Page 710 - ANNA KARENINA

Anna Karenina

The parlor was a big room, with a Dutch stove, and a
screen dividing it into two. Under the holy pictures stood
a table painted in patterns, a bench, and two chairs. Near
the entrance was a dresser full of crockery. The shutters

were closed, there were few flies, and it was so clean that
Levin was anxious that Laska, who had been running
along the road and bathing in puddles, should not muddy
the floor, and ordered her to a place in the corner by the
door. After looking round the parlor, Levin went out in
the back yard. The good-looking young woman in clogs,
swinging the empty pails on the yoke, ran on before him
to the well for water.
‘Look sharp, my girl!’ the old man shouted after her,
good-humoredly, and he went up to Levin. ‘Well, sir, are
you going to Nikolay Ivanovitch Sviazhsky? His honor
comes to us too,’ he began, chatting, leaning his elbows
on the railing of the steps. In the middle of the old man’s
account of his acquaintance with Sviazhsky, the gates
creaked again, and laborers came into the yard from the
fields, with wooden ploughs and harrows. The horses
harnessed to the ploughs and harrows were sleek and fat.
The laborers were obviously of the household: two were
young men in cotton shirts and caps, the two others were
hired laborers in homespun shirts, one an old man, the

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