ANNA KARENINA (Collector's Edition). Leo Tolstoy

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      Chapter 2

      AT the beginning of June Levin’s old nurse and housekeeper, Agatha Mikhaylovna, happened to slip as she was carrying to the cellar a jar of mushrooms which she had just pickled, and sprained her wrist. A talkative young medical man who had only just qualified and been appointed doctor for the Zemstvo district arrived, examined the hand, said it was not sprained, and enjoyed a talk with the celebrated Sergius Ivanich Koznyshev. He told him all the gossip of the district to show off his enlightened views and complained of the unsatisfactory conditions prevailing there. Koznyshev listened attentively, asked questions, and, enlivened by the presence of a new listener, became quite chatty, made some pointed and weighty remarks respectfully appreciated by the young doctor, and reached that state of animation his brother so well knew, which generally followed a brilliant and lively conversation. After the doctor’s departure Koznyshev felt inclined to go to the river with his fishing-rod. He was fond of angling, and seemed proud of being able to like such, a stupid occupation. Constantine, who was obliged to go to the cornfields and meadows, offered to give his brother a lift in his trap.

      It was just the time of year, the turning-point of summer, when the result of that year’s harvest becomes assured, when the autumn sowings have to be considered, and when the hay harvest is close at hand; when the grey-green rye waves its formed but as yet not swollen ears lightly in the wind; when the green oats, with irregular clumps of yellow grass interspersed, stand unevenly on late-sown fields; when the early buckwheat spreads out and hides the ground; when the fallow land, trodden as hard as a stone by the cattle, is half-ploughed, with here and there long strips omitted as too hard for the plough; when the smell of dried heaps of manure in the fields mingles with the honied perfume of the grasses; and waiting for the scythe, the lowland meadows lie smooth as a lake by the river’s banks, showing here and there black heaps of weeded sorrel stalks. It was the time of that short pause before the labour, yearly renewed, of getting in the harvest, which always demands all the peasants’ strength for its accomplishment. The promise of the harvest was splendid, the weather clear and hot, and the short night dewy.

      The brothers had to pass through the forest on their way to the meadows. Koznyshev was all the while filled with admiration for the beauty of the thickly-leaved forest, and kept pointing out to his brother the old lime trees, looking so dark on the shady side, covered with creamy buds all ready to burst into blossom; or the new shoots, sparkling like emeralds, on the trees. Constantine Levin did not like talking or hearing about the beauty of nature. Words seemed to detract from the beauty of what he was looking at. He assented to what his brother said but could not help thinking of other things. When they emerged from the forest his attention was arrested at the sight of a fallow field and a hillock, here and there yellow with grass or broken up and cut into squares, in some parts speckled with heaps of manure, or even ploughed. A string of carts was moving over the field.

      Levin counted the carts, and was pleased to see that sufficient manure was being brought. At the sight of the meadows his thoughts turned to the hay harvest. The thought of the hay harvest always touched him to the quick. When they reached the meadow Levin stopped. At the roots of the thick grass the morning dew still lingered, and Koznyshev, afraid of wetting his feet, asked his brother to drive him across the meadow to the willow clump near which perch could be caught. Though Constantine was loth to crush his grass, he drove across the meadow. The tall grass twined softly about the wheels and the horse’s legs, leaving seeds on the wet spokes and hubs.

      Koznyshev sat down by the willows, while Levin led away his horse, and having tethered it, stepped into the immense grey-green sea of grass, so dense that the wind could not ruffle it. In the meadow, which was flooded every spring, the silky grass, now scattering seeds, reached almost to his waist. When Constantine Levin had passed right across the meadow and reached the road, he met an old man with a swollen eye carrying a swarm of bees in a skep.

      ‘Have you found it, Fomich?’ he asked.

      ‘Found it, indeed, Constantine Dmitrich! I only hope not to lose my own. This is the second time a swarm has got away, and it’s only thanks to those lads there that I’ve got this one back. They were ploughing for you, and unharnessed a horse and galloped after it… .’

      ‘Well, Fomich, what do you think? Shall we begin mowing, or wait a little?’

      ‘Oh, well, our custom is to wait till St. Peter’s Day, but you always mow earlier. Why not, God willing? The grass is fine; there will be more room for the cattle.’

      ‘And what do you think of the weather?’

      ‘That’s God’s business — perhaps the weather will keep fine too.’

      Levin went back to his brother.

      Though he had caught nothing, Koznyshev did not feel bored and seemed in the best of spirits. Levin saw that he had been roused by his conversation with the doctor and wanted to have a talk. Levin, on the contrary, was impatient to get home in order to give orders about hiring the mowers on the morrow, and to decide about the hay harvest, which greatly occupied his mind.

      ‘Well, let’s go,’ said he.

      ‘Where’s the hurry? Let’s sit here a little. How wet you are! Though nothing bites, it’s pleasant; hunting and similar sports are good because they bring one in touch with nature… . How lovely this steel-coloured water is!’ said he. ‘And these grassy banks always remind me of that riddle — you know — “The grass says to the water, We will shake, we will shake… .” ’

      ‘I don’t know that riddle,’ replied Levin in a dull tone.