From The Scythe To The Pen

 

"It is springtime, he goes off with the peasants to mow the fields. in the beginning the task seems too arduous for him. He is about to give up when the old peasant leading the row calls for a rest. Then they begin again with their scythes. Once again Levin is about to collapse from exhaustion, once again the old man raises his scythe. Rest. And when the row moves forward again, forty hands scything swaths and moving steadily toward the river as the sun rises. It is getting hotter and hotter, Levin's arms and shoulders are soaked in sweat, but with each successive pause and start, his awkward, painful gestures become more fluid. A welcome breeze suddenly caresses his back. A summer rain. Gradually, his movements are freed from the shackles of his will, and he goes into a light trance which gives his gestures the perfection of conscious, automatic motion, without thought or calculation, and the scythe seems to move of its own accord. Levin delights in the forgetfulness the movement brings, where the pleasure of doing is marvelously foreign to the striving of the will."

"This is eminently true of many happy moments in life. Freed from the demands of decision and intention, adrift on some inner sea, we observe our various moments as if they belonged to someone else, and yet we admire the involuntary excellence. What other reason might I have for writing this--ridiculous journal of an aging concierge--if the writing did not have something of the art scything? The lines gradually become their own demiurges and, like some witless yet miraculous participant, I witness the birth on paper of sentences that have eluded my will and appear in spite of me on the sheet, teaching me something that I neither knew nor thought I might want to know. This painless birth, like an unsolicited proof, gives me untold pleasure, and with neither toil nor certainty but the joy of frank astonishment I follow the pen that is guiding and supporting me."

 

***For the sake of clarity, I should mention that in the first passage, Renee is recalling her favorite passage in Tolstoy's Anna Karenina, and she paraphrases her favorite scene (indeed one of the most famous scenes in the novel) when Levin sets out to join the other workers in the field. In the first half of this novel, the two protagonists are often sharing their favorite pieces of literature, philosophy, and film as a way of speaking to the reader what is private in their hearts -- since in much of the novel they are ignored and their intelligence underestimated. Lonely, they spend a good of time talking to and sharing with the reader the writings that inspire them.