Early in June it happened that Agafea Mihalovna, the old nurse

and housekeeper, in carrying to the cellar a jar of mushrooms she

had just pickled, slipped, fell, and sprained her wrist. The

district doctor, a talkative young medical student, who had just

finished his studies, came to see her. He examined the wrist,

said it was not broken, was delighted at a chance of talking to

the celebrated Sergey Ivanovitch Koznishev, and to show his

advanced views of things told him all the scandal of the

district, complaining of the poor state into which the district

council had fallen. Sergey Ivanovitch listened attentively,

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asked him questions, and, roused by a new listener, he talked

fluently, uttered a few keen and weighty observations,

respectfully appreciated by the young doctor, and was soon in

that eager frame of mind his brother knew so well, which always,

with him, followed a brilliant and eager conversation. After the

departure of the doctor, he wanted to go with a fishing rod to

the river. Sergey Ivanovitch was fond of angling, and was, it

seemed, proud of being able to care for such a stupid occupation.

Konstantin Levin, whose presence was needed in the plough land

and meadows, had come to take his brother in the trap.

It was that time of the year, the turning-point of summer, when

the crops of the present year are a certainty, when one begins to

think of the sowing for next year, and the mowing is at hand;

when the rye is all in ear, though its ears are still light, not

yet full, and it waves in gray-green billows in the wind; when

the green oats, with tufts of yellow grass scattered here and

there among it, droop irregularly over the late-sown fields; when

the early buckwheat is already out and hiding the ground; when

the fallow lands, trodden hard as stone by the cattle, are

half ploughed over, with paths left untouched by the plough; when

from the dry dung-heaps carted onto the fields there comes at

sunset a smell of manure mixed with meadow-sweet, and on the

low-lying lands the riverside meadows are a thick sea of grass

waiting for the mowing, with blackened heaps of the stalks of

sorrel among it.

It was the time when there comes a brief pause in the toil of the

fields before the beginning of the labors of harvest--every year

recurring, every year straining every nerve of the peasants. The

crop was a splendid one, and bright, hot summer days had set in

with short, dewy nights.

The brothers had to drive through the woods to reach the meadows.

Sergey Ivanovitch was all the while admiring the beauty of the

woods, which were a tangled mass of leaves, pointing out to his

brother now an old lime tree on the point of flowering, dark on

the shady side, and brightly spotted with yellow stipules, now

the young shoots of this year's saplings brilliant with emerald.

Konstantin Levin did not like talking and hearing about the

beauty of nature. Words for him took away the beauty of what he

saw. He assented to what his brother said, but he could not help

beginning to think of other things. When they came out of the

woods, all his attention was engrossed by the view of the

fallow land on the upland, in parts yellow with grass, in parts

trampled and checkered with furrows, in parts dotted with ridges

of dung, and in parts even ploughed. A string of carts was

moving across it. Levin counted the carts, and was pleased that

all that were wanted had been brought, and at the sight of the

meadows his thoughts passed to the mowing. He always felt

something special moving him to the quick at the hay-making. On

reaching the meadow Levin stopped the horse.




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