Anna Karenina - Part 3

In the Surovsky district there was no railway nor service of

post horses, and Levin drove there with his own horses in his

big, old-fashioned carriage.

He stopped halfway at a well-to-do peasant's to feed his horses.

A bald, well-preserved old man, with a broad, red beard, gray on

his cheeks, opened the gate, squeezing against the gatepost to

let the three horses pass. Directing the coachman to a place

under the shed in the big, clean, tidy yard, with charred,

old-fashioned ploughs in it, the old man asked Levin to come into

the parlor. A cleanly dressed young woman, with clogs on her

bare feet, was scrubbing the floor in the new outer room. She

was frightened of the dog, that ran in after Levin, and uttered a

shriek, but began laughing at her own fright at once when she was

told the dog would not hurt her. Pointing Levin with her bare

arm to the door into the parlor, she bent down again, hiding her

handsome face, and went on scrubbing.

"Would you like the samovar?" she asked.

"Yes, please."

The parlor was a big room, with a Dutch stove, and a screen

dividing it into two. Under the holy pictures stood a table

painted in patterns, a bench, and two chairs. Near the entrance

was a dresser full of crockery. The shutters were closed, there

were few flies, and it was so clean that Levin was anxious that

Laska, who had been running along the road and bathing in

puddles, should not muddy the floor, and ordered her to a place

in the corner by the door. After looking round the parlor, Levin

went out in the back yard. The good-looking young woman in

clogs, swinging the empty pails on the yoke, ran on before him to

the well for water.

"Look sharp, my girl!" the old man shouted after her,

good-humoredly, and he went up to Levin. "Well, sir, are you

going to Nikolay Ivanovitch Sviazhsky? His honor comes to us

too," he began, chatting, leaning his elbows on the railing of

the steps. In the middle of the old man's account of his

acquaintance with Sviazhsky, the gates creaked again, and

laborers came into the yard from the fields, with wooden ploughs

and harrows. The horses harnessed to the ploughs and harrows

were sleek and fat. The laborers were obviously of the

household: two were young men in cotton shirts and caps, the two

others were hired laborers in homespun shirts, one an old man,

the other a young fellow. Moving off from the steps, the old man

went up to the horses and began unharnessing them.