Page 343 - ANNA KARENINA

Anna Karenina

‘We positively must have another fifteen laborers. And
they don’t turn up. There were some here today asking
seventy roubles for the summer.’
Levin was silent. Again he was brought face to face

with that opposing force. He knew that however much
they tried, they could not hire more than forty—thirty-
seven perhaps or thirty-eight— laborers for a reasonable
sum. Some forty had been taken on, and there were no
more. But still he could not help struggling against it.
‘Send to Sury, to Tchefirovka; if they don’t come we
must look for them.’
‘Oh, I’ll send, to be sure,’ said Vassily Fedorovitch
despondently. ‘But there are the horses, too, they’re not
good for much.’
‘We’ll get some more. I know, of course,’ Levin added
laughing, ‘you always want to do with as little and as poor
quality as possible; but this year I’m not going to let you
have things your own way. I’ll see to everything myself.’
‘Why, I don’t think you take much rest as it is. It
cheers us up to work under the master’s eye..’
‘So they’re sowing clover behind the Birch Dale? I’ll go
and have a look at them,’ he said, getting on to the little
bay cob, Kolpik, who was let up by the coachman.

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