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Chapter 24
The night spent by Levin on the haycock did not pass without an effect upon him. The way in which
he had been managing his land revolted him and lost all attraction for him. In spite of the magnificent
harvest, never had there been (or, at least, it had never seemed so to him) so many hindrances and
so many quarrels between him and the peasants as that year, and the origin of these failures and this
hostility was now perfectly comprehensible to him. The delight he had experienced in the work itself,
and the consequent greater intimacy with the peasants, the envy he felt of them, of their life, the desire
to adopt that life, which had been to him that night not a dream but an intention, the execution of which
he had thought out in detail - all this had so transformed his view of the farming of the land as he had
managed it, that he could not take his former interest in it, and could not help seeing that unpleasant
relation between him and the workpeople which was the foundation of it all. The herd of improved cows
such as Pava, the whole land plowed over and enriched, the nine level fields surrounded with willow
fences, the ninety dessiatinas heavily manured, drill plows, and all the rest of it - it was all splendid, if
only the work had been done by himself, or by himself and his comrades, by people in sympathy with
him. But he saw clearly now (his work on a book of agriculture, in which the chief element in husbandry
was to have been the laborer, greatly assisted him in this) that the sort of farming he was carrying on
was nothing but a cruel and stubborn struggle between him and the laborers, in which there was on one
side - his side - a continual intense effort to change everything to a pattern he considered better; on the
other side, the natural order of things. And in this struggle he saw that, with immense expenditure of
force on his side, and with no effort or even intention on the other side, the sole attainment was that the
work did not go to the liking of either side, and that splendid tools, splendid cattle and land were spoiled
with no good to anyone. Worst of all, the energy expended on this work was not merely wasted. He
could not help feeling now, since the meaning of his system had become clear to him, that the aim of
his energy was a most unworthy one. In reality, what was the struggle about? He was struggling for
every groat (and he could not help it, for he had only to relax his efforts, and he would not have had the
money to pay his 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 threshing 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 his best dessiatinas of seed clover,
justifying themselves by the pretext that the bailiff had told them to, and trying to pacify him with the
assurance that it would make splendid hay; but he knew that it was because those dessiatinas were 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 - sure, the womenfolks will pitch it quick enough.' The plows were
practically useless, because it never occurred to the laborer to raise the colter when he turned the plow,
and in forcing it round, he tortured the horse and spoiled the ground - and then begged Levin not to
mind it. The horses were allowed to stray into the wheat because not a single laborer wanted to be
night watchman, and, in spite of orders to the contrary, the laborers insisted on taking turns for night
duty about the horses; and when Vanka, after working all day long, fell asleep, he would say, very penitent
for his fault: `Do what you will to me.' Three of the best heifers were allowed to overeat themselves to death, by letting them into the clover
aftermath without care as to drenching them, and nothing would make the men believe that they had
been blown out by the clover, but they told Levin, by way of consolation, that one of his neighbors had
lost a hundred and twelve head of cattle in three days. All this happened, not because anyone felt ill will
to Levin or to his farming; on the contrary, he knew that they liked him, thinking him a simple gentleman
(their highest praise); but it happened simply because all they wanted was to work merrily and carelessly,
and his interests were not only remote and incomprehensible to them, but fatally opposed to their most
just claims. Long before, Levin had felt dissatisfaction with his own position in regard to the land. He
saw that his boat leaked, but he did not look for the leak, perhaps purposely deceiving himself. But now
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