of hands. This wholesome gayety filled him with envy; he would have liked to take part in this expression of joyous life; but nothing of the sort could he do, and he was obliged to lie still and look and listen. When the throng with their song had passed out of sight and hearing, an oppressive feeling of melancholy came over him at the thought of his loneliness, of his physical indolence, of the hostility which existed between him and this alien world.
Some of these very muzhiks, even those who had quarreled with him about the hay, or those whom he had injured, or those who had intended to cheat him, saluted him gayly as they passed, and evidently did not and could not bear him any malice, or feel any remorse, or even remembrance that they had tried to defraud him. All was swallowed up and forgotten in this sea of joyous, universal labor. God gave the day, God gave the strength; and the day and the strength consecrated the labor, and yielded their own reward. For whom was the work? What would be the fruits of the work? These were secondary, unimportant considerations.
Levin had often looked with interest at this life, had often experienced a feeling of envy of the people that lived this life; but to-day, for the first time, especially under the impression of what he had seen in the bearing of Ivan Parmenof toward his young wife, he had clearly realized that it depended on himself whether he would exchange the burdensome, idle, artificial, selfish existence which he led, for the laborious, simple, pure, and delightful life of the peasantry.
The elder who had been sitting with him had already gone home; the people were scattered; the neighboring villagers had already reached their houses, but those who lived at a distance were preparing to spend the night in the meadow, and were getting ready for supper.
Levin, without being noticed by the people, still reclined on the haycock, looking, listening, and thinking. The peasantry gathered in the meadow scarcely slept throughout the short summer night. At first gay gos-
