Part 3 - Chapter 6

Chapter 6

Mashkin Upland was mown, the last row finished, the peasants had
put on their coats and were gaily trudging home. Levin got on
his horse and, parting regretfully from the peasants, rode
homewards. On the hillside he looked back; he could not see them
in the mist that had risen from the valley; he could only hear
rough, good-humored voices, laughter, and the sound of clanking
scythes.

Sergey Ivanovitch had long ago finished dinner, and was drinking
iced lemon and water in his own room, looking through the reviews
and papers which he had only just received by post, when Levin
rushed into the room, talking merrily, with his wet and matted
hair sticking to his forehead, and his back and chest grimed and
moist.

"We mowed the whole meadow! Oh, it is nice, delicious! And how
have you been getting on?" said Levin, completely forgetting the
disagreeable conversation of the previous day.

"Mercy! what do you look like!" said Sergey Ivanovitch, for the
first moment looking round with some dissatisfaction. "And the
door, do shut the door!" he cried. "You must have let in a dozen
at least."

Sergey Ivanovitch could not endure flies, and in his own room he
never opened the window except at night, and carefully kept the
door shut.

"Not one, on my honor. But if I have, I'll catch them. You
wouldn't believe what a pleasure it is! How have you spent the
day?"

"Very well. But have you really been mowing the whole day? I
expect you're as hungry as a wolf. Kouzma has got everything
ready for you."

"No, I don't feel hungry even. I had something to eat there.
But I'll go and wash."

"Yes, go along, go along, and I'll come to you directly," said
Sergey Ivanovitch, shaking his head as he looked at his brother.
"Go along, make haste," he added smiling, and gathering up his
books, he prepared to go too. He, too, felt suddenly
good-humored and disinclined to leave his brother's side. "But
what did you do while it was raining?"

"Rain? Why, there was scarcely a drop. I'll come directly. So
you had a nice day too? That's first-rate." And Levin went off
to change his clothes.

Five minutes later the brothers met in the dining room. Although
it seemed to Levin that he was not hungry, and he sat down to
dinner simply so as not to hurt Kouzma's feelings, yet when he
began to eat the dinner struck him as extraordinarily good.
Sergey Ivanovitch watched him with a smile.

"Oh, by the way, there's a letter for you," said he. "Kouzma,
bring it down, please. And mind you shut the doors."

The letter was from Oblonsky. Levin read it aloud. Oblonsky
wrote to him from Petersburg: "I have had a letter from Dolly;
she's at