In Anna Karenina, Levin is out cutting grass with the men who work on the farm. At first Levin is clumsy with his scythe, but then he learns the motion and cuts clean, straight rows. “The longer Levin mowed, the more often he felt those moments of oblivion during which it was no longer his arms that swung the scythe, but the scythe itself that lent motion to his whole body, full of life and conscious of itself, and, as if by magic, without a thought of it, the work got rightly and neatly done on its own.3 These were the most blissful moments.”
