Nekhliudof went into the hut. The uneven smoke-begrimed walls of the
dwelling were hung with various rags and clothes; and, in the living-room,
were literally covered with reddish cockroaches clustering around the holy
images and benches.
In the middle of this dark, fetid apartment, not fourteen feet square, was
a huge crack in the ceiling; and in spite of the fact that it was braced up
in two places, the ceiling hung down so that it threatened to fall from
moment to moment.
"Yes, the hut is very miserable," said the bárin, looking into the face of
Churis, who, it seems, had not cared to speak first about this state of
things.
"It will crush us to death; it will crush the children," said the woman in
a tearful voice, attending to the stove which stood under the loft.
"Hold your tongue," cried Churis sternly; and with a slight smile playing
under his mustaches, he turned to the master. "And I haven't the wit to
know what's to be done with it, your excellency,--with this hut and props
and planks. There's nothing to be done with them."
"How can we live through the winter here? _Okh, okh!_ Oh, oh!" groaned the
old woman.
"There's one thing--if we put in some more props and laid a new floor,"
said the husband, interrupting her with a calm, practical expression, "and
threw over one set of rafters, then perhaps we might manage to get through
the winter. It is possible to live; but you'd have to put some props all
over the hut, like that: but if it gets shaken, then there won't be any
thing left of it. As long as it stands, it holds together," he concluded,
evidently perfectly contented that he appreciated this contingency.
Nekhliudof was both vexed and grieved that Churis had got himself into such
a condition, without having come to him long before; since he had more than
once, during his sojourn on the estate, told the peasants, and insisted
upon it, that they should all apply directly to him for whatever they
needed.
He now felt some indignation against the peasant; he angrily shrugged his
shoulders, and frowned. But the sight of the poverty in the midst of which
he found himself, and Churis's calm and self-satisfied appearance in
contrast with this poverty, changed his vexation into a sort of feeling of
melancholy and hopelessness.
"Well, Iván, why on earth didn't you tell me about this before?" he asked
in a tone of reproach, as he took a seat on the filthy, unsteady bench.
"I didn't dare to, your excellency," replied Churis with the same scarcely
perceptible smile, shuffling with his black, bare feet over the uneven
surface of the mud floor; but this he said so fearlessly and with such
composure, that it was hard to believe that he had any timidity about going
to his master.
"We are mere peasants; how could we be so presuming?" began the old woman,
sobbing.
"Hush up," said Churis, again addressing her.
"It is impossible for you to live in this hut: it's all rotten," cried
Nekhliudof after a brief silence. "Now, this is how we shall manage it, my
friend"[6]....
[Footnote 6: _bratets_, brother.]
"I am listening."
"Have you seen the improved stone cottages that I have been building at the
new farm,--the one with the undressed walls?"
"Indeed I have seen them," replied Churis, with a smile that showed his
white teeth still unimpaired. "Everybody's agog at the way they're built.
Fine cottages! The boys were laughing and wondering if they wouldn't be
turned into granaries; they would be so secure against rats. Fine
cottages," he said in conclusion, with an expression of absurd perplexity,
shaking his head, "just like a jail!"
"Yes, they're splendid cottages, dry and warm, and no danger of fire,"
replied the bárin, a frown crossing his youthful face as he perceived the
peasant's involuntary sarcasm.
"Without question, your excellency, fine cottages."
"Well, then, one of these cottages is just finished. It is twenty-four feet
square, with an entry, and a barn, and it's entirely ready. I will let you
have it on credit if you say so, at cost price; you can pay for it at your
own convenience," said the bárin with a self-satisfied smile, which he
could not control, at the thought of his benevolence. "You can pull down
this old one," he went on to say; "it will make you a granary. We will also
move the pens. The water there is splendid. I will give you enough land for
a vegetable-garden, and I'll let you have a strip of land on all three
sides. You can live there in a decent way. Now, does not that please you?"
asked Nekhliudof, perceiving that as soon as he spoke of moving, Churis
became perfectly motionless, and looked at the ground without even a
shadow of a smile.
"It's as your excellency wills," he replied, not raising his eyes.
The old woman came forward as though something had stung her to the quick,
and began to speak; but her husband anticipated her.
"It's as your excellency wills," he repeated resolutely, and at the same
time humbly glancing at his master, and tossing back his hair. "But it
would never do for us to live on a new farm."
"Why not?"
"Nay, your excellency, not if you move us over there: here we are wretched
enough, but over there we could never in the world get along. What kind of
peasants should we be there? Nay, nay, it is impossible for us to live
there."
"But why not, pray?"
"We should be totally ruined, your excellency."
"But why can't you live there?"
"What kind of a life would it be? Just think! it has never been lived in;
we don't know any thing about the water, no pasture anywhere. Here we have
had hemp-fields ever since we can remember, all manured; but what is there
there? Yes, what is there there? A wilderness! No hedges, no corn-kilns, no
sheds, no nothing at all! Oh, yes, your excellency; we should be ruined if
you took us there; we should be perfectly ruined. A new place, all unknown
to us," he repeated, shaking his head thoughtfully but resolutely.
Nekhliudof tried to point out to the peasant that the change, on the
contrary, would be very advantageous for him; that they would plant hedges,
and build sheds; that the water there was excellent, and so on: but
Churis's obstinate silence exasperated him, and he accordingly felt that he
was speaking to no purpose.
Churis made no objection to what he said; but when the master finished
speaking, he remarked with a crafty smile, that it would be best of all to
remove to that farm some of the old domestic servants, and Alyósha the
fool, so that they might watch over the grain there.
"That would be worth while," he remarked, and smiled once more. "This is
foolish business, your excellency."
"What makes you think the place is not inhabitable?" insisted Nekhliudof
patiently. "This place here isn't inhabitable, and hasn't been, and yet you
live here. But there, you will get settled there before you know it; you
will certainly find it easy"....
"But, your excellency, kind sir,[7] how can it be compared?" replied Churis
eagerly, as though he feared that the master would not accept a conclusive
argument. "Here is our place in the world; we are happy in it; we are
accustomed to it, and the road and the pond--where would the old woman do
her washing? where would the cattle get watered? And all our peasant ways
are here; here from time out of mind. And here's the threshing-floor, and
the little garden, and the willows; and here my parents lived, and my
grandfather; and my father gave his soul into God's keeping here, and I too
would end my days here, your excellency. I ask nothing more than that. Be
good, and let the hut be put in order; we shall be always grateful for your
kindness: but no, not for any thing, would we spend our last days anywhere
else. Let us stay here and say our prayers," he continued, bowing low; "do
not take us from our nest, kind sir."[8]
[Footnote 7: _bátiushka._]
[Footnote 8: _bátiushka._]
All the time that Churis was speaking, there was heard in the place under
the loft, where his wife was standing, sobs growing more and more violent;
and when the husband said "_kind sir_," she suddenly darted forward, and
with tears in her eyes threw herself at the bárin's feet.
"Don't destroy us, benefactor; you are our father, you are our mother!
Where are you going to move us to? We are old folks; we have no one to help
us. You are to us as God is," lamented the old woman.
Nekhliudof leaped up from the bench, and was going to lift the old woman;
but she, with a sort of passionate despair, beat her forehead on the earth
floor, and pushed aside the master's hand.
"What is the matter with you? Get up, I beg of you. If you don't wish to
go, it is not necessary. I won't oblige you to," said he, waving his hand,
and retreating to the door.
When Nekhliudof sat down on the bench again, and silence was restored in
the room, interrupted only by the sobs of the old woman, who was once more
busy under the loft, and was wiping away her tears with the sleeves of her
shirt, the young proprietor began to comprehend what was meant for the
peasant and his wife by the dilapidated little hut, the crumbling well with
the filthy pool, the decaying stalls and sheds, and the broken willows
which could be seen before the crooked window; and the feeling that arose
in him was burdensome, melancholy, and touched with shame.
"Why didn't you tell the Commune last Sunday, Iván, that you needed a new
hut? I don't know, now, how to help you. I told you all at the first
meeting, that I had come to live in the country, and devote my life to you,
that I was ready to deprive myself of every thing to make you happy and
contented; and I vowed before God, now, that I would keep my word," said
the young proprietor, not knowing that such a manner of opening the heart
is incapable of arousing faith in any one, and especially in the Russian,
who loves not words but deeds, and is reluctant to be stirred up by
feelings, no matter how beautiful they may be.
But the simple-hearted young man was so pleased with this feeling that he
experienced, that he could not help speaking.
Churis leaned his head to one side, and slowly blinking, listened with
constrained attention to his master, as to a man to whom he must needs
listen, even though he says things not entirely good, and absolutely
foreign to his way of thinking.
"But you see I cannot do all that everybody asks of me. If I did not refuse
some who ask me for wood, I myself should be left without any, and I could
not give to those who really needed. When I made this rule, I did it for
the regulation of the peasants' affairs; and I put it entirely in the hands
of the Commune. This wood now is not mine, but yours, you peasants', and I
cannot any longer dispose of it; but the Commune disposes of it, as you
know. Come to the meeting to-night. I will tell the Commune about your
request: if they are disposed to give you a new hut, well and good; but I
haven't any more wood. I wish with all my soul to help you; but if you
aren't willing to move, then it is no longer my affair, but the Commune's.
Do you understand me?"
"Many thanks for your kindness," replied Churis in some agitation. "If you
will give me some lumber, then we can make repairs. What is the Commune?
It's a well-known fact that"....
"No, you come."
"I obey. I will come. Why shouldn't I come? Only this thing is sure: I
won't ask the Commune."