It was by now past seven. Besides Ivan Ivanitch, women servants, the old
dame in spectacles, the little girls and the peasant, all accompanied us
from the hall out on to the steps, wishing us good-bye and all sorts of
blessings, while near the horses in the darkness there were standing and
moving about men with lanterns, telling our coachmen how and which way
to drive, and wishing us a lucky journey. The horses, the men, and the
sledges were white.
“Where do all these people come from?” I asked as my three horses and
the doctor’s two moved at a walking pace out of the yard.
“They are all his serfs,” said Sobol. “The new order has not reached him
yet. Some of the old servants are living out their lives with him, and
then there are orphans of all sorts who have nowhere to go; there are
some, too, who insist on living there, there’s no turning them out. A
queer old man!”
Again the flying horses, the strange voice of drunken Nikanor, the wind
and the persistent snow, which got into one’s eyes, one’s mouth, and
every fold of one’s fur coat....
“Well, I am running a rig,” I thought, while my bells chimed in with
the doctor’s, the wind whistled, the coachmen shouted; and while this
frantic uproar was going on, I recalled all the details of that strange
wild day, unique in my life, and it seemed to me that I really had gone
out of my mind or become a different man. It was as though the man I had
been till that day were already a stranger to me.
The doctor drove behind and kept talking loudly with his coachman. From
time to time he overtook me, drove side by side, and always, with the
same naive confidence that it was very pleasant to me, offered me a
cigarette or asked for the matches. Or, overtaking me, he would lean right
out of his sledge, and waving about the sleeves of his fur coat, which
were at least twice as long as his arms, shout:
“Go it, Vaska! Beat the thousand roublers! Hey, my kittens!”
And to the accompaniment of loud, malicious laughter from Sobol and
his Vaska the doctor’s kittens raced ahead. My Nikanor took it as an
affront, and held in his three horses, but when the doctor’s bells had
passed out of hearing, he raised his elbows, shouted, and our horses
flew like mad in pursuit. We drove into a village, there were glimpses
of lights, the silhouettes of huts. Some one shouted:
“Ah, the devils!” We seemed to have galloped a mile and a half, and
still it was the village street and there seemed no end to it. When we
caught up the doctor and drove more quietly, he asked for matches and
said:
“Now try and feed that street! And, you know, there are five streets
like that, sir. Stay, stay,” he shouted. “Turn in at the tavern! We must
get warm and let the horses rest.”
They stopped at the tavern.
“I have more than one village like that in my district,” said the
doctor, opening a heavy door with a squeaky block, and ushering me in
front of him. “If you look in broad daylight you can’t see to the end of
the street, and there are side-streets, too, and one can do nothing but
scratch one’s head. It’s hard to do anything.”
We went into the best room where there was a strong smell of
table-cloths, and at our entrance a sleepy peasant in a waistcoat and a
shirt worn outside his trousers jumped up from a bench. Sobol asked for
some beer and I asked for tea.
“It’s hard to do anything,” said Sobol. “Your wife has faith; I respect
her and have the greatest reverence for her, but I have no great faith
myself. As long as our relations to the people continue to have the
character of ordinary philanthropy, as shown in orphan asylums and
almshouses, so long we shall only be shuffling, shamming, and deceiving
ourselves, and nothing more. Our relations ought to be businesslike,
founded on calculation, knowledge, and justice. My Vaska has been
working for me all his life; his crops have failed, he is sick and
starving. If I give him fifteen kopecks a day, by so doing I try to
restore him to his former condition as a workman; that is, I am first
and foremost looking after my own interests, and yet for some reason I
call that fifteen kopecks relief, charity, good works. Now let us put
it like this. On the most modest computation, reckoning seven kopecks a
soul and five souls a family, one needs three hundred and fifty roubles
a day to feed a thousand families. That sum is fixed by our practical
duty to a thousand families. Meanwhile we give not three hundred and
fifty a day, but only ten, and say that that is relief, charity, that
that makes your wife and all of us exceptionally good people and hurrah
for our humaneness. That is it, my dear soul! Ah! if we would talk less
of being humane and calculated more, reasoned, and took a conscientious
attitude to our duties! How many such humane, sensitive people there are
among us who tear about in all good faith with subscription lists, but
don’t pay their tailors or their cooks. There is no logic in our life;
that’s what it is! No logic!”
We were silent for a while. I was making a mental calculation and said:
“I will feed a thousand families for two hundred days. Come and see me
tomorrow to talk it over.”
I was pleased that this was said quite simply, and was glad that Sobol
answered me still more simply:
“Right.”
We paid for what we had and went out of the tavern.
“I like going on like this,” said Sobol, getting into the sledge.
“Eccellenza, oblige me with a match. I’ve forgotten mine in the tavern.”
A quarter of an hour later his horses fell behind, and the sound of his
bells was lost in the roar of the snow-storm. Reaching home, I walked
about my rooms, trying to think things over and to define my position
clearly to myself; I had not one word, one phrase, ready for my wife. My
brain was not working.
But without thinking of anything, I went downstairs to my wife. She was
in her room, in the same pink dressing-gown, and standing in the same
attitude as though screening her papers from me. On her face was an
expression of perplexity and irony, and it was evident that having heard
of my arrival, she had prepared herself not to cry, not to entreat me,
not to defend herself, as she had done the day before, but to laugh at
me, to answer me contemptuously, and to act with decision. Her face was
saying: “If that’s how it is, good-bye.”
“Natalie, I’ve not gone away,” I said, “but it’s not deception. I have
gone out of my mind; I’ve grown old, I’m ill, I’ve become a different
man--think as you like.... I’ve shaken off my old self with horror, with
horror; I despise him and am ashamed of him, and the new man who has
been in me since yesterday will not let me go away. Do not drive me
away, Natalie!”
She looked intently into my face and believed me, and there was a gleam
of uneasiness in her eyes. Enchanted by her presence, warmed by the
warmth of her room, I muttered as in delirium, holding out my hands to
her:
“I tell you, I have no one near to me but you. I have never for one
minute ceased to miss you, and only obstinate vanity prevented me
from owning it. The past, when we lived as husband and wife, cannot be
brought back, and there’s no need; but make me your servant, take all my
property, and give it away to any one you like. I am at peace, Natalie,
I am content.... I am at peace.”
My wife, looking intently and with curiosity into my face, suddenly
uttered a faint cry, burst into tears, and ran into the next room. I
went upstairs to my own storey.
An hour later I was sitting at my table, writing my “History of
Railways,” and the starving peasants did not now hinder me from doing
so. Now I feel no uneasiness. Neither the scenes of disorder which I saw
when I went the round of the huts at Pestrovo with my wife and Sobol the
other day, nor malignant rumours, nor the mistakes of the people around
me, nor old age close upon me--nothing disturbs me. Just as the flying
bullets do not hinder soldiers from talking of their own affairs, eating
and cleaning their boots, so the starving peasants do not hinder me from
sleeping quietly and looking after my personal affairs. In my house and
far around it there is in full swing the work which Dr. Sobol calls “an
orgy of philanthropy.” My wife often comes up to me and looks about
my rooms uneasily, as though looking for what more she can give to the
starving peasants “to justify her existence,” and I see that, thanks
to her, there will soon be nothing of our property left and we shall be
poor; but that does not trouble me, and I smile at her gaily. What will
happen in the future I don’t know.