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.