an hour - yet it was getting on to dinnertime. As they were walking back over the cut grass, the old man called Levin's attention to the little girls and boys who were coming from different directions, hardly visible through the long grass, and along the road toward the mowers, carrying sacks of bread that stretched their little arms, and lugging small pitchers of kvass, stopped up with rags.