by Лев Толстой
"Is that true?" asked Nekhludoff of the manager.
"Der erste dich im dorfe," said the manager in German. "He was caught every year in the woods. You must learn to respect other people's property."
"Do we not respect you?" said an old man. "We cannot help respecting you, because you have us in your hands, and you are twisting us into rope."
"If you would only abstain from doing wrong," said the manager. "It is pretty hard to wrong you."
"And who battered my face last summer? Of course, there is no use going to law with a rich man."
"You only keep within bounds of the law."
This was evidently a wordy tourney of which the participants hardly knew the purpose. Nekhludoff tried to get back to business.
"Well, what do you say? Do you wish the land, and what price do you set on it?"
"It is your goods; you name the price."
Nekhludoff set the price, and though much lower than the prevailing price, the peasants began to bargain, finding it high. He expected that his offer would be accepted with pleasure, but there was no sign of satisfaction. Only when the question was raised whether the whole community would take the land, or have individual arrangements did he know that it was profitable for them. For there resulted fierce quarrels between those who wished to exclude the weak ones and bad payers from participating in the land, and those whom it was sought to exclude. But the German finally arranged the price and time of payment, and the peasants, noisily talking, returned to the village.
The price was about thirty per cent. lower than the one prevailing in the district, and Nekhludoff's income was reduced to almost one-half, but, with money realized from the sale of the timber and yet to be realized from the sale of the stock, it was amply sufficient for him. Everything seemed to be satisfactory, and yet Nekhludoff felt sad and lonesome, but, above all, his conscience troubled him. He saw that although the peasants spoke words of thanks, they were not satisfied and expected something more. The result was that while he deprived himself of much, he failed to do that which the peasants expected.
On the following day, after the contract was signed, Nekhludoff, with an unpleasant feeling of having left something undone, seated himself in the "dandy" three-horse team and took leave of the peasants, who were shaking their heads in doubt and dissatisfaction. Nekhludoff was dissatisfied with himself—he could not tell why, but he felt sad, and was ashamed of something.
CHAPTER III.
From Kusminskoie Nekhludoff went to Panovo, the estate left him by his aunts, and where he had first seen Katiousha. He intended to dispose of this land in the same manner as he disposed of the other, and also desired to learn all there was known about Katiousha, and to find out if it was true that their child had died.
As he sat at the window observing the familiar scenery of the now somewhat neglected estate, he not only recalled, but felt himself as he was fourteen years ago; fresh, pure and filled with the hope of endless possibilities. But as it happens in a dream, he knew that that was gone, and he became very sad.
Before breakfast he made his way to the hut of Matrena Kharina, Katiousha's aunt, who was selling liquor surreptitiously, for information about the child, but all he could learn from her was that the child had died on the way to a Moskow asylum; in proof of which the midwife had brought a certificate.
On his way back he entered the huts of some peasants, and inquired about their mode of living. The same complaints of the paucity of land, hunger and degradation he heard everywhere. He saw the same pinched faces, threadbare homespuns, bare feet and bent shoulders.
In front of a particularly dilapidated hut stood a number of women with children in their arms, and among them he noticed a lean, pale-faced woman, easily holding a bloodless child in a short garment made of pieces of stuff. This child was incessantly smiling. Nekhludoff knew that it was the smile of suffering. He asked who that woman was.
It transpired that the woman's husband had been in prison for the past six months—"feeding the insects"—as they termed it, for cutting down two lindens.
Nekhludoff turned to the woman, Anisia.
"How do you fare?" he asked. "What do you live on?"
"How do I live? I sometimes get some food," and she began to sob.
The grave face of the child, however, spread into a broad smile, and its thin legs began to wriggle.
Nekhludoff produced his pocketbook and gave the woman ten rubles. He had scarcely made ten steps when he was overtaken by another woman with a child; then an old woman, and again another woman. They all spoke of their poverty and implored his help. Nekhludoff distributed the sixty rubles that were in his pocketbook and returned home, i. e., to the wing inhabited by the clerk. The clerk, smiling, met Nekhludoff with the information that the peasants would gather in the evening, as he had ordered. Nekhludoff thanked him and strolled about the garden, meditating on what he had seen. "The people are dying in large numbers, and are used to it; they have acquired modes of living natural to a people who are becoming extinct—the death of children, exhausting toil for women, insufficiency of food for all, especially for the aged—all comes and is received naturally. They were reduced to this condition gradually, so that they cannot see the horror of it, and bear it uncomplainingly. Afterward, we, too, come to consider this condition natural; that it ought to be so."
All this was so clear to him now that he could not cease wondering how it was that people could not see it; that he himself could not see that which is so patent. It was perfectly clear that children and old people were dying for want of milk, and they had no milk because they had not land enough to feed the cattle and also raise bread and hay. And he devised a scheme by which he was to give the land to the people, and they were to pay an annual rent which was to go to the community, to be used for common utilities and taxes. This was not the single-tax, but it was the nearest approach to it under present conditions. The important part consisted in that he renounced his right to own land.
When he returned to the house, the clerk, with a particularly happy smile on his face, offered him dinner, expressing his fear that it might spoil.
The table was covered with a gloomy cloth, an embroidered towel serving as a napkin, and on the table, in vieux-saxe, stood a soup-bowl with a broken handle, filled with potato soup and containing the same rooster that he had seen carried into the house on his arrival. After the soup came the same rooster, fried with feathers, and cakes made of cheese-curds, bountifully covered with butter and sugar. Although the taste of it all was poor, Nekhludoff kept on eating, being absorbed in the thoughts which relieved him of the sadness that oppressed him on his return from the village.
After dinner Nekhludoff with difficulty seated the superserviceable clerk, and in order to make sure of himself and at the same time to confide to some one the thoughts uppermost in his mind, told him of his project and asked his opinion. The clerk smiled, as though he had been thinking of the same thing, and was very glad to hear it, but in reality did not understand it, not because Nekhludoff did not express himself plainly enough, but because, according to this project, Nekhludoff deprived himself of advantages for the benefit of others, whereas the truth that every man strives to obtain advantages at the expense of others, was so firmly rooted in the clerk's mind, that he thought that he misunderstood Nekhludoff when the latter said that the entire income of the land was to go into the community's treasury.
"I understand. So you will draw the interest on the capital?" he said, becoming radiant.
"No, no. I transfer the land to them entirely."
"In that case you will get no income?" asked the clerk and he ceased to smile.
"I relinquish that."
The clerk sighed deeply, then began to smile again. Now he understood. He understood that Nekhludoff's mind was not entirely sound, and he immediately tried to find a way of profiting by Nekhludoff's project, and endeavored to so construe it that he might turn it to his own advantage.
When, however, he understood tha
t there was no such opportunity, he ceased to take interest in the projects, and continued to smile only to please his master. Seeing that the clerk could not understand him, Nekhludoff dismissed him from his presence, seated himself at the ink-stained table and proceeded to commit his project to paper.
The sun was already descending behind the unfolding lindens, and the mosquitos filled the room, stinging him. While he was finishing his notes, Nekhludoff heard the lowing of cattle in the village, the creaking of the opening gates and the voices of the peasants who were coming to meet their master. Nekhludoff told the clerk not to call them before the office, that he would go and meet them at any place in the village, and gulping down a glass of tea offered him by the clerk, he went to the village.
CHAPTER IV.
The crowd stood talking in front of the house of the bailiff, and as Nekhludoff approached, the conversation ceased and the peasants, like those of Kusminskoie, removed their caps. It was a coarser crowd than the peasants of Kusminskoie, and almost all the peasants wore bast shoes and homespun shirts and caftans. Some of them were bare-footed and only in their shirts.
With some effort Nekhludoff began his speech by declaring that he intended to surrender the land to them. The peasants were silent, and there was no change in the expression of their faces.
"Because I consider," said Nekhludoff, blushing, "that every man ought to have the right to use the land."
"Why, certainly." "That is quite right," voices of peasants were heard.
Nekhludoff continued, saying that the income from the land should be distributed among all, and he therefore proposed that they take the land and pay into the common treasury such rent as they may decide upon, such money to be used for their own benefit. Exclamations of consent and approbation continued to be heard, but the faces of the peasants became more and more grave, and the eyes that at first were fixed on the master were lowered, as if desiring not to shame him with the fact that his cunning was understood by all, and that he could not fool anybody.
Nekhludoff spoke very clearly, and the peasants were sensible folks; but he was not understood, and could not be understood by them for the same reason which prevented the clerk from understanding him for a long time. They were convinced that it was natural for every man to look out for his own interest. And as to the land owners, the experience of several generations had taught them long ago that these were always serving their own interests.
"Well, what rate do you intend to assess," asked Nekhludoff.
"Why assess? We cannot do that? The land is yours; it is for you to say," some in the crowd said.
"But understand that you are to use the money for the common wants."
"We cannot do it. The community is one thing, and this is another thing."
"You must understand," said the smiling clerk, wishing to explain the offer, "that the Prince is giving you the land for money which is to go into the community's treasury."
"We understand it very well," said a toothless old man without raising his eyes. "Something like a bank, only we must pay in time. We cannot do it; it is hard enough as it is. That will ruin us entirely."
"That is to no purpose. We would rather continue as before," said several dissatisfied and even rough voices.
The resistance was particularly hot when Nekhludoff mentioned that he would draw a contract which he himself and they would have to sign.
"What is the good of a contract? We will keep on working as we did before. We don't care for it. We are ignorant people."
"We cannot consent, because that is an uncustomary thing. Let it be as it was before. If you would only do away with the seed," several voices were heard.
"Doing away with the seed" meant that under the present regime the sowing-seed was chargeable to the peasants, and they asked that it be furnished by the master.
"So you refuse to take the land?" asked Nekhludoff, turning to a middle-aged, bare-footed peasant in tattered caftan and with a radiant face who held his cap straight in front of him, like a soldier hearing "Hats off!"
"Yes, sir," said this peasant.
"Then you have enough land?" asked Nekhludoff.
"No, sir," said the ex-soldier, with artificial cheerfulness, holding his torn cap before him, as though offering it to anyone deserving to take it.
"Think it over at your leisure," said the surprised Nekhludoff, again repeating his offer.
"There is nothing to think over; as we said, so it will be," the toothless, gloomy old man said angrily.
"I will stay here all day to-morrow. If you alter your decision, let me know."
The peasants made no answer.
On their return to the office the clerk explained to Nekhludoff that it was not a want of good sense that prevented their acceptance of the offer; that when gathered in assembly they always acted in that stubborn manner.
Nekhludoff then asked him to summon for the following day several of the most intelligent peasants to whom he would explain his project at greater length.
Immediately after the departure of the smiling clerk, Nekhludoff heard angry women's voices interrupted by the voice of the clerk. He listened.
"I have no more strength. You want the cross on my breast," said an exasperated voice.
"She only ran in," said another voice. "Give her up, I say. Why do you torture the beast, and keep the milk from the children?"
Nekhludoff walked around the house where he saw two disheveled women, one of whom was evidently pregnant, standing near the staircase. On the stairs, with his hands in the pockets of his crash overcoat, stood the clerk. Seeing their master, the women became silent and began to arrange their 'kerchiefs, which had fallen from their heads, while the clerk took his hands out of his pockets and began to smile.
The clerk explained that the peasants purposely permitted their calves, and even cows, to roam over the master's meadows. That two cows belonging to these women had been caught on the meadow and driven into an inclosure. The clerk demanded from the women thirty copecks per cow, or two days' work.
"Time and again I told them," said the smiling clerk, looking around at Nekhludoff, as if calling him to witness, "to look out for cows when driving them to feed."
"I just went to see to the child, and they walked away."
"Don't leave them when you undertake to look after them."
"And who would feed my child?"
"If they had only grazed, at least, they would have no pains in their stomachs. But they only walked in."
"All the meadows are spoiled," the clerk turned to Nekhludoff. "If they are not made to pay there will be no hay left."
"Don't be sinning," cried the pregnant woman. "My cow was never caught."
"But now that she was caught, pay for her, or work."
"Well, then, I will work. But return me the cow; don't torture her," she cried angrily. "It is bad enough as it is; I get no rest, either day or night. Mother-in-law is sick; my husband is drunk. Single-handed I have to do all the work, and I have no strength. May you choke yourself!" she shouted and began to weep.
Nekhludoff asked the clerk to release the cows and returned to the house, wondering why people do not see what is so plain.
CHAPTER V.
Whether it was because there were fewer peasants present, or because he was not occupied with himself, but with the matter in hand, Nekhludoff felt no agitation when the seven peasants chosen from the villagers responded to the summons.
He first of all expressed his views on private ownership of land.
"As I look upon it," he said, "land ought not to be the subject of purchase and sale, for if land can be sold, then those who have money will buy it all in and charge the landless what they please for the use of it. People will then be compelled to pay for the right to stand on the earth," he added, quoting Spencer's argument.
"There remains to put on wings and fly," said an old man with smiling eyes and gray beard.
"That's so," said a long-nosed peasant in a deep basso.
"Yes
, sir," said the ex-soldier.
"The old woman took some grass for the cow. They caught her, and to jail she went," said a good-natured, lame peasant.
"There is land for five miles around, but the rent is higher than the land can produce," said the toothless, angry old man.
"I am of the same opinion as you," said Nekhludoff, "and that is the reason I want to give you the land."
"Well, that would be a kind deed," said a broad-shouldered old peasant with a curly, grayish beard like that of Michael Angelo's Moses, evidently thinking that Nekhludoff intended to rent out the land.
"That is why I came here. I do not wish to own the land any longer, but it is necessary to consider how to dispose of it."
"You give it to the peasants—that's all," said the toothless, angry peasant.
For a moment Nekhludoff was confused, seeing in these words doubt of the sincerity of his purpose. But he shook it off, and took advantage of the remark to say what he intended.
"I would be only too glad to give it," he said, "but to whom and how shall I give it? Why should I give it to your community rather than to the Deminsky community?" Deminsky was a neighboring village with very little land.
They were all silent. Only the ex-soldier said, "Yes, sir."
"And now tell me how would you distribute the land?"
"How? We would give each an equal share," said an oven-builder, rapidly raising and lowering his eyebrows.
"How else? Of course divide it equally," said a good-natured, lame peasant, whose feet, instead of socks, were wound in a white strip of linen.
This decision was acquiesced in by all as being satisfactory.
"But how?" asked Nekhludoff, "are the domestics also to receive equal shares?"
"No, sir," said the ex-soldier, assuming a cheerful mood. But the sober-minded tall peasant disagreed with him.
"If it is to be divided, everybody is to get an equal share," after considering awhile, he said in a deep basso.