Spring is the time of plans and projects. And, going out to the yard, Levin, like a tree in spring, not yet knowing where and how its young shoots and branches, still confined in swollen buds, will grow, did not himself know very well which parts of his beloved estate he would occupy himself with now, but felt that he was filled with the very best plans and projects. First of all he went to see the cattle. The cows had been let out into the pen and, their new coats shining, warmed by the sun, they lowed, asking to go to pasture. Having admired the cows, familiar to him down to the smallest details, Levin ordered them driven to pasture and the calves let out into the pen. The cowherd ran merrily to get ready for the pasture. The dairymaids, hitching up their skirts, their bare, white, as yet untanned legs splashing in the mud, ran with switches after the calves and drove them, lowing and crazed with spring joy, into the yard.
After admiring that year’s young, which were exceptionally good - the early calves were as big as a peasant’s cow, Pava’s three-month-old daughter was the size of a yearling - Levin gave orders for a trough to be brought out and hay to be put in the racks. But it turned out that the racks, made in the autumn and left for winter in the unused pen, were broken. He sent for the carpenter, who by his order ought to have been working on the thresher. But it turned out that the carpenter was repairing the harrows, which ought to have been repaired before Lent.18 That was extremely vexing to Levin. What vexed him was the repetition of this eternal slovenliness of farm work, which he had fought against with all his strength for so many years. The racks, as he learned, not needed in winter, had been taken to the work horses’ stable and there had got broken, since they had been lightly made, for calves. Besides that, it also turned out that the harrows and all the agricultural tools, which he had ordered to be looked over and repaired back in the winter, and for which purpose three carpenters had been hired, were still not repaired, and the harrows were being repaired when it was already time for the harrowing. Levin sent for the steward, but at once went himself to look for him. The steward, radiant as everything else that day, was coming from the threshing floor in his fleece-trimmed coat, snapping a straw in his hands.
‘Why is the carpenter not at the thresher?’
‘I meant to tell you yesterday: the harrows need repair. It’s time for ploughing.’
‘And what about last winter?’
‘And what do you want with the carpenter, sir?’
‘Where are the racks for the calves’ yard?’
‘I ordered them to be put in place. What can you do with these folk?’ said the steward, waving his arm.
‘Not with these people, but with this steward!’ said Levin, flaring up. ‘What on earth do I keep you for!’ he shouted. But remembering that this was not going to help, he stopped in mid-speech and merely sighed. ‘Well, can we start sowing?’ he asked after a pause.
‘Beyond Turkino we can, tomorrow or the day after.’
‘And the clover?’
‘I sent Vassily and Mishka, they’re sowing it. Only I don’t know if they’ll get through: it’s soggy.’
‘How many acres?’
‘Sixteen.’
‘Why not the whole of it?’ shouted Levin.
That clover was being sown on only sixteen and not fifty acres was still more vexing. Planting clover, both in theory and in his own experience, was only successful if it was done as early as possible, almost over the snow. And Levin could never get that done.
‘No people. What can you do with these folk? Three didn’t show up. And now Semyon ...’
‘Well, you could have let the straw wait.’
‘That’s what I did.’
‘Where are the people?’
‘Five are making compote‘ (he meant compost). ‘Four are shovelling oats — lest they go bad, Konstantin Dmitrich. ’
Levin knew very well that ‘lest they go bad’ meant that the English seed oats were already spoiled - again what he had ordered had not been done.
‘But I told you back in Lent - the vent pipes!’ he shouted.
‘Don’t worry, we’ll get everything done on time.’
Levin waved his hand angrily, went to the barns to have a look at the oats, and returned to the stables. The oats were not spoiled yet. But the workers were transferring them with shovels, whereas they should simply have been dumped directly on the barn floor, and, after giving orders about that and taking two workers from there to plant clover, Levin’s vexation with the steward subsided. Besides, the day was so fine that it was impossible to be angry.
‘Ignat!’ he cried to the coachman, who had rolled up his sleeves and was washing the carriage by the well. ‘Saddle me up ...’
‘Which do you want, sir?’
‘Well, take Kolpik.’
‘Right, sir.’
While the horse was being saddled, Levin again called over the steward, who was hanging around in view, to make it up with him, and began telling him about the impending spring work and his plans for the estate.
