 CHAPTER I Sergei Ivanovich Kosnyshev wanted a rest from mental work, and instead of going abroad as he usually did, he came towards the end of May to stay in the country with his brother. In his judgment the best sort of life was a country life. He had come now to enjoy such a life with his brothers. Konstantin Levin was very glad to have him, especially if he did not expect his brother Nikolay that summer. But in spite of his affection and respect for Sergei Ivanovich, Konstantin Levin was uncomfortable with his brother in the country. It made him uncomfortable, and it positively annoyed him to see his brother's attitude to the country. To Konstantin Levin the country was the background of life, that is of pleasure's endeavour's labour. To Sergei Ivanovich the country meant on one hand rest from work, on the other a valuable antidote to the corrupt influences of town, which he took with satisfaction and a sense of its utility. To Konstantin Levin the country was good first because it afforded a field for labour, of the usefulness of which there could be no doubt. To Sergei Ivanovich the country was particularly good, because there it was possible and fitting to do nothing. Moreover Sergei Ivanovich's attitude to the peasants rather piqued Konstantin. Sergei Ivanovich used to say that he knew and liked the peasantry, and he often talked to the peasants, which he knew how to do without affectation or condescension, and from every such conversation he would deduce general conclusions in favour of the peasantry and in confirmation of his knowing them. Konstantin Levin did not like such an attitude to the peasants. To Konstantin the peasant was simply the chief partner in their common labour, and in spite of all the respect and the love, almost like that of kinship he had for the peasants, sucked in probably as he said himself, with the milk of his peasant-durse. Well as a fellow worker with them, while sometimes enthusiastic over the vigour, gentleness and justice of these men, he was very often, when their common labour's call for other qualities, exasperated with the peasant for his carelessness, lack of method, drunkenness and lying. If he had been asked whether he liked or didn't like the peasants, Konstantin Levin would have been absolutely at a loss what to reply. He liked and did not like the peasants, just as he liked and did not like men in general. Of course, being a good-hearted man, he liked men rather than he disliked them, and so too with the peasants. But like or dislike the people as something apart he could not. Not only because he lived with the people, and all his interests were bound up with theirs, but also because he regarded himself as part of the people. Did not see any special qualities or failings distinguishing himself and the people, and could not contrast himself with them. Moreover, although he had lived so long in the closest relations with the peasants, as farmer and arbitrator, and what was more as adviser, the peasants trusted him, and for thirty miles round they would come to ask his advice. He had no definite views of the people, and would have been as much at a loss to answer the question whether he knew the people as the question whether he liked them. For him to say he knew the peasantry would have been the same as to say he knew men. He was continually watching and getting to know people of all sorts and among them peasants, whom he regarded as good and interesting people, and he was continually observing new points in them, altering his former views of them and forming new ones. With Sergei Ivanovich it was quite the contrary. Just as he liked and praised the country life in comparison with the life he did not like, so too he liked the peasantry in contradistinction the class of men he did not like, and so too he knew the peasantry as something distinct from and opposed to men generally. In his methodical brain there were distinctly formulated certain aspects of peasant life, deduced partly from that life itself, but chiefly from contrast with other modes of life. He never changed his opinion of the peasantry and his sympathetic attitude towards them. In the discussions that arose between the brothers on their views on the peasantry Sergei Ivanovich always got the better of his brother precisely because Sergei Ivanovich had definite ideas about the peasant, his character, his qualities and his tastes. Constitin Levin had no definite and unalterable ideas on the subject, and so in their arguments Constitin was readily convicted of contradicting himself. In Sergei Ivanovich's eyes his younger brother was a capital fellow, with his heart in the right place, as he expressed it in French, but with a mind which, though fairly quick, was too much influenced by the impressions of the moment and consequently filled with contradictions. With all the condescension of an elder brother he sometimes explained to him the true import of things, but he derived little satisfaction from arguing with him because he got the better of him too easily. Constitin Levin regarded his brother as a man of immense intellect and culture, as generous in the highest sense of the word and possessed of a special faculty for working for the public good. But in the depths of his heart the older he became and the more intimately he knew his brother the more and more frequently the thought struck him that this faculty of working for the public good, of which he felt himself utterly devoid, was possibly not so much equality as a lack of something, not a lack of good, honest, noble desires and tastes, but a lack of vital force of what is called heart, of that impulse which drives a man to choose someone out of the innumerable paths of life and to care only for that one. The better he knew his brother the more he noticed that Sergei Ivanovich and many other people who worked for the public welfare were not led by an impulse of the heart to care for the public good. Not reason from intellectual considerations that it was the right thing to take interest in public affairs and consequently took interest in them. Levin was confirmed in this generalization by observing that his brother did not take questions affecting the public welfare or the question of the immortality of the soul a bit more to heart than he did chest problems or the ingenious construction of a new machine. Besides this, Constantine Levin was not at his ease with his brother, because in summer in the country Levin was continually busy with work on the land, and the long summer day was not long enough for him to get through all he had to do, while Sergei Ivanovich was taking a holiday. But though he was taking a holiday now, that is to say, he was doing no writing. He was so used to intellectual activity that he liked to put into concise and eloquent shape the ideas that occurred to him and liked to have someone to listen to him. The most usual and natural listener was his brother, and so in spite of the friendliness and directness of their relations Constantine felt an awkwardness in leaving him alone. Sergei Ivanovich liked to stretch himself on the grass in the sun and to lie so basking and chatting lazily. You wouldn't believe, he would say to his brother, what a pleasure this rural laziness is to me. Not an idea in one's brain as empty as a drum. But Constantine Levin found it dull sitting and listening to him, especially when he knew that while he was away they would be carting dung onto the fields not plowed ready for it, and heaping it all up anyhow, and would not screw the shares in the plows, but would let them come off and then say that the new plows were a silly invention, and there was nothing like the old Andreievna plow, and so on. Come, you've done enough trudging about in the heat, Sergei Ivanovich would say to him. No, I must just run around to the counting-house for a minute, Levin would answer, and would run off to the fields. End of Chapter 1, Chapter 2 of Anna Karenina, Book 3. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by David Colmedway, Massachusetts. Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy. Translated by Constance Garnett. Book 3, Chapter 2. Early in June it happened that Agafair Milharovna, the old nurse and housekeeper, in carrying to the cellar a jar of mushrooms she had just pickled, slipped, fell, and sprained her wrist. The district doctor, a talkative young medical student who had just finished his studies, came to see her. He examined the wrist, said it was not broken, was delighted at a chance of talking to the celebrated Sergei Ivanovich Kosnyshev, and to show his advanced views of things, told him all the scandal of the district, complaining of the poor state into which the district council had fallen. Sergei Ivanovich listened attentively, asked him questions, and, roused by a new listener, he talked fluently, uttered a few keen and weighty observations, respectfully appreciated by the young doctor, and was soon in that eager frame of mind his brother knew so well, which always with him followed a brilliant and eager conversation. After the departure of the doctor he wanted to go with a fishing-rod to the river. Sergei Ivanovich was fond of angling, and was, it seemed, proud of being able to care for such a stupid occupation. Konstantin Levin, whose presence was needed in the plough-land and meadows, had come to take his brother in the trap. It was that time of the year, the turning point of summer, when the crops of the present year are a certainty, when one begins to think of the sewing for next year, and the mowing is at hand, when the rye is all in ear, though these ears are still light, not yet full, and it waves in grey-green billows in the wind, when the green oats with tufts of yellow grass scattered here and there among it, droop irregularly over the late-zone fields, when the early buckwheat is already out and hiding the ground, when the fallow lands trodden hard as stone by the cattle are half ploughed over, with paths left untouched by the plough, when from the dry dung-heaps carted onto the fields there comes at sunset a smell of manure mixed with meadow-sweet, and on the low-lying lands the riverside meadows are the thick sea of grass waiting for the mowing, with blackened heaps of the stalks of sorrel among it. It was the time when there comes a brief pause in the toil of the fields before the beginning of the labours of harvest, every year recurring, every year straining every nerve of the peasants, the crop was a splendid one, and bright hot summer days had set in with short, dewy nights. The brothers had to drive through the woods to reach the meadows. Sergei Ivanovitch was all the while admiring the beauty of the woods, which retangled a mass of leaves, pointing out to his brother now an old lime-tree on the point of flowering, dark on the shady side, and brightly spotted with yellow stipules. Now the young shoots of this year's saplings, brilliant with emerald, constant in leaven, did not like talking and hearing about the beauty of nature. This for him took away the beauty of what he saw. He assented to what his brother said, but he could not help beginning to think of other things. When they came out of the woods all his attention was engrossed by the view of the fallow land on the upland, in parts yellow with grass, in parts trampled and checkered with furrows, in parts dotted with ridges of dung, and in parts even plowed. A string of carts was moving across it. Levin counted the carts, and was pleased that all that were wanted had been brought, and at the sight of the meadows his thoughts passed to the mowing. He always felt something special moving him to the quick at the hay-making. On reaching the meadow Levin stopped the horse. The morning dew was still lying on the thick undergrowth of the grass, and that he might not get his feet wet, Sergei Ivanovich asked his brother to drive him in the trap up to the willow-tree, from which the cart was caught. Saria's constant in Levin was to crush down his mowing-grass. He drove him into the meadow. The high grass softly turned about the wheels and the horse's legs, leaving its seeds clinging to the wet axles and spokes of the wheels. His brother seated himself under a bush, arranging his tackle, while Levin led the horse away, fastened him up, and walked into the vast grey-green sea of grass, unstirred by the wind. The silky grass with its ripe seeds came almost to his waist in the dampest spots. Crossing the meadow, Constantin Levin came out onto the road, and met an old man with a swollen eye, carrying a skep on his shoulder. What! Taken a stray swarm? Fornich, he asked. No indeed, Constantin Dimitrić. All we can do is keep our own. This is the second swarm that has flown away. Luckily, the lads caught them. They were plowing your field. They urn-yoked the horses and galloped after them. Well, what do you say, Fornich? Start mowing, or wait a bit. Hey, well, our ways to wait till St. Peter's Day, but you all was mow sooner. Well, to be sure, please, God, that he's good, there'll be plenty for the beasts. What do you think about the weather? That's in God's hands. Maybe it'll be fine. Levin went up to his brother. Sergei Ivanovich had caught nothing, but he was not bored and seemed in the most cheerful frame of mind. And so that, stimulated by his conversation with the doctor, he wanted to talk. Levin, on the other hand, would have liked to get home as soon as possible to give orders about getting to gather the mowers for next day, and to set at rest his doubts about the mowing which greatly absorbed him. Well, let's be going, he said. Why be in such a hurry? Let's stay a little, but how wet you are, even though one catches nothing, it's nice. That's the best thing about every part of sport, that one has to do with nature. How exquisite this steely water is, said Sergei Ivanovich. These riverside banks always remind me of the riddle, do you know it? The grass says to the water, We quiver and we quiver. I don't know the riddle," answered Levin wearily. CHAPTER II. CHAPTER III. CHAPTER III. Do you know? I've been thinking about you, said Sergei Ivanovich. It's beyond everything what's being done in the district. According to what this doctor tells me, he's a very intelligent fellow, and as I've told you before, I tell you again, it's not right for you not to go to the meetings and altogether to keep out of the district business. If decent people won't go into it, of course it's bound to go all wrong. We pay the money, and it all goes in salaries. And there are no schools, nor district nurses, nor midwives, nor drug stores—nothing. Well, I did try, you know, living said slowly and unwillingly. I can't, and so there's no help for it. But why can't you? I must own. I can't make it out. Indifference and capacity? I won't admit. Surely it's not simply laziness. None of those things. I've tried, and I see I can do nothing, said Levin. He'd hurriedly grasped what his brother was saying. Came towards the plow-land across the river, he made out something black, but he could not distinguish whether it was a horse or the bailiff on horseback. Why is it you can do nothing? You made an attempt and didn't succeed, as you think, and you give in. How can you have so little self-respect? Self-respect, said Levin, stung to the quick by his brother's words, I don't understand. If they'd told me at college that other people understood the integral calculus, and I didn't, then pride would have come in. But in this case, one wants first to be convinced that one has certain qualifications for this sort of business, and especially that all this business is of great importance. What? Do you mean to say it's not of importance, said Sergei Ivanovich? Stung to the quick, too, at his brother's considering anything of no importance that interested him, and still more it is obviously paying little attention to what he was saying. I don't think it important. It does not take hold of me. I can't help it, answered Levin, making out that what he saw was the bailiff, and that the bailiff seemed to be letting the peasants go off the plowed land. They were turning the plow over. Can they have finished plowing, he wondered? Come, really though, said the elder brother, with a frown on his handsome, clever face, there's a limit to everything. It's very well to be original and genuine, and to dislike everything conventional. I know all about that, but really what you're saying either has no meaning, or it has a very wrong meaning. How can you think, in a matter of no importance, whether the peasant whom you love, as you assert? I never did assert it, thought Constantine Levin. Dies without help. The ignorant peasant women starve the children, and the people stagnate in darkness and are helpless in the hands of every village clerk, while you have at your disposal a means of helping them, and don't help them, because to your mind it's of no importance. And Sergei Ivanovich put before him the alternative. Either you are so undeveloped that you can't see all that you can do, or you won't sacrifice your ease, your vanity, or whatever it is to do it. Constantine Levin felt that there was no course open to him but to submit, or to confess to a lack of zeal for the public good, and this mortified him and hurt his feelings. It's both, he said resolutely, I don't see that it was possible. What? Was it impossible if the money were properly laid out, to provide medical aid? Impossible as it seems to me, for the three thousand square miles of our district, but with our thaws and the storms and the work in the fields, I don't see how it is possible to provide medical aid all over, and besides, I don't believe in medicine. Oh, well, that's unfair. I can quote to you thousands of instances. But the school's anyway. Why have schools? What do you mean? Can there be two opinions on the advantage of education? If it's a good thing for you, it's a good thing for everyone. Mr. Levine felt himself morally penned against a wall, and so he got hot and unconsciously blurted out the chief cause of his indifference to public business. Perhaps it may all be very good, but why should I worry myself about establishing dispensaries which I shall never make use of, and schools to which I shall never send my children, to which even the peasants don't want to send their children, and to which I have no very firm faith, but they ought to send them, said he. Sergei Ivanovich was for a minute surprised at this unexpected view of the subject, but he promptly made a new plan of attack. He was silent for a little, drew out a hook, threw it in again, and turned to his brother, smiling. Come now. In the first place, the dispensary is needed. We ourselves sent for the district doctor for a Gepheia Mihailovna. Oh, well, but I fancy your wrist will never be straight again. That remains to be proved. Next, the peasant who can read and write is a workman of more use and value to you. No, you can ask anyone you like, Constantine Levine answered with decision, men that can read and write is much inferior as a workman, and mending the high roads is an impossibility, and as soon as they put up bridges, they're stolen. Still that's not the points that Sergei Ivanovich frowning. He disliked contradiction, and still more arguments that were continually skipping from one thing to another, introducing new and disconnected points that there was no knowing to which to reply. Do you admit that education is a benefit for the people? Yes, I admit it, said Levine without thinking, and he was conscious immediately that he had said what he did not think. He felt that if he admitted that, it would be proved that he had been talking meaningless rubbish. How it would be proved, he could not tell. But he knew that this would inevitably be logically proved to him, and he awaited the proofs. The argument turned out to be far simpler than he had expected. If you admit that it is a benefit, said Sergei Ivanovich, then as an honest man you cannot help caring about it and sympathizing with the movement and so wishing to work for it. But I still do not admit this movement to be just, said Constantine Levine, reddening a little. What? But you said just now. That's to say, I don't admit it's being either good or possible. That you can't tell without making the trial. Well, supposing that so, said Levine, though he did not suppose so at all. Supposing that is so. Still I don't see, all the same, what I'm to worry myself about it for. How so? No, since we are talking, explain it to me from the philosophical point of view, said Levine. I can't see where philosophy comes in, said Sergei Ivanovich, in a tone, leaven fancy, as though he did not admit his brother's right to talk about philosophy. And that irritated Levine. I'll tell you then, he said with heat. I imagine the mainspring of all our actions is, after all, self-interest. Now in the local institutions I, as a noble man, see nothing that can conduce to my prosperity. And the roads are not better, that could not be better. My horses carry me well enough over bad ones. Doctors and dispensaries are no use to me. An arbitrator of disputes is no use to me. I never appeal to him, and never shall appeal to him. The schools are no good to me, but positively harmful, as I told you. For me, the district institutions simply mean the liability to pay four pence half penny for every three acres. To drive into the town, sleep with bugs, and listen to all sorts of idiocy and loathesomeness, and self-interest offers me no inducement. Excuse me, Sergei Ivanovich, interposed with a smile. Self-interest did not induce us to work for the emancipation of the serfs, but we did work for it. No. Constantine Levine broke in with still greater heat. The emancipation of the serfs was a different matter. Their self-interest did come in. Some long to throw off that yoke that crushed us, all decent people among us. But to be a town counsellor and discuss how many dustmen are needed and how chimney shall be constructed in the town in which I don't live, to serve on a jury and tripeasant who stole on a flitch of bacon and listened for six hours at a stretch to all sorts of jabber from the council for the defense and the prosecution, and the president cross-examining my old half-witted aliyoshka, do you admit, prisoner in the dock, the fact of the removal of the bacon, eh? Constantine Levine had warmed to his subject and began mimicking the president and the half-witted aliyoshka that seemed to him that it was all to the point. But Sergei Ivanovitch shrugged his shoulders. Well, what do you mean to say, then? I simply mean to say that those rights that touch me, my interest, I shall always defend to the best of my ability, that when they made raids on us students and the police read our letters, I was ready to defend those rights to the yet most, to defend my rights to education and freedom. I can understand compulsory military service, which affects my children, my brothers, and myself. I'm ready to deliberate on what concerns me, but deliberating on how to spend 40,000 roubles of district council money, or judging half-witted aliyoshka, I don't understand, and I can't do it. Constantine Levine's focus, though the floodgates of his speech had burst open, Sergei Ivanovitch smiled. But tomorrow it'll be your turn to be tried. Would it have suited your taste better to be tried in the old criminal tribunal? I'm not going to be tried. I shan't murder anybody, and I've no need of it. Well, I tell you what, he went on, flying off again to a subject quite beside the point. Our district's self-government and all the rest of it, it's just like the birch branches we stick in the ground on Trinity Day. For instance, to look like a copes, which has grown up of itself in Europe, and I can't gush over those birch branches and believe in them, Sergei Ivanovitch merely shrugged his shoulders as though to express his wonder how the birch branches had come into their argument at that point, though he did really understand at once what his brother meant. Excuse me. But you know one really can't argue in that way, he observed. But Constantine Levine wanted to justify himself for the failing of which he was conscious, a lack of zeal for the public welfare. And he went on. I imagine he said that no sort of activity is likely to be lasting if it is not founded on self-interest. It's a universal principle, a philosophical principle, he said, repeating the word philosophical with determination, as a wishing to show that he had as much right as anyone else to talk of philosophy. Sergei Ivanovitch smiled. He too has a philosophy of his own at the service of his natural tendencies, he thought. Come, you'd better let philosophy alone, he said. The chief problem of the philosophy of all ages consists just in finding the indispensable connection which exists between individual and social interests. But that's not to the point. What is to the point is a correction I must make in your comparison. The virtues are not simply stuck in, but some are sown, and some are planted, and one must deal carefully with them. It's only those peoples that have an intuitive sense of what's of importance and significance in their institutions and know how to value them that have a future before them. It's only those peoples that one can truly call historical. And Sergei Ivanovitch carried the subject into the regions of philosophical history where Constantine Levine could not follow him, and showed him all the incorrectness of his view. As for your dislike of it, excuse my saying so, that's simply our Russian sloth and old surf-owner's ways, and I'm convinced that in you it's a temporary error and will pass. Constantine was silent. He felt himself vanquished on all sides. But he felt at the same time that what he wanted to say was unintelligible to his brother, only he could not make up his mind whether it was unintelligible, because he was not capable of expressing his meaning clearly, or because his brother would not or could not understand him. But he did not pursue the speculation, and without replying he felt amusing on a quite different and personal matter. Sergei Ivanovitch wound up the last line, untied the horse, and they drove off. Chapter 4 of Anna Karenina, Book 3. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Natalie Sullivan Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy Translated by Constance Garnet Book 3, Chapter 4 The personal matter that absorbed Levine during his conversation with his brother was this. Once in a previous year he had gone to look at the mowing, and being made very angry by the bailiff he had recourse to his favorite means for regaining his temper. He took a sith from a peasant and began mowing. He liked the work so much that he had several times tried his hand at mowing since. He had cut the whole of the meadow in front of his house, and this year, ever since, the early spring, he had cherished a plan for mowing for whole days together with the peasants. Ever since his brother's arrival he had been in doubt whether to mow or not. He was loath to leave his brother alone all day long, and he was afraid his brother would laugh at him about it. But as he drove into the meadow and recalled the sensations of mowing, he came near deciding that he would go mowing. After the irritating discussion with his brother he pondered over this intention again. I must have physical exercise or my temper will certainly be ruined, he thought, and he determined he would go mowing, however awkward he might feel about it with his brother or the peasants. Towards evening Constantine Levine went to his counting-house, gave directions as to the work to be done, and sent about the village to summon the mowers for the morrow, to cut the hay in Kalinov Meadow, the largest and best of his grasslands. And send my sith, please, to Tit, for him to set it and bring it round to-morrow. I shall maybe do some mowing myself, too, he said, trying not to be embarrassed. The bailiff smiled and said, Yes, sir. At tea the same evening Levine said to his brother, I fancy the fine weather will last. Tomorrow I shall start mowing. I am so fond of that form of field labor, said Sergei Ivanovich. I am awfully fond of it. I sometimes mow myself with the peasants, and tomorrow I want to try mowing the whole day. Sergei Ivanovich lifted his head and looked with interest at his brother. How do you mean? Just like one of the peasants, all day long? Yes. It's very pleasant, said Levine. It's splendid as exercise. Only you'll hardly be able to stand it, said Sergei Ivanovich, without a shade of irony. I've tried it. It's hard work at first, but you get into it. I dare say I shall manage to keep it up. Really! What an idea! But tell me! How do the peasants look at it? I suppose they laugh in their sleeves at their masters being such a queer fish. No, I don't think so. But it's so delightful, and at the same time such hard work, that one has no time to think about it. But how will you do about dining with them? To send you a bottle of Lafite and roast turkey out there would be a little awkward. No, I'll simply come home at the time of their noonday rest. Next morning Constantine Levine got up earlier than usual, that he was detained giving directions on the farm, and when he reached the mowing grass the mowers were already at their second row. From the uplands he could get a view of the shaded cut part of the meadow below, with its grayish ridges of cut grass and the black heaps of coats, taken off by the mowers at the place from which they had started cutting. Gradually as he rode towards the meadow the peasants came into sight. Some in coats, some in their shirts mowing, one behind another in a long string, swinging their siths differently. He counted forty-two of them. They were mowing slowly over the uneven, low-lying parts of the meadow where there had been an old dam. Levine recognized some of his own men. Here was old Yermol and a very long white smock bending forward to swing a sith. There was a young fellow, Vasca, who had been a coachman of Levine's, taking every row with a wide sweep. Here too was Tit, Levine's preceptor in the art of mowing, a thin little peasant. He was in front of all and cut his wide row without bending as though playing with the sith. Levine got off his mirror and fastening her up by the roadside went to meet Tit, who took a second sith out of a bush and gave it to him. It's ready, sir. It's like a razor, cuts of itself, said Tit, taking off his cap with a smile and giving him the sith. Levine took the sith and began trying it. As they finished their rows the mowers, hot and good humored, came out into the road one after another and laughing a little, greeted the master. They all stared at him, but no one made any remark, till a tall, old man, with a wrinkled, beardless face, wearing a short, sheepskin jacket, came out into the road and accosted him. Looky now, master! Once take hold of the rope there's no letting it go, he said, and Levine heard smothered laughter among the mowers. I'll try not to let it go, he said, taking a stand behind Tit and waiting for the time to begin. Mindy repeated the old man. Tit made room and Levine started behind him. The grass was short, close to the road, and Levine, who had not done any mowing for a long while, and was disconcerted by the eyes fastened upon him, cut badly for the first moments. Though he swung his sith vigorously, behind him he heard voices. It's not set right, handle's too high. See how he asked a stoop to it, said one? Press more on the heel, said another. Never mind, he'll get on all right, the old man resumed. He's made a start. You swing it too wide, you'll tire yourself out. The master, sure, does his best for himself, but see the grass missed out? For such work us fellows would catch it. The grass became softer, and Levine, listening without answering, followed Tit, trying to do the best he could. They moved a hundred paces. Tit kept moving on, without stopping, not showing the slightest reariness, but Levine was already beginning to be afraid he would not be able to keep it up. He was so tired. He felt as he swung his sith that he was at the very end of his strength, and was making up his mind to ask Tit to stop, but at that very moment Tit stopped of his own accord, and, stooping down, picked up some grass, rubbed his sith, and began wetting it. Levine straightened himself, and drawing a deep breath looked round. Behind him came a peasant, he too was evidently tired, for he stopped at once, without waiting, to moan up to Levine, and began wetting his sith. Tit sharpened his sith and Levine's, and they went on. The next time it was just the same. Tit moved on with sweep after sweep of his sith, not stopping nor showing signs of reariness. Levine followed him, trying not to get left behind, and he found it harder and harder. The moment came when he felt he had no strength left, but at that very moment Tit stopped and wetted the siths. So they mowed the first row, and this long row seemed particularly hard to Levine, but when the end was reached and Tit, shouldering his sith, began with deliberate stride, returning on the tracks left by his heels in the cut grass, and Levine walked back in the same way over the space he had cut, in spite of the sweat that ran in streams over his face and fell in drops down his nose, and drenched his back as though he had been soaked in water, he felt very happy. What delighted him particularly was that now, he knew, he would be able to hold out. His pleasure was only disturbed by his row not being well cut. I will swing less with my arm and more with my whole body, I thought, comparing Tit's row, which looked as if it had been cut with a line, with his own unevenly and irregularly lying grass. The first row, as Levine noticed, Tit had mowed specially quickly, probably wishing to put his master to the test, and the row happened to be a long one. The next rows were easier, but still Levine had to strain every nerve not to drop behind the peasants. He thought of nothing, wished for nothing, but not to be left behind the peasants, and to do his work as well as possible. He heard nothing but the swish of siths, and saw before him Tit's upright figure moving away, the crescent-shaped curve of the cut grass, the grass and flower-head slowly and rhythmically falling before the blade of his sith, and ahead of him the end of the row where it would come the rest. Suddenly in the midst of his toil, without understanding what it was or whence it came, he felt a pleasant sensation of chill on his hot, moist shoulders. He glanced at the sky in the interval for wetting the siths. A heavy, lowering storm cloud had blown up, and big raindrops were falling. Some of the peasants went to get their coats and put them on. Others, just like Levine himself, merely shrugged their shoulders enjoying the pleasant coolness of it. Another row, and yet another row followed, long rows and short rows, with good grass and with poor grass. Levine lost all sense of time and could not have told whether it was 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 came all easy to him, and at those same moments his row was almost as smooth and well cut as tits. But so 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 row was badly mown. On finishing yet another row he would have gone back to the top of the meadow again to begin the next, but tits 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 Levine, not guessing that the peasants had been mowing no less than four hours without stopping, and it was time for their lunch. Lunch, sir, said the old man. Is it really time? That's right. Lunch, then. Levine gave his sith to tit, and to gather 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 towards his house. Only then he suddenly awoke to the fact that he had been wrong about the weather, and 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. Levine untied his horse and rode home to his coffee. Sergei Ivanovitch was only just getting up. When he had drunk his coffee, Levine rode back again to the mowing before Sergei Ivanovitch had had time to dress and come down to the dining-room. End of Chapter 4, Recording by Natalie Sullivan. After lunch Levine 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 the precise and regular action which seemed to cost him no more effort than swinging one's arms and walking, as though it were in play, he laid down the high, even row of grass. It was as though it were not he but the sharp scythe of itself swishing through the juicy grass. Behind Levine came the lad Mishka. His pretty boyish 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 rather than own it was hard work for him. Levine 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 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 rose 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 tin dipper and offered Levine a drink. What do you say to my homebrew, eh? Good, eh? said he, winking, and truly Levine had never drunk any liquor so good as this warm water with green bits floating in it and a taste of rust from the tin dipper, 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 country. The longer Levine mode, the oftener he felt the moments of unconsciousness in which it seemed not his hands that swung the scythe, but the scythe mowing of 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 hillock or a tuft of sorrow. The old man did this easily. When a hillock came he changed his action and at one time with the heel and at another with the tip of his scythe clipped the hillock 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 Levine. 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 Levine and threw it away. For both Levine 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. Levine 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 and it was getting on for dinner time. As they were walking back over the cut grass the old man called Levine's attention to the little girls and boys who were coming from different directions, hardly visible through the long grass and along the road towards the moors, carrying sacks of bread dragging at their little hands and pictures of the sour rye beer with cloths wrapped round them. Looky the little Emmet's crawling, he said, pointing to them, and he shaded his eyes with his hand to look at the sun. They mowed two more rows. The old man stopped. Come, master, dinner time, he said briskly. And on reaching the stream the moors moved off across the lines of cut grass towards their pile of coats where the children who had brought their dinners were sitting waiting for them. The peasants gathered into groups, those further away under a cart, those nearer under a willow bush. Levine sat down by them. He felt disinclined to go away. All constraint with the master had disappeared long ago. The peasants got ready for dinner. Some washed, the young lads bathed in the stream, others made a place comfortable for a rest, untied their sacks of bread, and uncovered to the pictures of rye beer. The old man crumbled up some bread in a cup, stirred it with the handle of the spoon, poured water on it from the dipper, broke up some more bread, and, having seasoned it with salt, he turned to the east to say his prayer. Come, master, taste my sop, said he, kneeling down before the cup. The sop was so good that Levine gave up the idea of going home. He dined with the old man and talked to him about his family affairs, taking the keenest interest in them, and told him about his own affairs and all the circumstances that could be of interest to the old man. He felt much nearer to him than to his brother, and could not help smiling at the affection he felt for this man. When the old man got up again, said his prayer, and lay down under a bush, putting some grass under his head for a pillow, Levine did the same, and, in spite of the clinging flies that were so persistent in the sunshine, and the midges that tickled his hot face and body, he fell asleep at once, and only waked when the sun had passed to the other side of the bush and reached him. The old man had been awake a long while, and was sitting up wetting the sides of the younger lads. Levine looked about him, and hardly recognized the place everything was so changed. The immense stretch of meadow had been moan, and was sparkling with a peculiar fresh brilliance, with its lines of already sweet-smelling grass in the slanting rays of the evening sun, and the bushes about the river had been cut down, and the river itself not visible before, now gleaming like steel in its bends, and the moving ascending peasants, and the sharp wall of grass of the unmoan part of the meadow, and the hawks hovering over the stripped meadow, all was perfectly new. Raising himself, Levine began considering how much had been cut, and how much more could still be done that day. The work done was exceptionally much for forty-two men. They had cut the whole of the big meadow, which had, in the years of serf labor, taken thirty sides, two days to mow. Only the corners remained to do where the rows were short. But Levine felt a longing to get as much mowing done that day as possible, and was vexed with the sun sinking so quickly in the sky. He felt no weariness. All he wanted was to get his work done more and more quickly, and as much done as possible. "'Could you cut Mashkin upland to what you think?' he said to the old man. "'As God wills, the sun's not high. A little vodka for the lads?' At the afternoon rest when they were sitting down again, and those who smoked had lighted their pipes, the old man told the men that Mashkin uplands to be cut. There'll be some vodka.' "'Why not cut it? Come on, Tit, we'll look sharp. We can eat at night. Come on,' cried voices, and eating up their bread, the mowers went back to work. "'Come, lads, keep it up,' said Tit, and ran on ahead, almost at a trot. "'Get along, get along,' said the old man, hurrying after him, and easily overtaking him. I'll mow you down, look out.' And young and old mowed away as though they were racing with one another. But however fast they worked they did not spoil the grass, and the rows were laid just as neatly and exactly. The little piece left uncut in the corner was mown in five minutes. The last of the mowers were just ending their rows, while the foremost snatched up their coats onto their shoulders, and crossed the road towards Mashkin upland. The sun was already sinking into the trees when they went with their jingling dippers into the wooded ravine of Mashkin upland. The grass was up to their wastes in the middle of the hollow, soft, tender, and feathery, spotted here and there among the trees with wild hearts' ease. After a brief consultation, whether to take the rows lengthwise or diagonally, Prohor Jermelin, also a renowned mower, a huge black-haired peasant, went on ahead. He went up to the top, turned back again and started mowing, and they all proceeded to form in line behind him, going down hill through the hollow and uphill right up to the edge of the forest. The sun sank behind the forest. The dew was falling by now. The mowers were in the sun only on the hillside, but below, where a mist was rising and on the opposite side, they mowed into the fresh, dewy shade. The work went rapidly. The grass cut with a juicy sound and was at once laid in high, fragrant rows. The mowers from all sides brought closer together in the short row, kept urging one another on to the sound of jingling dippers and clanging sides, and the hiss of the wet stones sharpening them, and good-humoured shouts. Then still kept between the young peasant and the old man. The old man, who had put on his short sheepskin jacket, was just as good-humoured, jocose, and free in his movements. Among the trees they were continually cutting with their sides the so-called birch mushrooms, swollen fat in the succulent grass. But the old man bent down every time he came across a mushroom, picked it up, and put it in his bosom, another present for my old woman, he said, as he did so. Easy as it was to mow the wet, soft grass, it was hard work going up and down the steep sides of the ravine. But this did not trouble the old man. Swinging his scythe just as ever, and moving his feet in their big, plated shoes with firm little steps, he climbed slowly up the steep place, and though his breeches hanging out below his smog and his whole frame trembled with effort, he did not miss one blade of grass or one mushroom on his way, and kept making jokes with the peasants and Levin. Levin walked after him and often thought he must fall as he climbed with a scythe up a steep cliff where it would have been hard work to clamber without anything. But he climbed up and did what he had to do. He felt as though some external force were moving him. Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy Translated by Constance Garnett Book 3, Chapter 6 Mashkin Upland was moan. The last row finished. The peasants had put on their coats and were gaily trudging home. Levin got on his horse and, parting regretfully from the peasants, rode homewards. On the hillside he looked back. He could not see them in the mist that had risen from the valley. He could only hear rough, good-humoured voices, laughter and the sound of clanking scythe. Sergei Ivanovich had long ago finished dinner and was drinking iced lemon and water in his own room, looking through the reviews and papers which he had only just received by post when Levin rushed into the room, talking merrily, with his wet and matted hair sticking to his forehead and his back and chest grime and moist. We mowed the whole meadow, oh, it is nice, delicious, and how have you been getting on, said Levin, completely forgetting the disagreeable conversation of the previous day. Mercy, what do you look like, said Sergei Ivanovich, for the first moment looking round with some dissatisfaction, and the door, do shut the door, he cried. He must have let in a dozen at least. Sergei Ivanovich could not endure flies, and in his own room he never opened the window except at night and carefully kept the door shut. Not one on my honour, but if I have I'll catch them. You wouldn't believe what a pleasure it is. How have you spent the day? Very well, but have you really been mowing the whole day? I expect you're as hungry as a wolf. Alma has got everything ready for you. No, I don't feel hungry even. I had something to eat there, but I'll go and wash. Yes, go along, go along, and I'll come to you directly, said Sergei Ivanovich, shaking his head as he looked at his brother. Go along, make haste, he added, smiling, and gathering up his books he prepared to go to. He too felt suddenly good-humoured and disinclined to leave his brother's side. But what did you do while it was raining? Rain? Why, there was scarcely a drop. I'll come directly. So you had a nice day, too, that's first rate. And Levin went off to change his clothes. Five minutes later the brothers met in the dining room. Although it seemed to Levin that he was not hungry, and he sat down to dinner simply so as not to hurt Kuzma's feelings, yet when he began to eat the dinner struck him as extraordinarily good. Sergei Ivanovich watched him with a smile. Oh, by the way, there's a letter for you, said he. Kuzma, bring it down, please, and mind you, shut the doors. The letter was from Oblonsky. Levin read it aloud. Oblonsky wrote to him from Petersburg. I have had a letter from Dolly. She's at Ergushaville, and everything seems going wrong there. Do write over and see her, please. Keep her with advice. You know all about it. She will be so glad to see you. She's quite alone, poor thing. My mother-in-law and all of them are still abroad. That's capital I will certainly write over to her, said Levin, or we'll go together. She's such a splendid woman, isn't she? They're not far from here, then? Twenty-five miles, or perhaps it is thirty, but a capital road, capital, we'll drive over. I shall be delighted, said Sergei Ivanovich, still smiling. The sight of his younger brother's appearance had immediately put him in a good humour. Well, you have an appetite, he said, looking at his dark red sunburnt face and neck bent over the plight. Splendid! You can't imagine what an effectual remedy it is for every sort of foolishness. I want to enrich medicine with a new word, Arbite's Coeur. Well, but you don't need it, I should fancy. No, but for all sorts of nervous invalids. Yes, it ought to be tried. I had meant to come to the mowing to look at you, but it was so unbearably hot that I got no further than the forest. I sat there a little and went on by the forest to the village, met your old nurse, and sounded her as to the peasant's view of you. As far as I can make out they don't approve of this. She said it's not a gentleman's work. Altogether I fancy that in the people's ideas there are very clear and definite notions of certain, as they call it, gentlemanly lines of action, and they don't sanction the gentries moving outside the bounds clearly laid down in their ideas. Maybe so, but anyway it's a pleasure such as I have never known in my life, and there's no harm in it, you know, is there? I can't help it if they don't like it, though I do believe it's all right, eh? Altogether, pursued Sergei Ivanovich, you're satisfied with your day? Quite satisfied, we cut the whole meadow, and such a splendid old man I made friends with there, you can't fancy how delightful he was. Well, so you're content with your day, and so am I. First I solved two chess problems, and one a very pretty one, a pawn opening. I'll show it to you, and then I thought over our conversation yesterday. Eh? Our conversation yesterday? said Levin, blissfully dropping his eyelids and drawing deep breaths after finishing his dinner, and absolutely incapable of recalling what their conversation yesterday was about. I think you are partly right. Our difference of opinion amounts to this, that you make the mainspring self-interest, while I suppose that interest in the common-wheel is bound to exist in every man of a certain degree of advancement. Possibly you are right, too, that action founded on material interest would be more desirable. You are altogether, as the French say, to primsiltière a future, you must have intense energetic action or nothing. Levin listened to his brother and did not understand a single word and did not want to understand. He was only afraid his brother might ask him some question which would make it evident he had not heard. So that's what I think it is, my dear boy, said Sergei Ivanovich, touching him on the shoulder. Yes, of course. But do you know I won't stand up for my view, answered Levin with a guilty, childlike smile. Whatever was it I was disputing about, he wondered. Of course I'm right and he's right and it's all first-rate. Only I must go round to the counting-house and see two things. He got up stretching and smiling, Sergei Ivanovich smiled, too. If you want to go out, let's go together, he said, and inclined to be parted from his brother who seemed positively breathing out freshness and energy. Come, we'll go to the counting-house if you have to go there. Oh heavens, shouted Levin, so loudly that Sergei Ivanovich was quite frightened. What? What is the matter? How's Agafia Milholovna's hand, said Levin, slapping himself on the head, I'd positively forgotten her, even. It's much better. Well, anyway, I'll run down to her. Before you've time to get your hat on, I'll be back. And he ran downstairs, clattering with his heels like a spring rattle. CHAPTER VII OF ANNA-KARANANA, BOOK III. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Bruce Peary Anna Karenana by Leo Tolstoy, translated by Constance Garnett, Book III, Chapter VII. Stepan Arkadjavich had gone to Petersburg to perform the most natural and essential official duty, so familiar to everyone in the government service, though incomprehensible to outsiders. That duty, but for which one could hardly be in government service, reminding the ministry of his existence, and having, for the due performance of this right, taken all the available cash from home, was geely and agreeably spending his days at the races and in the summer villas. Meanwhile, Dali and the children had moved into the country to cut down expenses as much as possible. She had gone to Ergushavov, the estate that had been her dowry, and the one where in spring the forest had been sold. It was nearly forty miles from Levin's Pokrovskow. The big old house at Ergushavov had been pulled down long ago, and the old prince had had the lodge done up and built on to. Twenty years before when Dali was a child the lodge had been roomy and comfortable, though like all lodges it stood sideways to the entrance avenue and faced the south. But by now this lodge was old and dilapidated. When Stepan Arkadjevich had gone down in the spring to sell the forest, Dali had begged him to look over the house and order what repairs might be needed. Stepan Arkadjevich, like all unfaithful husbands indeed, was very solicitous for his wife's comfort, and he had himself looked over the house and given instructions about everything that he considered necessary. What he considered necessary was to cover all the furniture with cretan, to put up curtains, to weed the garden, to make a little bridge on the pond, and to plant flowers. But he forgot many other essential matters, the want of which greatly distressed Daria Alexandrovna later on. In spite of Stepan Arkadjevich's efforts to be an attentive father and husband, he never could keep in his mind that he had a wife and children, he had bachelor tastes, and it was in accordance with them that he shaped his life. On his return to Moscow he informed his wife with pride that everything was ready, that the house would be a little paradise, and that he advised her most certainly to go. His wife's staying away in the country was very agreeable to Stepan Arkadjevich from every point of view. It did the children good, it decreased expenses, and it left him more at liberty. Daria Alexandrovna regarded staying in the country for the summer as essential for the children, especially for the little girl, who had not succeeded in regaining her strength after the scarletina, and also as a means of escaping the petty humiliations, the little bills owing to the wood merchant, the fishmonger, the shoemaker, which made her miserable. Besides this she was pleased to go away to the country because she was dreaming of getting her sister Kitty to stay with her there. Kitty was to be back from abroad in the middle of the summer, and bathing had been prescribed for her. Kitty wrote that no prospect was so alluring as to spend the summer with Dali at Irgushivo, full of childish associations for both of them. The first days of her existence in the country were very hard for Dali. She used to stay in the country as a child, and the impression she had retained of it was that the country was a refuge from all the unpleasantness of the town, that life there, though not luxurious—Dali could easily make up her mind to that—was cheap and comfortable, that there was plenty of everything, everything was cheap, everything could be got, and children were happy. But now, coming to the country as the head of a family, she perceived that it was all utterly unlike what she had fancied. The day after their arrival there was a heavy fall of rain, and in the night the water came through in the corridor and in the nursery, so that the beds had to be carried into the drawing-room. There was no kitchen made to be found. Of the nine cows it appeared from the words of the cowherd woman that some were about to cave, others had just caved, others were old, and others again hard-uddered. There was not butter nor milk enough even for the children. There were no eggs, they could get no fowls, old purplish stringy cocks were all they had for roasting and boiling. Impossible to get women to scrub the floors, all were potato-hoeing. Driving was out of the question because one of the horses was restive and bolted in the shafts. There was no place where they could bathe. The whole of the riverbank was trampled by the cattle and opened to the road. Even walks were impossible, for the cattle strayed into the garden through a gap in the hedge, and there was one terrible bull who bellowed and therefore might be expected to gore somebody. There were no proper cupboards for their clothes. What cupboards there were either would not close at all, or burst open whenever anyone passed by them. There were no pots and pans, there was no copper in the wash-house, nor even an ironing-board in the maid's-room. Finding instead of peace and rest, all these, from her point of view, fearful calamities, Daria Alexandrovna was at first in despair. She exerted herself to the utmost, felt the hopelessness of the position, and was every instant suppressing the tears that started into her eyes. The bailiff, a retired quarter-master whom Stepan Arkadjevich had taken a fancy to and had appointed the bailiff on account of his handsome and respectful appearance as a haul-porter, showed no sympathy for Daria Alexandrovna's woes. He said respectfully, Nothing can be done, the peasants are such a wretched lot, and did nothing to help her. The position seemed hopeless, but in the Oblonsky's household, as in all families indeed, there was one inconspicuous but most valuable and useful person, Mariya Filamanovna. She soothed her mistress, assured her that everything would come round, it was her expression, and Matfi had borrowed it from her. And without fuss or hurry, proceeded to set to work herself. She had immediately made friends with the bailiff's wife, and on the very first day she drank tea with her and the bailiff under the acacias, and reviewed all the circumstances of the position. Very soon Mariya Filamanovna had established her club, so to say, under the acacias, and there it was, in this club, consisting of the bailiff's wife, the village elder, and the counting-house clerk, that the difficulties of existence were gradually smoothed away, and in a week's time everything actually had come round. The roof was mended, a kitchen maid was found, a crony of the village elders, hens were bought, the cows began giving milk, the garden hedge was stopped up with stakes, the carpenter made a mangle, hooks were put in the cupboards, and they ceased to burst open spontaneously, and an ironing board covered with army cloth was placed across the arm of a chair to the chest of drawers, and there was a smell of flat irons in the maid's room. Just see now, and you were quite in despair, said Mariya Filamanovna, pointing to the ironing board. They even rigged up a bathing shed of straw hurdles. Lily began to bathe, and Daria Alexandrovna began to realize, if only in part, her expectations, if not of a peaceful, at least of a comfortable life in the country. Peaceful with six children, Daria Alexandrovna could not be. One would fall ill, another might easily become so, a third would be without something necessary, a fourth would show symptoms of a bad disposition, and so on. Rare indeed were the brief periods of peace. But these cares and anxieties were, for Daria Alexandrovna, the sole happiness possible. Had it not been for them, she would have been left alone to brood over her husband, who did not love her. And besides, harned though it was for the mother to bear the dread of illness, the illnesses themselves, and the grief of seeing signs of evil propensities in her children, the children themselves were even now repaying her in small joys for her sufferings. Those joys were so small that they passed unnoticed, like gold in sand, and at bad moments she could see nothing but the pain, nothing but sand. But there were good moments, too, when she saw nothing but the joy, nothing but gold. Now, in the solitude of the country, she began to be more and more frequently aware of those joys. Often, looking at them, she would make every possible effort to persuade herself that she was mistaken, that she as a mother was partial to her children. All the same, she could not help saying to herself that she had charming children, all six of them in different ways, but a set of children such as is not often to be met with, and she was happy in them, and proud of them. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Tom Lennon. Anna Carinina by Leo Tolstoy. Translated by Constance Garnett. Book 3, Chapter 8. Towards the end of May, when everything had been more or less satisfactorily arranged, she received her husband's answer to her complaints of the disorganized state of things in the country. He wrote begging her forgiveness for not having thought of everything before, and promised to come down at the first chance. This chance did not present itself, and, until the beginning of June, Daria Alexendrovna stayed alone in the country. On the Sunday in St. Peter's week, Daria Alexendrovna drove to Mass for all her children to make the sacrament. Daria Alexendrovna, in her intimate philosophical talks with her sister, her mother, and her friends, very often astonished them by the freedom of her views in regard to religion. She had a strange religion of transmigration of souls all her own, in which she had firm faith, troubling herself little about the dogmas of the church. But in her family she was strict in carrying out all that was required by the church, and not merely in order to set an example, but with all her heart in it. The fact that the children had not been at the sacrament for nearly a year worried her extremely, and with the full approval and sympathy of Maria Philimonovna, she decided that this should take place now, in the summer. For several days before, Daria Alexendrovna was busily deliberating on how to address all her children. Frogs were made, or altered, and washed. Seams and flounces were let out, buttons were sewn on, and ribbons got ready. One dress, Tanya's, which the English governess had undertaken, cost Daria Alexendrovna much loss of temper. The English governess in altering it had made the seams in the wrong place, and had taken up the sleeves too much and altogether spoiled the dress. It was so narrow on Tanya's shoulders that it was quite painful to look at her. But Maria Philimonovna had the happy thought of putting in gussets, and adding a little shoulder cape. The dress was set right, but there was nearly a quarrel with the English governess. On the morning, however, all was happily arranged, and towards ten o'clock, the time at which they had asked the priests to wait for them for the mass, the children in their new dresses, with beaming faces, stood on the step before the carriage waiting for their mother. To the carriage, instead of the rest of Raven, they had harnessed, thanks to the representations of Maria Philimonovna, the bailiff's horse, Brownie. And Daria Alexendrovna, delayed by anxiety over her own attire, came out and got in, dressed in a white Muslim gown. Daria Alexendrovna had done her hair and dressed with care and excitement. In the old days she had dressed for her own sake to look pretty and be admired. Later on, as she got older, the dress became more and more distasteful to her. She saw that she was losing her good looks. But now she began to feel pleasure and interest in dress again. Now she did not dress for her own sake, not for the sake of her own beauty, but simply that as the mother of those exquisite creatures she might not spoil the general effect. And looking at herself for the last time in the looking glass, she was satisfied with herself. She looked nice. Not nice as she would have wished to look nice in the old days at a ball, but nice for the object which she now had in view. In the church there was no one but the peasants, the servants, and their women folk. But Daria Alexendrovna saw, or fancied she saw, the sensation produced by her children and her. The children were not only beautiful to look at in their smart little dresses, but they were charming in the way they behaved. Aloysia, it is true, did not stand quite correctly. He kept turning round, trying to look at his little jacket from behind. But all the same he was wonderfully sweet. Tanya behaved like a grown-up person and looked after the little ones. And the smallest, Lily, was bewitching in her naive astonishment at everything. And it was difficult not to smile when, after taking the sacrament, she said in English, please, some more. On the way home the children felt that something solemn had happened and were very sedate. Everything went happily at home, too. But at lunch Grisha began whistling, and what was worse was disobedient to the English governess, and was forbidden to have any tart. Daria Alexendrovna would not have let things go so far on such a day had she been present. But she had to support the English governess's authority, and she upheld her decision that Grisha should have no tart. This rather spoiled the general good humor. Grisha cried, declaring that Nicolinka had whistled, too, and he was not punished, and that he wasn't crying for the tart, he didn't care, but it was being unjustly treated. This was really tragic, and Daria Alexendrovna made up her mind to persuade the English governess to forgive Grisha, and she went to speak to her. But on the way as she passed the drawing-room, she beheld a scene, filling her heart with such pleasure that the tears came into her eyes, and she forgave the delinquent herself. The culprit was sitting at the window in the corner of the drawing-room. Beside him was standing Tanya with a plate. On the pretext of wanting to give some dinner to her dolls, she had asked the governess's permission to take her share of tart to the nursery, and had taken it instead to her brother. While still weeping over the injustice of his punishment, he was eating the tart and kept saying through his sobs, eat yourself, let's eat it together, together. Tanya had at first been under the influence of her pity for Grisha. Then, of a sense of her noble action, and tears were standing in her eyes, too, but she did not refuse and ate her share. On catching sight of their mother, they were dismayed, but, looking into her face, they saw they were not doing wrong. They burst out laughing, and with their mouths full of tart, they began wiping smiling lips with their hands, and smearing their radiant faces all over with tears and jam. Mercy, your new white frock, Tanya! Grisha, said their mother, trying to save the frock, but with tears in her eyes smiling a blissful, rapturous smile. The new frocks were taken off, and orders were given for the little girls to have their blouses put on, and the boys their old jackets. And the wagonette to be harnessed, with brownie to the bailiff's annoyance, again in the shafts, to drive out for mushroom-picking and bathing. A roar of delighted shrieks arose in the nursery, and never ceased till they had set off for the bathing place. They gathered a whole basketful of mushrooms. Even Lily found a birch mushroom. It had always happened before that Miss Hool found them and pointed them out to her. But this time, she found a big one quite of herself, and there was a general scream of delight. Lily has found a mushroom. Then they reached the river, put the horses under the birch trees, and went to the bathing-place. The coachman, Taranty, fastened the horses, who kept whisking away the flies to a tree, and, treading down the grass, lay down in the shade of a birch, and smoked his shag, while the never-ceasing shrieks of delight of the children floated across to him from the bathing-place. Though it was hard work to look after all the children and restrain their wild pranks, though it was difficult to keep in one's head and not mix up all the stockings, little breeches and shoes for the different legs, and to undo and to do up again all the tapes and buttons, Daria Alexendrovna, who had always liked bathing herself and believed it to be very good for the children, enjoyed nothing so much as bathing with all the children. To go over all those fat little legs, pulling on their stockings, to take in her arms and dip those little naked bodies, and to hear their screams of delight and alarm, to see the breathless faces with wide open, scared and happy eyes of all her splashing cherubs, was a great pleasure to her. When half the children had been dressed, some peasant women in holiday dress, out picking herbs, came up to the bathing-shed and stopped shyly. Mariya Filuminovna called one of them and handed her a sheet and a shirt that had dropped into the water for her to dry them. And Daria Alexendrovna began to talk to the women. At first they laughed behind their hands and did not understand her questions. But soon they grew bolder and began to talk, winning Daria Alexendrovna's heart at once by the genuine admiration of the children that they showed. My, what a beauty as white as sugar, said one admiring Tanitshka and shaking her head. But then... Yes, she has been ill. And so they've been bathing you too, said another to the baby. No, he's only three months old, answered Daria Alexendrovna with pride. You don't say so. And you have children? I've had four, I've two living, a boy and a girl. I weaned her last carnival. How old is she? Why, two years old? Why did you nurse her so long? It is our custom, for three fasts. And the conversation became most interesting to Daria Alexendrovna. What sort of time did she have? What was the matter with the boy? Where was her husband? Did it often happen? Daria Alexendrovna felt disinclined to leave the peasant women. So interesting to her was their conversation. So completely identical were all their interests. What pleased her most of all was that she saw clearly what all the women admired more than anything was her having so many children and such fine ones. The peasant women even made Daria Alexendrovna laugh and offended the English governess because she was the cause of the laughter she did not understand. One of the younger women kept staring at the English woman who was dressing after all the rest, and when she put on her third petticoat she could not refrain from the remark, my, she keeps putting on and putting on and she'll never have done, she said, and they all went off into roars. Chapter 9 of Anakarenina, Book 3 This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by David Cole. Anakarenina by Leo Tolstoy. Translated by Constance Garnett. Book 3, Chapter 9 On the drive home, as Daria Alexendrovna, with all her children round her, their head still wet from their bath and a kerchief tied over her own head, was getting near the house, the coachman said, the some gentleman coming, the master of Pokrovsko, I do believe. Daria Alexendrovna peeped out in front and was delighted when she recognized in the gray hat and gray coat the familiar figure of Levin walking to meet her. She was glad to see him at any time, but at this moment she was especially glad he should see her in all her glory. No one was better able to appreciate her grandeur than Levin. Seeing her, he found himself face to face with one of the pictures of his daydream of family life. You're like a hen with your chickens, Daria Alexendrovna. Oh, how glad I am to see you, she said, holding out her hand to him. Glad to see me, but you didn't let me know. My brother's staying with me. I got a note from Stivna that you were here. From Stivna? Daria Alexendrovna asked with surprise. Yes. He writes that you are here and that he thinks you might allow me to be of use to you, said Levin, and as he said it he became suddenly embarrassed and, stopping abruptly, he walked on in silence by the wagon-it, snapping off the buds of the lime trees and nibbling them. He was embarrassed to a sense that Daria Alexendrovna would be annoyed by receiving from an outsider, helped that she should by rights have come from her own husband. Daria Alexendrovna certainly did not like this little way of stepping at K. David's or foisting his domestic duties on others, and she was at once aware that Levin was aware of this. It was just for this fineness of perception, for this delicacy, that Daria Alexendrovna liked Levin. I know, of course, said Levin, that that simply means that you would like to see me and I am exceedingly glad. Though I can fancy that, used to townhouse keeping as you are, you must feel in the wilds here, and if there's anything wanted, I'm altogether at your disposal. Oh no, said Dolly. At first things were rather uncomfortable, but now we've settled everything capitely. Thanks to my old nurse, she said, indicating Maria Filiminovna, who, seeing that they were speaking of her, smiled brightly and cordially to Levin. She knew him, and knew that he would be a good match for her young lady, and was very keen to see the matter settled. Once you come in, sir, we'll make room this side, she said to him. No, I'll walk. Children would like to race the horses with me. The children knew Levin very little, and could not remember when they had seen him, but they experienced in regard to him none of that strange feeling of shyness and hostility, which children so often experience towards hypocritical, grown-up people, and for which they are so often and miserably punished. Hypocrisy in anything whatever may deceive the cleverest and most penetrating man, but the least wide awake of children recognizes it, and is revolted by it, however ingeniously it may be disguised. Whatever faults Levin had, there was not a trace of hypocrisy in him, and so the children showed him the same friendliness that they so in their mother's face. On his invitation the two elder ones at once jumped out to him, and ran with him as simply as they would have done with their nurse or Miss Hall or their mother. Lily, too, began begging to go to him, and her mother handed her to him. He sat her on his shoulder and ran along with her. Don't be afraid, don't be afraid, dearia Alexandrovna, he said, smiling good-humoredly to the mother. There's no chance of my hurting or dropping her. And, looking at his strong agile, assiduously careful, and needlessly weary movements, the mother felt her mind at rest, and smiled gaily and approvingly as she watched him. Here in the country, with children, and with dearia Alexandrovna, with whom he was in sympathy, Levin was in a mood not infrequent with him, of childlike, light-heartedness that she particularly liked in him. As he ran with the children, he taught them gymnastic feats, sent Miss Hall laughing with his queer English accent, and talked to Dearia Alexandrovna off his pursuits in the country. After dinner, Dearia Alexandrovna, sitting alone with him on the balcony, began to speak of Kitty. You know Kitty's coming here, and is going to spend the summer with me. Really, he said, flushing, and at once to change the conversation, he said. Then I'll send you two cows, shall I? If you insist on a bill, you shall pay me five rubles a month. But it's really too bad of you. No thank you, we can vanish very well now. Oh, well then, I'll have a look at your cows, and if you'll allow me, I'll give directions about their food. Everything depends on their food. And Levin, to turn the conversation, explained to Dearia Alexandrovna the theory of cowkeeping, based on the principle that the cow is simply a machine for the transformation of food into milk, and so on. He talked of this and passionately lunged to hear more of Kitty, and at the same time was afraid of hearing it. He dreaded the breaking up of the inward peace he had gained with such effort. Yes, but still all this has to be looked after, and who is there to look after it, to Dearia Alexandrovna responded without interest. She had by now got her household matters so satisfactorily arranged, thanks to Maria Filominovna, that she was disinclined to make any change in them. Besides, she had no faith in Levin's knowledge of farming. General Principles asked of the cow being a machine for the production of milk. She looked on with suspicion. It seemed to her that such principles could only be a hindrance in farm management. It all seemed to her a far simpler matter. All it was needed, as Maria Filominovna had explained, was to give Brindle and white breast more food and drink, and not to let the cook carry all the kitchen sloths to the laundry maid's count. That was clear. But general propositions as to feeding on meal and on grass were doubtful and obscure. And what was most important? She wanted to talk about Kitty. End of Chapter 9, Recording by David Cole, Medway, Massachusetts Chapter 10 of Anna Karenina, Book 3 This is a LibriVox recording, or LibriVox recordings from the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by David Cole Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy Translated by Constance Garnett Book 3, Chapter 10 Kitty writes to me that there's nothing she longs for, so much as quiet and solitude, Dolly said, after the silence that had followed. And how is she? Better? Levin asked in agitation. Thank God she's quite well again. I never believed her longs were affected. Oh, I'm very glad, said Levin. And Dolly fancied she saw something touching, helpless, in his face as he said this, and looked silently into her face. Let me ask you, Constantine Dmitrovich, said Derya Alexandrovna, smiling her kindly and rather mocking smile. Why is it you are angry with Kitty? I? I'm not angry with her, said Levin. Yes, you are angry. Why was it you did not come to see us, nor them, when you were in Moscow? Derya Alexandrovna, he said, blushing up to the roots of his hair. I wonder really that with your kind heart you don't feel this. How is it you feel no pity for me, if nothing else, when you know? What do I know? You know I made an offer and that I was refused, said Levin, and all the tenderness he had been feeling for Kitty a minute before was replaced by a feeling of anger for the slide he had suffered. What makes you suppose I know? Because everybody knows it. That's just where you are mistaken. I did not know it, although I had guessed it was so. Well, now you know it. All I knew was that something had happened that made her dreadfully miserable and that she begged me never to speak of it, and if she would not tell me she certainly would not speak of it to anyone else. But what did pass between you tell me? I have told you. When was it? When I was at their house the last time. Do you know that, said Derya Alexandrovna, I am awfully, awfully sorry for her. You suffer only from pride. Perhaps so, said Levin, but she interrupted him. But she, poor girl, I am awfully, awfully sorry for her. Now I see it all. Well, Derya Alexandrovna, you must excuse me, he said, getting up. Goodbye, Derya Alexandrovna, till we meet again. No, wait a minute, she said, touching him by the sleeve. Wait a minute, sit down. Please, please, don't let us talk of this, he said, sitting down, and at the same time feeling rise up and stir within his heart, a hope he had believed to be buried. If I did not like you, she said, and tears came into her eyes. If I did not know you, as I do know you, the feeling that had seemed dead revived, more and more, rose up and took possession of Levin's heart. Yes, I understand it all now, said Derya Alexandrovna. You can't understand it. For you men who are free and make your own choices, it's always clear whom you love. But a girl's in a position of suspense, with all a woman's or maiden's modesty, a girl who sees you men from afar, who takes everything on trust. A girl may have, and often has, such a feeling that she cannot tell what to say. Yes, if the heart does not speak. No, the heart does speak, but just consider. You men have views about a girl, you come to the house, you make friends, you criticise, you wait to see if you have found what you love, and then, when you are sure you love her, you make an offer. Well, that's not quite it. Anyway, you make an offer when your love is ripe, or when the balance has completely turned between the two you are choosing from. But a girl is not asked. She's expected to make her choice, and yet she cannot choose. She can only answer yes or no. Yes, to choose between me and Vronsky, thought Levin, and the dead thing that had come to life within him died again, and only weighed on his heart, instead he taking. Doria Alexandrovna, he said. That's how one chooses a new dress or some purchase or other, not love. The choice has been made, and so much the better, and there can be no repeating it. Ah, pride, pride, said Doria Alexandrovna, as though despising him for the baseness of his feeling, in comparison with that other feeling which only women know. At the time when you made Kitty an offer, she was just in the position in which she could not answer. She was in doubt, doubt between you and Vronsky, him she was seeing every day, and you she had not seen for a long while, supposing she had been older. I, for instance, in her place, would have felt no doubt. I always disliked him, and so it has turned out. Levin recalled Kitty's answer. She had said, No, that cannot be. Doria Alexandrovna, he said, dryly. I appreciate your confidence in me. I believe you are making a mistake, but whether I am right or wrong, that pride you so despise makes any thought of Catarina Alexandrovna out of the question for me. You understand, utterly out of the question. I will say only one thing more. You know that I am speaking of my sister whom I love, as I love my own children. I don't say she cared for you. All I meant to say is that her refusal at that moment proves nothing. I don't know, said Levin, jumping up. If you only knew how you are hurting me, as just as if a child of yours was dead, and they were to say to you, he would have been like this and like that, and he might have lived, and how happy you would have been in him. But he's dead, dead, dead. How absurd you are, said Doria Alexandrovna, looking with mournful tenderness at Levin's excitement. Yes, I see it all more and more clearly she went on musingly. So you won't come to see us then, when Kitty's here. No, I shan't come. Of course I won't avoid meeting Catarina Alexandrovna, but as far as I can, I will try to save her the annoyance of my presence. You are very, very absurd, repeated Doria Alexandrovna, looking with tenderness into his face. Very well then. Let it be as though we had not spoken of this. What have you come for, Tania? she said in French to the little girl who had come in. Where's my spade, Mama? I speak French, and you must too. The little girl tried to say it in French, but could not remember the French for spade. The mother prompted her, and then told her in French where to look for the spade, and this made a disagreeable impression on Levin. Everything in Doria Alexandrovna's house and children struck him now as by no means so charming as a little while before. And what did she talk French with the children for, he thought? How unnatural and false it is, and the children feel it so, learning French and unlearning sincerity, he thought to himself, unaware that Doria Alexandrovna had thought all that over twenty times already and yet, even at the cost of some loss of sincerity, believed it necessary to teach her children French in that way. But why are you going? Do stay a little. Levin stayed to tea, but his good humour had vanished, and he felt ill at ease. After tea he went out into the hall to order his horses to be put in, and when he came back he found Doria Alexandrovna greatly disturbed, with a troubled face and tears in her eyes. While Levin had been outside, an incident had occurred which had utterly shattered all the happiness she had been feeling that day, and her pride in her children. Grisha and Tanya had been fighting over a ball. Doria Alexandrovna, hearing a scream in the nursery, ran in and saw a terrible sight. Tanya was pulling Grisha's hair, while he, with a face hideous with rage, was beating her with his fists wherever he could get at her. Something snapped in Doria Alexandrovna's heart when she saw this. It was as if darkness had swooped down upon her life. She felt that these children of hers, that she was so proud of, were not merely most ordinary, but positively bad ill-bred children with coarse brutal propensities, wicked children. She could not talk or think of anything else, and she could not speak to Levin of her misery. Levin saw that she was unhappy and tried to comfort her, saying that it showed nothing bad, and all children fight, but even as he said it he was thinking in his heart, No, I won't be artificial and talk French with my children, but my children won't be like that. All one has to do is not spoil children, not to distort their nature, and they'll be delightful. No, my children won't be like that. He said goodbye and drove away, and she did not try to keep him. End of Chapter 10, Recording by David Cole, Medway, Massachusetts Chapter 11 of Anna Karenina, Book 3 This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by David Cole, Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy, translated by Constance Garnett, Book 3, Chapter 11 In the middle of July, the elder of the village, on Levin's sister's estate, about 15 miles from Pothrowskow, came to Levin to report on how things were going there and on the hay. The chief source of income on his sister's estate was from the Riverside Meadows. In former years the hay had been bought by the peasants for twenty roubles the three acres. When Levin took over the management of the estate, he thought on examining the grasslands that they were worth more, and he fixed the price at twenty-five roubles the three acres. The peasants would not give that price, and, as Levin suspected, kept off other purchases. Then Levin had driven over himself and arranged to have the grass-cut, partly by hired labour, partly at a payment of a certain proportion of the crop. His own peasants put every hindrance they could in the way of this new arrangement, but it was carried out and the first year the meadows had yielded a profit almost double. The previous year, which was the third year, the peasants had maintained the same opposition to the arrangement, and the hay had been cut on the same system. This year the peasants were doing all the mowing for a third of the hay crop, and the village elder had come now to announce that the hay had been cut, and that, fearing rain, they had invited the counting-house clerk over, had divided the crop in his presence, and had raked together eleven stacks as the owner's share. From the vague answers to his question how much hay had been cut on the principal meadow, from the hurry of the village elder who had made the division, not asking leave, from the whole tone of the peasant, Levin perceived that there was something wrong in the division of the hay, and made up his mind to drive over himself to look into the matter. Arriving for dinner at the village and leaving his horse at the cottage of an old friend of his, the husband of his brother's wet nurse, Levin went to see the old man in his beehouse, wanting to find out from him the truth about the hay. Parmenich, a talkative, comely old man, gave Levin a very warm welcome, showing him all he was doing, told him everything about his bees and the swarms of that year, but gave vague and unwilling answers to Levin's inquiries about the mowing. This confirmed Levin still more, in his suspicions. He went to the hay fields and examined the stacks. The hay stacks could not possibly contain fifty wagon-loads each, and to convict the peasants, Levin ordered the wagons that had carried the hay to be brought up directly, to lift one stack and carry it into the barn. There turned out to be only thirty-two loads in the stack. In spite of the village elder's assertions about the compressibility of hay, and its having settled down in the stacks, and his swearing that everything had been done in the fear of God, Levin stuck to his point that the hay had been divided without his orders, and that therefore he would not accept that hay as fifty loads to a stack. After a prolonged dispute the matter was decided by the peasants, taking these eleven stacks, wrecking them as fifty loads each. The arguments and the division of the hay-cocks lasted the whole afternoon. When the last of the hay had been divided, Levin, entrusting the superintendents of the rest to the counting-house clerk, sat down on a hay-cock, marked off by a stake of willow, and looked at myringly at the meadow swarming with peasants. In front of him, in the bend of the river beyond the marsh, moved a bright-colored line of peasant women, and the scattered hay was being rapidly formed into gray winding rows over the pale green stubble. After the women came the men with pitch forks, and from the gray rows they were growing up broad, high, soft hay-cocks. To the left carts were rumbling over the meadow that had been already cleared, and one after another the hay-cocks vanished, flung up in huge fork-balls, and in their place there were rising heavy cartloads of fragrant hay, hanging over the horses' hind quarters. What weather for haying, what hay it'll be, said an old man, squatting down beside Levin. It's tea, not hay. It's like scattering grain to the docks the way they pick it up, he added, pointing to the growing hay-cocks. Since then a time they've carried a good half of it. The last load A he shouted to a young peasant who drove by, standing in the front of an empty cart, shaking the cord reins. The last dad, the lad shouted back, pulling in the horse and smiling. He looked round at a bright, rosy-cheeked peasant girl who sat in the cart smiling to and drove on. Who's that, your son, as Levin? My baby, said the old man, with a tender smile. What a fine fellow! The lad's all right. Married already? Yes, it's two years' last St. Philip's Day. Any children? Children indeed. Why, for over a year he was innocent as a babe himself and bashful too, answered the old man. Well, the hay, it's as fragrant as tea, he repeated, wishing to change the subject. Levin looked more attentively at Ivan Parmenov and his wife. They were loading a hay-cock onto the cart not far from him. Ivan Parmenov was standing on the cart, taking, laying in place, and stamping down the huge bundles of hay, which his pretty young wife deftly handled up to him, at first in arm-falls, and then on the pitchfork. The young wife worked easily, merrily, and dexterously. The close-packed hay did not once break away off her fork. First she gathered it together, stuck the fork in it, then with a rapid supple movement, leaned the whole weight of her body on it, and at once, with a bend of her back under the red belt she drew herself up, and arching her full bosom under the white smock, with a smart turn, swung the fork in her arms, and flung the bundle of hay high onto the cart. Ivan, obviously doing his best to save her every minute of unnecessary labour, made haste, opening his arms to clutch the bundle and laying him the cart. As she raked together what was left of the hay, the young wife shook off the bits of hay that had fallen on her neck, and straightening the red kerchief that had dropped forward over her white braille. Not brown like her face by the sun, she crept under the cart to tie up the load. Ivan directed her how to fasten the cord to the cross-piece, and at something she said he laughed aloud. In the expressions of both faces was to be seen vigorous, young, freshly awakened love. End of chapter 11, read by David Cole, Medway, Massachusetts.