All the long day of toil had left no trace in them but lightness of heart.

Before the early dawn all was hushed.

Nothing was to be heard but the night sounds of the frogs that never ceased in the marsh, and the horses snorting in the mist that rose over the meadow before the morning.

Rousing himself, Levin got up from the haycock, and looking at the stars, he saw that the night was over.

"Well, what am I going to do? How am I to set about it?" he said to himself, trying to express to himself all the thoughts and feelings he had passed through in that brief night.