CHAPTER LIX.

NEKHLUDOFF’S THIRD INTERVIEW WITH MASLOVA IN PRISON.

One of the most widespread superstitions is that every man has his own

special, definite qualities; that a man is kind, cruel, wise, stupid,

energetic, apathetic, etc. Men are not like that. We may say of a man

that he is more often kind than cruel, oftener wise than stupid, oftener

energetic than apathetic, or the reverse; but it would be false to say

of one man that he is kind and wise, of another that he is wicked and

foolish. And yet we always classify mankind in this way. And this is

untrue. Men are like rivers: the water is the same in each, and alike in

all; but every river is narrow here, is more rapid there, here slower,

there broader, now clear, now cold, now dull, now warm. It is the same

with men. Every man carries in himself the germs of every human quality,

and sometimes one manifests itself, sometimes another, and the man often

becomes unlike himself, while still remaining the same man, In some

people these changes are very rapid, and Nekhludoff was such a man.

These changes in him were due to physical and to spiritual causes. At

this time he experienced such a change.

That feeling of triumph and joy at the renewal of life which he had

experienced after the trial and after the first interview with Katusha,

vanished completely, and after the last interview fear and revulsion

took the place of that joy. He was determined not to leave her, and not

to change his decision of marrying her, if she wished it; but it seemed

very hard, and made him suffer.

On the day after his visit to Maslennikoff, he again went to the prison

to see her.

The inspector allowed him to speak to her, only not in the advocate’s

room nor in the office, but in the women’s visiting-room. In spite

of his kindness, the inspector was more reserved with Nekhludoff than

hitherto.

An order for greater caution had apparently been sent, as a result of

his conversation with Meslennikoff.

“You may see her,” the inspector said; “but please remember what I

said as regards money. And as to her removal to the hospital, that his

excellency wrote to me about, it can be done; the doctor would agree.

Only she herself does not wish it. She says, ‘Much need have I to carry

out the slops for the scurvy beggars.’ You don’t know what these people

are, Prince,” he added.

Nekhludoff did not reply, but asked to have the interview. The

inspector called a jailer, whom Nekhludoff followed into the women’s

visiting-room, where there was no one but Maslova waiting. She came from

behind the grating, quiet and timid, close up to him, and said, without

looking at him:

“Forgive me, Dmitri Ivanovitch, I spoke hastily the day before

yesterday.”

“It is not for me to forgive you,” Nekhludoff began.

“But all the same, you must leave me,” she interrupted, and in the

terribly squinting eyes with which she looked at him Nekhludoff read the

former strained, angry expression.

“Why should I leave you?”

“So.”

“But why so?”

She again looked up, as it seemed to him, with the same angry look.

“Well, then, thus it is,” she said. “You must leave me. It is true

what I am saying. I cannot. You just give it up altogether.” Her lips

trembled and she was silent for a moment. “It is true. I’d rather hang

myself.”

Nekhludoff felt that in this refusal there was hatred and unforgiving

resentment, but there was also something besides, something good. This

confirmation of the refusal in cold blood at once quenched all the

doubts in Nekhludoff’s bosom, and brought back the serious, triumphant

emotion he had felt in relation to Katusha.

“Katusha, what I have said I will again repeat,” he uttered, very

seriously. “I ask you to marry me. If you do not wish it, and for as

long as you do not wish it, I shall only continue to follow you, and

shall go where you are taken.”

“That is your business. I shall not say anything more,” she answered,

and her lips began to tremble again.

He, too, was silent, feeling unable to speak.

“I shall now go to the country, and then to Petersburg,” he said, when

he was quieter again. “I shall do my utmost to get your--our case, I

mean, reconsidered, and by the help of God the sentence may be revoked.”

“And if it is not revoked, never mind. I have deserved it, if not in

this case, in other ways,” she said, and he saw how difficult it was for

her to keep down her tears.

“Well, have you seen Menshoff?” she suddenly asked, to hide her emotion.

“It’s true they are innocent, isn’t it?”

“Yes, I think so.”

“Such a splendid old woman,” she said.

There was another pause.

“Well, and as to the hospital?” she suddenly said, and looking at him

with her squinting eyes. “If you like, I will go, and I shall not drink

any spirits, either.”

Nekhludoff looked into her eyes. They were smiling.

“Yes, yes, she is quite a different being,” Nekhludoff thought. After

all his former doubts, he now felt something he had never before

experienced--the certainty that love is invincible.

When Maslova returned to her noisome cell after this interview, she took

off her cloak and sat down in her place on the shelf bedstead with her

hands folded on her lap. In the cell were only the consumptive woman,

the Vladimir woman with her baby, Menshoff’s old mother, and the

watchman’s wife. The deacon’s daughter had the day before been declared

mentally diseased and removed to the hospital. The rest of the women

were away, washing clothes. The old woman was asleep, the cell door

stood open, and the watchman’s children were in the corridor outside.

The Vladimir woman, with her baby in her arms, and the watchman’s

wife, with the stocking she was knitting with deft fingers, came up to

Maslova. “Well, have you had a chat?” they asked. Maslova sat silent on

the high bedstead, swinging her legs, which did not reach to the floor.

“What’s the good of snivelling?” said the watchman’s wife. “The chief

thing’s not to go down into the dumps. Eh, Katusha? Now, then!” and she

went on, quickly moving her fingers.

Maslova did not answer.

“And our women have all gone to wash,” said the Vladimir woman. “I

heard them say much has been given in alms to-day. Quite a lot has been

brought.”

“Finashka,” called out the watchman’s wife, “where’s the little imp gone

to?”

She took a knitting needle, stuck it through both the ball and the

stocking, and went out into the corridor.

At this moment the sound of women’s voices was heard from the corridor,

and the inmates of the cell entered, with their prison shoes, but

no stockings on their feet. Each was carrying a roll, some even two.

Theodosia came at once up to Maslova.

“What’s the matter; is anything wrong?” Theodosia asked, looking

lovingly at Maslova with her clear, blue eyes. “This is for our tea,”

and she put the rolls on a shelf.

“Why, surely he has not changed his mind about marrying?” asked

Korableva.

“No, he has not, but I don’t wish to,” said Maslova, “and so I told

him.”

“More fool you!” muttered Korableva in her deep tones.

“If one’s not to live together, what’s the use of marrying?” said

Theodosia.

“There’s your husband--he’s going with you,” said the watchman’s wife.

“Well, of course, we’re married,” said Theodosia. “But why should he go

through the ceremony if he is not to live with her?”

“Why, indeed! Don’t be a fool! You know if he marries her she’ll roll in

wealth,” said Korableva.

“He says, ‘Wherever they take you, I’ll follow,’” said Maslova. “If he

does, it’s well; if he does not, well also. I am not going to ask him

to. Now he is going to try and arrange the matter in Petersburg. He is

related to all the Ministers there. But, all the same, I have no need of

him,” she continued.

“Of course not,” suddenly agreed Korableva, evidently thinking about

something else as she sat examining her bag. “Well, shall we have a

drop?”

“You have some,” replied Maslova. “I won’t.”

END OF BOOK I.

BOOK II.

CHAPTER I.

PROPERTY IN LAND.

It was possible for Maslova’s case to come before the Senate in a

fortnight, at which time Nekhludoff meant to go to Petersburg, and, if

need be, to appeal to the Emperor (as the advocate who had drawn up the

petition advised) should the appeal be disregarded (and, according to

the advocate, it was best to be prepared for that, since the causes for

appeal were so slight). The party of convicts, among whom was Maslova,

would very likely leave in the beginning of June. In order to be able to

follow her to Siberia, as Nekhludoff was firmly resolved to do, he was

now obliged to visit his estates, and settle matters there. Nekhludoff

first went to the nearest, Kousminski, a large estate that lay in the

black earth district, and from which he derived the greatest part of his

income.

He had lived on that estate in his childhood and youth, and had been

there twice since, and once, at his mother’s request, he had taken a

German steward there, and had with him verified the accounts. The state

of things there and the peasants’ relations to the management, i.e.,

the landlord, had therefore been long known to him. The relations of the

peasants to the administration were those of utter dependence on that

management. Nekhludoff knew all this when still a university student,

he had confessed and preached Henry Georgeism, and, on the basis of that

teaching, had given the land inherited from his father to the peasants.

It is true that after entering the army, when he got into the habit of

spending 20,000 roubles a year, those former occupations ceased to be

regarded as a duty, and were forgotten, and he not only left off asking

himself where the money his mother allowed him came from, but even

avoided thinking about it. But his mother’s death, the coming into the

property, and the necessity of managing it, again raised the question

as to what his position in reference to private property in land was. A

month before Nekhludoff would have answered that he had not the strength

to alter the existing order of things; that it was not he who was

administering the estate; and would one way or another have eased his

conscience, continuing to live far from his estates, and having the

money sent him. But now he decided that he could not leave things to go

on as they were, but would have to alter them in a way unprofitable

to himself, even though he had all these complicated and difficult

relations with the prison world which made money necessary, as well as a

probable journey to Siberia before him. Therefore he decided not to farm

the land, but to let it to the peasants at a low rent, to enable them

to cultivate it without depending on a landlord. More than once, when

comparing the position of a landowner with that of an owner of serfs,

Nekhludoff had compared the renting of land to the peasants instead

of cultivating it with hired labour, to the old system by which serf

proprietors used to exact a money payment from their serfs in place of

labour. It was not a solution of the problem, and yet a step towards the

solution; it was a movement towards a less rude form of slavery. And it

was in this way he meant to act.

Nekhludoff reached Kousminski about noon. Trying to simplify his life

in every way, he did not telegraph, but hired a cart and pair at the

station. The driver was a young fellow in a nankeen coat, with a belt

below his long waist. He was glad to talk to the gentleman, especially

because while they were talking his broken-winded white horse and the

emaciated spavined one could go at a foot-pace, which they always liked

to do.

The driver spoke about the steward at Kousminski without knowing that he

was driving “the master.” Nekhludoff had purposely not told him who he

was.

“That ostentatious German,” said the driver (who had been to town and

read novels) as he sat sideways on the box, passing his hand from

the top to the bottom of his long whip, and trying to show off his

accomplishments--“that ostentatious German has procured three light

bays, and when he drives out with his lady---oh, my! At Christmas he had

a Christmas-tree in the big house. I drove some of the visitors there.

It had ‘lectric lights; you could not see the like of it in the whole

of the government. What’s it to him, he has cribbed a heap of money. I

heard say he has bought an estate.”

Nekhludoff had imagined that he was quite indifferent to the way the

steward managed his estate, and what advantages the steward derived from

it. The words of the long-waisted driver, however, were not pleasant to

hear.

A dark cloud now and then covered the sun; the larks were soaring above

the fields of winter corn; the forests were already covered with fresh

young green; the meadows speckled with grazing cattle and horses. The

fields were being ploughed, and Nekhludoff enjoyed the lovely day. But

every now and then he had an unpleasant feeling, and, when he asked

himself what it was caused by, he remembered what the driver had told

him about the way the German was managing Kousminski. When he got to his

estate and set to work this unpleasant feeling vanished.

Looking over the books in the office, and a talk with the foreman, who

naively pointed out the advantages to be derived from the facts that the

peasants had very little land of their own and that it lay in the midst

of the landlord’s fields, made Nekhludoff more than ever determined to

leave off farming and to let his land to the peasants.

From the office books and his talk with the foreman, Nekhludoff found

that two-thirds of the best of the cultivated land was still being

tilled with improved machinery by labourers receiving fixed wages, while

the other third was tilled by the peasants at the rate of five roubles

per desiatin [about two and three-quarter acres]. So that the peasants

had to plough each desiatin three times, harrow it three times, sow

and mow the corn, make it into sheaves, and deliver it on the threshing

ground for five roubles, while the same amount of work done by wage

labour came to at least 10 roubles. Everything the peasants got from the

office they paid for in labour at a very high price. They paid in labour

for the use of the meadows, for wood, for potato-stalks, and were nearly

all of them in debt to the office. Thus, for the land that lay beyond

the cultivated fields, which the peasants hired, four times the price

that its value would bring in if invested at five per cent was taken

from the peasants.

Nekhludoff had known all this before, but he now saw it in a new light,

and wondered how he and others in his position could help seeing how

abnormal such conditions are. The steward’s arguments that if the land

were let to the peasants the agricultural implements would fetch next to

nothing, as it would be impossible to get even a quarter of their value

for them, and that the peasants would spoil the land, and how great a

loser Nekhludoff would be, only strengthened Nekhludoff in the opinion

that he was doing a good action in letting the land to the peasants

and thus depriving himself of a large part of his income. He decided to

settle this business now, at once, while he was there. The reaping and

selling of the corn he left for the steward to manage in due season, and

also the selling of the agricultural implements and useless buildings.

But he asked his steward to call the peasants of the three neighbouring

villages that lay in the midst of his estate (Kousminski) to a meeting,

at which he would tell them of his intentions and arrange about the

price at which they were to rent the land.

With the pleasant sense of the firmness he had shown in the face of the

steward’s arguments, and his readiness to make a sacrifice, Nekhludoff

left the office, thinking over the business before him, and strolled

round the house, through the neglected flower-garden--this year the

flowers were planted in front of the steward’s house--over the tennis

ground, now overgrown with dandelions, and along the lime-tree walk,

where he used to smoke his cigar, and where he had flirted with the

pretty Kirimova, his mother’s visitor. Having briefly prepared in his

mind the speech he was going to make to the peasants, he again went in

to the steward, and, after tea, having once more arranged his thoughts,

he went into the room prepared for him in the big house, which used to

be a spare bedroom.

In this clean little room, with pictures of Venice on the walls, and a

mirror between the two windows, there stood a clean bed with a spring

mattress, and by the side of it a small table, with a decanter of water,

matches, and an extinguisher. On a table by the looking-glass lay his

open portmanteau, with his dressing-case and some books in it; a Russian

book, The Investigation of the Laws of Criminality, and a German and

an English book on the same subject, which he meant to read while

travelling in the country. But it was too late to begin to-day, and he

began preparing to go to bed.

An old-fashioned inlaid mahogany arm-chair stood in the corner of

the room, and this chair, which Nekhludoff remembered standing in his

mother’s bedroom, suddenly raised a perfectly unexpected sensation in

his soul. He was suddenly filled with regret at the thought of the house

that would tumble to ruin, and the garden that would run wild, and the

forest that would be cut down, and all these farmyards, stables, sheds,

machines, horses, cows which he knew had cost so much effort, though not

to himself, to acquire and to keep. It had seemed easy to give up all

this, but now it was hard, not only to give this, but even to let the

land and lose half his income. And at once a consideration, which proved

that it was unreasonable to let the land to the peasants, and thus to

destroy his property, came to his service. “I must not hold property in

land. If I possess no property in land, I cannot keep up the house and

farm. And, besides, I am going to Siberia, and shall not need either

the house or the estate,” said one voice. “All this is so,” said another

voice, “but you are not going to spend all your life in Siberia. You may

marry, and have children, and must hand the estate on to them in as good

a condition as you received it. There is a duty to the land, too.

To give up, to destroy everything is very easy; to acquire it very

difficult. Above all, you must consider your future life, and what

you will do with yourself, and you must dispose of your property

accordingly. And are you really firm in your resolve? And then, are you

really acting according to your conscience, or are you acting in order

to be admired of men?” Nekhludoff asked himself all this, and had to

acknowledge that he was influenced by the thought of what people would

say about him. And the more he thought about it the more questions

arose, and the more unsolvable they seemed.

In hopes of ridding himself of these thoughts by falling asleep, and

solving them in the morning when his head would be fresh, he lay down on

his clean bed. But it was long before he could sleep. Together with the

fresh air and the moonlight, the croaking of the frogs entered the room,

mingling with the trills of a couple of nightingales in the park and

one close to the window in a bush of lilacs in bloom. Listening to

the nightingales and the frogs, Nekhludoff remembered the inspector’s

daughter, and her music, and the inspector; that reminded him of

Maslova, and how her lips trembled, like the croaking of the frogs, when

she said, “You must just leave it.” Then the German steward began going

down to the frogs, and had to be held back, but he not only went down

but turned into Maslova, who began reproaching Nekhludoff, saying, “You

are a prince, and I am a convict.” “No, I must not give in,” thought

Nekhludoff, waking up, and again asking himself, “Is what I am doing

right? I do not know, and no matter, no matter, I must only fall asleep

now.” And he began himself to descend where he had seen the inspector

and Maslova climbing down to, and there it all ended.

CHAPTER II.

EFFORTS AT LAND RESTORATION.

The next day Nekhludoff awoke at nine o’clock. The young office clerk

who attended on “the master” brought him his boots, shining as they had

never shone before, and some cold, beautifully clear spring water, and

informed him that the peasants were already assembling.

Nekhludoff jumped out of bed, and collected his thoughts. Not a trace

of yesterday’s regret at giving up and thus destroying his property

remained now. He remembered this feeling of regret with surprise; he was

now looking forward with joy to the task before him, and could not help

being proud of it. He could see from the window the old tennis ground,

overgrown with dandelions, on which the peasants were beginning to

assemble. The frogs had not croaked in vain the night before; the day

was dull. There was no wind; a soft warm rain had begun falling in the

morning, and hung in drops on leaves, twigs, and grass. Besides the

smell of the fresh vegetation, the smell of damp earth, asking for more

rain, entered in at the window. While dressing, Nekhludoff several times

looked out at the peasants gathered on the tennis ground. One by one

they came, took off their hats or caps to one another, and took their

places in a circle, leaning on their sticks. The steward, a stout,

muscular, strong young man, dressed in a short pea-jacket, with a

green stand-up collar, and enormous buttons, came to say that all had

assembled, but that they might wait until Nekhludoff had finished his

breakfast--tea and coffee, whichever he pleased; both were ready.

“No, I think I had better go and see them at once,” said Nekhludoff,

with an unexpected feeling of shyness and shame at the thought of the

conversation he was going to have with the peasants. He was going to

fulfil a wish of the peasants, the fulfilment of which they did not

even dare to hope for--to let the land to them at a low price, i.e.,

to confer a great boon; and yet he felt ashamed of something. When

Nekhludoff came up to the peasants, and the fair, the curly, the bald,

the grey heads were bared before him, he felt so confused that he

could say nothing. The rain continued to come down in small drops,

that remained on the hair, the beards, and the fluff of the men’s rough

coats. The peasants looked at “the master,” waiting for him to speak,

and he was so abashed that he could not speak. This confused silence

was broken by the sedate, self-assured German steward, who considered

himself a good judge of the Russian peasant, and who spoke Russian

remarkably well. This strong, over-fed man, and Nekhludoff himself,

presented a striking contrast to the peasants, with their thin, wrinkled

faces and the shoulder blades protruding beneath their coarse coats.

“Here’s the Prince wanting to do you a favor, and to let the land to

you; only you are not worthy of it,” said the steward.

“How are we not worthy of it, Vasili Karlovitch? Don’t we work for you?

We were well satisfied with the deceased lady--God have mercy on her

soul--and the young Prince will not desert us now. Our thanks to him,”

said a redhaired, talkative peasant.

“Yes, that’s why I have called you together. I should like to let you

have all the land, if you wish it.”

The peasants said nothing, as if they did not understand or did not

believe it.

“Let’s see. Let us have the land? What do you mean?” asked a middle-aged

man.

“To let it to you, that you might have the use of it, at a low rent.”

“A very agreeable thing,” said an old man.

“If only the pay is such as we can afford,” said another.

“There’s no reason why we should not rent the land.”

“We are accustomed to live by tilling the ground.”

“And it’s quieter for you, too, that way. You’ll have to do nothing

but receive the rent. Only think of all the sin and worry now!” several

voices were heard saying.

“The sin is all on your side,” the German remarked. “If only you did

your work, and were orderly.”

“That’s impossible for the likes of us,” said a sharp-nosed old man.

“You say, ‘Why do you let the horse get into the corn?’ just as if I

let it in. Why, I was swinging my scythe, or something of the kind,

the livelong day, till the day seemed as long as a year, and so I fell

asleep while watching the herd of horses at night, and it got into your

oats, and now you’re skinning me.”

“And you should keep order.”

“It’s easy for you to talk about order, but it’s more than our strength

will bear,” answered a tall, dark, hairy middleaged man.

“Didn’t I tell you to put up a fence?”

“You give us the wood to make it of,” said a short, plain-looking

peasant. “I was going to put up a fence last year, and you put me to

feed vermin in prison for three months. That was the end of that fence.”

“What is it he is saying?” asked Nekhludoff, turning to the steward.

“Der ersto Dieb im Dorfe,” [The greatest thief in the village] answered

the steward in German. “He is caught stealing wood from the forest every

year.” Then turning to the peasant, he added, “You must learn to respect

other people’s property.”

“Why, don’t we respect you?” said an old man. “We are obliged to respect

you. Why, you could twist us into a rope; we are in your hands.”

“Eh, my friend, it’s impossible to do you. It’s you who are ever ready

to do us,” said the steward.

“Do you, indeed. Didn’t you smash my jaw for me, and I got nothing for

it? No good going to law with the rich, it seems.”

“You should keep to the law.”

A tournament of words was apparently going on without those who took

part in it knowing exactly what it was all about; but it was noticeable

that there was bitterness on one side, restricted by fear, and on the

other a consciousness of importance and power. It was very trying to

Nekhludoff to listen to all this, so he returned to the question of

arranging the amount and the terms of the rent.

“Well, then, how about the land? Do you wish to take it, and what price

will you pay if I let you have the whole of it?”

“The property is yours: it is for you to fix the price.”

Nekhludoff named the price. Though it was far below that paid in the

neighbourhood, the peasants declared it too high, and began bargaining,

as is customary among them. Nekhludoff thought his offer would be

accepted with pleasure, but no signs of pleasure were visible.

One thing only showed Nekhludoff that his offer was a profitable one

to the peasants. The question as to who would rent the land, the whole

commune or a special society, was put, and a violent dispute arose among

those peasants who were in favour of excluding the weak and those not

likely to pay the rent regularly, and the peasants who would have to be

excluded on that score. At last, thanks to the steward, the amount and

the terms of the rent were fixed, and the peasants went down the hill

towards their villages, talking noisily, while Nekhludoff and the

steward went into the office to make up the agreement. Everything was

settled in the way Nekhludoff wished and expected it to be. The peasants

had their land 30 per cent. cheaper than they could have got it anywhere

in the district, the revenue from the land was diminished by half, but

was more than sufficient for Nekhludoff, especially as there would be

money coming in for a forest he sold, as well as for the agricultural

implements, which would be sold, too. Everything seemed excellently

arranged, yet he felt ashamed of something. He could see that the

peasants, though they spoke words of thanks, were not satisfied, and

had expected something greater. So it turned out that he had deprived

himself of a great deal, and yet not done what the peasants had

expected.

The next day the agreement was signed, and accompanied by several old

peasants, who had been chosen as deputies, Nekhludoff went out, got

into the steward’s elegant equipage (as the driver from the station had

called it), said “good-bye” to the peasants, who stood shaking their

heads in a dissatisfied and disappointed manner, and drove off to the

station. Nekhludoff was dissatisfied with himself without knowing why,

but all the time he felt sad and ashamed of something.

CHAPTER III.

OLD ASSOCIATIONS.

From Kousminski Nekhludoff went to the estate he had inherited from his

aunts, the same where he first met Katusha. He meant to arrange about

the land there in the way he had done in Kousminski. Besides this, he

wished to find out all he could about Katusha and her baby, and when and

how it had died. He got to Panovo early one morning, and the first thing

that struck him when he drove up was the look of decay and dilapidation

that all the buildings bore, especially the house itself. The iron

roofs, which had once been painted green, looked red with rust, and

a few sheets of iron were bent back, probably by a storm. Some of the

planks which covered the house from outside were torn away in several

places; these were easier to get by breaking the rusty nails that held

them. Both porches, but especially the side porch he remembered so well,

were rotten and broken; only the banister remained. Some of the windows

were boarded up, and the building in which the foreman lived, the

kitchen, the stables--all were grey and decaying. Only the garden had

not decayed, but had grown, and was in full bloom; from over the fence

the cherry, apple, and plum trees looked like white clouds. The lilac

bushes that formed the hedge were in full bloom, as they had been

when, 14 years ago, Nekhludoff had played gorelki with the 15-year-old

Katusha, and had fallen and got his hand stung by the nettles behind one

of those lilac bushes. The larch that his aunt Sophia had planted near

the house, which then was only a short stick, had grown into a tree,

the trunk of which would have made a beam, and its branches were covered

with soft yellow green needles as with down. The river, now within its

banks, rushed noisily over the mill dam. The meadow the other side of

the river was dotted over by the peasants’ mixed herds. The foreman,

a student, who had left the seminary without finishing the course, met

Nekhludoff in the yard, with a smile on his face, and, still smiling,

asked him to come into the office, and, as if promising something

exceptionally good by this smile, he went behind a partition. For a

moment some whispering was heard behind the partition. The isvostchik

who had driven Nekhludoff from the station, drove away after receiving

a tip, and all was silent. Then a barefooted girl passed the window;

she had on an embroidered peasant blouse, and long earrings in her ears;

then a man walked past, clattering with his nailed boots on the trodden

path.

Nekhludoff sat down by the little casement, and looked out into the

garden and listened. A soft, fresh spring breeze, smelling of newly-dug

earth, streamed in through the window, playing with the hair on his damp

forehead and the papers that lay on the window-sill, which was all cut

about with a knife.

“Tra-pa-trop, tra-pa-trop,” comes a sound from the river, as the women

who were washing clothes there slapped them in regular measure with

their wooden bats, and the sound spread over the glittering surface of

the mill pond while the rhythmical sound of the falling water came from

the mill, and a frightened fly suddenly flew loudly buzzing past his

ear.

And all at once Nekhludoff remembered how, long ago, when he was young

and innocent, he had heard the women’s wooden bats slapping the wet

clothes above the rhythmical sound from the mill, and in the same way

the spring breeze had blown about the hair on his wet forehead and the

papers on the window-sill, which was all cut about with a knife, and

just in the same way a fly had buzzed loudly past his car.

It was not exactly that he remembered himself as a lad of 15, but he

seemed to feel himself the same as he was then, with the same freshness

and purity, and full of the same grand possibilities for the future, and

at the same time, as it happens in a dream, he knew that all this could

be no more, and he felt terribly sad. “At what time would you like

something to eat?” asked the foreman, with a smile.

“When you like; I am not hungry. I shall go for a walk through the

village.”

“Would you not like to come into the house? Everything is in order

there. Have the goodness to look in. If the outside---”

“Not now; later on. Tell me, please, have you got a woman here called

Matrona Kharina?” (This was Katusha’s aunt, the village midwife.)

“Oh, yes; in the village she keeps a secret pot-house. I know she does,

and I accuse her of it and scold her; but as to taking her up, it would

be a pity. An old woman, you know; she has grandchildren,” said the

foreman, continuing to smile in the same manner, partly wishing to

be pleasant to the master, and partly because he was convinced that

Nekhludoff understood all these matters just as well as he did himself.

“Where does she live? I shall go across and see her.”

“At the end of the village; the further side, the third from the end. To

the left there is a brick cottage, and her hut is beyond that. But I’d

better see you there,” the foreman said with a graceful smile.

“No, thanks, I shall find it; and you be so good as to call a meeting

of the peasants, and tell them that I want to speak to them about

the land,” said Nekhludoff, with the intention of coming to the same

agreement with the peasants here as he had done in Kousminski, and, if

possible, that same evening.

CHAPTER IV.

THE PEASANTS’ LOT.

When Nekhludoff came out of the gate he met the girl with the long

earrings on the well-trodden path that lay across the pasture

ground, overgrown with dock and plantain leaves. She had a long,

brightly-coloured apron on, and was quickly swinging her left arm in

front of herself as she stepped briskly with her fat, bare feet. With

her right arm she was pressing a fowl to her stomach. The fowl, with

red comb shaking, seemed perfectly calm; he only rolled up his eyes and

stretched out and drew in one black leg, clawing the girl’s apron. When

the girl came nearer to “the master,” she began moving more slowly, and

her run changed into a walk. When she came up to him she stopped, and,

after a backward jerk with her head, bowed to him; and only when he had

passed did she recommence to run homeward with the cock. As he went down

towards the well, he met an old woman, who had a coarse dirty blouse on,

carrying two pails full of water, that hung on a yoke across her bent

back. The old woman carefully put down the pails and bowed, with the

same backward jerk of her head.

After passing the well Nekhludoff entered the village. It was a bright,

hot day, and oppressive, though only ten o’clock. At intervals the sun

was hidden by the gathering clouds. An unpleasant, sharp smell of manure

filled the air in the street. It came from carts going up the hillside,

but chiefly from the disturbed manure heaps in the yards of the huts,

by the open gates of which Nekhludoff had to pass. The peasants,

barefooted, their shirts and trousers soiled with manure, turned to look

at the tall, stout gentleman with the glossy silk ribbon on his grey hat

who was walking up the village street, touching the ground every other

step with a shiny, bright-knobbed walking-stick. The peasants returning

from the fields at a trot and jotting in their empty carts, took

off their hats, and, in their surprise, followed with their eyes the

extraordinary man who was walking up their street. The women came out

of the gates or stood in the porches of their huts, pointing him out to

each other and gazing at him as he passed.

When Nekhludoff was passing the fourth gate, he was stopped by a cart

that was coming out, its wheels creaking, loaded high with manure, which

was pressed down, and was covered with a mat to sit on. A six-year-old

boy, excited by the prospect of a drive, followed the cart. A young

peasant, with shoes plaited out of bark on his feet, led the horse out

of the yard. A long-legged colt jumped out of the gate; but, seeing

Nekhludoff, pressed close to the cart, and scraping its legs against the

wheels, jumped forward, past its excited, gently-neighing mother, as she

was dragging the heavy load through the gateway. The next horse was led

out by a barefooted old man, with protruding shoulder-blades, in a dirty

shirt and striped trousers.

When the horses got out on to the hard road, strewn over with bits

of dry, grey manure, the old man returned to the gate, and bowed to

Nekhludoff.

“You are our ladies’ nephew, aren’t you?”

“Yes, I am their nephew.”

“You’ve kindly come to look us up, eh?” said the garrulous old man.

“Yes, I have. Well, how are you getting on?”

“How do we get on? We get on very badly,” the old man drawled, as if it

gave him pleasure.

“Why so badly?” Nekhludoff asked, stepping inside the gate.

“What is our life but the very worst life?” said the old man, following

Nekhludoff into that part of the yard which was roofed over.

Nekhludoff stopped under the roof.

“I have got 12 of them there,” continued the old man, pointing to two

women on the remainder of the manure heap, who stood perspiring with

forks in their hands, the kerchiefs tumbling off their heads, with their

skirts tucked up, showing the calves of their dirty, bare legs. “Not a

month passes but I have to buy six poods [a pood is 36 English pounds]

of corn, and where’s the money to come from?”

“Have you not got enough corn of your own?”

“My own?” repeated the old man, with a smile of contempt; “why I have

only got land for three, and last year we had not enough to last till

Christmas.”

“What do you do then?”

“What do we do? Why, I hire out as a labourer; and then I borrowed some

money from your honour. We spent it all before Lent, and the tax is not

paid yet.”

“And how much is the tax?”

“Why, it’s 17 roubles for my household. Oh, Lord, such a life! One

hardly knows one’s self how one manages to live it.”

“May I go into your hut?” asked Nekhludoff, stepping across the yard

over the yellow-brown layers of manure that had been raked up by the

forks, and were giving off a strong smell.

“Why not? Come in,” said the old man, and stepping quickly with his

bare feet over the manure, the liquid oozing between his toes, he passed

Nekhludoff and opened the door of the hut.

The women arranged the kerchiefs on their heads and let down their

skirts, and stood looking with surprise at the clean gentleman with gold

studs to his sleeves who was entering their house. Two little girls,

with nothing on but coarse chemises, rushed out of the hut. Nekhludoff

took off his hat, and, stooping to get through the low door, entered,

through a passage into the dirty, narrow hut, that smelt of sour food,

and where much space was taken up by two weaving looms. In the hut an

old woman was standing by the stove, with the sleeves rolled up over her

thin, sinewy brown arms.

“Here is our master come to see us,” said the old man.

“I’m sure he’s very welcome,” said the old woman, kindly.

“I would like to see how you live.”

“Well, you see how we live. The hut is coming down, and might kill one

any day; but my old man he says it’s good enough, and so we live like

kings,” said the brisk old woman, nervously jerking her head. “I’m

getting the dinner; going to feed the workers.”

“And what are you going to have for dinner?”

“Our food is very good. First course, bread and kvas; [kvas is a kind of

sour, non-intoxicant beer made of rye] second course, kvas and bread,”

said the old woman, showing her teeth, which were half worn away.

“No,” seriously; “let me see what you are going to eat.”

“To eat?” said the old man, laughing. “Ours is not a very cunning meal.

You just show him, wife.”

“Want to see our peasant food? Well, you are an inquisitive gentleman,

now I come to look at you. He wants to know everything. Did I not tell

you bread and kvas and then we’ll have soup. A woman brought us some

fish, and that’s what the soup is made of, and after that, potatoes.”

“Nothing more?”

“What more do you want? We’ll also have a little milk,” said the old

woman, looking towards the door. The door stood open, and the passage

outside was full of people--boys, girls, women with babies--thronged

together to look at the strange gentleman who wanted to see the

peasants’ food. The old woman seemed to pride herself on the way she

behaved with a gentleman.

“Yes, it’s a miserable life, ours; that goes without saying, sir,” said

the old man. “What are you doing there?” he shouted to those in the

passage. “Well, good-bye,” said Nekhludoff, feeling ashamed and uneasy,

though unable to account for the feeling.

“Thank you kindly for having looked us up,” said the old man.

The people in the passage pressed closer together to let Nekhludoff

pass, and he went out and continued his way up the street.

Two barefooted boys followed him out of the passage the elder in a

shirt that had once been white, the other in a worn and faded pink one.

Nekhludoff looked back at them.

“And where are you going now?” asked the boy with the white shirt.

Nekhludoff answered: “To Matrona Kharina. Do you know her?” The boy

with the pink shirt began laughing at something; but the elder asked,

seriously:

“What Matrona is that? Is she old?”

“Yes, she is old.”

“Oh--oh,” he drawled; “that one; she’s at the other end of the village;

we’ll show you. Yes, Fedka, we’ll go with him. Shall we?”

“Yes, but the horses?”

“They’ll be all right, I dare say.”

Fedka agreed, and all three went up the street.

CHAPTER V.

MASLOVA’S AUNT.

Nekhludoff felt more at ease with the boys than with the grown-up

people, and he began talking to them as they went along. The little

one with the pink shirt stopped laughing, and spoke as sensibly and as

exactly as the elder one.

“Can you tell me who are the poorest people you have got here?” asked

Nekhludoff.

“The poorest? Michael is poor, Simon Makhroff, and Martha, she is very

poor.”

“And Anisia, she is still poorer; she’s not even got a cow. They go

begging,” said little Fedka.

“She’s not got a cow, but they are only three persons, and Martha’s

family are five,” objected the elder boy.

“But the other’s a widow,” the pink boy said, standing up for Anisia.

“You say Anisia is a widow, and Martha is no better than a widow,” said

the elder boy; “she’s also no husband.”

“And where is her husband?” Nekhludoff asked.

“Feeding vermin in prison,” said the elder boy, using this expression,

common among the peasants.

“A year ago he cut down two birch trees in the land-lord’s forest,” the

little pink boy hurried to say, “so he was locked up; now he’s sitting

the sixth month there, and the wife goes begging. There are three

children and a sick grandmother,” he went on with his detailed account.

“And where does she live?” Nekhludoff asked.

“In this very house,” answered the boy, pointing to a hut, in front

of which, on the footpath along which Nekhludoff was walking, a tiny,

flaxen-headed infant stood balancing himself with difficulty on his

rickety legs.

“Vaska! Where’s the little scamp got to?” shouted a woman, with a dirty

grey blouse, and a frightened look, as she ran out of the house, and,

rushing forward, seized the baby before Nekhludoff came up to it, and

carried it in, just as if she were afraid that Nekhludoff would hurt her

child.

This was the woman whose husband was imprisoned for Nekhludoff’s birch

trees.

“Well, and this Matrona, is she also poor?” Nekhludoff asked, as they

came up to Matrona’s house.

“She poor? No. Why, she sells spirits,” the thin, pink little boy

answered decidedly.

When they reached the house Nekhludoff left the boys outside and went

through the passage into the hut. The hut was 14 feet long. The bed

that stood behind the big stove was not long enough for a tall person

to stretch out on. “And on this very bed,” Nekhludoff thought, “Katusha

bore her baby and lay ill afterwards.” The greater part of the hut was

taken up by a loom, on which the old woman and her eldest granddaughter

were arranging the warp when Nekhludoff came in, striking his forehead

against the low doorway. Two other grandchildren came rushing in after

Nekhludoff, and stopped, holding on to the lintels of the door.

“Whom do you want?” asked the old woman, crossly. She was in a bad

temper because she could not manage to get the warp right, and, besides,

carrying on an illicit trade in spirits, she was always afraid when any

stranger came in.

“I am--the owner of the neighbouring estates, and should like to speak

to you.”

“Dear me; why, it’s you, my honey; and I, fool, thought it was just some

passer-by. Dear me, you--it’s you, my precious,” said the old woman,

with simulated tenderness in her voice.

“I should like to speak to you alone,” said Nekhludoff, with a glance

towards the door, where the children were standing, and behind them a

woman holding a wasted, pale baby, with a sickly smile on its face, who

had a little cap made of different bits of stuff on its head.

“What are you staring at? I’ll give it you. Just hand me my crutch,” the

old woman shouted to those at the door.

“Shut the door, will you!” The children went away, and the woman closed

the door.

“And I was thinking, who’s that? And it’s ‘the master’ himself. My

jewel, my treasure. Just think,” said the old woman, “where he has

deigned to come. Sit down here, your honour,” she said, wiping the seat

with her apron. “And I was thinking what devil is it coming in, and it’s

your honour, ‘the master’ himself, the good gentleman, our benefactor.

Forgive me, old fool that I am; I’m getting blind.”

Nekhludoff sat down, and the old woman stood in front of him, leaning

her cheek on her right hand, while the left held up the sharp elbow of

her right arm.

“Dear me, you have grown old, your honour; and you used to be as fresh

as a daisy. And now! Cares also, I expect?”

“This is what I have come about: Do you remember Katusha Maslova?”

“Katerina? I should think so. Why, she is my niece. How could I help

remembering; and the tears I have shed because of her. Why, I know all

about it. Eh, sir, who has not sinned before God? who has not offended

against the Tsar? We know what youth is. You used to be drinking tea and

coffee, so the devil got hold of you. He is strong at times. What’s to

be done? Now, if you had chucked her; but no, just see how you rewarded

her, gave her a hundred roubles. And she? What has she done? Had she

but listened to me she might have lived all right. I must say the truth,

though she is my niece: that girl’s no good. What a good place I found

her! She would not submit, but abused her master. Is it for the likes

of us to scold gentlefolk? Well, she was sent away. And then at the

forester’s. She might have lived there; but no, she would not.”

“I want to know about the child. She was confined at your house, was she

not? Where’s the child?”

“As to the child, I considered that well at the time. She was so bad

I never thought she would get up again. Well, so I christened the baby

quite properly, and we sent it to the Foundlings’. Why should one let

an innocent soul languish when the mother is dying? Others do like this:

they just leave the baby, don’t feed it, and it wastes away. But, thinks

I, no; I’d rather take some trouble, and send it to the Foundlings’.

There was money enough, so I sent it off.”

“Did you not get its registration number from the Foundlings’ Hospital?”

“Yes, there was a number, but the baby died,” she said. “It died as soon

as she brought it there.”

“Who is she?”

“That same woman who used to live in Skorodno. She made a business of

it. Her name was Malania. She’s dead now. She was a wise woman. What do

you think she used to do? They’d bring her a baby, and she’d keep it and

feed it; and she’d feed it until she had enough of them to take to the

Foundlings’. When she had three or four, she’d take them all at once.

She had such a clever arrangement, a sort of big cradle--a double one

she could put them in one way or the other. It had a handle. So she’d

put four of them in, feet to feet and the heads apart, so that they

should not knock against each other. And so she took four at once. She’d

put some pap in a rag into their mouths to keep ‘em silent, the pets.”

“Well, go on.”

“Well, she took Katerina’s baby in the same way, after keeping it a

fortnight, I believe. It was in her house it began to sicken.”

“And was it a fine baby?” Nekhludoff asked.

“Such a baby, that if you wanted a finer you could not find one. Your

very image,” the old woman added, with a wink.

“Why did it sicken? Was the food bad?”

“Eh, what food? Only just a pretence of food. Naturally, when it’s not

one’s own child. Only enough to get it there alive. She said she

just managed to get it to Moscow, and there it died. She brought a

certificate--all in order. She was such a wise woman.”

That was all Nekhludoff could find out concerning his child.

CHAPTER VI.

REFLECTIONS OF A LANDLORD.

Again striking his head against both doors, Nekhludoff went out into the

street, where the pink and the white boys were waiting for him. A few

newcomers were standing with them. Among the women, of whom several

had babies in their arms, was the thin woman with the baby who had the

patchwork cap on its head. She held lightly in her arms the bloodless

infant, who kept strangely smiling all over its wizened little face, and

continually moving its crooked thumbs.

Nekhludoff knew the smile to be one of suffering. He asked who the woman

was.

“It is that very Anisia I told you about,” said the elder boy.

Nekhludoff turned to Anisia.

“How do you live?” he asked. “By what means do you gain your

livelihood?”

“How do I live? I go begging,” said Anisia, and began to cry.

Nekhludoff took out his pocket-book, and gave the woman a 10-rouble

note. He had not had time to take two steps before another woman with

a baby caught him up, then an old woman, then another young one. All of

them spoke of their poverty, and asked for help. Nekhludoff gave them

the 60 roubles--all in small notes--which he had with him, and, terribly

sad at heart, turned home, i.e., to the foreman’s house.

The foreman met Nekhludoff with a smile, and informed him that the

peasants would come to the meeting in the evening. Nekhludoff thanked

him, and went straight into the garden to stroll along the paths strewn

over with the petals of apple-blossom and overgrown with weeds, and to

think over all he had seen.

At first all was quiet, but soon Nekhludoff heard from behind the

foreman’s house two angry women’s voices interrupting each other, and

now and then the voice of the ever-smiling foreman. Nekhludoff listened.

“My strength’s at an end. What are you about, dragging the very cross

[those baptized in the Russo-Greek Church always wear a cross round

their necks] off my neck,” said an angry woman’s voice.

“But she only got in for a moment,” said another voice. “Give it her

back, I tell you. Why do you torment the beast, and the children, too,

who want their milk?”

“Pay, then, or work it off,” said the foreman’s voice.

Nekhludoff left the garden and entered the porch, near which stood two

dishevelled women--one of them pregnant and evidently near her time.

On one of the steps of the porch, with his hands in the pockets of his

holland coat, stood the foreman. When they saw the master, the women

were silent, and began arranging the kerchiefs on their heads, and the

foreman took his hands out of his pockets and began to smile.

This is what had happened. From the foreman’s words, it seemed that the

peasants were in the habit of letting their calves and even their cows

into the meadow belonging to the estate. Two cows belonging to the

families of these two women were found in the meadow, and driven into

the yard. The foreman demanded from the women 30 copecks for each cow

or two days’ work. The women, however, maintained that the cows had got

into the meadow of their own accord; that they had no money, and asked

that the cows, which had stood in the blazing sun since morning without

food, piteously lowing, should be returned to them, even if it had to be

on the understanding that the price should be worked off later on.

“How often have I not begged of you,” said the smiling foreman, looking

back at Nekhludoff as if calling upon him to be a witness, “if you drive

your cattle home at noon, that you should have an eye on them?”

“I only ran to my little one for a bit, and they got away.”

“Don’t run away when you have undertaken to watch the cows.”

“And who’s to feed the little one? You’d not give him the breast, I

suppose?” said the other woman. “Now, if they had really damaged the

meadow, one would not take it so much to heart; but they only strayed in

a moment.”

“All the meadows are damaged,” the foreman said, turning to Nekhludoff.

“If I exact no penalty there will be no hay.”

“There, now, don’t go sinning like that; my cows have never been caught

there before,” shouted the pregnant woman.

“Now that one has been caught, pay up or work it off.”

“All right, I’ll work it off; only let me have the cow now, don’t

torture her with hunger,” she cried, angrily. “As it is, I have no rest

day or night. Mother-in-law is ill, husband taken to drink; I’m all

alone to do all the work, and my strength’s at an end. I wish you’d

choke, you and your working it off.”

Nekhludoff asked the foreman to let the women take the cows, and went

back into the garden to go on thinking out his problem, but there was

nothing more to think about.

Everything seemed so clear to him now that he could not stop wondering

how it was that everybody did not see it, and that he himself had for

such a long while not seen what was so clearly evident. The people were

dying out, and had got used to the dying-out process, and had formed

habits of life adapted to this process: there was the great mortality

among the children, the over-working of the women, the under-feeding,

especially of the aged. And so gradually had the people come to this

condition that they did not realise the full horrors of it, and did

not complain. Therefore, we consider their condition natural and as it

should be. Now it seemed as clear as daylight that the chief cause of

the people’s great want was one that they themselves knew and always

pointed out, i.e., that the land which alone could feed them had been

taken from them by the landlords.

And how evident it was that the children and the aged died because they

had no milk, and they had no milk because there was no pasture land, and

no land to grow corn or make hay on. It was quite evident that all the

misery of the people or, at least by far the greater part of it, was

caused by the fact that the land which should feed them was not in their

hands, but in the hands of those who, profiting by their rights to the

land, live by the work of these people. The land so much needed by men

was tilled by these people, who were on the verge of starvation, so

that the corn might be sold abroad and the owners of the land might buy

themselves hats and canes, and carriages and bronzes, etc. He understood

this as clearly as he understood that horses when they have eaten all

the grass in the inclosure where they are kept will have to grow thin

and starve unless they are put where they can get food off other land.

This was terrible, and must not go on. Means must be found to alter it,

or at least not to take part in it. “And I will find them,” he thought,

as he walked up and down the path under the birch trees.

In scientific circles, Government institutions, and in the papers we

talk about the causes of the poverty among the people and the means of

ameliorating their condition; but we do not talk of the only sure means

which would certainly lighten their condition, i.e., giving back to them

the land they need so much.

Henry George’s fundamental position recurred vividly to his mind and how

he had once been carried away by it, and he was surprised that he could

have forgotten it. The earth cannot be any one’s property; it cannot be

bought or sold any more than water, air, or sunshine. All have an equal

right to the advantages it gives to men. And now he knew why he had felt

ashamed to remember the transaction at Kousminski. He had been deceiving

himself. He knew that no man could have a right to own land, yet he had

accepted this right as his, and had given the peasants something which,

in the depth of his heart, he knew he had no right to. Now he would not

act in this way, and would alter the arrangement in Kousminski also. And

he formed a project in his mind to let the land to the peasants, and to

acknowledge the rent they paid for it to be their property, to be kept

to pay the taxes and for communal uses. This was, of course, not the

single-tax system, still it was as near an approach to it as could be

had under existing circumstances. His chief consideration, however, was

that in this way he would no longer profit by the possession of landed

property.

When he returned to the house the foreman, with a specially pleasant

smile, asked him if he would not have his dinner now, expressing the

fear that the feast his wife was preparing, with the help of the girl

with the earrings, might be overdone.

The table was covered with a coarse, unbleached cloth and an embroidered

towel was laid on it in lieu of a napkin. A vieux-saxe soup tureen with

a broken handle stood on the table, full of potato soup, the stock made

of the fowl that had put out and drawn in his black leg, and was now

cut, or rather chopped, in pieces, which were here and there covered

with hairs. After the soup more of the same fowl with the hairs was

served roasted, and then curd pasties, very greasy, and with a great

deal of sugar. Little appetising as all this was, Nekhludoff hardly

noticed what he was eating; he was occupied with the thought which had

in a moment dispersed the sadness with which he had returned from the

village.

The foreman’s wife kept looking in at the door, whilst the frightened

maid with the earrings brought in the dishes; and the foreman smiled

more and more joyfully, priding himself on his wife’s culinary skill.

After dinner, Nekhludoff succeeded, with some trouble, in making the

foreman sit down. In order to revise his own thoughts, and to express

them to some one, he explained his project of letting the land to the

peasants, and asked the foreman for his opinion. The foreman, smiling

as if he had thought all this himself long ago, and was very pleased

to hear it, did not really understand it at all. This was not because

Nekhludoff did not express himself clearly, but because according to

this project it turned out that Nekhludoff was giving up his own

profit for the profit of others, and the thought that every one is only

concerned about his own profit, to the harm of others, was so deeply

rooted in the foreman’s conceptions that he imagined he did not

understand something when Nekhludoff said that all the income from the

land must be placed to form the communal capital of the peasants.

“Oh, I see; then you, of course, will receive the percentages from that

capital,” said the foreman, brightening up.

“Dear me! no. Don’t you see, I am giving up the land altogether.”

“But then you will not get any income,” said the foreman, smiling no

longer.

“Yes, I am going to give it up.”

The foreman sighed heavily, and then began smiling again. Now he

understood. He understood that Nekhludoff was not quite normal, and

at once began to consider how he himself could profit by Nekhludoff’s

project of giving up the land, and tried to see this project in such a

way that he might reap some advantage from it. But when he saw that this

was impossible he grew sorrowful, and the project ceased to interest

him, and he continued to smile only in order to please the master.

Seeing that the foreman did not understand him, Nekhludoff let him go

and sat down by the window-sill, that was all cut about and inked over,

and began to put his project down on paper.

The sun went down behind the limes, that were covered with fresh green,

and the mosquitoes swarmed in, stinging Nekhludoff. Just as he finished

his notes, he heard the lowing of cattle and the creaking of opening

gates from the village, and the voices of the peasants gathering

together for the meeting. He told the foreman not to call the peasants

up to the office, as he meant to go into the village himself and meet

the men where they would assemble. Having hurriedly drank a cup of tea

offered him by the foreman, Nekhludoff went to the village.

CHAPTER VII.

THE DISINHERITED.

From the crowd assembled in front of the house of the village elder

came the sound of voices; but as soon as Nekhludoff came up the talking

ceased, and all the peasants took off their caps, just as those in

Kousminski had done. The peasants here were of a much poorer class than

those in Kousminski. The men wore shoes made of bark and homespun shirts

and coats. Some had come straight from their work in their shirts and

with bare feet.

Nekhludoff made an effort, and began his speech by telling the peasants

of his intention to give up his land to them altogether. The peasants

were silent, and the expression on their faces did not undergo any

change.

“Because I hold,” said Nekhludoff, “and believe that every one has a

right to the use of the land.”

“That’s certain. That’s so, exactly,” said several voices.

Nekhludoff went on to say that the revenue from the land ought to be

divided among all, and that he would therefore suggest that they

should rent the land at a price fixed by themselves, the rent to form

a communal fund for their own use. Words of approval and agreement were

still to be heard, but the serious faces of the peasants grew still more

serious, and the eyes that had been fixed on the gentleman dropped, as

if they were unwilling to put him to shame by letting him see that every

one had understood his trick, and that no one would be deceived by him.

Nekhludoff spoke clearly, and the peasants were intelligent, but they

did not and could not understand him, for the same reason that the

foreman had so long been unable to understand him.

They were fully convinced that it is natural for every man to consider

his own interest. The experience of many generations had proved to them

that the landlords always considered their own interest to the detriment

of the peasants. Therefore, if a landlord called them to a meeting and

made them some kind of a new offer, it could evidently only be in order

to swindle them more cunningly than before.

“Well, then, what are you willing to rent the land at?” asked

Nekhludoff.

“How can we fix a price? We cannot do it. The land is yours, and the

power is in your hands,” answered some voices from among the crowd.

“Oh, not at all. You will yourselves have the use of the money for

communal purposes.”

“We cannot do it; the commune is one thing, and this is another.”

“Don’t you understand?” said the foreman, with a smile (he had followed

Nekhludoff to the meeting), “the Prince is letting the land to you

for money, and is giving you the money back to form a capital for the

commune.”

“We understand very well,” said a cross, toothless old man, without

raising his eyes. “Something like a bank; we should have to pay at a

fixed time. We do not wish it; it is hard enough as it is, and that

would ruin us completely.”

“That’s no go. We prefer to go on the old way,” began several

dissatisfied, and even rude, voices.

The refusals grew very vehement when Nekhludoff mentioned that he would

draw up an agreement which would have to be signed by him and by them.

“Why sign? We shall go on working as we have done hitherto. What is all

this for? We are ignorant men.”

“We can’t agree, because this sort of thing is not what we have been

used to. As it was, so let it continue to be. Only the seeds we should

like to withdraw.”

This meant that under the present arrangement the seeds had to be

provided by the peasants, and they wanted the landlord to provide them.

“Then am I to understand that you refuse to accept the land?” Nekhludoff

asked, addressing a middle-aged, barefooted peasant, with a tattered

coat, and a bright look on his face, who was holding his worn cap

with his left hand, in a peculiarly straight position, in the same way

soldiers hold theirs when commanded to take them off.

“Just so,” said this peasant, who had evidently not yet rid himself of

the military hypnotism he had been subjected to while serving his time.

“It means that you have sufficient land,” said Nekhludoff.

“No, sir, we have not,” said the ex-soldier, with an artificially

pleased look, carefully holding his tattered cap in front of him, as if

offering it to any one who liked to make use of it.

“Well, anyhow, you’d better think over what I have said.” Nekhludoff

spoke with surprise, and again repeated his offer.

“We have no need to think about it; as we have said, so it will be,”

angrily muttered the morose, toothless old man.

“I shall remain here another day, and if you change your minds, send to

let me know.”

The peasants gave no answer.

So Nekhludoff did not succeed in arriving at any result from this

interview.

“If I might make a remark, Prince,” said the foreman, when they got

home, “you will never come to any agreement with them; they are so

obstinate. At a meeting these people just stick in one place, and there

is no moving them. It is because they are frightened of everything. Why,

these very peasants--say that white-haired one, or the dark one, who

were refusing, are intelligent peasants. When one of them comes to the

office and one makes him sit down to cup of tea it’s like in the Palace

of Wisdom--he is quite diplomatist,” said the foreman, smiling; “he will

consider everything rightly. At a meeting it’s a different man--he keeps

repeating one and the same . . .”

“Well, could not some of the more intelligent men be asked to come

here?” said Nekhludoff. “I would carefully explain it to them.”

“That can be done,” said the smiling foreman.

“Well, then, would you mind calling them here to-morrow?”

“Oh, certainly I will,” said the foreman, and smiled still more

joyfully. “I shall call them to-morrow.”

“Just hear him; he’s not artful, not he,” said a blackhaired peasant,

with an unkempt beard, as he sat jolting from side to side on a well-fed

mare, addressing an old man in a torn coat who rode by his side. The two

men were driving a herd of the peasants’ horses to graze in the night,

alongside the highroad and secretly, in the landlord’s forest.

“Give you the land for nothing--you need only sign--have they not

done the likes of us often enough? No, my friend, none of your humbug.

Nowadays we have a little sense,” he added, and began shouting at a colt

that had strayed.

He stopped his horse and looked round, but the colt had not remained

behind; it had gone into the meadow by the roadside. “Bother that son

of a Turk; he’s taken to getting into the landowner’s meadows,” said the

dark peasant with the unkempt beard, hearing the cracking of the sorrel

stalks that the neighing colt was galloping over as he came running back

from the scented meadow.

“Do you hear the cracking? We’ll have to send the women folk to weed

the meadow when there’s a holiday,” said the thin peasant with the torn

coat, “or else we’ll blunt our scythes.”

“Sign,” he says. The unkempt man continued giving his opinion of the

landlord’s speech. “‘Sign,’ indeed, and let him swallow you up.”

“That’s certain,” answered the old man. And then they were silent, and

the tramping of the horses’ feet along the highroad was the only sound

to be heard.

CHAPTER VIII.

GOD’S PEACE IN THE HEART.

When Nekhludoff returned he found that the office had been arranged as

a bedroom for him. A high bedstead, with a feather bed and two large

pillows, had been placed in the room. The bed was covered with a dark

red doublebedded silk quilt, which was elaborately and finely quilted,

and very stiff. It evidently belonged to the trousseau of the foreman’s

wife. The foreman offered Nekhludoff the remains of the dinner, which

the latter refused, and, excusing himself for the poorness of the fare

and the accommodation, he left Nekhludoff alone.

The peasants’ refusal did not at all bother Nekhludoff. On the contrary,

though at Kousminski his offer had been accepted and he had even been

thanked for it, and here he was met with suspicion and even enmity, he

felt contented and joyful.

It was close and dirty in the office. Nekhludoff went out into the yard,

and was going into the garden, but he remembered: that night, the window

of the maid-servant’s room, the side porch, and he felt uncomfortable,

and did not like to pass the spot desecrated by guilty memories. He

sat down on the doorstep, and breathing in the warm air, balmy with the

strong scent of fresh birch leaves, he sat for a long time looking into

the dark garden and listening to the mill, the nightingales, and some

other bird that whistled monotonously in the bush close by. The light

disappeared from the foreman’s window; in the cast, behind the barn,

appeared the light of the rising moon, and sheet lightning began to

light up the dilapidated house, and the blooming, over-grown garden more

and more frequently. It began to thunder in the distance, and a black

cloud spread over one-third of the sky. The nightingales and the other

birds were silent. Above the murmur of the water from the mill came the

cackling of geese, and then in the village and in the foreman’s yard

the first cocks began to crow earlier than usual, as they do on warm,

thundery nights. There is a saying that if the cocks crow early the

night will be a merry one. For Nekhludoff the night was more than merry;

it was a happy, joyful night. Imagination renewed the impressions of

that happy summer which he had spent here as an innocent lad, and he

felt himself as he had been not only at that but at all the best moments

of his life. He not only remembered but felt as he had felt when, at

the age of 14, he prayed that God would show him the truth; or when as

a child he had wept on his mother’s lap, when parting from her, and

promising to be always good, and never give her pain; he felt as he did

when he and Nikolenka Irtenieff resolved always to support each other in

living a good life and to try to make everybody happy.

He remembered how he had been tempted in Kousminski, so that he had

begun to regret the house and the forest and the farm and the land, and

he asked himself if he regretted them now, and it even seemed strange to

think that he could regret them. He remembered all he had seen to-day;

the woman with the children, and without her husband, who was in prison

for having cut down trees in his (Nekhludoff’s) forest, and the terrible

Matrona, who considered, or at least talked as if she considered,

that women of her position must give themselves to the gentlefolk; he

remembered her relation to the babies, the way in which they were taken

to the Foundlings’ Hospital, and the unfortunate, smiling, wizened

baby with the patchwork cap, dying of starvation. And then he suddenly

remembered the prison, the shaved heads, the cells, the disgusting

smells, the chains, and, by the side of it all, the madly lavish city

lift of the rich, himself included.

The bright moon, now almost full, rose above the barn. Dark shadows fell

across the yard, and the iron roof of the ruined house shone bright.

As if unwilling to waste this light, the nightingales again began their

trills.

Nekhludoff called to mind how he had begun to consider his life in

the garden of Kousminski when deciding what he was going to do, and

remembered how confused he had become, how he could not arrive at any

decision, how many difficulties each question had presented. He asked

himself these questions now, and was surprised how simple it all was. It

was simple because he was not thinking now of what would be the results

for himself, but only thought of what he had to do. And, strange to say,

what he had to do for himself he could not decide, but what he had to do

for others he knew without any doubt. He had no doubt that he must

not leave Katusha, but go on helping her. He had no doubt that he must

study, investigate, clear up, understand all this business concerning

judgment and punishment, which he felt he saw differently to other

people. What would result from it all he did not know, but he knew for

certain that he must do it. And this firm assurance gave him joy.

The black cloud had spread all over the sky; the lightning flashed

vividly across the yard and the old house with its tumble-down porches,

the thunder growled overhead. All the birds were silent, but the leaves

rustled and the wind reached the step where Nekhludoff stood and played

with his hair. One drop came down, then another; then they came drumming

on the dock leaves and on the iron of the roof, and all the air was

filled by a bright flash, and before Nekhludoff could count three a

fearful crash sounded over head and spread pealing all over the sky.

Nekhludoff went in.

“Yes, yes,” he thought. “The work that our life accomplishes, the whole

of this work, the meaning of it is not, nor can be, intelligible to

me. What were my aunts for? Why did Nikolenka Irtenieff die? Why am

I living? What was Katusha for? And my madness? Why that war? Why my

subsequent lawless life? To understand it, to understand the whole

of the Master’s will is not in my power. But to do His will, that is

written down in my conscience, is in my power; that I know for certain.

And when I am fulfilling it I have sureness and peace.”

The rain came down in torrents and rushed from the roof into a tub

beneath; the lightning lit up the house and yard less frequently.

Nekhludoff went into his room, undressed, and lay down, not without

fear of the bugs, whose presence the dirty, torn wall-papers made him

suspect.

“Yes, to feel one’s self not the master but a servant,” he thought, and

rejoiced at the thought. His fears were not vain. Hardly had he put out

his candle when the vermin attacked and stung him. “To give up the land

and go to Siberia. Fleas, bugs, dirt! Ah, well; if it must be borne, I

shall bear it.” But, in spite of the best of intentions, he could not

bear it, and sat down by the open window and gazed with admiration at

the retreating clouds and the reappearing moon.

CHAPTER IX.

THE LAND SETTLEMENT.

It was morning before Nekhludoff could fall asleep, and therefore he

woke up late. At noon seven men, chosen from among the peasants at

the foreman’s invitation, came into the orchard, where the foreman

had arranged a table and benches by digging posts into the ground,

and fixing boards on the top, under the apple trees. It took some time

before the peasants could be persuaded to put on their caps and to sit

down on the benches. Especially firm was the ex-soldier, who to-day had

bark shoes on. He stood erect, holding his cap as they do at

funerals, according to military regulation. When one of them, a

respectable-looking, broad-shouldered old man, with a curly, grizzly

beard like that of Michael Angelo’s “Moses,” and grey hair that curled

round the brown, bald forehead, put on his big cap, and, wrapping his

coat round him, got in behind the table and sat down, the rest followed

his example. When all had taken their places Nekhludoff sat down

opposite them, and leaning on the table over the paper on which he had

drawn up his project, he began explaining it.

Whether it was that there were fewer present, or that he was occupied

with the business in hand and not with himself, anyhow, this

time Nekhludoff felt no confusion. He involuntarily addressed the

broad-shouldered old man with white ringlets in his grizzly beard,

expecting approbation or objections from him. But Nekhludoff’s

conjecture was wrong. The respectable-looking old patriarch, though he

nodded his handsome head approvingly or shook it, and frowned when the

others raised an objection, evidently understood with great difficulty,

and only when the others repeated what Nekhludoff had said in their own

words. A little, almost beardless old fellow, blind in one eye, who sat

by the side of the patriarch, and had a patched nankeen coat and old

boots on, and, as Nekhludoff found out later, was an oven-builder,

understood much better. This man moved his brows quickly, attending to

Nekhludoff’s words with an effort, and at once repeated them in his

own way. An old, thick-set man with a white beard and intelligent eyes

understood as quickly, and took every opportunity to put in an ironical

joke, clearly wishing to show off. The ex-soldier seemed also to

understand matters, but got mixed, being used to senseless soldiers’

talk. A tall man with a small beard, a long nose, and a bass voice, who

wore clean, home-made clothes and new bark-plaited shoes, seemed to be

the one most seriously interested. This man spoke only when there

was need of it. The two other old men, the same toothless one who

had shouted a distinct refusal at the meeting the day before to every

proposal of Nekhludoff’s, and a tall, white lame old man with a kind

face, his thin legs tightly wrapped round with strips of linen, said

little, though they listened attentively. First of all Nekhludoff

explained his views in regard to personal property in land. “The land,

according to my idea, can neither be bought nor sold, because if it

could be, he who has got the money could buy it all, and exact anything

he liked for the use of the land from those who have none.”

“That’s true,” said the long-nosed man, in a deep bass.

“Just so,” said the ex-soldier.

“A woman gathers a little grass for her cow; she’s caught and

imprisoned,” said the white-bearded old man.

“Our own land is five versts away, and as to renting any it’s

impossible; the price is raised so high that it won’t pay,” added the

cross, toothless old man. “They twist us into ropes, worse than during

serfdom.”

“I think as you do, and I count it a sin to possess land, so I wish to

give it away,” said Nekhludoff.

“Well, that’s a good thing,” said the old man, with curls like Angelo’s

“Moses,” evidently thinking that Nekhludoff meant to let the land.

“I have come here because I no longer wish to possess any land, and now

we must consider the best way of dividing it.”

“Just give it to the peasants, that’s all,” said the cross, toothless

old man.

Nekhludoff was abashed for a moment, feeling a suspicion of his not

being honest in these words, but he instantly recovered, and made use of

the remark, in order to express what was in his mind, in reply.

“I should be glad to give it them,” he said, “but to whom, and how?

To which of the peasants? Why, to your commune, and not to that of

Deminsk.” (That was the name of a neighbouring village with very little

land.) All were silent. Then the ex-soldier said, “Just so.”

“Now, then, tell me how would you divide the land among the peasants if

you had to do it?” said Nekhludoff.

“We should divide it up equally, so much for every man,” said the

oven-builder, quickly raising and lowering his brows.

“How else? Of course, so much per man,” said the good natured lame man

with the white strips of linen round his legs.

Every one confirmed this statement, considering it satisfactory.

“So much per man? Then are the servants attached to the house also to

have a share?” Nekhludoff asked.

“Oh, no,” said the ex-soldier, trying to appear bold and merry. But the

tall, reasonable man would not agree with him.

“If one is to divide, all must share alike,” he said, in his deep bass,

after a little consideration.

“It can’t be done,” said Nekhludoff, who had already prepared his reply.

“If all are to share alike, then those who do not work themselves--do

not plough--will sell their shares to the rich. The rich will again get

at the land. Those who live by working the land will multiply, and land

will again be scarce. Then the rich will again get those who need land

into their power.”

“Just so,” quickly said the ex-soldier.

“Forbid to sell the land; let only him who ploughs it have it,” angrily

interrupted the oven-builder.

To this Nekhludoff replied that it was impossible to know who was

ploughing for himself and who for another.

The tall, reasonable man proposed that an arrangement be made so that

they should all plough communally, and those who ploughed should get the

produce and those who did not should get nothing.

To this communistic project Nekhludoff had also an answer ready. He said

that for such an arrangement it would be necessary that all should have

ploughs, and that all the horses should be alike, so that none should

be left behind, and that ploughs and horses and all the implements would

have to be communal property, and that in order to get that, all the

people would have to agree.

“Our people could not be made to agree in a lifetime,” said the cross

old man.

“We should have regular fights,” said the white-bearded old man with the

laughing eyes. “So that the thing is not as simple as it looks,”

said Nekhludoff, “and this is a thing not only we but many have been

considering. There is an American, Henry George. This is what he has

thought out, and I agree with him.”

“Why, you are the master, and you give it as you like. What’s it to you?

The power is yours,” said the cross old man.

This confused Nekhludoff, but he was pleased to see that not he alone

was dissatisfied with this interruption.

“You wait a bit, Uncle Simon; let him tell us about it,” said the

reasonable man, in his imposing bass.

This emboldened Nekhludoff, and he began to explain Henry George’s

single-tax system “The earth is no man’s; it is God’s,” he began.

“Just so; that it is,” several voices replied.

“The land is common to all. All have the same right to it, but there is

good land and bad land, and every one would like to take the good land.

How is one to do in order to get it justly divided? In this way: he that

will use the good land must pay those who have got no land the value of

the land he uses,” Nekhludoff went on, answering his own question. “As

it would be difficult to say who should pay whom, and money is needed

for communal use, it should be arranged that he who uses the good land

should pay the amount of the value of his land to the commune for its

needs. Then every one would share equally. If you want to use land pay

for it--more for the good, less for the bad land. If you do not wish to

use land, don’t pay anything, and those who use the land will pay the

taxes and the communal expenses for you.”

“Well, he had a head, this George,” said the oven-builder, moving his

brows. “He who has good land must pay more.”

“If only the payment is according to our strength,” said the tall man

with the bass voice, evidently foreseeing how the matter would end.

“The payment should be not too high and not too low. If it is too high

it will not get paid, and there will be a loss; and if it is too low it

will be bought and sold. There would be a trading in land. This is what

I wished to arrange among you here.”

“That is just, that is right; yes, that would do,” said the peasants.

“He has a head, this George,” said the broad-shouldered old man with the

curls. “See what he has invented.”

“Well, then, how would it be if I wished to take some land?” asked the

smiling foreman.

“If there is an allotment to spare, take it and work it,” said

Nekhludoff.

“What do you want it for? You have sufficient as it is,” said the old

man with the laughing eyes.

With this the conference ended.

Nekhludoff repeated his offer, and advised the men to talk it over with

the rest of the commune and to return with the answer.

The peasants said they would talk it over and bring an answer, and left

in a state of excitement. Their loud talk was audible as they went along

the road, and up to late in the night the sound of voices came along the

river from the village.

The next day the peasants did not go to work, but spent it in

considering the landlord’s offer. The commune was divided into two

parties--one which regarded the offer as a profitable one to themselves

and saw no danger in agreeing with it, and another which suspected and

feared the offer it did not understand. On the third day, however, all

agreed, and some were sent to Nekhludoff to accept his offer. They were

influenced in their decision by the explanation some of the old men gave

of the landlord’s conduct, which did away with all fear of deceit. They

thought the gentleman had begun to consider his soul, and was acting as

he did for its salvation. The alms which Nekhludoff had given away while

in Panovo made his explanation seem likely. The fact that Nekhludoff

had never before been face to face with such great poverty and so bare

a life as the peasants had come to in this place, and was so appalled

by it, made him give away money in charity, though he knew that this was

not reasonable. He could not help giving the money, of which he now had

a great deal, having received a large sum for the forest he had sold

the year before, and also the hand money for the implements and stock in

Kousminski. As soon as it was known that the master was giving money in

charity, crowds of people, chiefly women, began to come to ask him for

help. He did not in the least know how to deal with them, how to decide,

how much, and whom to give to. He felt that to refuse to give money, of

which he had a great deal, to poor people was impossible, yet to give

casually to those who asked was not wise. The last day he spent in

Panovo, Nekhludoff looked over the things left in his aunts’ house, and

in the bottom drawer of the mahogany wardrobe, with the brass lions’

heads with rings through them, he found many letters, and amongst them a

photograph of a group, consisting of his aunts, Sophia Ivanovna and Mary

Ivanovna, a student, and Katusha. Of all the things in the house he took

only the letters and the photograph. The rest he left to the miller who,

at the smiling foreman’s recommendation, had bought the house and all it

contained, to be taken down and carried away, at one-tenth of the real

value.

Recalling the feeling of regret at the loss of his property which he had

felt in Kousminski, Nekhludoff was surprised how he could have felt this

regret. Now he felt nothing but unceasing joy at the deliverance, and

a sensation of newness something like that which a traveller must

experience when discovering new countries.

CHAPTER X.

NEKHLUDOFF RETURNS TO TOWN.

The town struck Nekhludoff in a new and peculiar light on his return.

He came back in the evening, when the gas was lit, and drove from

the railway station to his house, where the rooms still smelt of

naphthaline. Agraphena Petrovna and Corney were both feeling tired and

dissatisfied, and had even had a quarrel over those things that seemed

made only to be aired and packed away. Nekhludoff’s room was empty, but

not in order, and the way to it was blocked up with boxes, so that his

arrival evidently hindered the business which, owing to a curious kind

of inertia, was going on in this house. The evident folly of these

proceedings, in which he had once taken part, was so distasteful to

Nekhludoff after the impressions the misery of the life of the peasants

had made on him, that he decided to go to a hotel the next day, leaving

Agraphena Petrovna to put away the things as she thought fit until his

sister should come and finally dispose of everything in the house.

Nekhludoff left home early and chose a couple of rooms in a very modest

and not particularly clean lodging-house within easy reach of the

prison, and, having given orders that some of his things should be sent

there, he went to see the advocate. It was cold out of doors. After some

rainy and stormy weather it had turned out cold, as it often does in

spring. It was so cold that Nekhludoff felt quite chilly in his light

overcoat, and walked fast hoping to get warmer. His mind was filled

with thoughts of the peasants, the women, children, old men, and all the

poverty and weariness which he seemed to have seen for the first time,

especially the smiling, old-faced infant writhing with his calfless

little legs, and he could not help contrasting what was going on in the

town. Passing by the butchers’, fishmongers’, and clothiers’ shops, he

was struck, as if he saw them for the first time, by the appearance

of the clean, well-fed shopkeepers, like whom you could not find one

peasant in the country. These men were apparently convinced that the

pains they took to deceive the people who did not know much about their

goods was not a useless but rather an important business. The coachmen

with their broad hips and rows of buttons down their sides, and the

door-keepers with gold cords on their caps, the servant-girls with their

aprons and curly fringes, and especially the smart isvostchiks with

the nape of their necks clean shaved, as they sat lolling back in their

traps, and examined the passers-by with dissolute and contemptuous

air, looked well fed. In all these people Nekhludoff could not now help

seeing some of these very peasants who had been driven into the town by

lack of land. Some of the peasants driven to the town had found means

of profiting by the conditions of town life and had become like the

gentlefolk and were pleased with their position; others were in a worse

position than they had been in the country and were more to be pitied

than the country people.

Such seemed the bootmakers Nekhludoff saw in the cellar, the pale,

dishevelled washerwomen with their thin, bare, arms ironing at an open

window, out of which streamed soapy steam; such the two house-painters

with their aprons, stockingless feet, all bespattered and smeared with

paint, whom Nekhludoff met--their weak, brown arms bared to above the

elbows--carrying a pailful of paint, and quarrelling with each other.

Their faces looked haggard and cross. The dark faces of the carters

jolting along in their carts bore the same expression, and so did the

faces of the tattered men and women who stood begging at the street

corners. The same kind of faces were to be seen at the open, windows of

the eating-houses which Nekhludoff passed. By the dirty tables on which

stood tea things and bottles, and between which waiters dressed in white

shirts were rushing hither and thither, sat shouting and singing red,

perspiring men with stupefied faces. One sat by the window with

lifted brows and pouting lips and fixed eyes as if trying to remember

something.

“And why are they all gathered here?” Nekhludoff thought, breathing

in together with the dust which the cold wind blew towards him the air

filled with the smell of rank oil and fresh paint.

In one street he met a row of carts loaded with something made of iron,

that rattled so on the uneven pavement that it made his ears and head

ache. He started walking still faster in order to pass the row of carts,

when he heard himself called by name. He stopped and saw an officer with

sharp pointed moustaches and shining face who sat in the trap of a swell

isvostchik and waved his hand in a friendly manner, his smile disclosing

unusually long, white teeth.

“Nekhludoff! Can it be you?”

Nekhludoff’s first feeling was one of pleasure. “Ah, Schonbock!” he

exclaimed joyfully; but he knew the next moment that there was nothing

to be joyful about.

This was that Schonbock who had been in the house of Nekhludoff’s aunts

that day, and whom Nekhludoff had quite lost out of sight, but about

whom he had heard that in spite of his debts he had somehow managed to

remain in the cavalry, and by some means or other still kept his place

among the rich. His gay, contented appearance corroborated this report.

“What a good thing that I have caught you. There is no one in town. Ah,

old fellow; you have grown old,” he said, getting out of the trap and

moving his shoulders about. “I only knew you by your walk. Look here, we

must dine together. Is there any place where they feed one decently?”

“I don’t think I can spare the time,” Nekhludoff answered, thinking only

of how he could best get rid of his companion without hurting him.

“And what has brought you here?” he asked.

“Business, old fellow. Guardianship business. I am a guardian now. I am

managing Samanoff’s affairs--the millionaire, you know. He has softening

of the brain, and he’s got fifty-four thousand desiatins of land,”

he said, with peculiar pride, as if he had himself made all these

desiatins. “The affairs were terribly neglected. All the land was let

to the peasants. They did not pay anything. There were more than eighty

thousand roubles debts. I changed it all in one year, and have got 70

per cent. more out of it. What do you think of that?” he asked proudly.

Nekhludoff remembered having heard that this Schonbock, just because, he

had spent all he had, had attained by some special influence the post of

guardian to a rich old man who was squandering his property--and was now

evidently living by this guardianship.

“How am I to get rid of him without offending him?” thought Nekhludoff,

looking at this full, shiny face with the stiffened moustache and

listening to his friendly, good-humoured chatter about where one gets

fed best, and his bragging about his doings as a guardian.

“Well, then, where do we dine?”

“Really, I have no time to spare,” said Nekhludoff, glancing at his

watch.

“Then, look here. To-night, at the races--will you be there?”

“No, I shall not be there.”

“Do come. I have none of my own now, but I back Grisha’s horses. You

remember; he has a fine stud. You’ll come, won’t you? And we’ll have

some supper together.”

“No, I cannot have supper with you either,” said Nekhludoff with a

smile.

“Well, that’s too bad! And where are you off to now? Shall I give you a

lift?”

“I am going to see an advocate, close to here round the corner.”

“Oh, yes, of course. You have got something to do with the prisons--have

turned into a prisoners’ mediator, I hear,” said Schonbock, laughing.

“The Korchagins told me. They have left town already. What does it all

mean? Tell me.”

“Yes, yes, it is quite true,” Nekhludoff answered; “but I cannot tell

you about it in the street.”

“Of course; you always were a crank. But you will come to the races?”

“No. I neither can nor wish to come. Please do not be angry with me.”

“Angry? Dear me, no. Where do you live?” And suddenly his face became

serious, his eyes fixed, and he drew up his brows. He seemed to be

trying to remember something, and Nekhludoff noticed the same dull

expression as that of the man with the raised brows and pouting lips

whom he had seen at the window of the eating-house.

“How cold it is! Is it not? Have you got the parcels?” said Schonbock,

turning to the isvostchik.

“All right. Good-bye. I am very glad indeed to have met you,” and

warmly pressing Nekhludoff’s hand, he jumped into the trap and waved

his white-gloved hand in front of his shiny face, with his usual smile,

showing his exceptionally white teeth.

“Can I have also been like that?” Nekhludoff thought, as he continued

his way to the advocate’s. “Yes, I wished to be like that, though I was

not quite like it. And I thought of living my life in that way.”

CHAPTER XI.

AN ADVOCATE’S VIEWS ON JUDGES AND PROSECUTORS.

Nekhludoff was admitted by the advocate before his turn. The advocate at

once commenced to talk about the Menshoffs’ case, which he had read with

indignation at the inconsistency of the accusation.

“This case is perfectly revolting,” he said; “it is very likely that

the owner himself set fire to the building in order to get the insurance

money, and the chief thing is that there is no evidence to prove the

Menshoffs’ guilt. There are no proofs whatever. It is all owing to the

special zeal of the examining magistrate and the carelessness of the

prosecutor. If they are tried here, and not in a provincial court, I

guarantee that they will be acquitted, and I shall charge nothing.

Now then, the next case, that of Theodosia Birukoff. The appeal to the

Emperor is written. If you go to Petersburg, you’d better take it with

you, and hand it in yourself, with a request of your own, or else they

will only make a few inquiries, and nothing will come of it. You must

try and get at some of the influential members of the Appeal Committee.”

“Well, is this all?”

“No; here I have a letter . . . I see you have turned into a pipe--a

spout through which all the complaints of the prison are poured,” said

the advocate, with a smile. “It is too much; you’ll not be able to

manage it.”

“No, but this is a striking case,” said Nekhludoff, and gave a brief

outline of the case of a peasant who began to read the Gospels to the

peasants in the village, and to discuss them with his friends. The

priests regarded this as a crime and informed the authorities. The

magistrate examined him and the public prosecutor drew up an act of

indictment, and the law courts committed him for trial.

“This is really too terrible,” Nekhludoff said. “Can it be true?”

“What are you surprised at?”

“Why, everything. I can understand the police-officer, who simply obeys

orders, but the prosecutor drawing up an act of that kind. An educated

man . . .”

“That is where the mistake lies, that we are in the habit of considering

that the prosecutors and the judges in general are some kind of liberal

persons. There was a time when they were such, but now it is quite

different. They are just officials, only troubled about pay-day.

They receive their salaries and want them increased, and there their

principles end. They will accuse, judge, and sentence any one you like.”

“Yes; but do laws really exist that can condemn a man to Siberia for

reading the Bible with his friends?”

“Not only to be exiled to the less remote parts of Siberia, but even to

the mines, if you can only prove that reading the Bible they took the

liberty of explaining it to others not according to orders, and in this

way condemned the explanations given by the Church. Blaming the Greek

orthodox religion in the presence of the common people means, according

to Statute . . . the mines.”

“Impossible!”

“I assure you it is so. I always tell these gentlemen, the judges,”

the advocate continued, “that I cannot look at them without gratitude,

because if I am not in prison, and you, and all of us, it is only owing

to their kindness. To deprive us of our privileges, and send us all to

the less remote parts of Siberia, would be an easy thing for them.”

“Well, if it is so, and if everything depends on the Procureur and

others who can, at will, either enforce the laws or not, what are the

trials for?”

The advocate burst into a merry laugh. “You do put strange questions.

My dear sir, that is philosophy. Well, we might have a talk about that,

too. Could you come on Saturday? You will meet men of science, literary

men, and artists at my house, and then we might discuss these general

questions,” said the advocate, pronouncing the words “general questions”

with ironical pathos. “You have met my wife? Do come.”

“Thank you; I will try to,” said Nekhludoff, and felt that he was saying

an untruth, and knew that if he tried to do anything it would be to keep

away froth the advocate’s literary evening, and the circle of the men of

science, art, and literature.

The laugh with which the advocate met Nekhludoff’s remark that trials

could have no meaning if the judges might enforce the laws or not,

according to their notion, and the tone with which he pronounced the

words “philosophy” and “general questions” proved to Nekhludoff how very

differently he and the advocate and, probably, the advocate’s friends,

looked at things; and he felt that in spite of the distance that now

existed between himself and his former companions, Schonbock, etc.,

the difference between himself and the circle of the advocate and his

friends was still greater.

CHAPTER XII.

WHY THE PEASANTS FLOCK TO TOWN.

The prison was a long way off and it was getting late, so Nekhludoff

took an isvostchik. The isvostchik, a middle-aged man with an

intelligent and kind face, turned round towards Nekhludoff as they were

driving along one of the streets and pointed to a huge house that was

being built there.

“Just see what a tremendous house they have begun to build,” he said, as

if he was partly responsible for the building of the house and proud of

it. The house was really immense and was being built in a very original

style. The strong pine beams of the scaffolding were firmly fixed

together with iron bands and a plank wall separated the building from

the street.

On the boards of the scaffolding workmen, all bespattered with plaster,

moved hither and thither like ants. Some were laying bricks, some hewing

stones, some carrying up the heavy hods and pails and bringing them down

empty. A fat and finely-dressed gentleman--probably the architect--stood

by the scaffolding, pointing upward and explaining something to a

contractor, a peasant from the Vladimir Government, who was respectfully

listening to him. Empty carts were coming out of the gate by which the

architect and the contractor were standing, and loaded ones were going

in. “And how sure they all are--those that do the work as well as those

that make them do it--that it ought to be; that while their wives at

home, who are with child, are labouring beyond their strength, and their

children with the patchwork caps, doomed soon to the cold grave, smile

with suffering and contort their little legs, they must be building this

stupid and useless palace for some stupid and useless person--one of

those who spoil and rob them,” Nekhludoff thought, while looking at the

house.

“Yes, it is a stupid house,” he said, uttering his thought out aloud.

“Why stupid?” replied the isvostchik, in an offended tone. “Thanks to

it, the people get work; it’s not stupid.”

“But the work is useless.”

“It can’t be useless, or why should it be done?” said the isvostchik.

“The people get bread by it.”

Nekhludoff was silent, and it would have been difficult to talk because

of the clatter the wheels made.

When they came nearer the prison, and the isvostchik turned off the

paved on to the macadamised road, it became easier to talk, and he again

turned to Nekhludoff.

“And what a lot of these people are flocking to the town nowadays; it’s

awful,” he said, turning round on the box and pointing to a party of

peasant workmen who were coming towards them, carrying saws, axes,

sheepskins, coats, and bags strapped to their shoulders.

“More than in other years?” Nekhludoff asked.

“By far. This year every place is crowded, so that it’s just terrible.

The employers just fling the workmen about like chaff. Not a job to be

got.”

“Why is that?”

“They’ve increased. There’s no room for them.”

“Well, what if they have increased? Why do not they stay in the

village?”

“There’s nothing for them to do in the village--no land to be had.”

Nekhludoff felt as one does when touching a sore place. It feels as if

the bruised part was always being hit; yet it is only because the place

is sore that the touch is felt.

“Is it possible that the same thing is happening everywhere?” he

thought, and began questioning the isvostchik about the quantity of land

in his village, how much land the man himself had, and why he had left

the country.

“We have a desiatin per man, sir,” he said. “Our family have three men’s

shares of the land. My father and a brother are at home, and manage the

land, and another brother is serving in the army. But there’s nothing to

manage. My brother has had thoughts of coming to Moscow, too.”

“And cannot land be rented?”

“How’s one to rent it nowadays? The gentry, such as they were, have

squandered all theirs. Men of business have got it all into their own

hands. One can’t rent it from them. They farm it themselves. We have

a Frenchman ruling in our place; he bought the estate from our former

landlord, and won’t let it--and there’s an end of it.”

“Who’s that Frenchman?”

“Dufour is the Frenchman’s name. Perhaps you’ve heard of him. He makes

wigs for the actors in the big theatre; it is a good business, so he’s

prospering. He bought it from our lady, the whole of the estate, and now

he has us in his power; he just rides on us as he pleases. The Lord be

thanked, he is a good man himself; only his wife, a Russian, is such a

brute that--God have mercy on us. She robs the people. It’s awful. Well,

here’s the prison. Am I to drive you to the entrance? I’m afraid they’ll

not let us do it, though.”

CHAPTER XIII.

NURSE MASLOVA.

When he rang the bell at the front entrance Nekhludoff’s heart stood

still with horror as he thought of the state he might find Maslova in

to-day, and at the mystery that he felt to be in her and in the people

that were collected in the prison. He asked the jailer who opened the

door for Maslova. After making the necessary inquiry the jailer informed

him that she was in the hospital. Nekhludoff went there. A kindly old

man, the hospital doorkeeper, let him in at once and, after asking

Nekhludoff whom he wanted, directed him to the children’s ward. A young

doctor saturated with carbolic acid met Nekhludoff in the passage and

asked him severely what he wanted. This doctor was always making all

sorts of concessions to the prisoners, and was therefore continually

coming into conflict with the prison authorities and even with the head

doctor. Fearing lest Nekhludoff should demand something unlawful, and

wishing to show that he made no exceptions for any one, he pretended to

be cross. “There are no women here; it is the children’s ward,” he said.

“Yes, I know; but a prisoner has been removed here to be an assistant

nurse.”

“Yes, there are two such here. Then whom do you want?”

“I am closely connected with one of them, named Maslova,” Nekhludoff

answered, “and should like to speak to her. I am going to Petersburg to

hand in an appeal to the Senate about her case and should like to give

her this. It is only a photo,” Nekhludoff said, taking an envelope out

of his pocket.

“All right, you may do that,” said the doctor, relenting, and turning to

an old woman with a white apron, he told her to call the prisoner--Nurse

Maslova.

“Will you take a seat, or go into the waiting-room?”

“Thanks,” said Nekhludoff, and profiting by the favourable change in

the manner of the doctor towards him asked how they were satisfied with

Maslova in the hospital.

“Oh, she is all right. She works fairly well, if you the conditions of

her former life into account. But here she is.”

The old nurse came in at one of the doors, followed by Maslova, who wore

a blue striped dress, a white apron, a kerchief that quite covered her

hair. When she saw Nekhludoff her face flushed, and she stopped as if

hesitating, then frowned, and with downcast eyes went quickly towards

him along the strip of carpet in the middle of the passage. When she

came up to Nekhludoff she did not wish to give him her hand, and then

gave it, growing redder still. Nekhludoff had not seen her since the

day when she begged forgiveness for having been in a passion, and he

expected to find her the same as she was then. But to-day she was

quite different. There was something new in the expression of her face,

reserve and shyness, and, as it seemed to him, animosity towards him. He

told her what he had already said to the doctor, i.e., that he was going

to Petersburg, and he handed her the envelope with the photograph which

he had brought from Panovo.

“I found this in Panovo--it’s an old photo; perhaps you would like it.

Take it.”

Lifting her dark eyebrows, she looked at him with surprise in her

squinting eyes, as if asking, “What is this for?” took the photo

silently and put it in the bib of her apron.

“I saw your aunt there,” said Nekhludoff.

“Did you?” she said, indifferently.

“Are you all right here?” Nekhludoff asked.

“Oh, yes, it’s all right,” she said.

“Not too difficult?”

“Oh, no. But I am not used to it yet.”

“I am glad, for your sake. Anyhow, it is better than there.”

“Than where--there?” she asked, her face flushing again.

“There--in the prison,” Nekhludoff hurriedly answered.

“Why better?” she asked.

“I think the people are better. Here are none such as there must be

there.”

“There are many good ones there,” she said.

“I have been seeing about the Menshoffs, and hope they will be

liberated,” said Nekhludoff.

“God grant they may. Such a splendid old woman,” she said, again

repeating her opinion of the old woman, and slightly smiling.

“I am going to Petersburg to-day. Your case will come on soon, and I

hope the sentence will be repealed.”

“Whether it is repealed or not won’t matter now,” she said.

“Why not now?”

“So,” she said, looking with a quick, questioning glance into his eyes.

Nekhludoff understood the word and the look to mean that she wished

to know whether he still kept firm to his decision or had accepted her

refusal.

“I do not know why it does not matter to you,” he said. “It certainly

does not matter as far as I am concerned whether you are acquitted or

not. I am ready to do what I told you in any case,” he said decidedly.

She lifted her head and her black squinting eyes remained fixed on him

and beyond him, and her face beamed with joy. But the words she spoke

were very different from what her eyes said.