In the very heat of the day the mowing did not seem such hard work to him.
The perspiration with which he was drenched cooled him, while the sun, that burned his back, his head, and his arms, bare to the elbow, gave a vigor and dogged energy to his labor; and more and more often now came those moments of unconsciousness, when it was possible not to think what one was doing.
The scythe cut of itself.
These were happy moments.
Still more delightful were the moments when they reached the stream where the rows ended, and the old man rubbed his scythe with the wet, thick grass, rinsed its blade in the fresh water of the stream, ladled out a little in a tin dipper, and offered Levin a drink.
"What do you say to my home-brew, eh?
Good, eh?" said he, winking.
And truly Levin had never drunk any liquor so good as this warm water with green bits floating in it, and a taste of rust from the tin dipper.
And immediately after this came the delicious, slow saunter, with his hand on the scythe, during which he could wipe away the streaming sweat, take deep breaths of air, and look about at the long string of mowers and at what was happening around in the forest and the country.
The longer Levin mowed, the oftener he felt the moments of unconsciousness in which it seemed not his hands that swung the scythe, but the scythe mowing of itself, a body full of life and consciousness of its own, and as though by magic, without thinking of it, the work turned out regular and well-finished of itself.
These were the most blissful moments.
It was only hard work when he had to break off the motion, which had become unconscious, and to think; when he had to mow round a hillock or a tuft of sorrel.
The old man did this easily.
When a hillock came he changed his action, and at one time with the heel, and at another with the tip of his scythe, clipped the hillock round both sides with short strokes.
And while he did this he kept looking about and watching what came into his view: at one moment he picked a wild berry and ate it or offered it to Levin, then he flung away a twig with the blade of the scythe, then he looked at a quail's nest, from which the bird flew just under the scythe, or caught a snake that crossed his path, and lifting it on the scythe as though on a fork showed it to Levin and threw it away.
For both Levin and the young peasant behind him, such changes of position were difficult.
Both of them, repeating over and over again the same strained movement, were in a perfect frenzy of toil, and were incapable of shifting their position and at the same time watching what was before them.
Levin did not notice how time was passing.
If he had been asked how long he had been working he would have said half an hour-- and it was getting on for dinner time.
As they were walking back over the cut grass, the old man called Levin's attention to the little girls and boys who were coming from different directions, hardly visible through the long grass, and along the road towards the mowers, carrying sacks of bread dragging at their little hands and pitchers of the sour rye-beer, with cloths wrapped round them.
"Look'ee, the little emmets crawling!" he said, pointing to them, and he shaded his eyes with his hand to look at the sun.
They mowed two more rows; the old man stopped.
"Come, master, dinner time!" he said briskly.
And on reaching the stream the mowers moved off across the lines of cut grass towards their pile of coats, where the children who had brought their dinners were sitting waiting for them.
The peasants gathered into groups--those further away under a cart, those nearer under a willow bush.
Levin sat down by them; he felt disinclined to go away.
All constraint with the master had disappeared long ago.
The peasants got ready for dinner.
Some washed, the young lads bathed in the stream, others made a place comfortable for a rest, untied their sacks of bread, and uncovered the pitchers of rye-beer.
The old man crumbled up some bread in a cup, stirred it with the handle of a spoon, poured water on it from the dipper, broke up some more bread, and having seasoned it with salt, he turned to the east to say his prayer.
"Come, master, taste my sop," said he, kneeling down before the cup.
The sop was so good that Levin gave up the idea of going home.
He dined with the old man, and talked to him about his family affairs, taking the keenest interest in them, and told him about his own affairs and all the circumstances that could be of interest to the old man.
He felt much nearer to him than to his brother, and could not help smiling at the affection he felt for this man.
When the old man got up again, said his prayer, and lay down under a bush, putting some grass under his head for a pillow, Levin did the same, and in spite of the clinging flies that were so persistent in the sunshine, and the midges that tickled his hot face and body, he fell asleep at once and only waked when the sun had passed to the other side of the bush and reached him.
The old man had been awake a long while, and was sitting up whetting the scythes of the younger lads.
Levin looked about him and hardly recognized the place, everything was so changed.
The immense stretch of meadow had been mown and was sparkling with a peculiar fresh brilliance, with its lines of already sweet-smelling grass in the slanting rays of the evening sun.
And the bushes about the river had been cut down, and the river itself, not visible before, now gleaming like steel in its bends, and the moving, ascending, peasants, and the sharp wall of grass of the unmown part of the meadow, and the hawks hovering over the stripped meadow--all was perfectly new.
Raising himself, Levin began considering how much had been cut and how much more could still be done that day.
The work done was exceptionally much for forty-two men.
They had cut the whole of the big meadow, which had, in the years of serf labor, taken thirty scythes two days to mow.
Only the corners remained to do, where the rows were short.
But Levin felt a longing to get as much mowing done that day as possible, and was vexed with the sun sinking so quickly in the sky.
He felt no weariness; all he wanted was to get his work done more and more quickly and as much done as possible.
"Could you cut Mashkin Upland too?--what do you think?" he said to the old man.
"As God wills, the sun's not high.
A little vodka for the lads?"
At the afternoon rest, when they were sitting down again, and those who smoked had lighted their pipes, the old man told the men that
"Mashkin Upland's to be cut--there'll be some vodka."