Anna Karenina (Dole)/Part Two/Chapter 13
CHAPTER XIII
Levin put on his heavy boots, and, for the first time, his sleeveless cloth coat instead of his fur shuba, and went out to look over his estate, tramping through the brooklets which dazzled his eyes as they glanced in the sun, and stepping, now on a cake of ice, and now in sticky mud.
Spring is the epoch of plans and projects. Levin, as he went out into his court, no more definitely knew what he would first take in hand in his beloved farming than the tree in early spring knows how and why his young sprouts and branches grow out from their enveloping buds; but he felt that he was going to originate the most charming projects and the most sensible plans.
He went first to see his cattle. The cows had been let out into the yard, and with their smooth new coats of hair glistening as they warmed themselves in the sun, they were lowing as if to beg permission to go out to pasture. Levin knew them all, even to the minutest particulars. He contemplated them with satisfaction, and gave orders to take them to pasture, and to let the calves out into the yard. The cow-boy gayly started to drive them out into the field. The milkmaids, gathering up their petticoats, and splashing through the mud with bare feet, white as yet, and free from tan, chased the bellowing calves, silly with the rapture of spring, and with switches kept them from escaping from the yard. Admiring the young cattle which the year had brought, for they were uncommonly beautiful,—the oldest already as large as a peasants' cow, and Pava's daughter, three months old, as big as a yearling,—Levin ordered the trough to be brought out for them, and their hay to be given them behind gratings.[1] He found, however, that these gratings, which had been made in the autumn, but were not used during the winter, were out of repair. He sent for the carpenter, who was supposed to be busy repairing the threshing-machine; but it seemed that the carpenter was not there. He was repairing the harrows, which should have been repaired during Lent. This made Levin very indignant. He was indignant at this everlasting repetition of such slovenliness, against which he had so many years struggled with all his might. The gratings, as he soon learned, not having been in use during the winter, had been carried to the stable, where, as they were of light construction, and meant only for calves, they had been broken.
Moreover, it appeared that nothing had been done to the harrows and other agricultural implements, which should have been inspected and put in order during the winter months, and for this purpose especially he had hired three carpenters. The harrows were needed immediately for work in the fields. Levin summoned the overseer,[2] then he himself went in search of him. The overseer, as radiant as everything else was that day, came from the threshing-floor dressed in a lined lambskin coat.[3] He was twisting a straw between his fingers.
"Why is n't the carpenter at work on the threshing-machine?"
"Oh, yes; that is what I meant to tell you last evening: the harrows had to be repaired! We've got to plow."
"Yes; but what have you been doing this winter?"
"Yes; but why do you hire such a carpenter?" "Where are the gratings for the calves?"
"I ordered them to be put in place. You can't do anything with such people," replied the overseer, waving his hands.
"Not such people, but such an overseer!" said Levin, getting still more angry. "Well, what do I keep you for?" he shouted; but, recollecting that shouts did not do any good, he stopped in the middle of his remark and only sighed. "Well, can you get the seed in yet?" he asked, after a silence.
"Back of Turkino we might to-morrow, or the day after."
"And the clover?"
"I sent Vasili and Mishka to sow it, but I don't know whether they succeeded; it's muddy."
"On how many acres?"
"Sixteen acres." [4]
"Why not the whole?" cried Levin.
He was still more indignant because they had sowed only sixteen acres instead of fifty-four: he knew by his own experience, as well as by theory, the need of sowing the clover-seed as early as possible, almost in the snow, and Levin never could get this done.
"Not enough people. What can you do with these men? The three hired men did not come; and then Semyon ...."
"Well, you would better have taken them away from the straw."
"Yes; I did that very thing."
"Where are all the people?"
"There are five at the compote [he meant to say compost]; four are moving the oats, so that they should not spoil, Konstantin Dmitritch."
Levin knew very well that these words, "So that they should not spoil," meant that his English oats saved for seed were already ruined. Again they had not done what he had ordered.
"Yes! But did I not tell you during Lent to put in the ventilating-chimneys?" he cried. "Don't you be troubled; we will do all in good time."
Levin angrily waved his hand, and went to examine his oats in the granary; then he went to the stables. The grain was not yet spoiled, but the workmen were stirring it up with shovels when they might have let it down from one story to the other. After he had straightened this matter and sent two hands to sow the clover, Levin calmed down in regard to his overseer. It was such a lovely day that one could not keep angry.
"Ignat," he cried to his coachman, who, with upturned sleeves, was washing the carriage near the pump, "saddle me a horse,"
"Which one?"
"Well, Kolpik."
"I will do so."
While he was saddling the horse, Levin again called the overseer, who was busying himself in his vicinity, hoping to be restored to favor, and began to speak with him about the work that he wanted done during the spring, and about his plans for carrying on the estate.
He wanted the compost spread as soon as possible, so as to have this work done before the first mowing; then he wanted the farthest field plowed, so that it might be left fallow. All the fields—not half of them—should be attended to with the laborers.
The overseer listened attentively, doing his best evidently to approve of his master's plans. But nevertheless his face wore that vexatiously hopeless and melancholy expression which Levin knew so well. This expression seemed to say, "This is all very well and good, but as God shall give."
Nothing exasperated Levin so much as this tone, but it was common to all the overseers that had ever been in his service. They all received his projects with the same dejected air; and so he now refrained from getting angry, but he was exasperated and felt himself still more stimulated for the struggle against this, as it were elemental, force which he could not help calling " As God shall give," and which constantly opposed him everywhere.
"If we have time, Konstantin Dmitritch," said the overseer.
"Why shall we not have time?"
"We absolutely ought to hire fifteen more workmen, but they can't be had. Some came to-day who asked seventy rubles for the summer."
Levin did not speak. Again the opposing force! He knew that, however he might exert himself, he never could hire more than forty, thirty-seven, or thirty-eight, laborers at a reasonable price; he had succeeded in getting forty, never more; but nevertheless he could not give up vanquished.
"Send to Suri, to Chefirovka; if they don't come, we must go for them."
"I'm going to go," said Vasili Feodorovitch, gloomily. "But then the horses are very feeble."
"Buy some more; but then I know," he added, with a laugh, "that you will do as little and as badly as you can. However, I warn you that I will not let you do as you please this year. I shall take the reins in my own hands."
"Yes! but even as it is you get too little sleep, it seems to me. We are very happy to be under our master's eyes...."
"Now, have the clover put in on the Berezof Bottom, and I shall come myself to inspect it," said he, mounting his little horse, Kolpik, which the coachman brought up.
"Don't go across the brooks, Konstantin Dmitritch," cried the coachman.
"Well, then, by the woods."
And on his little, lively, easy-going ambler, which whinnied as it came to the pools, and which pulled on the bridle, having been too long in the stable. Levin rode out of the muddy courtyard, and across the open fields.
Happy as Levin had felt in his cow-yard and cattle-pen, he felt still happier out in the field. Rhythmically swaying on his easy-going, gentle pony, drinking in the warm air, freshened by the snow as he rode through the forest where the snow still lay here and there rapidly melting in the tracks, he took keen delight in every one of his trees, with greening moss and swelling buds. As he came out from the forest, before him lay a vast stretch of fields; they seemed like an immense carpet of velvet where there was not a bare spot or a marsh, only here and there in the hollows marked with patches of melting snow. The sight of a peasant's mare and colt treading down his fields did not anger him, but he ordered a passing muzhik to drive them out. With the same gentleness he received the sarcastic and impudent answer of the muzhik Ipat, whom he met and asked, "Ipat, shall we put in the seed before very long?" And Ipat replied, "We must plow first, Konstantin Dmitritch."
The farther he went, the more his good-humor increased, and each of his plans for improving his estate seemed to surpass the other: to protect the fields on the south by lines of trees so as to prevent the snow from staying too long; to divide his arable fields into nine parts, six of which should be well dressed, and the other three sown down to grass; to build a cow-yard in the farthest corner of one field, and have a pond dug; to have portable inclosures for the cattle, so as to utilize the manure; and thus to cultivate three hundred desyatins of wheat, a hundred desyatins of potatoes, and one hundred and fifty of clover, without exhausting the soil.
Full of these reflections, he picked his way carefully along so as not to tread down his fields, till at last he reached the place where the laborers were sowing the clover. The cart, loaded with seed, instead of being left on the edge of the field, had been driven into the plowed land, and his winter wheat was crushed by the wheels and trampled down by the horse. The two laborers were sitting by the edge of the field, evidently smoking a mutual pipe. The earth in the cart, mixed together with the seed, had not been worked over, but was full of harsh or frozen lumps.
When he saw the master, the laborer Vasili started toward the cart, and Mishka began to sow. This was all wrong, but Levin rarely got angry with his laborers. When Vasili came up to him, Levin ordered him to lead the horse to the side of the field.
"It won't do any harm, sir; it will spring up again."
"Please not discuss it," replied Levin, "but do what I say."
"I will obey," said Vasili, taking the horse by the head. "What splendid seed, Konstantin Dmitritch," he added, to regain favor. "Best kind! But it is frightful going! You drag a pud on each foot."
"But why was n't the earth sifted?" asked Levin.
"Oh! it'll come out all right," replied Vasili, taking up some seed, and crushing the lump in his palm.
It was not Vasili's fault that they were scattering the unsifted soil; but it was vexatious, nevertheless. Having more than once to his advantage made use of a well-known means of wreaking his vexation, which always seemed to him foolish. Levin now determined to try it and see if he could recover his good temper. He noticed how Mishka strode along dragging huge clods of clay which stuck to each of his feet; so, dismounting, he took the seed-cod from Vasili and began to scatter the seed.
"Where did you stop?"
Vasili touched the spot with his foot, and Levin went on as best he could, scattering the earth with the seed. But it was as hard as wading through a marsh, and after he had gone a row he stopped all in a sweat, and returned the seed-cod.
"Well, barin, if that row doesn't come out well next summer, don't blame me for it!" said Vasili.
"Indeed I won't," replied Levin, gayly, already feeling the efficacy of the means he had employed.
"But just look at the summer we're going to have! 'T will be magnificent! If you'll notice, that 's where I sowed last spring. How well I planted it! Why, Konstantin Dmitritch, I work as if I were working for my own father! Well, I don't like to do slack work. What is good for the master is good for us. And look yonder at that field," continued Vasili, pointing to the field, "it delights my heart."
"It is a fine spring, Vasili."
"Yes! it is such a spring as our old men can't remember. I was at home, and our elder has already sowed an acre[5] of wheat; as he says he can hardly tell it from rye."
"But how long have you been sowing wheat?"
"Why, you yourself taught us how to sow it year before last. You spared me two measures. It gave eight bushels and we sowed an acre with it."
"Well! look here, see that you break up the earth well!" said Levin, as he started for his ambler, "look after Mishka; and if the seed comes up well, you shall have fifty kopeks a desyatin."
"We thank you humbly: we should be content even without that."
Levin mounted his horse, and rode off to visit his last year's clover-field, and then to the field which was already plowed ready for the summer wheat.
The crop of clover in the stubble-field was miraculous. It had all survived, and was covering with a mantle of green all the ground where the preceding fall the roots of the wheat had been left.
The horse sank up to the fetlock, and each foot made a sucking noise as he pulled it out of the half-thawed soil. It was entirely impossible to cross the plowed land. Only where there was ice would it hold, but in the thawed furrows the horse's leg sank above the fetlock. The plowed field was excellent. In two days the harrowing and sowing could be done. Everything was beautiful, everything was gay!
Levin rode back by way of the brooks, hoping to find the water lower; in fact, he found that he could get across; and, as he waded through, he scared up a couple of wild ducks.
"There ought to be snipe, also," he thought; and a forest guard whom he met on his way to the house confirmed his supposition.
He immediately spurred up his horse, so as to get back in time for dinner, and to prepare his gun for the evening.
- ↑ Reshotki, a sort of portable palisade.
- ↑ Prikaschik.
- ↑ Tulupchik.
- ↑ Six desyatins, a desyatina is 2.7 acres.
- ↑ Tri osminnika; in the government of Tula an osminnik is an eight of a desyatin. One chetvert (about eight bushels) plants three of those eights, or an acre. Levin promises an equivalent of about 40 cents for 2.7 acres.