Anna Karenina - Part 3

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 pitchforks, and from

the gray rows there were growing up broad, high, soft haycocks.

To the left, carts were rumbling over the meadow that had been

already cleared, and one after another the haycocks vanished,

flung up in huge forkfuls, 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 ducks, the way they pick it up!" he

added, pointing to the growing haycocks. "Since dinnertime

they've carried a good half of it."

"The last load, eh?" 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-checked peasant girl

who sat in the cart smiling too, and drove on.

"Who's that? Your son?" asked 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 haycock 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 handed up to him, at first in armfuls, 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 into

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 labor,

made haste, opening his arms to clutch the bundle and lay it in

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 brow, not browned 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.