A Russian Proprietor and Other Stories Part 3

"To-day was a fast-day for us, your excellency," remarked Churis sarcastically, taking up his wife's words. "Bread and onions; that's the way we peasants live. Howsomever, praise be to the Lord, I have a little grain yet, thanks to your kindness; it's lasted till now; but there's plenty of our peasants as ain't got any. Everywheres there's scarcity of onions. Only a day or two ago they sent to Mikhal the gardener, to get a bunch for a farthing: couldn't get any anywheres. Haven't been to G.o.d's church scarcely since Easter. Haven't had nothing to buy a taper for Mikola [St. Nicholas] with."

Nekhliudof, not by hearsay nor by trust in the words of others, but by the evidence of his own eyes, had long known the extreme depth of poverty into which his peasantry had sunken: but the entire reality was in such perfect contrast to his own bringing-up, the turn of his mind, and the course of his life, that in spite of himself he kept forgetting the truth of it; and every time when, as now, it was brought vividly, tangibly, before him, his heart was torn with painful, almost unendurable melancholy, as though some absolute and unavoidable punishment were torturing him.

"Why are you so poor?" he exclaimed, involuntarily expressing his thought.

"How could such as we help being poor, sir,[10] your excellency? Our land is so bad, you yourself may be pleased to know,--clay and sand-heaps; and surely we must have angered G.o.d, for this long time, ever since the cholera, the corn won't grow. Our meadows and every thing else have been growing worse and worse. And some of us have to work for the farm, and some detailed for the manor-lands. And here I am with no one to help me, and I'm getting old. I'd be glad enough to work, but I hain't no strength. And my old woman's ailing; and every year there's a new girl born, and I have to feed 'em all. I get tired out all alone, and here's seven dependent on me.

I must be a sinner in the eyes of the Lord G.o.d, I often think to myself.

And when G.o.d takes me off sudden-like, I feel it would be easier for me; just as it's better for them than to lead such a dog's life here"....

[Footnote 10: _batiushka._]

"Oh, _okh_!" groaned the old woman, as a sort of confirmation of her husband's words.

"And this is all the help I have," continued Churis, pointing to the white-headed, unkempt little boy of seven, with a huge belly, who at this moment, timidly and quietly pus.h.i.+ng the door open, came into the hut, and, resting his eyes in wonder and solemnity on the master, clung hold of Churis's s.h.i.+rt-band with both hands.

"This is all the a.s.sistance I have here," continued Churis in a sonorous voice, laying his s.h.a.ggy hand on the little lad's white hair. "When will he be good for any thing? But my work isn't much good. When I reach old age I shall be good for nothing; the rupture is getting the better of me. In wet weather it makes me fairly scream. I am getting to be an old man, and yet I have to take care of my land.[11] And here's Yermilof, Demkin, Zabref, all younger than I am, and they have been freed from their land long ago. Well, I haven't any one to help me with it; that's my misfortune. Have to feed so many; that's where my struggle lies, your excellency."

"I should be very glad to make it easier for you, truly. But how can I?"

asked the young barin in a tone of sympathy, looking at the serf.

"How make it easier? It's a well-known fact, if you have the land you must do enforced labor also;[12] that's the regulation. I expect something from this youngster. If only you'd be good enough to let him off from going to school. But just a day or two ago, the officer[13] came and said that your excellency wanted him to go to school. Do let him off; he has no capacity for learning, your excellency. He's too young yet; he won't understand any thing."

[Footnote 11: The lands belonging to the Russian commune, or _mir_, were periodically distributed by allotment, each full-grown peasant receiving as his share a _tiaglo_ representing what the average man and his wife were capable of cultivating. When the period was long--ten years for instance--it sometimes happened that a serf, by reason of illness, laziness, or other misfortune, would find it hard to cultivate his share, pay the tax on it, and also do the work required of him on his barin's land. Such was Churis's complaint.]

[Footnote 12: _barshchina_: work on the master's land.]

[Footnote 13: _zemski._]

"No, brother, you're wrong there," said the barin. "Your boy is old enough to understand; it's time for him to be learning. Just think of it! How he'll grow up, and learn about farming; yes, and he'll know his a-b-c's, and know how to read; and read in church. He'll be a great help to you if G.o.d lets him live," said Nekhliudof, trying to make himself as plain as possible, and at the same time blus.h.i.+ng and stammering.

"Very true, your excellency. You don't want to do us an injury, but there's no one to take care of the house; for while I and the old woman are doing the enforced labor, the boy, though he's so young, is a great help, driving the cattle and watering the horses. Whatever he is, he's a true muzhik;"

and Churis, with a smile, took the lad's nose between his fat fingers, and deftly removed the mucus.

"Nevertheless, you must send him to school, for now you are at home, and he has plenty of time,--do you hear? Don't you fail."

Churis sighed deeply, and made no reply.

V.

"There's one other thing I wished to speak to you about," said Nekhliudof.

"Why don't you haul out your manure?"

"What manure, sir,[14] your excellency? There isn't any to haul out. What cattle have I got? One mare and colt; and last autumn I sold my heifer to the porter,--that's all the cattle I've got."

[Footnote 14: _batiushka._]

"I know you haven't much, but why did you sell your heifer?" asked the barin in amazement.

"What have I got to feed her on?"

"Didn't you have some straw for feeding the cow? The others did."

"The others have their fields manured, but my land's all clay. I can't do any thing with it."

"Why don't you dress it, then, so it won't be clay? Then the land would give you grain, and you'd have something to feed to your stock."

"But I haven't any stock, so how am I going to get dressing?"

"That's an odd _cercle vicieux_," said Nekhliudof to himself; and he actually was at his wits' ends to find an answer for the peasant.

"And I tell you this, your excellency, it ain't the manure that makes the corn grow, but G.o.d," continued the peasant. "Now, one summer I had six sheaves on one little unmanured piece of land, and only a twelfth as much on that which was manured well. No one like G.o.d," he added with a sigh.

"Yes, and my stock are always dying off. Five years past I haven't had any luck with 'em. Last summer one heifer died; had to sell another, hadn't any thing to feed her on; and last year my best cow perished. They were driving her home from pasture; nothing the matter, but suddenly she staggered and staggered. And so now it's all empty here. Just my bad luck!"

"Well, brother, since you say that you have no cattle to help you make fodder, and no fodder for your cattle, here's something towards a cow,"

said Nekhliudof, reddening, and fetching forth from his pocket a packet of crumpled bank-notes and untying it. "Buy you a cow at my expense, and get some fodder from the granary: I will give orders. See to it that you have a cow by next Sunday. I shall come to see."

Churis hesitated long; and when he did not offer to take the money, Nekhliudof laid it down on the end of the table, and a still deeper flush spread over his face.

"Many thanks for your kindness," said Churis, with his ordinary smile, which was somewhat sarcastic.

The old woman sighed heavily several times as she stood under the loft, and seemed to be repeating a prayer.

The situation was embarra.s.sing for the young prince: he hastily got up from the bench, went out into the entry, and called to Churis to follow him. The sight of the man whom he had been befriending was so pleasant that he found it hard to tear himself away.

"I am glad to help you," said he, halting by the well. "It's in my power to help you, because I know that you are not lazy. You will work, and I will a.s.sist you; and, with G.o.d's aid, you will come out all right."

"There's no hope of coming out all right, your excellency," said Churis, suddenly a.s.suming a serious and even stern expression of countenance, as though the young man's a.s.surance that he would come out all right had awakened all his opposition. "In my father's time my brothers and I did not see any lack; but when he died, we broke all up. It kept going from bad to worse. Perfect wretchedness!"

"Why did you break up?"

"All on account of the women, your excellency. It was just after your grandfather died; when he was alive, we should not have ventured to do it: then the present order of things came in. He was just like you, he took an interest in every thing; and we should not have dared to separate. The late master did not like to look after the peasants; but after your grandfather's time, Andre Ilyitch took charge. G.o.d forgive him! he was a drunken, careless man. We came to him once and again with complaints,--no living on account of the women,--begged him to let us separate. Well, he put it off, and put it off; but at last things came to such a pa.s.s, the women kept each to their own part; we began to live apart; and, of course, what could a single peasant do? Well, there wasn't no law or order. Andre Ilyitch managed simply to suit himself. 'Take all you can get.' And whatever he could extort from a peasant, he took without asking. Then the poll-tax was raised, and they began to exact more provisions, and we had less and less land, and the grain stopped growing. Well, when the new allotment was made, then he took away from us our manured land, and added it to the master's, the villain, and ruined us entirely. He ought to have been hung. Your father[15]--the kingdom of heaven be his!--was a good barin, but it was rarely enough that we ever had sight of him: he always lived in Moscow. Well, of course they used to drive the carts in pretty often. Sometimes it would be the season of bad roads,[16] and no fodder; but no matter! The barin couldn't get along without it. We did not dare to complain at this, but there wasn't system. But now your grace lets any of us peasants see your face, and so a change has come over us; and the overseer is a different kind of man. Now we know for sure that we have a barin. And it is impossible to say how grateful your peasants are for your kindness. But before you came, there wasn't any real barin: every one was barin. Ilyitch was barin, and his wife put on the airs of a lady,[17] and the scribe from the police-station was barin. Too many of em! _ukh!_ the peasants had to put up with many trials."

Again Nekhliudof experienced a feeling akin to shame or remorse. He put on his hat, and went on his way.

[Footnote 15: _batiushka._]

[Footnote 16: _rasput.i.tsa._]

[Footnote 17: _baruinya._]

VI.

"Yukhvanka the clever[18] wants to sell a horse," was what Nekhliudof next read in his note-book; and he proceeded along the street to Yukhvanka's place.[19] Yukhvanka's hut was carefully thatched with straw from the thres.h.i.+ng-floor of the estate; the frame-work was of new light-gray aspen-wood (also from stock belonging to the estate), had two handsome painted shutters for the window, and a porch with eaves and ingenious bal.u.s.trades cut out of deal planks.

[Footnote 18: _Yukhvanka-Mudr'yonui._]