Page 704 - ANNA KARENINA

Anna Karenina

laborers’ wages), while they were only struggling to be
able to do their work easily and agreeably, that is to say, as
they were used to doing it. It was for his interests that
every laborer should work as hard as possible, and that

while doing so he should keep his wits about him, so as to
try not to break the winnowing machines, the horse rakes,
the thrashing machines, that he should attend to what he
was doing. What the laborer wanted was to work as
pleasantly as possible, with rests, and above all, carelessly
and heedlessly, without thinking. That summer Levin saw
this at every step. He sent the men to mow some clover
for hay, picking out the worst patches where the clover
was overgrown with grass and weeds and of no use for
seed; again and again they mowed the best acres of clover,
justifying themselves by the pretense that the bailiff had
told them to, and trying to pacify him with the assurance
that it would be splendid hay; but he knew that it was
owing to those acres being so much easier to mow. He
sent out a hay machine for pitching the hay—it was
broken at the first row because it was dull work for a
peasant to sit on the seat in front with the great wings
waving above him. And he was told, ‘Don’t trouble, your
honor, sure, the womenfolks will pitch it quick enough.’
The ploughs were practically useless, because it never

703 of 1759