thing else, and she could not
speak to Levin of her misery.

Levin saw she was unhappy and tried to comfort her, saying that
it showed nothing bad, that all children fight; but, even as he
said it, he was thinking in his heart: "No, I won't be
artificial and talk French with my children; but my children
won't be like that. All one has to do is not spoil children, not
to distort their nature, and they'll be delightful. No, my
children won't be like that."

He said good-bye and drove away, and she did not try to keep him.

Chapter 11

In the middle of July the elder of the village on Levin's
sister's estate, about fifteen miles from Pokrovskoe, came to
Levin to report on how things were going there and on the hay.
The chief source of income on his sister's estate was from the
riverside meadows. In former years the hay had been bought by
the peasants for twenty roubles the three acres. When Levin took
over the management of the estate, he thought on examining the
grasslands that they were worth more, and he fixed the price at
twenty-five roubles the three acres. The peasants would not give
that price, and, as Levin suspected, kept off other purchasers.
Then Levin had driven over himself, and arranged to have the
grass cut, partly by hired labor, partly at a payment of a
certain proportion of the crop. His own peasants put every
hindrance they could in the way of this new arrangement, but it
was carried out, and the first year the meadows had yielded a
profit almost double. The previous year--which was the third
year--the peasants had maintained the same opposition to the
arrangement, and the hay had been cut on the same system. This
year the peasants were doing all the mowing for a third of the
hay crop, and the village elder had come now to announce that the
hay had been cut, and that, fearing rain, they had invited the
counting-house clerk over, had divided the crop in his presence,
and had raked together eleven stacks as the owner's share. From
the vague answers to his question how much hay had been cut on
the principal meadow, from the hurry of the village elder who had
made the division, not asking leave, from the whole tone of the
peasant, Levin perceived that there was something wrong in the
division of the hay, and made up his mind to drive over himself
to look into the matter.

Arriving for dinner at the village, and leaving his horse at the
cottage of an old friend of his, the husband of h