The young proprietor had, as he wrote his aunt, devised a plan of action in
the management of his estate; and his whole life and activity were measured
by hours, days, and months.
Sunday was reserved for the reception of petitioners, domestic servants,
and peasants, for the visitation of the poor serfs belonging to the estate,
and the distribution of assistance with the approval of the Commune, which
met every Sunday evening, and was obliged to decide who should have help,
and what amount should be given.
In such employments passed more than a year, and the young man was now no
longer a novice either in the practical or theoretical knowledge of estate
management.
It was a clear July Sunday when Nekhliudof, having finished his coffee and
run through a chapter of "Maison Rustique," put his note-book and a packet
of bank-notes into the pocket of his light overcoat, and started out of
doors. It was a great country-house with colonnades and terraces where he
lived, but he occupied only one small room on the ground floor. He made his
way over the neglected, weed-grown paths of the old English garden, toward
the village, which was distributed along both sides of the highway.
Nekhliudof was a tall, slender young man, with long, thick, wavy auburn
hair, with a bright gleam in his dark eyes, a clear complexion, and rosy
lips where the first down of young manhood was now beginning to appear.
In all his motions and gait, could be seen strength, energy, and the
good-natured self-satisfaction of youth.
The serfs, in variegated groups, were returning from church: old men,
maidens, children, mothers with babies in their arms, dressed in their
Sunday best, were scattering to their homes; and as they met the bárin they
bowed low and made room for him to pass.
After Nekhliudof had walked some distance along the street, he stopped, and
drew from his pocket his note-book, on the last page of which, inscribed in
his own boyish hand, were a number of names of his serfs with memoranda. He
read, "_Iván Churis asks for aid_;" and then, proceeding still farther
along the street, entered the gate of the second hut[2] on the right.
[Footnote 2: _izbá_.]
Churis's domicile consisted of a half-decayed structure, with musty
corners; the sides were rickety. It was so buried in the ground, that the
banking, made of earth and dung, almost hid the two windows. The one on the
front had a broken sash, and the shutters were half torn away; the other
was small and low, and was stuffed with flax. A boarded entry with rotting
sills and low door, another small building still older and still
lower-studded than the entry, a gate, and a barn were clustered about the
principal hut.
All this had once been covered by one irregular roof; but now only over the
eaves hung the thick straw, black and decaying. Above, in places, could be
seen the frame-work and rafters.
In front of the yard were a well with rotten curb, the remains of a post,
and the wheel, and a mud-puddle stirred up by the cattle where some ducks
were splashing.
Near the well stood two old willows, split and broken, with their
whitish-green foliage. They were witnesses to the fact that some one, some
time, had taken interest in beautifying this place. Under one of them sat a
fair-haired girl of seven summers, watching another little girl of two, who
was creeping at her feet. The watch-dog gambolling about them, as soon as
he saw the bárin, flew headlong under the gate, and there set up a
quavering yelp expressive of panic.
"Iván at home?" asked Nekhliudof.
The little girl seemed stupefied at this question, and kept opening her
eyes wider and wider, but made no reply. The baby opened her mouth, and set
up a yell.
A little old woman, in a torn checkered skirt, belted low with an old red
girdle, peered out of the door, and also said nothing. Nekhliudof
approached the entry, and repeated his inquiry.
"Yes, he's at home," replied the little old woman in a quavering voice,
bowing low, and evincing timidity and agitation.
After Nekhliudof had asked after her health, and passed through the entry
into the little yard, the old woman, resting her chin in her hand, went to
the door, and, without taking her eyes off the bárin, began gently to shake
her head.
The yard was in a wretched condition, with heaps of old blackened manure
that had not been carried away: on the manure were thrown in confusion a
rotting block, pitchforks, and two harrows.
There were pent-houses around the yard, under one side of which stood a
wooden plough, a cart without a wheel, and a pile of empty
good-for-nothing bee-hives thrown one upon another. The roof was in
disrepair; and one side had fallen in so that the covering in front rested,
not on the supports, but on the manure.
Churis, with the edge and head of an axe, was breaking off the wattles that
strengthened the roof. Iván was a peasant, fifty years of age. In stature,
he was short. The features of his tanned oval face, framed in a dark auburn
beard and hair where a trace of gray was beginning to appear, were handsome
and expressive. His dark blue eyes gleamed with intelligence and lazy
good-nature, from under half-shut lids. His small, regular mouth, sharply
defined under his sandy thin mustache when he smiled, betrayed a calm
self-confidence, and a certain bantering indifference toward all around
him.
By the roughness of his skin, by his deep wrinkles, by the veins that stood
out prominently on his neck, face, and hands, by his unnatural stoop and
the crooked position of his legs, it was evident that all his life had been
spent in hard work, far beyond his strength.
His garb consisted of white hempen drawers, with blue patches on the knees,
and a dirty shirt of the same material, which kept hitching up his back and
arms. The shirt was belted low in the waist by a girdle, from which hung a
brass key.
"Good-day," said the bárin, as he stepped into the yard. Churis glanced
around, and kept on with his work; making energetic motions, he finished
clearing away the wattles from under the shed, and then only, having struck
the axe into the block, he came out into the middle of the yard.
"A pleasant holiday, your excellency!" said he, bowing low and smoothing
his hair.
"Thanks, my friend. I came to see how your affairs[3] were progressing,"
said Nekhliudof with boyish friendliness and timidity, glancing at the
peasant's garb. "Just show me what you need in the way of supports that you
asked me about at the last meeting."
"Supports, of course, sir, your excellency, sir.[4] I should like it fixed
a little here, sir, if you will have the goodness to cast your eye on it:
here this corner has given way, sir, and only by the mercy of God the
cattle didn't happen to be there. It barely hangs at all," said Churis,
gazing with an expressive look at his broken-down, ramshackly, and ruined
sheds. "Now the girders and the supports and the rafters are nothing but
rot; you won't see a sound timber. But where can we get lumber nowadays, I
should like to know?"
[Footnote 3: _khozyáïstvo._]
[Footnote 4: _bátiushka._]
"Well, what do you want with the five supports when the one shed has fallen
in? the others will be soon falling in too, won't they? You need to have
every thing made new,--rafters and girders and posts; but you don't want
supports," said the bárin, evidently priding himself on his comprehension
of the case.
Churis made no reply.
"Of course you need lumber, but not supports. You ought to have told me
so."
"Surely I do, but there's nowhere to get it. Not all of us can come to the
manor-house. If we all should get into the habit of coming to the
manor-house and asking your excellency for every thing we wanted, what kind
of serfs should we be? But if your kindness went so far as to let me have
some of the oak saplings that are lying idle over by the threshing-floor,"
said the peasant, making a low bow and scraping with his foot, "then,
maybe, I might exchange some, and piece out others, so that the old would
last some time longer."
"What is the good of the old? Why, you just told me that it was all old and
rotten. This part has fallen in to-day; to-morrow, that one will; the day
after, a third. So, if any thing is to be done, it must be all made new, so
that the work may not be wasted. Now tell me what you think about it. Can
your premises[5] last out this winter, or not?"
"Who can tell?"
"No, but what do you think? Will they fall in, or not?"
Churis meditated for a moment. "Can't help falling in," said he suddenly.
"Well, now you see you had better have said that at the meeting, that you
needed to rebuild your whole place,[5] instead of a few props. You see, I
should be glad to help you."
[Footnote 5: _dvor._]
"Many thanks for your kindness," replied Churis, in an incredulous tone and
not looking at the bárin. "If you would give me four joists and some props,
then, perhaps, I might fix things up myself; but if any one is hunting
after good-for-nothing timbers, then he'd find them in the joists of the
hut."
"Why, is your hut so wretched as all that?"
"My old woman and I are expecting it to fall in on us any day," replied
Churis indifferently. "A day or two ago, a girder fell from the ceiling,
and struck my old woman."
"What! struck her?"
"Yes, struck her, your excellency: whacked her on the back, so that she lay
half dead all night."
"Well, did she get over it?"
"Pretty much, but she's been ailing ever since; but then she's always
ailing."
"What, are you sick?" asked Nekhliudof of the old woman, who had been
standing all the time at the door, and had begun to groan as soon as her
husband mentioned her.
"It bothers me here more and more, especially on Sundays," she replied,
pointing to her dirty lean bosom.
"Again?" asked the young master in a tone of vexation, shrugging his
shoulders. "Why, if you are so sick, don't you come and get advice at the
dispensary? That is what the dispensary was built for. Haven't you been
told about it?"
"Certainly we have, but I have not had any time to spare; have had to work
in the field, and at home, and look after the children, and no one to help
me; if I weren't all alone"....