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 CHAPTER V

breakfast, Levin took his place in the line not where he had been before, but between the quizzical old man, who asked him to be his neighbor, and a young muzhik who had been married only since autumn and was now mowing for the first time.

The old man, standing very erect, mowed straight on, with long, regular strides; and the swinging of the scythe seemed no more like labor than the swinging of his arms when walking. His well-whetted scythe cut, as it were, of its own energy through the succulent grass.

Behind Levin came the young Mishka. His pleasant, youthful face, under a wreath of green grass which bound his hair, worked with the energy that employed the rest of his body. But when any one looked at him, he would smile. He would rather die than confess that he found the labor hard.

Levin went between the two.

The labor seemed lighter to him during the heat of the day. The sweat in which he was bathed refreshed him; and the sun, burning his back, his head, and his arms bared to the elbow, gave him force and tenacity for his work. More and more frequently the moments of oblivion, of unconsciousness of what he was doing, came back to him; the scythe went of itself. Those were happy moments. Then, still more gladsome were the moments when, coming to the river where the wind-rows ended, the old man, wiping his scythe with the moist, thick grass, rinsed the steel in the river, then, dipping up a ladleful of the cool water, gave it to Levin.

"This is my kvas! It's good, is n't it?" he exclaimed, winking.

And, indeed, it seemed to Levin that he had never tasted any liquor more refreshing than this lukewarm water, in which grass floated, and tasting of the rusty tin cup. Then came the glorious slow promenade,