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In spite of the village elder's assertions about the

compressibility of hay, and its having settled down in the

stacks, and his swearing that everything had been done in the

fear of God, Levin stuck to his point that the hay had been

divided without his orders, and that, therefore, he would not

accept that hay as fifty loads to a stack. After a prolonged

dispute the matter was decided by the peasants taking these

eleven stacks, reckoning them as fifty loads each. The arguments

and the division of the haycocks lasted the whole afternoon. When

the last of the hay had been divided, Levin, intrusting the

superintendence of the rest to the counting-house clerk, sat down

on a haycock marked off by a stake of willow, and looked

admiringly at the meadow swarming with peasants.