`What? Taken a stray swarm, Fomich?' he asked.

`No, indeed, Konstantin Mitrich! All we can do to keep our own! This is the second new swarm that has flown away.... Luckily the lads caught them. They were plowing your field. They unyoked the horses and galloped after them.'

`Well, what do you say, Fomich - start mowing or wait a bit?'

`Well, now! Our way's to wait till St. Peter's Day. But you always mow sooner. Well, to be sure, please God, the hay's good. There'll be plenty for the beasts.'

`What do you think about the weather?'

`That's in God's hands. Maybe even the weather will favor us.'

Levin walked up to his brother.

Sergei Ivanovich had caught nothing, but he was not bored, and seemed in the most cheerful frame of mind. Levin saw that, stimulated by his conversation with the doctor, he wanted to talk. Levin, on the other hand, would have liked to get home as soon as possible, to give orders about getting together the mowers for next day, and to set at rest his doubts about the mowing, which greatly absorbed him.

`Well, let's be going,' he said.

`Why be in such a hurry? Let's stay a little. But how wet you are! Even though one catches nothing, it's fine. That's the best thing about every part of sport, that one has to do with nature. How exquisite this steely water is!' said Sergei Ivanovich. `These riverside banks always remind me of the riddle - do you know it? ``The grass says to the river: we quiver and we quiver.''

`I don't know the riddle,' answered Levin cheerlessly.


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