Resurrection
“Moses,” evidently thinking that Nekhludoff meant to let the land.
“I have come here because I no longer wish to possess any land, and now
we must consider the best way of dividing it.”
“Just give it to the peasants, that’s all,” said the cross, toothless
old man.
Nekhludoff was abashed for a moment, feeling a suspicion of his not
being honest in these words, but he instantly recovered, and made use of
the remark, in order to express what was in his mind, in reply.
“I should be glad to give it them,” he said, “but to whom, and how?
To which of the peasants? Why, to your commune, and not to that of
Deminsk.” (That was the name of a neighbouring village with very little
land.) All were silent. Then the ex-soldier said, “Just so.”
“Now, then, tell me how would you divide the land among the peasants if
you had to do it?” said Nekhludoff.
“We should divide it up equally, so much for every man,” said the
oven-builder, quickly raising and lowering his brows.
“How else? Of course, so much per man,” said the good natured lame man
with the white strips of linen round his legs.
Every one confirmed this statement, considering it satisfactory.
“So much per man? Then are the servants attached to the house also to
have a share?” Nekhludoff asked.
“Oh, no,” said the ex-soldier, trying to appear bold and merry. But the
tall, reasonable man would not agree with him.
“If one is to divide, all must share alike,” he said, in his deep bass,
after a little consideration.
“It can’t be done,” said Nekhludoff, who had already prepared his reply.
“If all are to share alike, then those who do not work themselves--do
not plough--will sell their shares to the rich. The rich will again get
at the land. Those who live by working the land will multiply, and land
will again be scarce. Then the rich will again get those who need land
into their power.”
“Just so,” quickly said the ex-soldier.
“Forbid to sell the land; let only him who ploughs it have it,” angrily
interrupted the oven-builder.
To this Nekhludoff replied that it was impossible to know who was
ploughing for himself and who for another.
The tall, reasonable man proposed that an arrangement be made so that
they should all plough communally, and those who ploughed should get the
produce and those who did not should get nothing.
To this communistic project Nekhludoff had also an answer ready. He said
that for such an arrangement it would be necessary that all should have
ploughs, and that all the horses should be alike, so that none should
be left behind, and that ploughs and horses and all the implements would
have to be communal property, and that in order to get that, all the
people would have to agree.
“Our people could not be made to agree in a lifetime,” said the cross
old man.
“We should have regular fights,” said the white-bearded old man with the
laughing eyes. “So that the thing is not as simple as it looks,”
said Nekhludoff, “and this is a thing not only we but many have been
considering. There is an American, Henry George. This is what he has
thought out, and I agree with him.”
“Why, you are the master, and you give it as you like. What’s it to you?
The power is yours,” said the cross old man.
This confused Nekhludoff, but he was pleased to see that not he alone
was dissatisfied with this interruption.
“You wait a bit, Uncle Simon; let him tell us about it,” said the
reasonable man, in his imposing bass.
This emboldened Nekhludoff, and he began to explain Henry George’s
single-tax system “The earth is no man’s; it is God’s,” he began.
“Just so; that it is,” several voices replied.
“The land is common to all. All have the same right to it, but there is
good land and bad land, and every one would like to take the good land.
How is one to do in order to get it justly divided? In this way: he that
will use the good land must pay those who have got no land the value of
the land he uses,” Nekhludoff went on, answering his own question. “As
it would be difficult to say who should pay whom, and money is needed
for communal use, it should be arranged that he who uses the good land
should pay the amount of the value of his land to the commune for its
needs. Then every one would share equally. If you want to use land pay
for it--more for the good, less for the bad land. If you do not wish to
use land, don’t pay anything, and those who use the land will pay the
taxes and the communal expenses for you.”
“Well, he had a head, this George,” said the oven-builder, moving his
brows. “He who has good land must pay more.”
“If only the payment is according to our strength,” said the tall man
with the bass voice, evidently foreseeing how the matter would end.
“The payment should be not too high and not too low. If it is too high
it will not get paid, and there will be a loss; and if it is too low it
will be bought and sold. There would be a trading in land. This is what
I wished to arrange among you here.”
“That is just, that is right; yes, that would do,” said the peasants.
“He has a head, this George,” said the broad-shouldered old man with the
curls. “See what he has invented.”
“Well, then, how would it be if I wished to take some land?” asked the
smiling foreman.
“If there is an allotment to spare, take it and work it,” said
Nekhludoff.
“What do you want it for? You have sufficient as it is,” said the old
man with the laughing eyes.
With this the conference ended.
Nekhludoff repeated his offer, and advised the men to talk it over with
the rest of the commune and to return with the answer.
The peasants said they would talk it over and bring an answer, and left
in a state of excitement. Their loud talk was audible as they went along
the road, and up to late in the night the sound of voices came along the
river from the village.
The next day the peasants did not go to work, but spent it in
considering the landlord’s offer. The commune was divided into two
parties--one which regarded the offer as a profitable one to themselves
and saw no danger in agreeing with it, and another which suspected and
feared the offer it did not understand. On the third day, however, all
agreed, and some were sent to Nekhludoff to accept his offer. They were
influenced in their decision by the explanation some of the old men gave
of the landlord’s conduct, which did away with all fear of deceit. They
thought the gentleman had begun to consider his soul, and was acting as
he did for its salvation. The alms which Nekhludoff had given away while
in Panovo made his explanation seem likely. The fact that Nekhludoff
had never before been face to face with such great poverty and so bare
a life as the peasants had come to in this place, and was so appalled
by it, made him give away money in charity, though he knew that this was
not reasonable. He could not help giving the money, of which he now had
a great deal, having received a large sum for the forest he had sold
the year before, and also the hand money for the implements and stock in
Kousminski. As soon as it was known that the master was giving money in
charity, crowds of people, chiefly women, began to come to ask him for
help. He did not in the least know how to deal with them, how to decide,
how much, and whom to give to. He felt that to refuse to give money, of
which he had a great deal, to poor people was impossible, yet to give
casually to those who asked was not wise. The last day he spent in
Panovo, Nekhludoff looked over the things left in his aunts’ house, and
in the bottom drawer of the mahogany wardrobe, with the brass lions’
heads with rings through them, he found many letters, and amongst them a
photograph of a group, consisting of his aunts, Sophia Ivanovna and Mary
Ivanovna, a student, and Katusha. Of all the things in the house he took
only the letters and the photograph. The rest he left to the miller who,
at the smiling foreman’s recommendation, had bought the house and all it
contained, to be taken down and carried away, at one-tenth of the real
value.
Recalling the feeling of regret at the loss of his property which he had
felt in Kousminski, Nekhludoff was surprised how he could have felt this
regret. Now he felt nothing but unceasing joy at the deliverance, and
a sensation of newness something like that which a traveller must
experience when discovering new countries.
CHAPTER X.
NEKHLUDOFF RETURNS TO TOWN.
The town struck Nekhludoff in a new and peculiar light on his return.
He came back in the evening, when the gas was lit, and drove from
the railway station to his house, where the rooms still smelt of
naphthaline. Agraphena Petrovna and Corney were both feeling tired and
dissatisfied, and had even had a quarrel over those things that seemed
made only to be aired and packed away. Nekhludoff’s room was empty, but
not in order, and the way to it was blocked up with boxes, so that his
arrival evidently hindered the business which, owing to a curious kind
of inertia, was going on in this house. The evident folly of these
proceedings, in which he had once taken part, was so distasteful to
Nekhludoff after the impressions the misery of the life of the peasants
had made on him, that he decided to go to a hotel the next day, leaving
Agraphena Petrovna to put away the things as she thought fit until his
sister should come and finally dispose of everything in the house.
Nekhludoff left home early and chose a couple of rooms in a very modest
and not particularly clean lodging-house within easy reach of the
prison, and, having given orders that some of his things should be sent
there, he went to see the advocate. It was cold out of doors. After some
rainy and stormy weather it had turned out cold, as it often does in
spring. It was so cold that Nekhludoff felt quite chilly in his light
overcoat, and walked fast hoping to get warmer. His mind was filled
with thoughts of the peasants, the women, children, old men, and all the
poverty and weariness which he seemed to have seen for the first time,
especially the smiling, old-faced infant writhing with his calfless
little legs, and he could not help contrasting what was going on in the
town. Passing by the butchers’, fishmongers’, and clothiers’ shops, he
was struck, as if he saw them for the first time, by the appearance
of the clean, well-fed shopkeepers, like whom you could not find one
peasant in the country. These men were apparently convinced that the
pains they took to deceive the people who did not know much about their
goods was not a useless but rather an important business. The coachmen
with their broad hips and rows of buttons down their sides, and the
door-keepers with gold cords on their caps, the servant-girls with their
aprons and curly fringes, and especially the smart isvostchiks with
the nape of their necks clean shaved, as they sat lolling back in their
traps, and examined the passers-by with dissolute and contemptuous
air, looked well fed. In all these people Nekhludoff could not now help
seeing some of these very peasants who had been driven into the town by
lack of land. Some of the peasants driven to the town had found means
of profiting by the conditions of town life and had become like the
gentlefolk and were pleased with their position; others were in a worse
position than they had been in the country and were more to be pitied
than the country people.
Such seemed the bootmakers Nekhludoff saw in the cellar, the pale,
dishevelled washerwomen with their thin, bare, arms ironing at an open
window, out of which streamed soapy steam; such the two house-painters
with their aprons, stockingless feet, all bespattered and smeared with
paint, whom Nekhludoff met--their weak, brown arms bared to above the
elbows--carrying a pailful of paint, and quarrelling with each other.