Anna Karenina - Part 3

At first Levin had thought of giving up the whole farming of the

land just as it was to the peasants, the laborers, and the

bailiff on new conditions of partnership; but he was very soon

convinced that this was impossible, and determined to divide it

up. The cattle-yard, the garden, hay fields, and arable land,

divided into several parts, had to be made into separate lots.

The simple-hearted cowherd, Ivan, who, Levin fancied, understood

the matter better than any of them, collecting together a gang of

workers to help him, principally of his own family, became a

partner in the cattle-yard. A distant part of the estate, a

tract of waste land that had lain fallow for eight years, was

with the help of the clever carpenter, Fyodor Ryezunov, taken by

six families of peasants on new conditions of partnership, and

the peasant Shuraev took the management of all the vegetable

gardens on the same terms. The remainder of the land was still

worked on the old system, but these three associated partnerships

were the first step to a new organization of the whole, and they

completely took up Levin's time.

It is true that in the cattle-yard things went no better than

before, and Ivan strenuously opposed warm housing for the cows

and butter made of fresh cream, affirming that cows require less

food if kept cold, and that butter is more profitable made from

sour cream, and he asked for wages just as under the old system,

and took not the slightest interest in the fact that the money he

received was not wages but an advance out of his future share in

the profits.

It is true that Fyodor Ryezunov's company did not plough over the

ground twice before sowing, as had been agreed, justifying

themselves on the plea that the time was too short. It is true

that the peasants of the same company, though they had agreed to

work the land on new conditions, always spoke of the land, not as

held in partnership, but as rented for half the crop, and more

than once the peasants and Ryezunov himself said to Levin, "If

you would take a rent for the land, it would save you trouble,

and we should be more free." Moreover the same peasants kept

putting off, on various excuses, the building of a cattleyard and

barn on the land as agreed upon, and delayed doing it till the

winter.

It is true that Shuraev would have liked to let out the kitchen

gardens he had undertaken in small lots to the peasants. He

evidently quite misunderstood, and apparently intentionally

misunderstood, the conditions upon which the land had been given

to him.