Dreaming such dreams, carefully guiding his horse so as not to trample down his young growth, he rode up to the labourers who were sowing the clover. The cart with the seed was standing not on the border but in a field of winter-wheat, which was being cut up by the wheels and trampled by the horse’s feet. Both the labourers were sitting on the narrow path between the fields, probably sharing a pipe of tobacco. The earth in the cart with which the seeds were mixed was not rubbed fine, but was pressed or frozen into lumps. On seeing the master the labourer Vasily moved toward the cart, and Mishka began to sow. This was not right, but Levin seldom got angry with the hired men. When Vasily came up Levin told him to take the cart and horse on to the border.
‘It won’t matter, sir, the wheat will recover.’
‘Please don’t argue,’ said Levin, ‘but do as you are told.’
‘Yes, sir,’ answered Vasily, and took hold of the horse’s head.
‘But the sowing, Constantine Dmitrich, is getting on first-rate,’ he said making up to the master. ‘Only the walking is dreadful. You drag half a hundredweight on your boots.’
‘And why has not the earth been sifted?’ said Levin.
‘Oh, but we crumble it up,’ said Vasily, taking a handful and rubbing the earth between his palms.
Vasily was not to blame that they had given him unsifted earth, but still it was annoying.
Having more than once successfully tested a patent remedy for conquering vexation and making all that seemed wrong right again, Levin employed it now. He looked at the strides Mishka took dragging the enormous lumps of earth that stuck to his feet, dismounted, took the seed-basket from Vasily, and prepared to sow.
‘Where did you stop?’
Vasily pointed to a mark with his foot and Levin began scattering the seeds and earth as best he could. It was hard walking, and having done a row Levin, wet with perspiration, stopped and gave back the basket.
‘Mind, sir, and don’t scold me for this row when summer comes,’ said Vasily.
‘Why?’ said Levin merrily, feeling that his remedy was acting well.
‘Oh, you’ll see when the summer comes. You’ll distinguish it. You just look where I sowed last spring, how regularly I scattered it over. Why, Constantine Dmitrich, I don’t think I could try harder if I was working for my own father. I don’t like to do things badly myself, and I see that others don’t. What’s good for the master is good for us too. When one looks over there it makes one’s heart rejoice,’ said Vasily, pointing to the field.
‘A fine spring, isn’t it, Vasily?’
‘It’s a spring such as the old men don’t remember. I’ve been home, and my old father also has sown three measures of wheat. They say it has caught up the rye.’
‘And have you been sowing wheat long?’
‘Why, it was you who taught us to sow it. The year before last you gave me a bushel of seed yourself. We sowed a quarter of it and sold the rest.’
‘Well, mind and rub the lumps,’ said Levin, going up to his horse, ‘and keep an eye on Mishka, and if the clover comes up well you shall have fifty kopeks for each desyatina.’
‘Thank you kindly. We are very grateful to you as it is.’
Levin mounted his horse and rode to the field where clover had been sown the year before, and to another which was deeply ploughed and ready for sowing the spring wheat.
The clover was coming on splendidly. It was already reviving and steadily growing green among last year’s wheat stubble. The horse sank into the ground up to its pasterns and drew each foot out of the half-thawed earth with a smacking noise. It was quite impossible to ride over the deeply-ploughed field; the earth bore only where there was still a little ice, in the thawed furrows the horse’s legs sank in above its pasterns. The ploughed land was in excellent condition; it would be possible to harrow and sow it in a couple of days. Everything was beautiful and gay. Levin rode back by the way that led across the brook, hoping that the water would have gone down, and he did manage to ford the stream, scaring two ducks in so doing. ‘There must be some snipe too,’ he thought, and just at the turning to his house he met the keeper, who confirmed his supposition.
Levin rode on at a trot, so as to have dinner and get his gun ready for the evening.
Chapter 14
AS Levin, in the highest spirits, was nearing the house he heard the sound of a tinkling bell approaching the main entrance.
‘Why, that must be some one from the station,’ he thought. ‘They would just have had time to get here from the Moscow train. Who is it? Can it be brother Nicholas? He did say, “Perhaps I’ll go to a watering-place, or perhaps I’ll come to you.” ’ For a moment he felt frightened and disturbed lest his brother’s presence should destroy the happy frame of mind that the spring had aroused in him. But he was ashamed of that feeling, and immediately, as it were, opened out his spiritual arms and with tender joy expected, and now hoped with his whole soul, that it was his brother. He touched up his horse and, having passed the acacia trees, saw a hired three-horse sledge coming from the station and in it a gentleman in a fur coat. It was not his brother. ‘Oh, if only it’s some nice fellow with whom one can have a talk,’ he thought. ‘Ah,’ he cried, joyfully lifting both arms, ‘here’s a welcome guest! Well, I am glad to see you!’ he exclaimed, recognizing Oblonsky.
‘I shall know now for certain whether she is married or when she will be,’ thought Levin.
And on this lovely day he felt that the memory of her did not hurt him at all.
‘You did not expect me, eh?’ said Oblonsky, getting out of the sledge with mud on his nose, cheek, and eyebrows, but beaming with cheerfulness and health. ‘I have come to see you, that’s one thing,’ he said, embracing and kissing Levin, ‘to get some shooting, that’s two, and to sell the Ergushevo forest, that’s three.’
‘That’s grand! and what a spring we are having! How did you manage to get here in a sledge?’
‘It would have been worse still on wheels, Constantine Dmitrich,’ said the driver, whom Levin knew.
‘Well, I am very, very glad to see you,’ said Levin with a sincere smile, joyful as a child’s.
He showed his guest into the spare bedroom, where Oblonsky’s things, his bag, a gun in a case, and a satchel with cigars, were also brought, and leaving him to wash and change Levin went to the office to give orders about the ploughing and the clover. Agatha Mikhaylovna, always much concerned about the honour of the house, met him in the hall with questions about dinner.
‘Do just as you please, only be quick,’ he said and went out to see the steward.
When he returned, Oblonsky, fresh and clean, with hair brushed, and face radiant with smiles, was just coming out of his room, and they went upstairs together.
‘How glad I am to have come to you! Now I shall be able to understand what the mysteries you perpetrate here consist of. But, seriously, I envy you. What a house, and everything so splendid, so light, so gay!’ said Oblonsky, forgetting that it was not always spring and bright weather there, as on that day.
‘And your nurse! quite charming! A pretty housemaid with a little apron would be preferable; but with your severe and monastic style this one is more suitable.’
Oblonsky had much interesting news to tell, and one item of special interest to Levin was that his brother, Sergius Ivanich, intended to come and stay in the country with him that summer.
Not a word did Oblonsky say about Kitty or about any of the Shcherbatskys; he only delivered greetings from his wife. Levin was grateful to him for his delicacy and was very glad of his visit. As usual during his solitude a