Anna Karenina - LimpidSoft

PART THREE CHAPTER 2
He always felt something special moving him to the quick at the hay-making. On
reaching the meadow Levin stopped the horse.
The morning dew was still lying on the thick undergrowth of the grass, and that
he might not get his feet wet, Sergey Ivanovitch asked his brother to drive him in
the trap up to the willow tree from which the carp was caught. Sorry as Konstantin
Levin was to crush down his mowing grass, he drove him into the meadow. The high
grass softly turned about the wheels and the horse’s legs, leaving its seeds clinging
to the wet axles and spokes of the wheels. His brother seated himself under a bush,
arranging his tackle, while Levin led the horse away, fastened him up, and walked
into the vast gray-green sea of grass unstirred by the wind. The silky grass with its
ripe seeds came almost to his waist in the dampest spots.
Crossing the meadow, Konstantin Levin came out onto the road, and met an old
man with a swollen eye, carrying a skep on his shoulder.
“What? taken a stray swarm, Fomitch?” he asked.
“No, indeed, Konstantin Dmitrich! All we can do to keep our own! This is the
second swarm that has flown away.... Luckily the lads caught them. They were
ploughing your field. They unyoked the horses and galloped after them.”
“Well, what do you say, Fomitch–start mowing or wait a bit?”
“Eh, well. Our way’s to wait till St. Peter’s Day. But you always mow sooner.
Well, to be sure, please God, the hay’s good. There’ll be plenty for the beasts.”
“What do you think about the weather?”
“That’s in God’s hands. Maybe it will be fine.”
Levin went up to his brother.
Sergey Ivanovitch had caught nothing, but he was not bored, and seemed in the
most cheerful frame of mind. Levin saw that, stimulated by his conversation with
the doctor, he wanted to talk. Levin, on the other hand, would have liked to get
home as soon as possible to give orders about getting together the mowers for next
day, and to set at rest his doubts about the mowing, which greatly absorbed him.
“Well, let’s be going,” he said.
“Why be in such a hurry? Let’s stay a little. But how wet you are! Even though
one catches nothing, it’s nice. That’s the best thing about every part of sport, that one
has to do with nature. How exquisite this steely water is!” said Sergey Ivanovitch.
“These riverside banks always remind me of the riddle–do you know it? ‘The grass
says to the water: we quiver and we quiver.”’
“I don’t know the riddle,” answered Levin wearily.
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