But what is to be done, then? We did not do it, did we? And if not we,
who did?
We say, "It is not we who have done all this; it has been done of
itself"; as children say when they break anything, that "it broke
itself." We say that, as towns are already in existence, we, who are
living there, must feed men by buying their labour. But that is not
true. It need only be observed how we live in the country, and how we
feed people there.
Winter is over: Easter is coming. In the town the same orgies of the
rich go on,--on the boulevards, in gardens, in the parks, on the river;
music, theatres, riding, illuminations, fire-works. But in the country
it is still better,--the air is purer; the trees, the meadows, the
flowers, are fresher. We must go where all is budding and blooming. And
now we, the majority of rich people, who live by other men's labour, go
into the country to breathe the purer air, to look at the meadows and
woods. Here in the country among humble villagers who feed on bread and
onions, work eighteen hours every day, and have neither sufficient sleep
nor clothes, rich people take up their abode. No one tempts these
people: here are no factories, and no idle hands, of which there are so
many in town, whom we may imagine we feed by giving them work to do.
Here people never can do their own work in time during the summer; and
not only are there no idle hands, but much property is lost for want of
hands; and an immense number of men, children, and old people, and women
with child, overwork themselves.
How, then, do rich people order their lives here in the country? Thus:
if there happens to be an old mansion, built in the time of the serfs,
then this house is renovated and re-decorated: if there is not, one is
built of two or three stories. The rooms, which are from twelve to
twenty and more in number, are all about sixteen feet high. The floors
are inlaid; in the windows are put whole panes of glass, costly carpets
on the floors; expensive furniture is procured,--a sideboard, for
instance, costing from twenty to sixty pounds. Near the mansion, roads
are made; flower-beds are laid out; there are croquet-lawns,
giant-strides, reflecting globes, conservatories, and hot-houses, and
always luxurious stables. All is painted in colours, prepared with the
very oil which the old people and children lack for their porridge. If a
rich man can afford it he buys such a house for himself; if he cannot he
hires one: but however poor and however liberal a man of our circle may
be, he always takes up his abode in the country in such a house, for
building and keeping which it is necessary to take away dozens of
working-people who have not enough time to do their own business in the
field to earn their living.
Here we cannot say that factories are already in existence and will
continue so whether we make use of their work or no; we cannot say that
we are feeding idle hands; here we plainly establish the factories for
making things necessary for us, and simply make use of the surrounding
people; we divert the people from work necessary for them, as for us and
for all, and by such system deprave some, and ruin the lives and the
health of others.
There lives, let us say, in a village, an educated and respectable
family of the upper class, or that of a government officer. All its
members and the visitors assemble towards the middle of June, because up
to June they had been studying and passing their examinations: they
assemble when mowing begins, and they stay until September, until the
harvest and sowing time. The members of the family (as almost all men of
this class) remain in the country from the beginning of the urgent
work,--hay-making,--not to the end of it, indeed, because in September
the sowing goes on, and the digging up of potatoes, but till labour
begins to slacken. During the whole time of the stay, around them and
close by the peasants' summer work has been proceeding, the strain of
which, however much we may have heard or read of it, however much we may
have looked at it, we can form no adequate idea without having
experienced it ourselves.
The members of the family, about ten persons have been living as they
did in town, if possible still worse than in town, because here in the
village they are supposed to be resting (after doing nothing), and offer
no pretence in the way of work, and no excuse for their idleness.
In the midsummer-lent, when people are forced from want to feed on
kvas[5] and bread and onions, begins the mowing time. Gentlefolk who
live in the country see this labour, partly order it, partly admire it;
enjoy the smell of the drying hay, the sound of women's songs, the noise
of the scythes, and the sight of the rows of mowers, and of the women
raking. They see this near their house as well as when they, with young
people and children who do nothing all the day long, drive well-fed
horses a distance of a few hundred yards to the bathing-place.
[5] A home-made cheap fermented drink.--Ed.
The work of mowing is one of the most important in the world. Nearly
every year, from want of hands and of time, the meadows remain half
uncut and may remain so till the rains begin; so that the degree of
intensity of the labour decides the question whether twenty or more per
cent will be added to the stores of the world, or whether this hay will
be left to rot or spoil while yet uncut.
And if there is more hay, there will be also more meat for old people
and milk for children; thus matters stand in general; but in particular
for each mower here is decided the question of bread and milk for
himself, and for his children during the winter.
Each of the working-people, male and female, knows this: even the
children know that this is an important business and that one ought to
work with all one's strength, carry a jug with kvas for the father to
the mowing-place, and, shifting it from one hand to another, run
barefoot as quickly as possible, a distance of perhaps a mile and a half
from the village, in order to be in time for dinner, that father may not
grumble. Every one knows, that, from the mowing to the harvest, there
will be no cessation of labour, and no time for rest. And besides
mowing, each has some other business to do,--to plough up new land and
harrow it; the women have the linen to make, bread to bake, and the
washing to do; and the peasants must drive to the mill and to market;
they have the official affairs of their community to attend to; they
have also to provide the local government officials with means of
locomotion, and to pass the night in the fields with the pastured
horses.
All, old and young and sick, work with all their strength.
The peasants work in such a way, that, when cutting the last rows, the
mowers, some of them weak people, growing youths, and old men, are so
tired, that, having rested a little, it is with great pain they begin
anew; the women, often with child, work hard too.
It is a strained, incessant labour. All work to the utmost of their
strength, and use not only all their provisions but what they have in
store. During harvest-time all the peasants grow thinner although they
never were very stout.
There is a small company labouring in the hayfield; three peasants--one
an old man, another his married nephew, and the third the village
cobbler, a thin, wiry man. Their mowing this morning decides their fate
for the coming winter, whether they will be able to keep a cow and pay
their taxes. This is their second weeks' work. The rain hindered them
for a while. After the rain had left off and the water had dried up they
decided to make hayricks; and in order to do it quicker they decided
that two women must rake to each scythe. With the old man came out his
wife, fifty years of age, worn out with labour and the bearing of eleven
children; deaf, but still strong enough for work; and his daughter,
thirteen years of age, a short but brisk and strong little girl.
With the nephew came his wife,--a tall woman, as strong as a peasant,
and his sister in law,--a soldier's wife, who was with child. With the
cobbler came his wife,--a strong working-woman, and her mother,--an old
woman about eighty, who for the rest of the year used to beg.
They all draw up in a line, and work from morning to evening in the
burning sun of June. It is steaming hot and a thunder-shower is
threatening. Every moment of work is precious. They have not wished to
leave off working even to fetch water or kvas. A small boy, the grandson
of the old woman, brings them water. The old woman is evidently anxious
only on one point,--not to be sent away from work. She does not let the
rake out of her hands, and moves about with great difficulty. The little
boy, quite bent under the jug with water, heavier than himself, walks
with short steps on his bare feet, and carries the jug with many shifts.
The little girl takes on her shoulders a load of hay which is also
heavier than herself; walks a few paces, and stops, then throws it down,
having no strength to carry it farther. The old man's wife rakes
together unceasingly, her kerchief loosened from her disordered hair;
she carries the hay, breathing heavily and staggering under the burden:
the cobbler's mother is only raking, but this is also beyond her
strength; she slowly drags her feet, in baste shoes, and looks gloomily
before her, like one very ill, or at the point of death. The old man
purposely sends her far away from the others, to rake about the ricks,
in order that she may not attempt to compete with them; but she does not
leave off working, but continues with the same dead gloomy face as long
as the others.
The sun is already setting behind the wood and the ricks are not yet in
order: there is much still to be done.
All feel that it is time to leave off working but no one says so; each
waiting for the other to suggest it. At last, the cobbler, realizing
that he has no more strength left, proposes to the old man to leave the
ricks till to-morrow, and the old man agrees to it; and at once the
women go to fetch their clothes, their jugs, their pitchforks; and the
old woman sits down where she was standing, and then lays herself down
with the same fixed stare on her face. But as the women go away she gets
up groaning, and, crawling along, follows them.
Let us turn to the country-house. The same evening, when from the side
of the village were heard the rattle of the scythes of the toil-worn
mowers who were returning from work, the sounds of the hammer against
the anvil, the cries of women and girls who had just had time to put
away their rakes, and were already running to drive the cattle in,--with
those blend other sounds from the country-house. Rattle, rattle, goes
the piano; a Hungarian song is heard through the noise of the
croquet-balls; before the stable an open carriage is standing harnessed
with four fat horses, which has been hired for twenty shillings to bring
some guests a distance of ten miles.
Horses standing by the carriage rattle their little bells. Before them
hay has been thrown, which they are scattering with their hoofs, the
same hay which the peasants have been gathering with such hard labour.
In the yard of this mansion there is movement; a healthy, well-fed
fellow in a pink shirt, presented to him for his service as a
house-porter, is calling the coachmen and telling them to harness and
saddle some horses. Two peasants who live here as coachmen come out of
their room, and go in an easy manner, swinging their arms, to saddle
horses for the ladies and gentlemen. Still nearer to the house the
sounds of another piano are heard. It is the music-mistress,--who lives
in the family to teach the children,--practising her Schumann. The
sounds of one piano jangle with those of another. Quite near the house
walk two nurses; one is young, another old; they lead and carry children
to bed; these children are of the same age as those who ran from the
village with jugs. One nurse is English: she cannot speak Russian. She
was engaged to come from England, not from being distinguished by some
peculiar qualities but simply because she does not speak Russian.
Farther on is another person, a French woman, who is also engaged
because she does not know Russian. Farther on a peasant, with two women,
is watering flowers near the house: another is cleaning a gun for one of
the young gentlemen. Here two women are carrying a basket with clean
linen,--they have been washing for all these gentlefolks. In the house
two women have scarcely time to wash the plates and dishes after the
company, who have just done eating; and two peasants in evening clothes
are running up and down the stairs, serving coffee, tea, wine,
seltzer-water, etc. Up-stairs a table is spread. One meal has just
ended, and another will soon begin, to continue till cock-crow and often
till morning dawns. Some are sitting smoking, playing cards; others are
sitting and smoking, engaged in discussing liberal ideas of reform; and
others, again, walk to and fro, eat, smoke, and, not knowing what to do,
have made up their mind to take a drive.
The household consists of fifteen persons, healthy men and women; and
thirty persons, healthy working-people, male and female, labour for
them. And this takes place there, where every hour, and each little boy,
are precious.
This will be so, also, in July, when the peasants, not having had their
sleep out, will mow the oats at night in order that it may not be lost,
and the women will get up before dawn in order to finish their threshing
in time; when this old woman, who had been exhausted during the harvest,
and the women with child, and the little children will again all
overwork themselves, and when there is a great want of hands, horses,
carts, in order to house this corn upon which all men feed, of which
millions of bushels are necessary in Russia in order that men should not
die: during even such a time, the idle lives of ladies and gentlemen
will go on. There will be private theatricals, picnics, hunting,
drinking, eating, piano-playing, singing, dancing,--in fact, incessant
orgies.
Here, at least, it is impossible to find any excuse from the fact that
all this had been going on before: nothing of the kind had been in
existence. We ourselves carefully create such a life, taking bread and
labour away from the work-worn people. We live sumptuously, as if there
were no connection whatever between the dying washerwoman,
child-prostitute, women worn out by making cigarettes and all the
intense labour around us to which their unnourished strength is
inadequate. We do not want to see the fact that if there were not our
idle, luxurious, depraved lives, there would not be this labour,
disproportioned to the strength of people, and that if there were not
this labour we could not go on living in the same way.
It appears to us that their sufferings are one thing and our lives
another, and that we, living as we do, are innocent and pure as doves.
We read the description of the lives of the Romans, and wonder at the
inhumanity of a heartless Lucullus, who gorged himself with fine dishes
and delicious wines while people were starving: we shake our heads and
wonder at the barbarism of our grandfathers,--the serf-owners,--who
provided themselves with orchestras and theatres, and employed whole
villages to keep up their gardens. From the height of our greatness we
wonder at their inhumanity. We read the words of Isaiah v., 8:
"Woe unto them that join house to house, that lay field to field,
till there be no room, and ye be made to dwell alone in the midst of
the land.
Woe unto them that rise up early in the morning, that they may
follow strong drink; that tarry late into the night, till wine
inflame them!
The harp, and the lute, the tabret, the pipe, and wine are in their
feasts: but they regard not the work of the Lord, neither have they
considered the operation of his hands.
Woe unto them that draw iniquity with cords of vanity, and sin as it
were with a cart rope.
Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness
for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and
sweet for bitter!
Woe unto them that are wise in their own eyes, and prudent in their
own sight!
Woe unto them that are mighty to drink wine, and men of strength to
mingle strong drink:
Which justify the wicked for reward, and take away the righteousness
of the righteous from him."
We read these words, and it seems to us that they have nothing to do
with us.
We read in the Gospel, Matthew iii., 10: "And even now is the axe laid
unto the root of the tree: every tree therefore that bringeth not forth
good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire," and we are quite sure
that the good tree bearing good fruit is we ourselves, and that those
words are said, not to us, but to some other bad men.
We read the words of Isaiah vi., 10:
"Make the heart of this people fat, and make their ears heavy, and
shut their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their
ears, and understand with their heart, and turn again, and be
healed. Then said I, Lord, how long? And he answered, Until cities
be waste without inhabitant, and houses without man, and the land
become utterly waste."
We read, and are quite assured that this wonderful thing has not
happened to us, but to some other people. For this very reason we do not
see that this has happened to us, and is taking place with us. We do not
hear, we do not see, and do not understand with our heart.
But why has it so happened?