Page:Anna Karenina.djvu/446

 peasant, evidently flattered by the invitation. "However, for company's sake...."

At tea Levin learned the whole history of the old man's domestic economy. Ten years before, he had rented of a lady one hundred and twenty desyatins, and the year before had bought them; and he had rented three hundred more of a neighboring landowner. A small portion of this land, and that the poorest, he sublet; but forty desyatins he himself worked, with the help of his sons and two hired men. The old peasant complained that all was going bad; but Levin saw that he complained only for form's sake, and that his affairs were flourishing. If they had been bad he would not have bought land for five hundred rubles, or married off his three sons and his nephew, or built twice after his izba was burned, and each time better. Notwithstanding the old peasant's complaints, it was evident that he felt pride in his prosperity, pride in his sons, in his nephew, his daughters, his horses, his cows, and especially in the fact that he owned all this domain.

From his conversation with the old man. Levin learned that he believed in modern improvements. He planted many potatoes; and his potatoes, which Levin saw in the storehouse, he had already dug and brought in, while on Levin's estate they had only begun to dig them. He used the "ploog" on the potato-fields, as he called the plow which he got from the proprietor. He sowed wheat. The little detail that the old peasant sowed rye, and fed his horses with it, especially struck Levin. How many times Levin, seeing this beautiful fodder going to waste on his own estate, had wished to harvest it; but he found it impossible to accomplish it. The muzhik used it, and could not find sufficient praise for it.

"How do the women do it?"

"Oh! they pile it up on one side, and then the cart comes for it."

"But with us proprietors everything goes wrong with the hired men," said Levin, filling his teacup and offering it to him.