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THREE DAYS
IN THE
VILLAGE
AND OTHER SKETCHES
BY
LEO TOLSTOY
These sketches are written
in the style of Tolstoy's
"Popular Stories and Legends,"
and give the reader
various glimpses into modern
village life in Russia
THE FREE AGE PRESS
Publisher: C. W. DANIEL
3 Amen Corner, London, E. C.
THREE DAYS IN THE VILLAGE
_And Other Sketches_
_No Rights Reserved_
THREE DAYS IN
THE VILLAGE
_And Other Sketches_
_Written from September 1909 to July 1910_
BY
LEO TOLSTOY
_Translated by_ L. _and_ A. MAUDE
LONDON
THE FREE AGE PRESS
(C. W. DANIEL)
3 AMEN CORNER, E. C.
1910
CONTENTS
PAGE
THREE DAYS IN THE VILLAGE--
FIRST DAY--TRAMPS 7
SECOND DAY--THE LIVING AND THE DYING 20
THIRD DAY--TAXES 33
CONCLUSION--A DREAM 41
SINGING IN THE VILLAGE 55
TRAVELLER AND PEASANT 63
A TALK WITH A WAYFARER 75
FROM THE DIARY 79
THREE DAYS IN THE VILLAGE
_FIRST DAY_
TRAMPS
Something entirely new, unseen and unheard-of formerly, has lately
shown itself in our country districts. To our village, consisting of
eighty homesteads, from half a dozen to a dozen cold, hungry, tattered
tramps come every day, wanting a night's lodging.
These people, ragged, half-naked, barefoot, often ill, and extremely
dirty, come into the village and go to the village policeman. That
they should not die in the street of hunger and exposure, he quarters
them on the inhabitants of the village, regarding only the peasants as
"inhabitants." He does not take them to the squire, who besides his own
ten rooms has ten other apartments: office, coachman's room, laundry,
servants' and upper-servants' hall and so on; nor does he take them to
the priest or deacon or shopkeeper, in whose houses, though not large,
there is still some spare room; but he takes them to the peasants,
whose whole family, wife, daughters-in-law, unmarried daughters, and
big and little children, all live in one room--sixteen, nineteen, or
twenty-three feet long. And the master of the hut takes the cold,
hungry, stinking, ragged, dirty man, and not merely gives him a night's
lodging, but feeds him as well.
"When you sit down to table yourself," an old peasant householder told
me, "it's impossible not to invite him too, or your own soul accepts
nothing. So one feeds him and gives him a drink of tea."
Those are the nightly visitors. But during the day, not two or three,
but ten or more such visitors call at each hut, and again it is: "Why,
it is impossible...," etc.
And for almost every tramp the housewife cuts a slice of bread, thinner
or thicker according to the man's appearance--though she knows her rye
will not last till next harvest.
"If you were to give to all who come, a loaf [the big peasant loaf of
black bread] would not last a day," some housewives said to me. "So
sometimes one hardens one's heart and refuses!"
And this goes on every day, all over Russia. An enormous
yearly-increasing army of beggars, cripples, administrative exiles,
helpless old men, and above all unemployed workmen, lives--that is to
say, shelters itself from cold and wet--and is actually fed by the
hardest-worked and poorest class, the country peasants.
We have Workhouses,[1] Foundlings' Hospitals, Boards of Public Relief,
and all sorts of philanthropic organisations in our towns; and in all
those institutions, in buildings with electric light, parquet floors,
neat servants, and various well-paid attendants, thousands of helpless
people of all sorts are sheltered. But however many such there may
be, they are but a drop in the ocean of the enormous (unnumbered, but
certainly enormous) population which now tramps destitute over Russia,
and is sheltered and fed apart from any institutions, solely by the
village peasants whose own Christian feelings induce them to bear this
heavy and gigantic tax.
[1] Not in the English sense, for there is no Poor-Law system
entitling the destitute to demand maintenance.
Just think what people who are not peasants would say, if--even once
a week--such a shivering, starving, dirty, lousy tramp were placed in
each of their bedrooms! But the peasants not only house them, but feed
them and give them tea, because "one's own soul accepts nothing unless
one has them to table."
In the more remote parts of Sarátof, Tambóf, and other Provinces, the
peasants do not wait for the policeman to bring these tramps, but
always receive them and feed them of their own accord.
And, as is the case with all really good deeds, the peasants do this
without knowing that they are doing a good deed; and yet it is not
merely a good deed "for one's soul," but is of enormous importance
for the whole of Russian society. It is of such importance for Russian
society because, but for this peasant population and the Christian
feeling that lives so strongly in it, it is difficult to imagine
what the fate would be, not only of these hundreds of thousands
of unfortunate, houseless tramps, but of all the well-to-do--and
especially of the wealthy who have their houses in the country.
It is only necessary to see the state of privation and suffering to
which these homeless tramps have come or have been brought, and to
imagine the mental condition they must be in, and to realise that it
is only this help rendered to them by the peasants that restrains
them from committing violence, which would be quite natural in their
position, upon those who possess in superfluity all the things these
unfortunates lack to keep themselves alive.
So that it is not the philanthropic organisations, not the Government
with its police and all its juridical institutions, that protects
us, the well-to-do, from being attacked by those who wander, cold,
hungry, and homeless, after having sunk--or, for the most part, having
been brought--to the lowest depths of poverty and despair; but we are
protected, as well as fed and supported, by that same basic strength of
the Russian nation--the peasantry.
Yes! Were it not that there is among Russia's vast peasant population
a deep religious consciousness of the brotherhood of all men, not
only would these homeless people, having reached the last stages of
despair, have long since destroyed the houses of the rich, in spite
of any police force (there are and must be so few of them in country
districts), but they would even have killed all who stood in their
way. So that we ought not to be horrified or surprised when we hear or
read of people being robbed, or killed that they may be robbed, but we
should understand and remember that if such things happen as seldom as
they do, we owe this to the unselfish help rendered by the peasants to
this unfortunate tramping population.
Every day from ten to fifteen people come to our house to beg. Some
among them are regular beggars, who for some reason have chosen that
means of livelihood, and having clothed and shod themselves as best
they might, and having made sacks to hold what they collect, have
started out to tramp the country. Among them some are blind, and
some have lost a leg or an arm; and sometimes, though rarely, there
are women and children among them. But these are only a small part.
The majority of the beggars that come now are passers-by, without a
beggar's sack, mostly young, and not crippled. They are all in a most
pitiable state, barefoot, half-naked, emaciated, and shivering with
cold. You ask them, "Where are you going?" The answer is always the
same: "To look for work"; or, "Have been looking for work, but found
none, and am making my way home. There's no work; they are shutting
down everywhere." Many of these people are returning from exile.
A few days ago I was barely awake when our servant, Ilyá Vasílyevitch,
told me:
"There are five tramps waiting near the porch."
"Take some money there is on the table, and give it them," said I.
Ilyá Vasílyevitch took it, and, as is the custom, gave each of them
five copecks [five farthings]. About an hour passed. I went out into
the porch. A dreadfully tattered little man with a sickly face, swollen
eyelids, restless eyes, and boots all falling to pieces, began bowing,
and held out a certificate to me.
"Have you received something?"
"Your Excellency, what am I to do with five copecks?... Your
Excellency, put yourself in my place! Please, your Excellency, look
... please see!" and he shows me his clothing. "Where am I to go to,
your Excellency?" (it is "Excellency" after every word, though his face
expresses hatred). "What am I to do? Where am I to go?"
I tell him that I give to all alike. He continues to entreat, and
demands that I should read his certificate. I refuse. He kneels down. I
ask him to leave me.
"Very well! That means, it seems, that I must put an end to myself!
That's all that's left me to do.... Give me something, if only a
trifle!"
I give him twenty copecks, and he goes away, evidently angry.
There are a great many such peculiarly insistent beggars, who feel they
have a right to demand their share from the rich. They are literate
for the most part, and some of them are even well-read persons on whom
the Revolution has had an effect. These men, unlike the ordinary,
old-fashioned beggars, look on the rich, not as on people who wish
to save their souls by distributing alms, but as on highwaymen and
robbers who suck the blood of the working classes. It often happens
that a beggar of this sort does no work himself and carefully avoids
work, and yet considers himself, in the name of the workers, not merely
justified, but bound, to hate the robbers of the people--that is to
say, the rich--and to hate them from the depths of his heart; and if,
instead of demanding from them, he begs, that is only a pretence.
There are a great number of these men, many of them drunkards, of whom
one feels inclined to say, "It's their own fault"; but there are also
a great many tramps of quite a different type: meek, humble, and very
pathetic, and it is terrible to think of their position.
Here is a tall, good-looking man, with nothing on over his short,
tattered jacket. His boots are bad and trodden down. He has a good,
intelligent face. He takes off his cap and begs in the ordinary way. I
give him something, and he thanks me. I ask him where he comes from
and where he is going to.
"From Petersburg, home to our village in Toúla Government."
I ask him, "Why on foot?"
"It's a long story," he answers, shrugging his shoulders.
I ask him to tell it me. He relates it with evident truthfulness.
"I had a good place in an office in Petersburg, and received thirty
roubles [three guineas] a month. Lived very comfortably. I have read
your books _War and Peace_ and _Anna Karénina_," says he, again smiling
a particularly pleasant smile. "Then my folks at home got the idea
of migrating to Siberia, to the Province of Tomsk." They wrote to
him asking whether he would agree to sell his share of land in the
old place. He agreed. His people left, but the land allotted them in
Siberia turned out worthless. They spent all they had, and came back.
Being now landless, they are living in hired lodgings in their former
village, and work for wages. It happened, just at the same time, that
he lost his place in Petersburg. It was not his doing. The firm he was
with became bankrupt, and dismissed its employees. "And just then, to
tell the truth, I came across a seamstress." He smiled again. "She
quite entangled me.... I used to help my people, and now see what a
smart chap I have become!... Ah well, God is not without mercy; maybe
I'll manage somehow!"
He was evidently an intelligent, strong, active fellow, and only a
series of misfortunes had brought him to his present condition.
Take another: his legs swathed in strips of rag; girdled with a rope;
his clothing quite threadbare and full of small holes, evidently
not torn, but worn-out to the last degree; his face, with its high
cheek-bones, pleasant, intelligent, and sober. I give him the customary
five copecks, and he thanks me and we start a conversation. He has been
an administrative exile in Vyátka. It was bad enough there, but it is
worse here. He is going to Ryazán, where he used to live. I ask him
what he has been. "A newspaper man. I took the papers round."
"For what were you exiled?"
"For selling forbidden literature."
We began talking about the Revolution. I told him my opinion, that the
evil was all in ourselves; and that such an enormous power as that of
the Government cannot be destroyed by force. "Evil outside ourselves
will only be destroyed when we have destroyed it within us," said I.
"That is so, but not for a long time."
"It depends on us."
"I have read your book on Revolution."
"It is not mine, but I agree with it."
"I wished to ask you for some of your books."
"I should be very pleased.... Only I'm afraid they may get you into
trouble. I'll give you the most harmless."
"Oh, I don't care! I am no longer afraid of anything.... Prison is
better for me than this! I am not afraid of prison.... I even long for
it sometimes," he said sadly.
"What a pity it is that so much strength is wasted uselessly!" said I.
"How people like you destroy your own lives!... Well, and what do you
mean to do now?"
"I?" he said, looking intently into my face.
At first, while we talked about past events and general topics, he had
answered me boldly and cheerfully; but as soon as our conversation
referred to himself personally and he noticed my sympathy, he turned
away, hid his eyes with his sleeve, and I noticed that the back of his
head was shaking.
And how many such people there are!
They are pitiable and pathetic, and they, too, stand on the threshold
beyond which a state of despair begins that makes even a kindly man
ready to go all lengths.
"Stable as our civilisation may seem to us," says Henry George,
"disintegrating forces are already developing within it. Not in deserts
and forests, but in city slums and on the highways, the barbarians are
being bred who will do for our civilisation what the Huns and Vandals
did for the civilisation of former ages."
Yes! What Henry George foretold some twenty years ago, is happening
now before our eyes, and in Russia most glaringly--thanks to the
amazing blindness of our Government, which carefully undermines the
foundations on which alone any and every social order stands or can
stand.
We have the Vandals foretold by Henry George quite ready among us in
Russia. And, strange as it may seem to say so, these Vandals, these
doomed men, are specially dreadful here among our deeply religious
population. These Vandals are specially dreadful here, because we have
not the restraining principles of convention, propriety, and public
opinion, that are so strongly developed among the European nations. We
have either real, deep, religious feeling, or--as in Sténka Rázin and
Pougatchéf--a total absence of any restraining principle: and, dreadful
to say, this army of Sténkas and Pougatchéfs is growing greater and
greater, thanks to the Pougatchéf-like conduct of our Government
in these later days, with its horrors of police violence, insane
banishments, imprisonments, exiles, fortresses, and daily executions.
Such actions release the Sténka Rázins from the last remnants of moral
restraint. "If the learned gentlefolk act like that, God Himself
permits us to do so," say and think they.
I often receive letters from that class of men, chiefly exiles. They
know I have written something about not resisting evil by violence, and
for the greater part they retort ungrammatically, though with great
fervour, that what the Government and the rich are doing to the poor,
can and must be answered only in one way: "Revenge, revenge, revenge!"
Yes! The blindness of our Government is amazing. It does not and will
not see that all it does to disarm its enemies merely increases their
number and energy. Yes! These people are terrible, terrible for the
Government and for the rich, and for those who live among the rich.
But besides the feeling of terror these people inspire, there is also
another feeling, much more imperative than that of fear, and one we
cannot help experiencing towards those who, by a series of accidents,
have fallen into this terrible condition of vagrancy. That feeling is
one of shame and sympathy.
And it is not fear, so much as shame and pity, that should oblige us,
who are not in that condition, to respond in one way or other to this
new and terrible phenomenon in Russian life.[2]
[2] One of the most depressing features of L. N. Tolstoy's
environment is the large number of unemployed and beggars
from the adjacent highway. They wait outside the house for
hours every day for the coming of Leo Nikolayevich. The
consciousness of his inability to render them substantial aid
weighs heavily upon him, as does also the fact that, owing
to insurmountable obstacles, he cannot even feed them, and
allow them to sleep in the house in which he himself lives.
These unfortunates surround Leo Nikolayevich at the steps,
and besiege him with their importunate requests, just at the
time when he seeks the fresh air and is most in need of mental
rest and solitude after long-continued and strenuous mental
labour. In view of this fact, the idea has occurred to some
of Leo Nikolayevich's friends, of establishing in the village
of Yásnaya Polyána a lodging- and eating-house for tramps,
the use of which by the latter would save L. N. unnecessary
trouble. The establishment of such premises--L. N. has viewed
the idea very favourably--would at least afford some temporary
relief to the wandering poor who are in dire need. At the
same time the peasantry of Yásnaya Polyána would be relieved
of the too heavy burden of supporting the passing unemployed
described by Tolstoy in his article. Lastly, it would afford
Tolstoy, in his declining years, considerable mental relief,
which it would seem that he has more than deserved by his
incessant labours on behalf of distressed mankind. Perhaps
among those who read the present sketches some will be found
who, prompted by the impulses animating the author, may desire
to render some material help towards the practical realisation
of the projected undertaking.
Contributions may be sent to the following address: V.
Tchertkoff, Editor of the Free Age Press, Christchurch, Hants,
Eng.
_SECOND DAY_
THE LIVING AND THE DYING
As I sat at my work, Ilyá Vasílyevitch entered softly and, evidently
reluctant to disturb me at my work, told me that some wayfarers and a
woman had been waiting a long time to see me.
"Here," I said, "please take this, and give it them."
"The woman has come about some business."
I told him to ask her to wait a while, and continued my work. By the
time I came out, I had quite forgotten about her, till I saw a young
peasant woman with a long, thin face, and clad very poorly and too
lightly for the weather, appear from behind a corner of the house.
"What do you want? What is the matter?"
"I've come to see you, your Honour."
"Yes ... what about? What is the matter?"
"To see you, your Honour."
"Well, what is it?"
"He's been taken wrongfully.... I'm left with three children."
"Who's been taken, and where to?"
"My husband ... sent off to Krapívny."
"Why? What for?"
"For a soldier, you know. But it's wrong--because, you see, he's the
breadwinner! We can't get on without him.... Be a father to us, sir!"
"But how is it? Is he the only man in the family?"
"Just so ... the only man!"
"Then how is it they have taken him, if he's the only man?"
"Who can tell why they've done it?... Here am I, left alone with the
children! There's nothing for me but to die.... Only I'm sorry for the
children! My last hope is in your kindness, because, you see, it was
not right!"
I wrote down the name of her village, and her name and surname, and
told her I would see about it and let her know.
"Help me, if it's only ever so little!... The children are hungry, and,
God's my witness, I haven't so much as a crust. The baby is worst of
all ... there's no milk in my breasts. If only the Lord would take him!"
"Haven't you a cow?" I asked.
"A cow? Oh, no!... Why, we're all starving!" said she, crying, and
trembling all over in her tattered coat.
I let her go, and prepared for my customary walk. It turned out that
the doctor, who lives with us, was going to visit a patient in the
village the soldier's wife had come from, and another patient in the
village where the District Police Station is situated, so I joined him,
and we drove off together.
I went into the Police Station, while the doctor attended to his
business in that village.
The District Elder was not in, nor the clerk, but only the clerk's
assistant--a clever lad whom I knew. I asked him about the woman's
husband, and why, being the only man in the family, he had been taken
as a conscript.
The clerk's assistant looked up the particulars, and replied that the
woman's husband was not the only man in the family: he had a brother.
"Then why did she say he was the only one?"
"She lied! They always do," replied he, with a smile.
I made some inquiries about other matters I had to attend to, and then
the doctor returned from visiting his patient, and we drove towards the
village in which the soldier's wife lived. But before we were out of
the first village, a girl of about twelve came quickly across the road
towards us.
"I suppose you're wanted?" I said to the doctor.
"No, it's your Honour I want," said the girl to me.
"What is it?"
"I've come to your Honour, as mother is dead, and we are left
orphans--five of us. Help us!... Think of our needs!"
"Where do you come from?"
The girl pointed to a brick house, not badly built.
"From here ... that is our house. Come and see for yourself!"
I got out of the sledge, and went towards the house. A woman came out
and asked me in. She was the orphans' aunt. I entered a large, clean
room; all the children were there, four of them: besides the eldest
girl--two boys, a girl, and another boy of about two. Their aunt told
me all about the family's circumstances. Two years ago the father had
been killed in a mine. The widow tried to get compensation, but failed.
She was left with four children; the fifth was born after her husband's
death. She struggled on alone as best she could, hiring a labourer at
first to work her land. But without her husband things went worse and
worse. First they had to sell their cow, then the horse, and at last
only two sheep were left. Still they managed to live somehow; but two
months ago the woman herself fell ill and died, leaving five children,
the eldest twelve years old.
"They must get along as best they can. I try to help them, but can't do
much. I can't think what's to become of them! I wish they'd die!... If
one could only get them into some Orphanage--or at least some of them!"
The eldest girl evidently understood and took in the whole of my
conversation with her aunt.
"If at least one could get little Nicky placed somewhere! It's awful;
one can't leave him for a moment," said she, pointing to the sturdy
little two-year old urchin, who with his little sister was merrily
laughing at something or other, and evidently did not at all share his
aunt's wish.
I promised to take steps to get one or more of the children into an
Orphanage. The eldest girl thanked me, and asked when she should come
for an answer. The eyes of all the children, even of Nicky, were fixed
on me, as on some fairy being capable of doing anything for them.
Before I had reached the sledge, after leaving the house, I met an old
man. He bowed, and at once began speaking about these same orphans.
"What misery!" he said; "it's pitiful to see them. And the eldest
little girlie, how she looks after them--just like a mother! Wonderful
how the Lord helps her! It's a mercy the neighbours don't forsake them,
or they'd simply die of hunger, the dear little things!... They are the
sort of people it does no harm to help," he added, evidently advising
me to do so.
I took leave of the old man, the aunt, and the little girl, and drove
with the doctor to the woman who had been to see me that morning.
At the first house we came to, I inquired where she lived. It happened
to be the house of a widow I know very well; she lives on the alms she
begs, and she has a particularly importunate and pertinacious way of
extorting them. As usual, she at once began to beg. She said she was
just now in special need of help to enable her to rear a calf.
"She's eating me and the old woman out of house and home. Come in and
see her."
"And how is the old woman?"
"What about the old woman?... She's hanging on...."
I promised to come and see, not so much the calf as the old woman, and
again inquired where the soldier's wife lived. The widow pointed to the
next hut but one, and hastened to add that no doubt they were poor, but
her brother-in-law "does drink dreadfully!"
Following her instructions, I went to the next house but one.
Miserable as are the huts of all the poor in our villages, it is long
since I saw one so dilapidated as that. Not only the whole roof, but
the walls were so crooked that the windows were aslant.
Inside, it was no better than outside. The brick oven took up one-third
of the black, dirty little hut, which to my surprise was full of
people. I thought I should find the widow alone with her children;
but here was a sister-in-law (a young woman with children) and an old
mother-in-law. The soldier's wife herself had just returned from her
visit to me, and was warming herself on the top of the oven. While she
was getting down, her mother-in-law began telling me of their life.
Her two sons had lived together at first, and they all managed to feed
themselves.
"But who remain together nowadays? All separate," the garrulous old
woman went on. "The wives began quarrelling, so the brothers separated,
and life became still harder. We had little land, and only managed to
live by their wage-labour; and now they have taken Peter as a soldier!
So where is she to turn to with her children? She's living with us now,
but we can't manage to feed them all! We can't think what we are to do.
They say he may be got back."
The soldier's wife, having climbed down from the oven, continued
to implore me to take steps to get her husband back. I told her it
was impossible, and asked what property her husband had left behind
with his brother, to keep her and the children. There was none. He
had handed over his land to his brother, that he might feed her and
the children. They had had three sheep; but two had been sold to pay
the expenses of getting her husband off, and there was only some old
rubbish left, she said, besides a sheep and two fowls. That was all she
had. Her mother-in-law confirmed her words.
I asked the soldier's wife where she had come from. She came from
Sergíevskoe. Sergíevskoe is a large, well-to-do village some thirty
miles off. I asked if her parents were alive. She said they were
alive, and living comfortably.
"Why should you not go to them?" I asked.
"I thought of that myself, but am afraid they won't have the four of
us."
"Perhaps they will. Why not write to them? Shall I write for you?"
The woman agreed, and I noted down her parents' address.
While I was talking to the woman, the eldest child--a fat-bellied
girl--came up to her mother, and, pulling at her sleeve, began asking
for something, probably food. The woman went on talking to me, and paid
no attention to the girl, who again pulled and muttered something.
"There's no getting rid of you!" exclaimed the woman, and with a swing
of her arm struck her on the head. The girl burst into a howl.
Having finished my business there, I left the hut and went back to the
widow.
She was outside her house, waiting for me, and again asked me to come
and look at her calf. I went in, and in the passage there really was a
calf. The widow asked me to look at it. I did so, feeling that she was
so engrossed in her calf that she could not imagine that anyone could
help being interested in seeing it.
Having looked at the calf, I stepped inside, and asked:
"Where is the old woman?"
"The old woman?" the widow repeated, evidently surprised that after
having seen the calf, I could still be interested in the old woman.
"Why, on the top of the oven! Where else should she be?"
I went up to the oven, and greeted the old woman.
"Oh! ... oh!" answered a hoarse, feeble voice. "Who is it?"
I told her, and asked how she was getting on.
"What's my life worth?"
"Are you in pain?"
"Everything aches! Oh! ... oh!"
"The doctor is here with me; shall I call him in?"
"Doctor!... Oh! ... oh! What do I want with your doctor?... My doctor
is up there.... Oh! ... oh!"
"She's old, you know," said the widow.
"Not older than I am," replied I.
"Not older? Much older! People say she is ninety," said the widow. "All
her hair has come out. I cut it all off the other day."
"Why did you do that?"
"Why, it had nearly all come out, so I cut it off!"
"Oh! ... oh!" moaned the old woman; "oh! God has forgotten me! He does
not take my soul. If the Lord won't take it, it can't go of itself!
Oh! ... oh! It must be for my sins! ... I've nothing to moisten my
throat.... If only I had a drop of tea to drink before I die.... Oh!
... oh!"
The doctor entered the hut, and I said goodbye and went out into the
street.
We got into the sledge, and drove to a small neighbouring village to
see the doctor's last patient, who had sent for him the day before. We
went into the hut together.
The room was small, but clean; in the middle of it a cradle hung
from the ceiling, and a woman stood rocking it energetically. At the
table sat a girl of about eight, who gazed at us with surprised and
frightened eyes.
"Where is he?" the doctor asked.
"On the oven," replied the woman, not ceasing to rock the cradle.
The doctor climbed up, and, leaning over the patient, did something to
him.
I drew nearer, and asked about the sick man's condition.
The doctor gave me no answer. I climbed up, too, and gazing through the
darkness gradually began to discern the hairy head of the man on the
oven-top. Heavy, stifling air hung about the sick man, who lay on his
back. The doctor was holding his left hand to feel the pulse.
"Is he very bad?" I asked.
Without answering me, the doctor turned to the woman.
"Light a lamp," he said.
She called the girl, told her to rock the cradle, and went and lit a
lamp and handed it to the doctor. I got down, so as not to be in his
way. He took the lamp, and continued to examine the patient.
The little girl, staring at us, did not rock the cradle strongly
enough, and the baby began to cry piercingly and piteously. The mother,
having handed the lamp to the doctor, pushed the girl angrily aside and
again began to rock the cradle.
I returned to the doctor, and again asked how the patient was. The
doctor, still occupied with the patient, softly whispered one word.
I did not hear, and asked again.
"The death-agony," he repeated, purposely using a non-Russian word, and
got down and placed the lamp on the table.
The baby did not cease crying in a piteous and angry voice.
"What's that? Is he dead?" said the woman, as if she had understood the
foreign word the doctor had used.
"Not yet, but there is no hope!" replied he.
"Then I must send for the priest," said the woman in a dissatisfied
voice, rocking the screaming baby more and more violently.
"If only my husband was at home!... But now, who can I send? They've
all gone to the forest for firewood."
"I can do nothing more here," said the doctor; and we went away.
I heard afterwards that the woman found someone to send for the priest,
who had just time to administer the Sacrament to the dying man.
We drove home in silence, both, I think, experiencing the same feeling.
"What was the matter with him?" I asked at length.
"Inflammation of the lungs. I did not expect it to end so quickly. He
had a very strong constitution, but the conditions were deadly. With
105 degrees of fever, he went and sat outside the hut, where there were
only 20 degrees."
Again we drove on in silence for a long time.
"I noticed no bedding or pillow on the oven," said I.
"Nothing!" replied the doctor. And, evidently knowing what I was
thinking about, he went on:
"Yesterday I was at Kroutoe to see a woman who has had a baby. To
examine her properly, as was necessary, she should have been placed so
that she could lie stretched out full length; but there was no place in
the whole hut where that could be done."
Again we were silent, and again we probably both had the same thoughts.
We reached home in silence. At the porch stood a fine pair of horses,
harnessed tandem to a carpet-upholstered sledge. The handsome coachman
was dressed in a sheepskin coat, and wore a thick fur cap. They
belonged to my son, who had driven over from his estate.
* * * * *
And here we are sitting at the dinner-table, laid for ten persons. One
of the places is empty. It is my little granddaughter's. She is not
quite well to-day, and is having her dinner in her room with her nurse.
A specially hygienic dinner has been prepared for her: beef-tea and
sago.
At our big dinner of four courses, with two kinds of wine, served by
two footmen, and eaten at a table decorated with flowers, this is the
kind of talk that goes on:
"Where do these splendid roses come from?" asks my son.
My wife tells him that a lady, who will not divulge her name, sends
them from Petersburg.
"Roses like these cost three shillings each," says my son, and goes on
to relate how at some concert or play such roses were showered on a
performer till they covered the stage. The conversation passes on to
music, and then to a man who is a very good judge and patron of music.
"By the by, how is he?"
"Oh, he is always ailing. He is again going to Italy. He always spends
the winter there, and his health improves wonderfully."
"But the journey is very trying and tedious."
"Oh no! Not if one takes the express--it is only thirty-nine hours."
"All the same, it is very dull."
"Wait a bit! We shall fly before long!"
_THIRD DAY_
TAXES
Besides my ordinary visitors and applicants, there are to-day some
special ones. The first is a childless old peasant who is ending his
life in great poverty. The second is a poor woman with a crowd of
children. The third is, I believe, a well-to-do peasant.
All three have come from our village, and all have come about the
same business. The taxes are being collected before the New Year,
and the old man's samovár, the woman's only sheep, and one of the
well-to-do peasant's cows, have been noted down for seizure in case of
non-payment. They all ask me to defend them or assist them, or to do
both.
The well-to-do peasant, a tall, handsome, elderly man, is the first to
speak. He tells me that the Village Elder came, noted down the cow,
and demands twenty-seven roubles. This levy is for the obligatory
Grain Reserve Fund, and ought not, the peasant thinks, to be collected
at this time of year. I know nothing about it, and tell him that I
will inquire in the District Government Office, and will let him know
whether the payment of the tax can be postponed or not.
The second to speak is the old man whose samovár has been noted. The
small, thin, weakly, poorly clad man relates, with pathetic grief and
bewilderment, how they came, took his samovár, and demanded three
roubles and seventy copecks of him, which he has not got and can't get.
I ask him what the tax is for.
"Some kind of Government tax.... Who can tell what it is? Where am
I and my old woman to get the money? As it is, we hardly manage to
live!... What kind of laws are these? Have pity on our old age, and
help us somehow!"
I promise to inquire, and to do what I can, and I turn to the woman.
She is thin and worn-out. I know her, and know that her husband is a
drunkard, and that she has five children.
"They have seized my sheep! They come and say: 'Pay the money!' 'My
husband is away, working,' I say. 'Pay up!' say they. But where am I to
find it? I only had one sheep, and they are taking it!" And she begins
to cry.
I promise to find out, and to help her if I can. First, I go to the
Village Elder, to find out what the taxes are, and why they are
collecting them so rigorously.
In the village street, two other petitioners stop me. Their husbands
are away at work. One asks me to buy some of her home-woven linen, and
offers it for two roubles. "Because they have seized my hens! I had
just reared them, and live by selling the eggs. Do buy it; it is good
linen! I would not let it go for three roubles if I were not in great
need!"
I send her away, promising to consider matters when I return--perhaps I
may be able to arrange about the tax.
Before I reach the Elder's house, a woman comes to meet me: a
quick-eyed, black-eyed ex-pupil of mine--Ólga, now already an old
woman. She is in the same plight: they have seized her calf.
I come to the Elder. He is a strong, intelligent-looking peasant, with
a grizzly beard. He comes out into the street to me. I ask him what
taxes are being collected, and why so rigorously. He replies that he
has had very strict orders to get in all arrears before the New Year.
"Have you had orders to confiscate samovárs and cattle?"
"Of course!" replies the Village Elder, shrugging his shoulders. "The
taxes must be paid.... Take Abakoúmof now, for instance," said he,
referring to the well-to-do peasant whose cow had been taken in payment
of some Grain Reserve Fund. "His son is an isvóstchik: they have three
horses. Why shouldn't he pay? He's always trying to get out of it."
"Well, suppose it so in his case," say I; "but how about those who are
really poor?" And I name the old man whose samovár they are taking.
"Yes; they really are poor, and have nothing to pay with. But just as
if such things get considered up there!"
I name the woman whose sheep was taken. The Elder is sorry for her too,
but, as if excusing himself, explains that he must obey orders.
I inquire how long he has been an Elder, and what pay he gets.
"How much do I get?" he says, replying not to the question I ask, but
to the question in my mind, which he guesses namely, why he takes part
in such proceedings. "Well, I do want to resign! We get thirty roubles
a month, but are obliged to do things that are wrong."
"Well, and will they really confiscate the samovárs and sheep and
fowls?" I ask.
"Why, of course! We are bound to take them, and the District Government
will arrange for their sale."
"And will the things be sold?"
"The folk will manage to pay up somehow."
I go to the woman who came to me about her sheep. Her hut is tiny, and
in the passage outside is her only sheep, which is to go to support the
Imperial Budget. Seeing me, she, a nervous woman worn out by want and
overwork, begins to talk excitedly and rapidly, as peasant women do.
"See how I live! They're taking my last sheep, and I myself and
these brats are barely alive!" She points up at the bunks and the
oven-top, where her children are. "Come down!... Now then, don't be
frightened!... There now, how's one to keep oneself and them naked
brats?"
The brats, almost literally naked, with nothing on but tattered
shirts--not even any trousers--climb down from the oven and surround
their mother.
The same day I go to the District Office, to make inquiries about this
way of exacting taxation, which is new to me.
The District Elder is not in. He will be back soon. In the Office
several persons are standing behind the grating, also waiting to see
him.
I ask them who they are, and what they have come about. Two of them
have come to get passports, in order to be able to go out to work at
a distance. They have brought money to pay for the passports. Another
has come to get a copy of the District Court's decision rejecting
his petition that the homestead--where he has lived and worked for
twenty-three years, and which has belonged to his uncle, who adopted
him,--now that his uncle and aunt are dead, should not be taken from
him by his uncle's granddaughter. She, being the direct heiress,
and taking advantage of the law of the 9th November, is selling the
freehold of the land and homestead on which the petitioner lived. His
petition has been rejected, but he cannot believe that this is the law,
and wants to appeal to some higher Court--though he does not know
what Court. I explain that there is such a law, and this provokes
disapproval, amounting to perplexity and incredulity, among all those
who are present.
Hardly have I finished talking with this man, when a tall peasant with
a stern, severe face asks me for an explanation of his affairs. The
business he has come about is this: he and his fellow villagers have,
from time immemorial, been getting iron ore from their land; and now a
decree has been published prohibiting this. "Not dig on one's own land?
What laws are these? We only live by digging the iron! We have been
trying for more than a month, and can't get anything settled. We don't
know what to think of it; they'll ruin us completely, and that will be
the end of the matter!"
I can say nothing comforting to this man, and turn to the Elder--who
has just come back--to inquire about the vigorous measures which are
being taken to exact payment of arrears of taxation in our village. I
ask under what clauses of the Act the taxes are being levied. The Elder
tells me that there are seven different kinds of rates and taxes, the
arrears of all of which are now being collected from the peasants:
(1) the Imperial Taxes, (2) the Local Government Taxes, (3) the Insurance
Taxes, (4) the arrears of Former Grain Reserve Funds, (5) New Grain
Reserve Funds in lieu of contributions in kind, (6) Communal and
District Taxes, and (7) Village Taxes.
The District Elder tells me, as the Village Elder had done, that the
taxes were being collected with special rigour by order of the higher
authorities. He admits that it is no easy task to collect the taxes
from the poor, but he shows less sympathy than the Village Elder did.
He does not venture to censure the authorities; and, above all, he has
hardly any doubt of the usefulness of his office, or of the rightness
of taking part in such activity.
"One can't, after all, encourage...."
Soon after, I had occasion to talk about these things with a Zémsky
Natchálnik.[3] He had very little compassion for the hard lot of
the poverty-stricken folk whom he scarcely ever saw, and just as
little doubt of the morality and lawfulness of his activity. In his
conversation with me he admitted that, on the whole, it would be
pleasanter not to serve at all; but he considered himself a useful
functionary, because other men in his place would do even worse things.
"And once one is living in the country, why not take the salary, small
as it is, of a Zémsky Natchálnik?"
[3] A Zémsky Natchálnik is a salaried official placed in
authority in a district. He is often selected from among the
local gentry, and wields very considerable authority.
The views of a Governor on the collection of taxes necessary to meet
the needs of those who are occupied in arranging for the nation's
welfare, were entirely free from any considerations as to samovárs,
sheep, homespun linen, or calves taken from the poorest inhabitants of
the villages; and he had not the slightest doubt as to the usefulness
of his activity.
And finally, the Ministers and those who are busy managing the liquor
traffic, those who are occupied in teaching men to kill one another,
and those who are engaged in condemning people to exile, to prison,
to penal servitude, or to the gallows--all the Ministers and their
assistants are quite convinced that samovárs and sheep and linen and
calves taken from beggars, are put to their best use in producing vódka
(which poisons the people), weapons for killing men, the erection of
gaols and lock-ups, and, among other things, in paying to them and to
their assistants the salaries they require to furnish drawing-rooms, to
buy dresses for their wives, and for journeys and amusements which they
undertake as relaxations after fulfilling their arduous labours for the
welfare of the coarse and ungrateful masses.
_CONCLUSION_
A DREAM
A few nights ago I dreamt so significant a dream that several times
during the following day I asked myself, "What has happened to-day that
is so specially important?" And then I remembered that the specially
important thing was what I had seen, or rather heard, in my dream.
It was a speech that struck me greatly, spoken by one who, as often
happens in dreams, was a combination of two men: my old friend, now
dead, Vladímir Orlóf, with grey curls on each side of his bald head,
and Nicholas Andréyevitch, a copyist who lived with my brother.
The speech was evoked by the conversation of a rich lady, the hostess,
with a landowner who was visiting her house. The lady had recounted how
the peasants on a neighbouring estate had burnt the landlord's house
and several sheds which sheltered century-old cherry trees and duchesse
pears. Her visitor, the landowner, related how the peasants had cut
down some oaks in his forest, and had even carted away a stack of hay.
"Neither arson nor robbery is considered a crime nowadays. The
immorality of our people is terrible: they have all become thieves!"
said someone.
And in answer to those words, that man, combined of two, spoke as
follows:
"The peasants have stolen oaks and hay, and are thieves, and the most
immoral class," he began, addressing no one in particular. "Now, in
the Caucasus, a chieftain used to raid the Aouls and carry off all the
horses of the inhabitants. But one of them found means to get back from
the chieftain's herds at least one of the horses that had been stolen
from him. Was that man a thief, because he got back one of the many
horses stolen from him? And is it not the same with the trees, the
grass, the hay, and all the rest of the things you say the peasants
have stolen from you? The earth is the Lord's, and common to all; and
if the peasants have taken what was grown on the common land of which
they have been deprived, they have not stolen, but have only resumed
possession of a small part of what has been stolen from them.
"I know you consider land to be the property of the landlord, and
therefore call the restoration to themselves of its produce by the
peasants--robbery; but, you know, that is not true! The land never was,
and never can be, anyone's property. If a man has more of it than he
requires, while others have none, then he who possesses the surplus
land possesses not land but men; and men cannot be the property of
other men.
"Because a dozen mischievous lads have burnt some cherry tree sheds,
and have cut down some trees, you say the peasants are thieves, and the
most immoral class!...
"How can your tongue frame such words! They have stolen ten oaks from
you. Stolen! 'To prison with them!'
"Why, if they had taken not your oaks alone but everything that is in
this house, they would only have taken what is theirs: made by them
and their brothers, but certainly not by you! 'Stolen oaks!' But for
ages you have been stealing from them, not oaks but their lives, and
the lives of their children, their womenfolk and their old men--who
withered away before their time--only because they were deprived of the
land God gave to them in common with all men, and they were obliged to
work for you.
"Only think of the life those millions of men have lived and are
living, and of how you live! Only consider what they do, supplying you
with all the comforts of life, and of what you do for them, depriving
them of everything--even of the possibility of supporting themselves
and their families! All you live on--everything in this room,
everything in this house, and in all your splendid cities, all your
palaces, all your mad, literally mad, luxuries--has been made, and is
still continually being made, by them.
"And they know this. They know that these parks of yours, and your
race-horses, motor cars, palaces, dainty dishes and finery, and all the
nastiness and stupidity you call 'science' and 'art'--are purchased
with the lives of their brothers and sisters. They know and cannot help
knowing this. Then think what feelings these people would have towards
you, if they were like you!