Resurrection
down to the frogs, and had to be held back, but he not only went down
but turned into Maslova, who began reproaching Nekhludoff, saying, “You
are a prince, and I am a convict.” “No, I must not give in,” thought
Nekhludoff, waking up, and again asking himself, “Is what I am doing
right? I do not know, and no matter, no matter, I must only fall asleep
now.” And he began himself to descend where he had seen the inspector
and Maslova climbing down to, and there it all ended.
CHAPTER II.
EFFORTS AT LAND RESTORATION.
The next day Nekhludoff awoke at nine o’clock. The young office clerk
who attended on “the master” brought him his boots, shining as they had
never shone before, and some cold, beautifully clear spring water, and
informed him that the peasants were already assembling.
Nekhludoff jumped out of bed, and collected his thoughts. Not a trace
of yesterday’s regret at giving up and thus destroying his property
remained now. He remembered this feeling of regret with surprise; he was
now looking forward with joy to the task before him, and could not help
being proud of it. He could see from the window the old tennis ground,
overgrown with dandelions, on which the peasants were beginning to
assemble. The frogs had not croaked in vain the night before; the day
was dull. There was no wind; a soft warm rain had begun falling in the
morning, and hung in drops on leaves, twigs, and grass. Besides the
smell of the fresh vegetation, the smell of damp earth, asking for more
rain, entered in at the window. While dressing, Nekhludoff several times
looked out at the peasants gathered on the tennis ground. One by one
they came, took off their hats or caps to one another, and took their
places in a circle, leaning on their sticks. The steward, a stout,
muscular, strong young man, dressed in a short pea-jacket, with a
green stand-up collar, and enormous buttons, came to say that all had
assembled, but that they might wait until Nekhludoff had finished his
breakfast--tea and coffee, whichever he pleased; both were ready.
“No, I think I had better go and see them at once,” said Nekhludoff,
with an unexpected feeling of shyness and shame at the thought of the
conversation he was going to have with the peasants. He was going to
fulfil a wish of the peasants, the fulfilment of which they did not
even dare to hope for--to let the land to them at a low price, i.e.,
to confer a great boon; and yet he felt ashamed of something. When
Nekhludoff came up to the peasants, and the fair, the curly, the bald,
the grey heads were bared before him, he felt so confused that he
could say nothing. The rain continued to come down in small drops,
that remained on the hair, the beards, and the fluff of the men’s rough
coats. The peasants looked at “the master,” waiting for him to speak,
and he was so abashed that he could not speak. This confused silence
was broken by the sedate, self-assured German steward, who considered
himself a good judge of the Russian peasant, and who spoke Russian
remarkably well. This strong, over-fed man, and Nekhludoff himself,
presented a striking contrast to the peasants, with their thin, wrinkled
faces and the shoulder blades protruding beneath their coarse coats.
“Here’s the Prince wanting to do you a favor, and to let the land to
you; only you are not worthy of it,” said the steward.
“How are we not worthy of it, Vasili Karlovitch? Don’t we work for you?
We were well satisfied with the deceased lady--God have mercy on her
soul--and the young Prince will not desert us now. Our thanks to him,”
said a redhaired, talkative peasant.
“Yes, that’s why I have called you together. I should like to let you
have all the land, if you wish it.”
The peasants said nothing, as if they did not understand or did not
believe it.
“Let’s see. Let us have the land? What do you mean?” asked a middle-aged
man.
“To let it to you, that you might have the use of it, at a low rent.”
“A very agreeable thing,” said an old man.
“If only the pay is such as we can afford,” said another.
“There’s no reason why we should not rent the land.”
“We are accustomed to live by tilling the ground.”
“And it’s quieter for you, too, that way. You’ll have to do nothing
but receive the rent. Only think of all the sin and worry now!” several
voices were heard saying.
“The sin is all on your side,” the German remarked. “If only you did
your work, and were orderly.”
“That’s impossible for the likes of us,” said a sharp-nosed old man.
“You say, ‘Why do you let the horse get into the corn?’ just as if I
let it in. Why, I was swinging my scythe, or something of the kind,
the livelong day, till the day seemed as long as a year, and so I fell
asleep while watching the herd of horses at night, and it got into your
oats, and now you’re skinning me.”
“And you should keep order.”
“It’s easy for you to talk about order, but it’s more than our strength
will bear,” answered a tall, dark, hairy middleaged man.
“Didn’t I tell you to put up a fence?”
“You give us the wood to make it of,” said a short, plain-looking
peasant. “I was going to put up a fence last year, and you put me to
feed vermin in prison for three months. That was the end of that fence.”
“What is it he is saying?” asked Nekhludoff, turning to the steward.
“Der ersto Dieb im Dorfe,” [The greatest thief in the village] answered
the steward in German. “He is caught stealing wood from the forest every
year.” Then turning to the peasant, he added, “You must learn to respect
other people’s property.”
“Why, don’t we respect you?” said an old man. “We are obliged to respect
you. Why, you could twist us into a rope; we are in your hands.”
“Eh, my friend, it’s impossible to do you. It’s you who are ever ready
to do us,” said the steward.
“Do you, indeed. Didn’t you smash my jaw for me, and I got nothing for
it? No good going to law with the rich, it seems.”
“You should keep to the law.”
A tournament of words was apparently going on without those who took
part in it knowing exactly what it was all about; but it was noticeable
that there was bitterness on one side, restricted by fear, and on the
other a consciousness of importance and power. It was very trying to
Nekhludoff to listen to all this, so he returned to the question of
arranging the amount and the terms of the rent.
“Well, then, how about the land? Do you wish to take it, and what price
will you pay if I let you have the whole of it?”
“The property is yours: it is for you to fix the price.”
Nekhludoff named the price. Though it was far below that paid in the
neighbourhood, the peasants declared it too high, and began bargaining,
as is customary among them. Nekhludoff thought his offer would be
accepted with pleasure, but no signs of pleasure were visible.
One thing only showed Nekhludoff that his offer was a profitable one
to the peasants. The question as to who would rent the land, the whole
commune or a special society, was put, and a violent dispute arose among
those peasants who were in favour of excluding the weak and those not
likely to pay the rent regularly, and the peasants who would have to be
excluded on that score. At last, thanks to the steward, the amount and
the terms of the rent were fixed, and the peasants went down the hill
towards their villages, talking noisily, while Nekhludoff and the
steward went into the office to make up the agreement. Everything was
settled in the way Nekhludoff wished and expected it to be. The peasants
had their land 30 per cent. cheaper than they could have got it anywhere
in the district, the revenue from the land was diminished by half, but
was more than sufficient for Nekhludoff, especially as there would be
money coming in for a forest he sold, as well as for the agricultural
implements, which would be sold, too. Everything seemed excellently
arranged, yet he felt ashamed of something. He could see that the
peasants, though they spoke words of thanks, were not satisfied, and
had expected something greater. So it turned out that he had deprived
himself of a great deal, and yet not done what the peasants had
expected.
The next day the agreement was signed, and accompanied by several old
peasants, who had been chosen as deputies, Nekhludoff went out, got
into the steward’s elegant equipage (as the driver from the station had
called it), said “good-bye” to the peasants, who stood shaking their
heads in a dissatisfied and disappointed manner, and drove off to the
station. Nekhludoff was dissatisfied with himself without knowing why,
but all the time he felt sad and ashamed of something.
CHAPTER III.
OLD ASSOCIATIONS.
From Kousminski Nekhludoff went to the estate he had inherited from his
aunts, the same where he first met Katusha. He meant to arrange about
the land there in the way he had done in Kousminski. Besides this, he
wished to find out all he could about Katusha and her baby, and when and
how it had died. He got to Panovo early one morning, and the first thing
that struck him when he drove up was the look of decay and dilapidation
that all the buildings bore, especially the house itself. The iron
roofs, which had once been painted green, looked red with rust, and
a few sheets of iron were bent back, probably by a storm. Some of the
planks which covered the house from outside were torn away in several
places; these were easier to get by breaking the rusty nails that held
them. Both porches, but especially the side porch he remembered so well,
were rotten and broken; only the banister remained. Some of the windows
were boarded up, and the building in which the foreman lived, the
kitchen, the stables--all were grey and decaying. Only the garden had
not decayed, but had grown, and was in full bloom; from over the fence
the cherry, apple, and plum trees looked like white clouds. The lilac
bushes that formed the hedge were in full bloom, as they had been
when, 14 years ago, Nekhludoff had played gorelki with the 15-year-old
Katusha, and had fallen and got his hand stung by the nettles behind one
of those lilac bushes. The larch that his aunt Sophia had planted near
the house, which then was only a short stick, had grown into a tree,
the trunk of which would have made a beam, and its branches were covered
with soft yellow green needles as with down. The river, now within its
banks, rushed noisily over the mill dam. The meadow the other side of
the river was dotted over by the peasants’ mixed herds. The foreman,
a student, who had left the seminary without finishing the course, met
Nekhludoff in the yard, with a smile on his face, and, still smiling,
asked him to come into the office, and, as if promising something
exceptionally good by this smile, he went behind a partition. For a
moment some whispering was heard behind the partition. The isvostchik
who had driven Nekhludoff from the station, drove away after receiving
a tip, and all was silent. Then a barefooted girl passed the window;
she had on an embroidered peasant blouse, and long earrings in her ears;
then a man walked past, clattering with his nailed boots on the trodden
path.
Nekhludoff sat down by the little casement, and looked out into the
garden and listened. A soft, fresh spring breeze, smelling of newly-dug
earth, streamed in through the window, playing with the hair on his damp
forehead and the papers that lay on the window-sill, which was all cut
about with a knife.
“Tra-pa-trop, tra-pa-trop,” comes a sound from the river, as the women
who were washing clothes there slapped them in regular measure with
their wooden bats, and the sound spread over the glittering surface of
the mill pond while the rhythmical sound of the falling water came from
the mill, and a frightened fly suddenly flew loudly buzzing past his
ear.