ANNA KARENINA (Collector's Edition). Leo Tolstoy

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      Chapter 25

      THERE was no railway or stage-coach to the Surovsky district, and Levin went in his own tarantas [a four-wheeled Russian carriage without springs on a long flexible wooden chassis, suitable for bad roads].

      Halfway he stopped to feed his horses at a well-to-do peasant’s house. The baldheaded, fresh-faced old man, with a red beard which was growing grey round the cheeks, opened the gates and pressed close to the post to let the three-horsed vehicle enter. After showing the coachman to a place in a lean-to, in a large, clean, tidy, newly-constructed yard where stood some charred wooden ploughs, the old man invited Levin to enter the house. A cleanly-dressed young woman with goloshes on her stockingless feet was washing the floor in the passage. The dog that followed Levin frightened her, but when she was told that it would not hurt her she at once began to laugh at her own alarm. After pointing to the door with her bare arm she again stooped, hiding her handsome face, and went on scrubbing.

      ‘Want a samovar?’ she asked.

      ‘Yes, please.’

      The room Levin entered was a large one with a tiled stove and a partition. Under the shelf with the icons stood a table decorated with a painted pattern, a bench, and two chairs. By the door stood a little cupboard with crockery. The shutters were closed and there were not many flies in the room, which was so clean that Levin took care to keep Laska (who had been bathing in the puddles on the way) from trampling on the floor, telling her to lie down in a corner by the door. Having looked round the room, he went out into the backyard. The good-looking woman in goloshes, with two empty pails swinging from a wooden yoke, ran down before him to fetch water from the well.

      ‘Look alive!’ the old man called merrily after, and approached Levin. ‘Is it to Nicholas Ivanich Sviyazhsky you are going, sir? He too stops at our place,’ he began garrulously, leaning on the banisters of the porch. In the midst of his conversation about his acquaintanceship with Sviyazhsky the gates creaked again, and the labourers returning from the fields came into the yard with their ploughs and harrows. The horses harnessed to the ploughs and harrows were big and well-fed. The labourers evidently belonged to the household. Two young fellows wore print shirts and peaked caps, two others were hired men and wore home-spun shirts; one of these was old and the other young.

      The old master of the house left the porch and went to unharness the horses.

      ‘What have they been ploughing?’ asked Levin.

      ‘Between the potatoes. We too rent a little land. Don’t let the gelding out, Fedof, lead him to the trough. We’ll harness another.’

      ‘I say, father! have those ploughshares I ordered been brought?’ asked a tall, robust young fellow, evidently the old man’s son.

      ‘There in the passage,’ answered the old man, winding the reins into a ring and throwing them on the ground. ‘Fix them in before we finish dinner.’

      The good-looking woman returned, her shoulders pressed down by the weight of the full pails, and went into the house. Other women, young and handsome, middle-aged, old and plain, some with children, others without, appeared from somewhere.

      The chimney of the samovar began to hum. The labourers and the family, having attended to the horses, went in to dinner.

      Levin took his provisions out of the tarantas and invited the old man to have tea with him.

      ‘Why, I don’t know! We have had tea once to-day,’ said he, evidently pleased to accept the invitation. ‘Well, just for company!’

      Over their tea Levin heard the whole history of the old man’s farm. Ten years previously he had rented about four hundred acres from the landowner, and the year before he had bought them outright and rented another nine hundred from a neighbouring proprietor. A small part of the land — the worst — he let, and with the aid of his family and two hired men cultivated about a hundred and twenty acres. The old man complained that his affairs were in a bad way. But Levin knew that he only did so for propriety’s sake and that in reality his farm was flourishing. Had his affairs been in a bad way he would not have bought land at thirty-five roubles an acre, would not have married three of his sons and a nephew, and would not have twice rebuilt his homestead after fires, nor rebuilt it better each time. In spite of the old peasant’s grumbling one could see that he was justly proud of his property, of his sons, his nephew, his daughters-in-law, his horses, his cows, and especially of the fact that his whole household and farm held together. From their conversation Levin gathered that he was not against new methods either. He had planted many potatoes which had already flowered and were forming fruit, as Levin had noticed when passing the fields on the way, while Levin’s own potatoes were just beginning to flower. He ploughed the land for the potatoes with an English plough, which he had borrowed from a landowner. He also sowed wheat. Levin was struck especially by one little detail. The old peasant used the thinnings of the rye as fodder for the horses. Many a time when Levin had seen this valuable food wasted he had wanted to have it gathered up, but had found this impossible. On this peasant’s fields this was being done, and he could not find words enough to praise this fodder.

      ‘What is there for the young women to do? They carry the heaps out on to the road and a cart comes and fetches them.’

      ‘There now! We landlords don’t get on well because of the labourers,’ said Levin, handing him a tumbler of tea.

      ‘Thank you,’ said the old man as he took the tea, but he refused sugar, pointing to a bit he still had left. [Russian peasants seldom put sugar in their tea, but frugally nibble a lump between drinks.] ‘How can one rely on work with hired labourers?’ he said, ‘it is ruination! Take Sviyazhsky now. We know what sort of soil his is, black as poppy-seed, but he cannot boast of his harvests either. It’s want of attention.’

      ‘And yet you too use hired labour on your farm?’

      ‘Ours is peasant’s business; we look after everything ourselves. If a labourer is no good, let him go! We can manage for ourselves.’

      ‘Father, Finnigan wants some tar fetched,’ СКАЧАТЬ