Dead Souls
recovering his spirit, he determined then and there to perform his
duties in such a manner as should be an example to the rest.
But where are compensations to be found? Even in St. Petersburg, despite
its grim and murky exterior, they exist. Yes, even though thirty degrees
of keen, cracking frost may have bound the streets, and the family of
the North Wind be wailing there, and the Snowstorm Witch have heaped
high the pavements, and be blinding the eyes, and powdering beards and
fur collars and the shaggy manes of horses--even THEN there will be
shining hospitably through the swirling snowflakes a fourth-floor window
where, in a cosy room, and by the light of modest candles, and to the
hiss of the samovar, there will be in progress a discussion which warms
the heart and soul, or else a reading aloud of a brilliant page of one
of those inspired Russian poets with whom God has dowered us, while the
breast of each member of the company is heaving with a rapture unknown
under a noontide sky.
Gradually, therefore, Tientietnikov grew more at home in the Service.
Yet never did it become, for him, the main pursuit, the main object
in life, which he had expected. No, it remained but one of a secondary
kind. That is to say, it served merely to divide up his time, and enable
him the more to value his hours of leisure. Nevertheless, just when his
uncle was beginning to flatter himself that his nephew was destined to
succeed in the profession, the said nephew elected to ruin his every
hope. Thus it befell. Tientietnikov’s friends (he had many) included
among their number a couple of fellows of the species known as
“embittered.” That is to say, though good-natured souls of that
curiously restless type which cannot endure injustice, nor anything
which it conceives to be such, they were thoroughly unbalanced of
conduct themselves, and, while demanding general agreement with
their views, treated those of others with the scantiest of ceremony.
Nevertheless these two associates exercised upon Tientietnikov--both
by the fire of their eloquence and by the form of their noble
dissatisfaction with society--a very strong influence; with the result
that, through arousing in him an innate tendency to nervous resentment,
they led him also to notice trifles which before had escaped his
attention. An instance of this is seen in the fact that he conceived
against Thedor Thedorovitch Lienitsin, Director of one of the
Departments which was quartered in the splendid range of offices before
mentioned, a dislike which proved the cause of his discerning in the
man a host of hitherto unmarked imperfections. Above all things did
Tientietnikov take it into his head that, when conversing with his
superiors, Lienitsin became, of the moment, a stick of luscious
sweetmeat, but that, when conversing with his inferiors, he approximated
more to a vinegar cruet. Certain it is that, like all petty-minded
individuals, Lienitsin made a note of any one who failed to offer him
a greeting on festival days, and that he revenged himself upon any one
whose visiting-card had not been handed to his butler. Eventually the
youth’s aversion almost attained the point of hysteria; until he felt
that, come what might, he MUST insult the fellow in some fashion. To
that task he applied himself con amore; and so thoroughly that he met
with complete success. That is to say, he seized on an occasion to
address Lienitsin in such fashion that the delinquent received
notice either to apologise or to leave the Service; and when of these
alternatives he chose the latter his uncle came to him, and made a
terrified appeal. “For God’s sake remember what you are doing!” he
cried. “To think that, after beginning your career so well, you should
abandon it merely for the reason that you have not fallen in with the
sort of Director whom you prefer! What do you mean by it, what do you
mean by it? Were others to regard things in the same way, the Service
would find itself without a single individual. Reconsider your
conduct--forego your pride and conceit, and make Lienitsin amends.”
“But, dear Uncle,” the nephew replied, “that is not the point. The point
is, not that I should find an apology difficult to offer, seeing that,
since Lienitsin is my superior, and I ought not to have addressed him as
I did, I am clearly in the wrong. Rather, the point is the following.
To my charge there has been committed the performance of another kind of
service. That is to say, I am the owner of three hundred peasant souls,
a badly administered estate, and a fool of a bailiff. That being so,
whereas the State will lose little by having to fill my stool with
another copyist, it will lose very much by causing three hundred peasant
souls to fail in the payment of their taxes. As I say (how am I to put
it?), I am a landowner who has preferred to enter the Public Service.
Now, should I employ myself henceforth in conserving, restoring, and
improving the fortunes of the souls whom God has entrusted to my care,
and thereby provide the State with three hundred law-abiding, sober,
hard-working taxpayers, how will that service of mine rank as inferior
to the service of a department-directing fool like Lienitsin?”
On hearing this speech, the State Councillor could only gape, for he
had not expected Tientietnikov’s torrent of words. He reflected a few
moments, and then murmured:
“Yes, but, but--but how can a man like you retire to rustication in
the country? What society will you get there? Here one meets at least
a general or a prince sometimes; indeed, no matter whom you pass in the
street, that person represents gas lamps and European civilisation; but
in the country, no matter what part of it you are in, not a soul is
to be encountered save muzhiks and their women. Why should you go and
condemn yourself to a state of vegetation like that?”
Nevertheless the uncle’s expostulations fell upon deaf ears, for already
the nephew was beginning to think of his estate as a retreat of a type
more likely to nourish the intellectual faculties and afford the only
profitable field of activity. After unearthing one or two modern works
on agriculture, therefore, he, two weeks later, found himself in
the neighbourhood of the home where his boyhood had been spent, and
approaching the spot which never failed to enthral the visitor or guest.
And in the young man’s breast there was beginning to palpitate a
new feeling--in the young man’s soul there were reawakening old,
long-concealed impressions; with the result that many a spot which had
long been faded from his memory now filled him with interest, and the
beautiful views on the estate found him gazing at them like a newcomer,
and with a beating heart. Yes, as the road wound through a narrow
ravine, and became engulfed in a forest where, both above and below, he
saw three-centuries-old oaks which three men could not have spanned,
and where Siberian firs and elms overtopped even the poplars, and as
he asked the peasants to tell him to whom the forest belonged, and
they replied, “To Tientietnikov,” and he issued from the forest, and
proceeded on his way through meadows, and past spinneys of elder, and
of old and young willows, and arrived in sight of the distant range of
hills, and, crossing by two different bridges the winding river (which
he left successively to right and to left of him as he did so), he again
questioned some peasants concerning the ownership of the meadows and
the flooded lands, and was again informed that they all belonged to
Tientietnikov, and then, ascending a rise, reached a tableland where, on
one side, lay ungarnered fields of wheat and rye and barley, and, on the
other, the country already traversed (but which now showed in shortened
perspective), and then plunged into the shade of some forked, umbrageous
trees which stood scattered over turf and extended to the manor-house
itself, and caught glimpses of the carved huts of the peasants, and of
the red roofs of the stone manorial outbuildings, and of the glittering
pinnacles of the church, and felt his heart beating, and knew, without
being told by any one, whither he had at length arrived--well, then the
feeling which had been growing within his soul burst forth, and he cried
in ecstasy:
“Why have I been a fool so long? Why, seeing that fate has appointed
me to be ruler of an earthly paradise, did I prefer to bind myself in
servitude as a scribe of lifeless documents? To think that, after I had
been nurtured and schooled and stored with all the knowledge necessary
for the diffusion of good among those under me, and for the improvement
of my domain, and for the fulfilment of the manifold duties of a
landowner who is at once judge, administrator, and constable of his
people, I should have entrusted my estate to an ignorant bailiff, and
sought to maintain an absentee guardianship over the affairs of serfs
whom I have never met, and of whose capabilities and characters I am
yet ignorant! To think that I should have deemed true estate-management
inferior to a documentary, fantastical management of provinces which lie
a thousand versts away, and which my foot has never trod, and where I
could never have effected aught but blunders and irregularities!”
Meanwhile another spectacle was being prepared for him. On learning
that the barin was approaching the mansion, the muzhiks collected on
the verandah in very variety of picturesque dress and tonsure; and when
these good folk surrounded him, and there arose a resounding shout of
“Here is our Foster Father! He has remembered us!” and, in spite of
themselves, some of the older men and women began weeping as they
recalled his grandfather and great-grandfather, he himself could not
restrain his tears, but reflected: “How much affection! And in return
for what? In return for my never having come to see them--in return for
my never having taken the least interest in their affairs!” And then
and there he registered a mental vow to share their every task and
occupation.
So he applied himself to supervising and administering. He reduced the
amount of the barstchina [40], he decreased the number of working-days
for the owner, and he augmented the sum of the peasants’ leisure-time.
He also dismissed the fool of a bailiff, and took to bearing a
personal hand in everything--to being present in the fields, at the
threshing-floor, at the kilns, at the wharf, at the freighting of barges
and rafts, and at their conveyance down the river: wherefore even the
lazy hands began to look to themselves. But this did not last long. The
peasant is an observant individual, and Tientietnikov’s muzhiks soon
scented the fact that, though energetic and desirous of doing much, the
barin had no notion how to do it, nor even how to set about it--that, in
short, he spoke by the book rather than out of his personal knowledge.
Consequently things resulted, not in master and men failing to
understand one another, but in their not singing together, in their not
producing the very same note.
That is to say, it was not long before Tientietnikov noticed that on
the manorial lands, nothing prospered to the extent that it did on the
peasants’. The manorial crops were sown in good time, and came up well,
and every one appeared to work his best, so much so that Tientietnikov,
who supervised the whole, frequently ordered mugs of vodka to be served
out as a reward for the excellence of the labour performed. Yet the rye
on the peasants’ land had formed into ear, and the oats had begun to
shoot their grain, and the millet had filled before, on the manorial
lands, the corn had so much as grown to stalk, or the ears had sprouted
in embryo. In short, gradually the barin realised that, in spite of
favours conferred, the peasants were playing the rogue with him. Next he