"Davidka Byélui[25] asks for grain and posts," was what followed
Yukhvanka's case in the note-book.
[Footnote 25: Little David White.]
After passing by a number of places, Nekhliudof came to a turn in the lane,
and there fell in with his overseer Yakof Alpátitch, who, while the prince
was still at a distance, took off his oiled cap, and pulling out a crumpled
bandanna handkerchief began to wipe his fat red face.
"Cover yourself, Yakof! Yakof, cover yourself, I tell you."
"Where do you wish to go, your excellency?" asked Yakof, using his cap to
shield his eyes from the sun, but not putting it on.
"I have been at Yukhvanka's. Tell me, pray, why does he act so?" asked the
prince as he walked along the street.
"Why indeed, your excellency!" echoed the overseer as he followed behind
the prince in a respectful attitude. He put on his cap, and began to twist
his mustache.
"What's to be done with him? He's thoroughly good for nothing, lazy,
thievish, a liar; he persecutes his mother, and to all appearances he is
such a confirmed good-for-nothing that there is no reforming him."
"I didn't know, your excellency, that he displeased you so."
"And his wife," continued the prince, interrupting the overseer, "seems
like a bad woman. The old mother is dressed worse than a beggar, and has
nothing to eat; but she wears all her best clothes, and so does he. I
really don't know what is to be done with them."
Yakof knit his brows thoughtfully when Nekhliudof spoke of Yukhvanka's
wife.
"Well, if he behaves so, your excellency," began the overseer, "then it
will be necessary to find some way to correct things. He is in abject
poverty like all the peasants who have no assistance, but he seems to
manage his affairs quite differently from the others. He's a clever fellow,
knows how to read, and he's far from being a dishonest peasant. At the
collection of the poll-taxes he was always on hand. And for three years,
while I was overseer he was bailiff, and no fault was found with him. In
the third year the warden took it into his head to depose him, so he was
obliged to take to farming. Perhaps when he lived in town at the station he
got drunk sometimes, so we had to devise some means. They used to threaten
him, in fun, and he came to his senses again. He was good-natured, and got
along well with his family. But as it does not please you to use these
means, I am sure I don't know what we are to do with him. He has really got
very low. He can't be sent into the army, because, as you may be pleased to
remember, two of his teeth are missing. Yes, and there are others besides
him, I venture to remind you, who absolutely haven't any"....
"Enough of that, Yakof," interrupted Nekhliudof, smiling shrewdly. "You and
I have discussed that again and again. You know what ideas I have on this
subject; and whatever you may say to me, I still remain of the same
opinion."
"Certainly, your excellency, you understand it all," said Yakof, shrugging
his shoulders, and looking askance at the prince as though what he saw were
worthy of no consideration. "But as far as the old woman is concerned, I
beg you to see that you are disturbing yourself to no purpose," he
continued. "Certainly it is true that she has brought up the orphans, she
has fed Yukhvanka, and got him a wife, and so forth; but you know that is
common enough among peasants. When the mother or father has transferred the
property[26] to the son, then the new owners get control, and the old
mother is obliged to work for her own living to the utmost of her strength.
Of course they are lacking in delicate feelings, but this is common enough
among the peasantry; and so I take the liberty of explaining to you that
you are stirred up about the old woman all for nothing. She is a clever old
woman, and a good housewife;[27] is there any reason for a gentleman to
worry over her? Well, she has quarrelled with her daughter-in-law; maybe
the young woman struck her: that's like a woman, and they would make up
again while you torment yourself. You really take it all too much to
heart," said the overseer looking with a certain expression of fondness
mingled with condescension at the prince, who was walking silently with
long strides before him up the street.
[Footnote 26: _khozyáïstvo._]
[Footnote 27: _khozyáïka._]
"Will you go home now?" he added.
"No, to Davidka Byélui's or Kazyól's--what is his name?"
"Well, he's a good-for-nothing, I assure you. All the race of the Kazyóls
are of the same sort. I haven't had any success with him; he cares for
nothing. Yesterday I rode past the peasant's field, and his buckwheat
wasn't even sowed yet. What do you wish done with such people? The old man
taught his son, but still he's a good-for-nothing just the same; whether
for himself or for the estate, he makes a bungle of every thing. Neither
the warden nor I have been able to do any thing with him: we've sent him to
the station-house, and we've punished him at home, because you are pleased
now to like"....
"Who? the old man?"
"Yes, the old man. The warden more than once has punished him before the
whole assembly, and, would you believe it? he would shake himself, go home,
and be as bad as ever. And Davidka, I assure your excellency, is a
law-abiding peasant, and a quick-witted peasant; that is, he doesn't smoke
and doesn't drink," explained Yakof; "and yet he's worse than the other who
gets drunk. There's nothing else to do with him than to make a soldier of
him or send him to Siberia. All the Kazyóls are the same; and Matriushka
who lives in the village belongs to their family, and is the same sort of
cursed good-for-nothing. Don't you care to have me here, your excellency?"
inquired the overseer, perceiving that the prince did not heed what he was
saying.
"No, go away," replied Nekhliudof absent-mindedly, and turned his steps
toward Davidka Byélui's.
Davidka's hovel[28] stood askew and alone at the very edge of the village.
It had neither yard, nor cornkiln, nor barn. Only some sort of dirty stalls
for cattle were built against one side. On the other a heap of brush-wood
and logs was piled up, in imitation of a yard.[29]
[Footnote 28: _izbá._]
[Footnote 29: _dvor._]
Tall green steppe-grass was growing in the place where the court-yard
should have been.
There was no living creature to be seen near the hovel, except a sow lying
in the mire at the threshold, and grunting.
Nekhliudof tapped at the broken window; but as no one made answer, he went
into the entry and shouted, "Holloa there!"[30]
[Footnote 30: _khozyáeva_; literally, "master and mistress."]
This also brought no response. He passed through the entry, peered into the
empty stalls, and entered the open hut.
An old red cock and two hens with ruffs were scratching with their legs,
and strutting about over the floor and benches. When they saw a man they
spread their wings, and, cackling with terror, flew against the walls, and
one took refuge on the oven.
The whole hut, which was not quite fourteen feet[31] square, was occupied
by the oven with its broken pipe, a loom, which in spite of its being
summer-time was not taken down, and a most filthy table made of a split and
uneven plank.
[Footnote 31: Six _arshin_.]
Although it was a dry situation, there was a filthy puddle at the door,
caused by the recent rain, which had leaked through roof and ceiling. Loft
there was none. It was hard to realize that this was a human habitation,
such decided evidence of neglect and disorder was impressed upon both the
exterior and the interior of the hovel; nevertheless, in this hovel lived
Davidka Byélui and all his family.
At the present moment, notwithstanding the heat of the June day, Davidka,
with his head covered by his sheep-skin,[32] was fast asleep, curled up on
one corner of the oven. The panic-stricken hen, skipping up on the oven,
and growing more and more agitated, took up her position on Davidka's back,
but did not awaken him.
[Footnote 32: _polushubok._]
Nekhliudof, seeing no one in the hovel, was about to go, when a prolonged
humid sigh betrayed the sleeper.[33]
[Footnote 33: _khozyáïn._]
"Holloa! who's there?" cried the prince.
A second prolonged sigh was heard from the oven.
"Who's there? Come here!"
Still another sigh, a sort of a bellow, and a heavy yawn responded to the
prince's call.
"Well, who are you?"
Something moved slightly on the oven. The skirt of a torn sheep-skin[34]
was lifted; one huge leg in a dilapidated boot was put down, then another,
and finally Davidka's entire figure emerged. He sat up on the oven, and
rubbed his eyes drowsily and morosely with his fist.
[Footnote 34: _tulup._]
Slowly shaking his head, and yawning, he looked down into the hut, and,
seeing the prince, began to make greater haste than before; but still his
motions were so slow, that Nekhliudof had time to walk back and forth three
times from the puddle to the loom before Davidka got down from the oven.
Davidka Byélui or David White was white in reality: his hair, and his body,
and his face all were perfectly white.
He was tall and very stout, but stout as peasants are wont to be, that is,
not in the waist alone, but in the whole body. His stoutness, however, was
of a peculiar flabby, unhealthy kind. His rather comely face, with
pale-blue good-natured eyes, and a wide trimmed beard, bore the impress of
ill health. There was not the slightest trace of tan or blood: it was of a
uniform yellowish ashen tint, with pale livid circles under the eyes, quite
as though his face were stuffed with fat or bloated.
His hands were puffy and yellow, like the hands of men afflicted with
dropsy, and they wore a growth of fine white hair. He was so drowsy that he
could scarcely open his eyes or cease from staggering and yawning.
"Well, aren't you ashamed of yourself," began Nekhliudof, "sleeping in the
very best part of the day,[35] when you ought to be attending to your work,
when you haven't any corn?"
[Footnote 35: Literally, "middle of the white day."]
As Davidka little by little shook off his drowsiness, and began to realize
that it was the prince who was standing before him, he folded his arms
across his stomach, hung his head, inclining it a trifle to one side, and
did not move a limb or say a word; but the expression of his face and the
pose of his whole body seemed to say, "I know, I know; it is an old story
with me. Well, strike me, if it must be: I will endure it."
He evidently was anxious for the prince to get through speaking and give
him his thrashing as quickly as possible, even if he struck him severely on
his swollen cheeks, and then leave him in peace.
Perceiving that Davidka did not understand him, Nekhliudof endeavored by
various questions to rouse the peasant from his vexatiously obstinate
silence.
"Why have you asked me for wood when you have enough to last you a whole
month here, and you haven't had any thing to do? What?"
Davidka still remained silent, and did not move.
"Well, answer me."
Davidka muttered something, and blinked his white eyelashes.
"You must go to work, brother. What will become of you if you don't work?
Now you have no grain, and what's the reason of it? Because your land is
badly ploughed, and not harrowed, and no seed put in at the right
time,--all from laziness. You asked me for grain: well, let us suppose that
I gave it to you, so as to keep you from starving to death, still it is not
becoming to do so. Whose grain do I give you? whose do you think? Answer
me,--whose grain do I give you?" demanded Nekhliudof obstinately.
"The Lord's," muttered Davidka, raising his eyes timidly and questioningly.
"But where did the Lord's grain come from? Think for yourself, who ploughed
for it? who harrowed? who planted it? who harvested it? The peasants, hey?
Just look here: if the Lord's grain is given to the peasants, then those
peasants who work most will get most; but you work less than anybody. You
are complained about on all sides. You work less than all the others, and
yet you ask for more of the Lord's grain than all the rest. Why should it
be given to you, and not to the others? Now, if all, like you, lay on their
backs, it would not be long before everybody in the world died of
starvation. Brother, you've got to labor. This is disgraceful. Do you hear,
David?"
"I hear you," said the other slowly through his teeth.