Anna Karenina (Literature Classics Series). Leo Tolstoy
and the labourers returning from the fields came into the yard with their ploughs and harrows. The horses harnessed to the ploughs and harrows were big and well-fed. The labourers evidently belonged to the household. Two young fellows wore print shirts and peaked caps, two others were hired men and wore home-spun shirts; one of these was old and the other young.
The old master of the house left the porch and went to unharness the horses.
‘What have they been ploughing?’ asked Levin.
‘Between the potatoes. We too rent a little land. Don’t let the gelding out, Fedof, lead him to the trough. We’ll harness another.’
‘I say, father! have those ploughshares I ordered been brought?’ asked a tall, robust young fellow, evidently the old man’s son.
‘There in the passage,’ answered the old man, winding the reins into a ring and throwing them on the ground. ‘Fix them in before we finish dinner.’
The good-looking woman returned, her shoulders pressed down by the weight of the full pails, and went into the house. Other women, young and handsome, middle-aged, old and plain, some with children, others without, appeared from somewhere.
The chimney of the samovar began to hum. The labourers and the family, having attended to the horses, went in to dinner.
Levin took his provisions out of the tarantas and invited the old man to have tea with him.
‘Why, I don’t know! We have had tea once to-day,’ said he, evidently pleased to accept the invitation. ‘Well, just for company!’
Over their tea Levin heard the whole history of the old man’s farm. Ten years previously he had rented about four hundred acres from the landowner, and the year before he had bought them outright and rented another nine hundred from a neighbouring proprietor. A small part of the land — the worst — he let, and with the aid of his family and two hired men cultivated about a hundred and twenty acres. The old man complained that his affairs were in a bad way. But Levin knew that he only did so for propriety’s sake and that in reality his farm was flourishing. Had his affairs been in a bad way he would not have bought land at thirty-five roubles an acre, would not have married three of his sons and a nephew, and would not have twice rebuilt his homestead after fires, nor rebuilt it better each time. In spite of the old peasant’s grumbling one could see that he was justly proud of his property, of his sons, his nephew, his daughters-in-law, his horses, his cows, and especially of the fact that his whole household and farm held together. From their conversation Levin gathered that he was not against new methods either. He had planted many potatoes which had already flowered and were forming fruit, as Levin had noticed when passing the fields on the way, while Levin’s own potatoes were just beginning to flower. He ploughed the land for the potatoes with an English plough, which he had borrowed from a landowner. He also sowed wheat. Levin was struck especially by one little detail. The old peasant used the thinnings of the rye as fodder for the horses. Many a time when Levin had seen this valuable food wasted he had wanted to have it gathered up, but had found this impossible. On this peasant’s fields this was being done, and he could not find words enough to praise this fodder.
‘What is there for the young women to do? They carry the heaps out on to the road and a cart comes and fetches them.’
‘There now! We landlords don’t get on well because of the labourers,’ said Levin, handing him a tumbler of tea.
‘Thank you,’ said the old man as he took the tea, but he refused sugar, pointing to a bit he still had left. [Russian peasants seldom put sugar in their tea, but frugally nibble a lump between drinks.] ‘How can one rely on work with hired labourers?’ he said, ‘it is ruination! Take Sviyazhsky now. We know what sort of soil his is, black as poppy-seed, but he cannot boast of his harvests either. It’s want of attention.’
‘And yet you too use hired labour on your farm?’
‘Ours is peasant’s business; we look after everything ourselves. If a labourer is no good, let him go! We can manage for ourselves.’
‘Father, Finnigan wants some tar fetched,’ said the woman with the goloshes, coming in.
‘That’s how it is, sir,’ said the old man, rising; and after crossing himself several times he thanked Levin and went out. When Levin went into the back room to call his coachman he found the whole peasant family at dinner. The women served standing. The vigorous young son with his mouth full of buckwheat porridge was saying something funny, and everybody laughed heartily — the woman with the goloshes laughing more merrily than anyone as she refilled the bowl with cabbage soup.
The handsome face of this woman with the goloshes might very well have had something to do with the impression of welfare that this peasant household produced on Levin; that impression was anyhow so strong that he never lost it. And all the rest of the way to Sviyazhsky’s he every now and then recalled that household, as if the impression it had left on him demanded special attention.
Chapter 26
SVIYAZHSKY was Marshal of the Nobility in his district. He was five years older than Levin and had long been married. His young sister-in-law, whom Levin thought very pleasant, lived with them. He knew that both Sviyazhsky and his wife wanted to see her married to him, Levin. He knew this as certainly as all so-called eligible young men know these things, though he could never have said so to anyone; and he also knew that although he wanted to marry, and although this girl, to all appearance very fascinating, ought to make a splendid wife, he could as soon fly as marry her, even had he not been in love with Kitty. And this knowledge spoilt the pleasure which he hoped his visit to Sviyazhsky would give him.
Levin had thought of this when he received Sviyazhsky’s invitation, but in spite of it he made up his mind that this idea of Sviyazhsky’s intentions was only an unfounded conjecture of his and that he would go. Besides, at the bottom of his heart he wanted to put himself to the test and again to estimate his feelings for the girl. Sviyazhsky’s home life was extremely pleasant, and Sviyazhsky himself was the best type of social worker that Levin had ever known, and Levin always found him very interesting.
Sviyazhsky was one of those people — they invariably amazed Levin — whose judgment was very logical though never original and was kept quite apart from their conduct, while their manner of life was very definite and stable, its tendency being quite independent of their judgment, and even clashing with it. Sviyazhsky was an extreme Liberal. He despised the gentry and considered the majority of noblemen to be secretly in favour of serfdom, and only prevented by cowardice from expressing their views. He considered Russia to be a doomed country like Turkey, and the Russian government so bad that he did not think it worth while seriously to criticize its actions; yet he had an official position, was a model Marshal of the Nobility, and when he travelled always wore a cockade and a red band to his cap. He imagined that to live as a human being was possible only in foreign countries, where he went to stay at every opportunity; yet he carried on very complicated and perfected agricultural pursuits in Russia and carefully followed and knew what was being done there. He considered the Russian peasant to be one degree higher than the ape in development, yet at district elections no one shook hands with the peasants and listened to their opinions more willingly than he. He believed in neither God nor Devil, yet he was much concerned by the question of improving the condition of the clergy and limiting parishes, and was at the same time particularly active in seeing that the church should be retained in his village.
On the Woman’s Question he sided with the extreme advocates of woman’s freedom and especially the right to work; yet he lived with his wife in such a way that it gave everybody pleasure to see the friendly relationship in which they passed their childless life, and had so arranged that his wife did nothing and could do nothing except share her husband’s efforts to spend their time as pleasantly and merrily as possible.
Had Levin not possessed the faculty of giving the best interpretation to people’s characters, Sviyazhsky’s character would