Resurrection
men were driving a herd of the peasants’ horses to graze in the night,
alongside the highroad and secretly, in the landlord’s forest.
“Give you the land for nothing--you need only sign--have they not
done the likes of us often enough? No, my friend, none of your humbug.
Nowadays we have a little sense,” he added, and began shouting at a colt
that had strayed.
He stopped his horse and looked round, but the colt had not remained
behind; it had gone into the meadow by the roadside. “Bother that son
of a Turk; he’s taken to getting into the landowner’s meadows,” said the
dark peasant with the unkempt beard, hearing the cracking of the sorrel
stalks that the neighing colt was galloping over as he came running back
from the scented meadow.
“Do you hear the cracking? We’ll have to send the women folk to weed
the meadow when there’s a holiday,” said the thin peasant with the torn
coat, “or else we’ll blunt our scythes.”
“Sign,” he says. The unkempt man continued giving his opinion of the
landlord’s speech. “‘Sign,’ indeed, and let him swallow you up.”
“That’s certain,” answered the old man. And then they were silent, and
the tramping of the horses’ feet along the highroad was the only sound
to be heard.
CHAPTER VIII.
GOD’S PEACE IN THE HEART.
When Nekhludoff returned he found that the office had been arranged as
a bedroom for him. A high bedstead, with a feather bed and two large
pillows, had been placed in the room. The bed was covered with a dark
red doublebedded silk quilt, which was elaborately and finely quilted,
and very stiff. It evidently belonged to the trousseau of the foreman’s
wife. The foreman offered Nekhludoff the remains of the dinner, which
the latter refused, and, excusing himself for the poorness of the fare
and the accommodation, he left Nekhludoff alone.
The peasants’ refusal did not at all bother Nekhludoff. On the contrary,
though at Kousminski his offer had been accepted and he had even been
thanked for it, and here he was met with suspicion and even enmity, he
felt contented and joyful.
It was close and dirty in the office. Nekhludoff went out into the yard,
and was going into the garden, but he remembered: that night, the window
of the maid-servant’s room, the side porch, and he felt uncomfortable,
and did not like to pass the spot desecrated by guilty memories. He
sat down on the doorstep, and breathing in the warm air, balmy with the
strong scent of fresh birch leaves, he sat for a long time looking into
the dark garden and listening to the mill, the nightingales, and some
other bird that whistled monotonously in the bush close by. The light
disappeared from the foreman’s window; in the cast, behind the barn,
appeared the light of the rising moon, and sheet lightning began to
light up the dilapidated house, and the blooming, over-grown garden more
and more frequently. It began to thunder in the distance, and a black
cloud spread over one-third of the sky. The nightingales and the other
birds were silent. Above the murmur of the water from the mill came the
cackling of geese, and then in the village and in the foreman’s yard
the first cocks began to crow earlier than usual, as they do on warm,
thundery nights. There is a saying that if the cocks crow early the
night will be a merry one. For Nekhludoff the night was more than merry;
it was a happy, joyful night. Imagination renewed the impressions of
that happy summer which he had spent here as an innocent lad, and he
felt himself as he had been not only at that but at all the best moments
of his life. He not only remembered but felt as he had felt when, at
the age of 14, he prayed that God would show him the truth; or when as
a child he had wept on his mother’s lap, when parting from her, and
promising to be always good, and never give her pain; he felt as he did
when he and Nikolenka Irtenieff resolved always to support each other in
living a good life and to try to make everybody happy.
He remembered how he had been tempted in Kousminski, so that he had
begun to regret the house and the forest and the farm and the land, and
he asked himself if he regretted them now, and it even seemed strange to
think that he could regret them. He remembered all he had seen to-day;
the woman with the children, and without her husband, who was in prison
for having cut down trees in his (Nekhludoff’s) forest, and the terrible
Matrona, who considered, or at least talked as if she considered,
that women of her position must give themselves to the gentlefolk; he
remembered her relation to the babies, the way in which they were taken
to the Foundlings’ Hospital, and the unfortunate, smiling, wizened
baby with the patchwork cap, dying of starvation. And then he suddenly
remembered the prison, the shaved heads, the cells, the disgusting
smells, the chains, and, by the side of it all, the madly lavish city
lift of the rich, himself included.
The bright moon, now almost full, rose above the barn. Dark shadows fell
across the yard, and the iron roof of the ruined house shone bright.
As if unwilling to waste this light, the nightingales again began their
trills.
Nekhludoff called to mind how he had begun to consider his life in
the garden of Kousminski when deciding what he was going to do, and
remembered how confused he had become, how he could not arrive at any
decision, how many difficulties each question had presented. He asked
himself these questions now, and was surprised how simple it all was. It
was simple because he was not thinking now of what would be the results
for himself, but only thought of what he had to do. And, strange to say,
what he had to do for himself he could not decide, but what he had to do
for others he knew without any doubt. He had no doubt that he must
not leave Katusha, but go on helping her. He had no doubt that he must
study, investigate, clear up, understand all this business concerning
judgment and punishment, which he felt he saw differently to other
people. What would result from it all he did not know, but he knew for
certain that he must do it. And this firm assurance gave him joy.
The black cloud had spread all over the sky; the lightning flashed
vividly across the yard and the old house with its tumble-down porches,
the thunder growled overhead. All the birds were silent, but the leaves
rustled and the wind reached the step where Nekhludoff stood and played
with his hair. One drop came down, then another; then they came drumming
on the dock leaves and on the iron of the roof, and all the air was
filled by a bright flash, and before Nekhludoff could count three a
fearful crash sounded over head and spread pealing all over the sky.
Nekhludoff went in.
“Yes, yes,” he thought. “The work that our life accomplishes, the whole
of this work, the meaning of it is not, nor can be, intelligible to
me. What were my aunts for? Why did Nikolenka Irtenieff die? Why am
I living? What was Katusha for? And my madness? Why that war? Why my
subsequent lawless life? To understand it, to understand the whole
of the Master’s will is not in my power. But to do His will, that is
written down in my conscience, is in my power; that I know for certain.
And when I am fulfilling it I have sureness and peace.”
The rain came down in torrents and rushed from the roof into a tub
beneath; the lightning lit up the house and yard less frequently.
Nekhludoff went into his room, undressed, and lay down, not without
fear of the bugs, whose presence the dirty, torn wall-papers made him
suspect.
“Yes, to feel one’s self not the master but a servant,” he thought, and
rejoiced at the thought. His fears were not vain. Hardly had he put out
his candle when the vermin attacked and stung him. “To give up the land
and go to Siberia. Fleas, bugs, dirt! Ah, well; if it must be borne, I
shall bear it.” But, in spite of the best of intentions, he could not
bear it, and sat down by the open window and gazed with admiration at
the retreating clouds and the reappearing moon.
CHAPTER IX.
THE LAND SETTLEMENT.
It was morning before Nekhludoff could fall asleep, and therefore he
woke up late. At noon seven men, chosen from among the peasants at
the foreman’s invitation, came into the orchard, where the foreman
had arranged a table and benches by digging posts into the ground,
and fixing boards on the top, under the apple trees. It took some time
before the peasants could be persuaded to put on their caps and to sit
down on the benches. Especially firm was the ex-soldier, who to-day had
bark shoes on. He stood erect, holding his cap as they do at
funerals, according to military regulation. When one of them, a
respectable-looking, broad-shouldered old man, with a curly, grizzly
beard like that of Michael Angelo’s “Moses,” and grey hair that curled
round the brown, bald forehead, put on his big cap, and, wrapping his
coat round him, got in behind the table and sat down, the rest followed
his example. When all had taken their places Nekhludoff sat down
opposite them, and leaning on the table over the paper on which he had
drawn up his project, he began explaining it.
Whether it was that there were fewer present, or that he was occupied
with the business in hand and not with himself, anyhow, this
time Nekhludoff felt no confusion. He involuntarily addressed the
broad-shouldered old man with white ringlets in his grizzly beard,
expecting approbation or objections from him. But Nekhludoff’s
conjecture was wrong. The respectable-looking old patriarch, though he
nodded his handsome head approvingly or shook it, and frowned when the
others raised an objection, evidently understood with great difficulty,
and only when the others repeated what Nekhludoff had said in their own
words. A little, almost beardless old fellow, blind in one eye, who sat
by the side of the patriarch, and had a patched nankeen coat and old
boots on, and, as Nekhludoff found out later, was an oven-builder,
understood much better. This man moved his brows quickly, attending to
Nekhludoff’s words with an effort, and at once repeated them in his
own way. An old, thick-set man with a white beard and intelligent eyes
understood as quickly, and took every opportunity to put in an ironical
joke, clearly wishing to show off. The ex-soldier seemed also to
understand matters, but got mixed, being used to senseless soldiers’
talk. A tall man with a small beard, a long nose, and a bass voice, who
wore clean, home-made clothes and new bark-plaited shoes, seemed to be
the one most seriously interested. This man spoke only when there
was need of it. The two other old men, the same toothless one who
had shouted a distinct refusal at the meeting the day before to every
proposal of Nekhludoff’s, and a tall, white lame old man with a kind
face, his thin legs tightly wrapped round with strips of linen, said
little, though they listened attentively. First of all Nekhludoff
explained his views in regard to personal property in land. “The land,
according to my idea, can neither be bought nor sold, because if it
could be, he who has got the money could buy it all, and exact anything
he liked for the use of the land from those who have none.”
“That’s true,” said the long-nosed man, in a deep bass.
“Just so,” said the ex-soldier.
“A woman gathers a little grass for her cow; she’s caught and
imprisoned,” said the white-bearded old man.
“Our own land is five versts away, and as to renting any it’s
impossible; the price is raised so high that it won’t pay,” added the
cross, toothless old man. “They twist us into ropes, worse than during
serfdom.”
“I think as you do, and I count it a sin to possess land, so I wish to
give it away,” said Nekhludoff.
“Well, that’s a good thing,” said the old man, with curls like Angelo’s