He felt as he swung his scythe that he was at the very end of his strength, and was making up his mind to ask Tit to stop.  But at that very moment Tit stopped of his own accord, and stooping down picked up some grass, rubbed his scythe, and began whetting it.  Levin straightened himself, and drawing a deep breath looked round.  Behind him came a peasant, and he too was evidently tired, for he stopped at once without waiting to mow up to Levin, and began whetting his scythe.  Tit sharpened his scythe and Levin’s, and they went on.  The next time it was just the same.  Tit moved on with sweep after sweep of his scythe, not stopping nor showing signs of weariness.  Levin followed him, trying not to get left behind, and he found it harder and harder:  the moment came when he felt he had no strength left, but at that very moment Tit stopped and whetted the scythes.

So they mowed the first row.  And this long row seemed particularly hard work to Levin; but when the end was reached and Tit, shouldering his scythe, began with deliberate stride returning on the tracks left by his heels in the cut grass, and Levin walked back in the same way over the space he had cut, in spite of the sweat that ran in streams over his face and fell in drops down his nose, and drenched his back as though he had been soaked in water, he felt very happy.  What delighted him particularly was that now he knew he would be able to hold out.

His pleasure was only disturbed by his row not being well cut.  “I will swing less with my arm and more with my whole body,” he thought, comparing Tit’s row, which looked as if it had been cut with a line, with his own unevenly and irregularly lying grass.

The first row, as Levin noticed, Tit had mowed specially quickly, probably wishing to put his master to the test, and the row happened to be a long one.  The next rows were easier, but still Levin had to strain every nerve not to drop behind the peasants.

He thought of nothing, wished for nothing, but not to be left behind the peasants, and to do his work as well as possible.  He heard nothing but the swish of scythes, and saw before him Tit’s upright figure mowing away, the crescent-shaped curve of the cut grass, the grass and flower heads slowly and rhythmically falling before the blade of his scythe, and ahead of him the end of the row, where would come the rest.

Suddenly, in the midst of his toil, without understanding what it was or whence it came, he felt a pleasant sensation of chill on his hot, moist shoulders.  He glanced at the sky in the interval for whetting the scythes.  A heavy, lowering storm cloud had blown up, and big raindrops were falling.  Some of the peasants went to their coats and put them on; others—­just like Levin himself—­merely shrugged their shoulders, enjoying the pleasant coolness of it.