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.