I
The estate at Durnovka was arranged after the plan of a farm. In fact,
it had originally borne precisely that title. Durnovo had owned several
estates and had occupied the chief of them, the one at Zusha. Afanasiy
Ilitch, who had hunted the Gipsy with dogs, came only occasionally to
Durnovka, on his way from a hunting expedition. Nil Afansaievitch,
the Marshal of the Nobility, had no taste for farms: he had spent
his whole life in organizing dinners, drinking sherry at his club,
glorying in his fat, his appetite, his ringing whisper--he had a silver
throat--in his lavishness, his witticisms, and his absence of mind.
And his son, also, the Uhlan, who bore the name of his grandfather,
rarely looked in at Durnovka. The Uhlan still considered himself a
great landed proprietor. On retiring from the service he decided to
accumulate millions, to show how an estate ought to be managed. But the
Uhlan was not fond of being in the fields, and his passion for making
purchases helped to ruin him: he bought almost everything his eye
fell upon. His trips to Moscow and his amorous constitution likewise
contributed to his ruin. His son, who did not finish at the Lyceum,
received as his heritage only two farms--Laukhino and Durnovka. And
the Lyceum student ruined these to such a point that, during the last
year he spent at Durnovka, the duties of watchman were discharged by
an old scullery-maid, who went about at night with her mallet, garbed
in a rusty raccoon cloak. “Well, never mind,” Kuzma said to himself,
rejoiced to the verge of tears by Tikhon’s proposal, and profoundly
concealing his joy. “If ’tis a farm, call it a farm! A good thing, too:
’tis a regular end-of-nowhere, savage as in the Tatar times!”
At one period Ilya Mironoff had lived in Durnovka for a couple of
years. At the time Kuzma had been a mere child, and all he retained of
it in his memory was, first, the fragrant hemp-fields, which drowned
Durnovka, as it were, in a dark-green sea, and, secondly, one dark
summer night. There had been not a single light in the village on that
night. Past their cottage had filed, their chemises gleaming white in
the darkness, “nine maidens, nine women, and the tenth a widow,” all
barefoot, with hair flowing free, armed with brooms, oaken cudgels, and
pitchforks. A deafening ringing of bells had arisen, and a thumping
of oven-covers and frying pans, high above which soared a wild choral
chant. The widow dragged a plough; alongside her walked a maiden
carrying a large holy picture; while the rest rang bells, and thumped,
and when the widow led off in a low tone,
“Thou cow-death,
Enter not our village!”
the chorus repeated in long-drawn tones, with funereal intonations:
“We plough--”
and mournfully, in throaty tones, took up the refrain,
“With incense, with the cross ...”
Now the aspect of the Durnovka fields was commonplace. The hemp
plantations had vanished, and, even if they had not, the fields would
have been bare in autumn, as well as the vegetable patches and the
back yards. Kuzma set forth from Vorgol in a cheerful and slightly
intoxicated state. Tikhon Ilitch had treated him to liqueur cordial at
dinner, and at tea, after dinner, Nastasya Petrovna had treated him to
two kinds of preserves. Tikhon Ilitch was very kindly disposed on that
day. He recalled his youth, his childhood; how they had eaten buckwheat
cakes together, how they had shouted “Tallyho!” after the Dog’s
Pistol, and had studied with Byelkin; he called his wife “auntie” and
ridiculed her trips to the nun Polukarpia for the good of her soul; he
said, with regard to Kuzma’s salary: “We’ll square that, dear brother,
we’ll make that right--I’ll not wrong you!” He referred briefly to the
revolution: “That little bird started singing too early--look out, or
the cat will eat it!” Kuzma rode a dark brown gelding, and around him
lay outspread a sea of dark brown ploughed fields. The sun, almost
like that of summer, the transparent air, the clear pale-blue sky, all
gladdened him and gave promise of prolonged repose. The grey, crooked
wormwood, turned up roots and all by the plough, was so plentiful that
it was being carried off by the carload. Close to the farm itself, in
the ploughed field, stood a wretched little nag, with burdocks in his
forelock, and a springless cart, piled high with wormwood; and beside
it lay Yakoff, bare-legged, in dusty breeches and a long hempen shirt,
his side squeezed against a large grey dog which he was holding by the
ear. The dog was growling and darting angry sidelong glances.
“Does he bite?” shouted Kuzma.
“He’s savage--there’s no taming him!” Yakoff made haste to reply, as he
raised his slanting beard. “He jumps at the horses’ muzzles.”
And Kuzma burst out laughing with pleasure. The peasant was a regular
peasant--and the steppe was a genuine steppe!
The road ran down a hill, and the horizon became narrower. In front
the new iron roof of a grain-kiln gleamed green, seeming drowned in
the dense low growths of the park. Beyond the park, on the opposite
slope, stood a long row of cottages constructed of bricks moulded from
clay, and roofed with straw. On the right, beyond the ploughed fields,
stretched a large ravine, merging into the one which separated the farm
from the village. At the point where the ravines came together, a pond
lay sparkling in the sunlight. On the promontory between them the wings
of two unsheathed windmills reared themselves aloft, surrounded by
several cottages belonging to one-homestead owners--the Mysoffs,[32]
as Oska had dubbed them--and the whitewashed schoolhouse gleamed white
on the pasture land.
“Well, and do the children get schooling?” inquired Kuzma.
“’Tis obligatory,” said Oska. “They have a scholar who is a terror!”
“What scholar are you talking about? Do you mean a teacher?”
“Well, then, teacher, it’s all the same. The way he has educated
those brats--I tell you, ’tis fine. He’s a soldier. He beats them
unmercifully, but on the other hand he has them well trained in all
sorts of ways. Tikhon Ilitch and I happened to drop in one day--and if
they didn’t all leap to their feet and bark out: ‘We wish you health!’
just as well as if they were soldiers!”
And once more Kuzma broke into a laugh.
But when he had passed the threshing-floor, had descended by the
defective road past the cherry orchard and turned to the left, to
the long farmyard, lying well dried and golden-hued in the sun, his
heart actually began to beat violently. Here he was, at home, at last.
And as he mounted the porch and stepped across the threshold, Kuzma
gave vent to a sigh, and, making the sign of the cross on brow and
breast, he bowed low before the dark holy picture in the corner of the
ante-room....
And for a long time he cared not whether the Russian people had a
future or not. He roamed about the manor estate, the village; he
sat for hours at a time on the doorsteps of the cottages, on the
threshing-floors--watching the inhabitants of Durnovka, enjoying the
possibility of breathing pure air, of chatting with his new neighbours.