A Russian Proprietor and Other Stories Part 8

[Footnote 39: _dyevka_, marriageable girl.]

"Well, what can I do?"

"Think of some one for us, kind sir," repeated Arina urgently. "What are we to do?"

"How can I think of any one? I can't do any thing at all for you as things are."

"Who will help us if you do not?" said Arina, drooping her head, and spreading her palms with an expression of melancholy discontent.

"Here you ask for grain, and so I will give orders for some to be delivered to you," said the prince after a short silence, during which Arina sighed, and Davidka imitated her. "But I cannot do any thing more."

Nekhliudof went into the entry. Mother and son with low bows followed the prince.

XII.

"O-okh! alas for my wretchedness!" exclaimed Arina, sighing deeply.

She paused, and looked angrily at her son. Davidka immediately turned around, and, clumsily lifting his stout leg incased in a huge dirty boot over the threshold, took refuge in the opposite door.

"What shall I do with him, father?" continued Arina, turning to the prince.

"You yourself see what he is. He is not a bad man;[40] doesn't get drunk, and is peaceable; wouldn't hurt a little child. It's a sin to say hard things of him. There's nothing bad about him, and G.o.d knows what has taken place in him to make him so bad to himself. You see he himself does not like it. Would you believe it, father,[41] my heart bleeds when I look at him, and see what suffering he undergoes. You see, whatever he is, he is my son. I pity him. Oh, how I pity him!... You see, it isn't as though he had done any thing against me or his father or the authorities. But, no: he's a bashful man, almost like a child. How can he bear to be a widower? Help us out, benefactor," she said once more, evidently desirous of removing the unfavorable impression which her bitter words might have left upon the prince. "Father, your excellency, I"--She went on to say in a confidential whisper, "My wit does not go far enough to explain him. It seems as though bad men had spoiled him."

[Footnote 40: _muzhik._]

[Footnote 41: _batiushka._]

She paused for a moment.

"If we could find the men, we might cure him."

"What nonsense you talk, Arina! How can he be spoiled?"

"My father, they spoil him so that they make him a no-man forever! Many bad people in the world! Out of ill-will they take a handful of earth from out of one's path, or something of that sort; and one is made a no-man forever after. Isn't that a sin? I think to myself, Might I not go to the old man Danduk, who lives at Vorobyevka? He knows all sorts of words; and he knows herbs, and he can make charms; and he finds water with a cross. Wouldn't he help me?" said the woman. "Maybe he will cure him."

"What abjectness and superst.i.tion!" thought the young prince, shaking his head gloomily, and walking back with long strides through the village.

"What's to be done with him? To leave him in this situation is impossible, both for myself and for the others and for him,--impossible," he said to himself, counting off on his fingers these reasons.

"I cannot bear to see him in this plight; but how extricate him? He renders nugatory all my best plans for the management of the estate. If such peasants are allowed, none of my dreams will ever be realized," he went on, experiencing a feeling of despite and anger against the peasant in consequence of the ruin of his plans. "To send him to Siberia, as Yakof suggests, against his will, would that be good for him? or to make him a soldier? That is best. At least I should be quit of him, and I could replace him by a decent peasant."

Such was his decision.

He thought about this with satisfaction; but at the same time something obscurely told him that he was thinking with only one side of his mind, and not wholly right.

He paused.

"I will think about it some more," he said to himself. "To send him off as a soldier--why? He is a good man, better than many; and I know.... Shall I free him?" he asked himself, putting the question from a different side of his mind. "It wouldn't be fair. Yes, it's impossible."

But suddenly a thought occurred to him that greatly pleased him. He smiled with the expression of a man who has decided a difficult question.

"I will take him to the house," he said to himself. "I will look after him myself; and by means of kindness and advice, and selecting his employment, I will teach him to work, and reform him."

XIII.

"That's the way I'll do," said Nekhliudof to himself with a pleasant self-consciousness; and then, recollecting that he had still to go to the rich peasant Dutlof, he directed his steps toward a lofty and ample establishment, with two chimneys, standing in the midst of the village.

As he pa.s.sed a neighboring hut on his way thither, he stopped to speak with a tall, disorderly-looking peasant-woman of forty summers, who came to meet him.

"A pleasant holiday, father,"[42] she said, with some show of a.s.surance, stopping at a little distance from him with a pleased smile and a low obeisance.

"Good-morning, my nurse. How are you? I was just going to see your neighbor."

"Pretty well, your excellency, my father. It's a good idea. But won't you come in? I beg you to. My old man would be very pleased."

"Well, I'll come; and we'll have a little talk with you, nurse. Is this your house?"

"It is, sir."[42]

[Footnote 42: _batiushka._]

And the nurse led the way into the hut. Nekhliudof followed her into the entry, and sat down on a tub, and began to smoke a cigarette.

"It's hot inside. It's better to sit down here, and have our talk," he said in reply to the woman's invitation to go into the hut.

The nurse was a well-preserved and handsome woman. In the features of her countenance, and especially in her big black eyes, there was a strong resemblance to the prince himself. She folded her hands under her ap.r.o.n, and looking fearlessly at him, and incessantly moving her head, began to talk with him.

"Why is it, father? why do you wish to visit Dutlof?"

"Oh, I am anxious for him to take thirty desiatins[43] of land of me, and enlarge his domain; and moreover I want him to buy some wood from me also.

You see, he has money, so why should it be idle? What do you think about it, nurse?"

[Footnote 43: eighty-one acres.]

"Well, what can I say? The Dutlofs are strong people: he's the leading peasant in the whole estate," replied the nurse, shaking her head. "Last summer he built another building out of his own lumber. He did not call upon the estate at all. He has horses, and yearling colts besides, at least six trokas, and cattle, cows, and sheep; so that it is a sight worth seeing when they are driven along the street from pasture, and the women of the house come out to get them into the yard. There is such a crush of animals at the gate that they can scarcely get through, so many of them there are. And two hundred bee-hives at the very least. He is a strong peasant, and must have money."

"But what do you think,--has he much money?" asked the prince.

"Men say, out of spite of course, that the old man has no little money. But he does not go round talking about it, and he does not tell even his sons, but he must have. Why shouldn't he take hold of the woodland? Perhaps he is afraid of getting the reputation for money. Five years ago he went into a small business with Shkalik the porter. They got some meadow-land; and this Shkalik, some way or other, cheated him, so that the old man was three hundred rubles out of pocket. And from that time he has sworn off. How can he help being forehanded, your excellency, father?" continued the nurse.

"He has three farms, a big family, all workers; and besides, the old man--it is hard to say it--is a capital manager. He is lucky in every thing; it is surprising,--in his grain and in his horses and in his cattle and in his bees, and he's lucky in his children. Now he has got them all married off. He has found husbands for his daughters; and he has just married Ilyushka, and given him his freedom. He himself bought the letter of enfranchis.e.m.e.nt. And so a fine woman has come into his house."

"Well, do they live harmoniously?" asked the prince.

"As long as there's the right sort of a head to the house, they get along.

Yet even the Dutlofs--but of course that's among the women. The daughters-in-law bark at each other a little behind the oven, but the old man generally holds them in hand; and the sons live harmoniously."

The nurse was silent for a little.