Anna Karenina

The personal matter that absorbed Levin during his conversation with his brother was this. Once in a previous year he had gone to look at the mowing, and being made very angry by the bailiff he had recourse to his favorite means for regaining his temper,—he took a scythe from a peasant and began mowing." Levin had discovered mowing as emotional therapy. "He liked the work so much that he had several times tried his hand at mowing since. He had cut the whole of the meadow in front of his house, and this year ever since the early spring he had cherished a plan for mowing for whole days together with the peasants." He's been planning this all spring. "Ever since his brother's arrival, he had been in doubt whether to mow or not. He was loath to leave his brother alone all day long, and he was afraid his brother would laugh at him about it." He's self-conscious about Sergey's reaction to his physical labor. But Levin decides to go mowing anyway. The chapter describes him working through the day, completely absorbed in the physical rhythm of mowing. He mows until evening. Then: "Only then he suddenly awoke to the fact that he had been wrong about the weather and the rain was drenching his hay. 'The hay will be spoiled,' he said." After all this work, rain threatens to ruin the hay. "Not a bit of it, sir; mow in the rain, and you'll rake in fine weather!" said the old man." The peasant reassures him - mowing in rain is fine, you rake it when it's dry. "Levin untied his horse and rode home to his coffee. Sergey Ivanovitch was only just getting up. When he had drunk his coffee, Levin rode back again to the mowing before Sergey Ivanovitch had had time to dress and come down to the dining-room." While Sergey is still sleeping late and dressing, Levin has already done a full day of mowing, come home, had coffee, and gone back to work. The contrast in their rhythms and values couldn't be clearer.