"Really! what an idea! But tell me, how do the peasants look at

it? I suppose they laugh in their sleeves at their master's

being such a queer fish?"

"No, I don't think so; but it's so delightful, and at the same

time such hard work, that one has no time to think about it."

"But how will you do about dining with them? To send you a

bottle of Lafitte and roast turkey out there would be a little

awkward."

"No, I'll simply come home at the time of their noonday rest."

Next morning Konstantin Levin got up earlier than usual, but he

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was detained giving directions on the farm, and when he reached

the mowing grass the mowers were already at their second row.

From the uplands he could get a view of the shaded cut part of

the meadow below, with its grayish ridges of cut grass, and the

black heaps of coats, taken off by the mowers at the place from

which they had started cutting.

Gradually, as he rode towards the meadow, the peasants came into

sight, some in coats, some in their shirts mowing, one behind

another in a long string, swinging their scythes differently. He

counted forty-two of them.

They were mowing slowly over the uneven, low-lying parts of the

meadow, where there had been an old dam. Levin recognized some

of his own men. Here was old Yermil in a very long white smock,

bending forward to swing a scythe; there was a young fellow,

Vaska, who had been a coachman of Levin's, taking every row with

a wide sweep. Here, too, was Tit, Levin's preceptor in the art

of mowing, a thin little peasant. He was in front of all, and

cut his wide row without bending, as though playing with the

scythe.

Levin got off his mare, and fastening her up by the roadside went

to meet Tit, who took a second scythe out of a bush and gave it

to him.

"It's ready, sir; it's like a razor, cuts of itself," said Tit,

taking off his cap with a smile and giving him the scythe.

Levin took the scythe, and began trying it. As they finished

their rows, the mowers, hot and good-humored, came out into the

road one after another, and, laughing a little, greeted the

master. They all stared at him, but no one made any remark, till

a tall old man, with a wrinkled, beardless face, wearing a short

sheepskin jacket, came out into the road and accosted him.

"Look'ee now, master, once take hold of the rope there's no

letting it go!" he said, and Levin heard smothered laughter among

the mowers.




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