Levin went as before between the young lad and the old man. The old man, who had put on his sheepskin jacket, was just as gay, jocular and free in his movements as ever. In the wood they were constantly happening upon boletus mushrooms, sodden in the succulent grass, which their scythes cut down. But the old man, each time he met a mushroom, bent down, picked it up, and put it into his jacket. ‘Another treat for my old woman,’ he would mutter.
Easy as it was to mow the wet and tender grass, it was hard going up and down the steep slopes of the gully. But the old man was not hindered by that. Swinging his scythe in the same way, with the small, firm steps of his feet shod in big bast shoes, he slowly climbed up the steep slope, and, despite the trembling of his whole body and of his trousers hanging lower than his shirt, he did not miss a single blade of grass or a single mushroom on his way and joked with the muzhiks and Levin just as before. Levin came after him and often thought that he would surely fall, going up such a steep slope with a scythe, where it was hard to climb even without a scythe; but he climbed it and did what was needed. He felt that some external force moved him.
VI
Mashka’s Knoll was mowed. They finished the last swaths, put on their caftans and cheerfully went home. Levin got on his horse and, regretfully taking leave of the muzhiks, rode homewards. He looked back from the hill; the men could not be seen in the mist rising from below; he could only hear merry, coarse voices, loud laughter, and the sound of clashing scythes.
Sergei Ivanovich had long ago finished dinner and was drinking water with lemon and ice in his room, looking through some newspapers and magazines that had just come in the post, when Levin, with his tangled hair sticking to his sweaty brow and his dark, drenched back and chest, burst into his room talking cheerfully.
‘And we did the whole meadow! Ah, how good, it’s remarkable! And how have you been?’ said Levin, completely forgetting yesterday’s unpleasant conversation.
‘Heavens, what a sight!’ said Sergei Ivanovich, glancing round at his brother with displeasure in the first moment. ‘The door, shut the door!’ he cried out. ‘You must have let in a good dozen.’
Sergei Ivanovich could not bear flies. He opened the window in his room only at night and kept the doors carefully shut.
‘By God, not a one. And if I did, I’ll catch it. You wouldn’t believe what a pleasure it was! How did your day go?’
‘Very well. But did you really mow for the whole day? I suppose you’re hungry as a wolf. Kuzma has everything ready for you.’
‘No, I don’t even want to eat. I ate there. But I will go and wash.’
‘Well, go, go, and I’ll join you presently,’ said Sergei Ivanovich, shaking his head as he looked at his brother. ‘Go, go quickly,’ he added with a smile and, gathering up his books, he got ready to go. He suddenly felt cheerful himself and did not want to part from his brother. ‘Well, and where were you when it rained?’
‘What rain? It barely sprinkled. I’ll come presently, then. You had a nice day, then? Well, that’s excellent.’ And Levin went to get dressed.
Five minutes later the brothers came together in the dining room. Though it seemed to Levin that he did not want to eat, and he sat down to dinner only so as not to offend Kuzma, once he started eating, the dinner seemed remarkably tasty to him. Smiling, Sergei Ivanovich looked at him.
‘Ah, yes, there’s a letter for you,’ he said. ‘Kuzma, bring it from downstairs, please. And see that you close the door.’
The letter was from Oblonsky. Levin read it aloud. Oblonsky was writing from Petersburg: ‘I received a letter from Dolly, she’s in Yergushovo, and nothing’s going right for her. Go and see her, please, help her with your advice, you know everything. She’ll be so glad to see you. She’s quite alone, poor thing. My mother-in-law and the others are all still abroad.’
‘That’s excellent! I’ll certainly go and see them,’ said Levin. ‘Or else let’s go together. She’s such a nice woman. Isn’t it so?’
‘Are they near by?’
‘Some twenty miles. Maybe twenty-five. But the road is excellent. An excellent trip.’
‘Delighted,’ said Sergei Ivanovich, still smiling.
The sight of his younger brother had immediately disposed him to cheerfulness.
‘Well, you’ve got quite an appetite!’ he said, looking at his red-brown sunburnt face and neck bent over the plate.
‘Excellent! You wouldn’t believe what a good regimen it is against all sorts of foolishness. I want to enrich medical science with a new term:
‘Well, it seems you’ve no need for that.’
‘No, but for various nervous patients.’
