Standing in the cool shade of the newly-thatched barn, with its wattle walls of hazel, which had not yet shed its scented leaves, pressed against the freshly stripped aspens of the roof-tree under the thatch, he looked now through the open doorway into which the dry and bitter chaff-dust rushed and whirled, at the grass round the threshing-floor lit up by the hot sunshine and at the fresh straw that had just been brought out of the barn, now at the bright-headed and white-breasted swallows that flew in chirping beneath the roof and, flapping their wings, paused in the light of the doorway, and now at the people who bustled about in the dark and dusty barn; and he thought strange thoughts:
En pie, sintiendo la agradable frescura del hórreo cubierto de olorosas ramas de avellano o apoyado contra las vigas de álamo recién cortado que sostenían el techo de paja, Levin, miraba a través de las puertas abiertas, ante las cuales danzaba el polvo, seco y acre, de la trilladora, o contemplaba la hierba de la era bañada por el ardiente sol, y la paja fresca, recién sacada del almiar, o seguía el vuelo de las golondrinas de pecho blanco y cabecitas abigarradas que se refugiaban chillando bajo el alero y se detenían agitando las alas sobre el ancho portal abierto; y, mientras, continuaba con sus extraños pensamientos.