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 sorrel. 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

Levin, 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 Levin

and threw it away.

For both Levin 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.

Levin 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 Levin'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 mowers, carrying sacks of bread dragging at their little

hands and pitchers of the sour rye-beer, with cloths wrapped

round them.

"Look'ee, the little emmets 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 mowers 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.

Levin 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 the pitchers of

rye-beer. The old man crumbled up some bread in a cup, stirred

it with the handle of a 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.




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