Anna Karenina (Annotated Maude Translation). Leo Tolstoy

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      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 of the men to help sow the clover, and got over his vexation with the foreman. Indeed, the day was so beautiful one could not long remain angry.

      ‘Ignat!’ he called to the coachman, who with sleeves rolled up was washing a carriage at the pump, ‘saddle me …’

      ‘Which, sir?’

      ‘Oh, Kolpik.’

      ‘Yes, sir.’

      While the horse was being saddled Levin again called the steward, who was hanging about within sight, in order to make it up with him, and began to talk about the spring work that lay before them and his plans for the estate.

      ‘Carting manure must be started early so that it should be over before the first hay harvest, and the far field will have to be ploughed continually so as to keep the earth clean. We must hire labour for the hay harvest and not pay in kind.’

      The foreman listened attentively and evidently tried to approve of his master’s plans: but his face still wore that hopeless and despondent expression so familiar to Levin. This expression seemed to say, ‘That’s all very well, but it will be as God wills.’

      Nothing grieved Levin so much as this manner, but it was a manner common to all the numerous stewards he had employed. They all took up the same attitude toward his plans, and therefore he now no longer grew angry with them, but he was grieved, feeling all the more stimulated to resist this, so to say, elemental force for which he could find no other name but ‘as God wills’, which always obstructed him.

      ‘We’ll see if we can manage it!’ said the steward.

      ‘Why should you not manage it?’

      ‘We must have at least fifteen more labourers; СКАЧАТЬ