The Complete Works of Leo Tolstoy (25+ Works with active table of contents)

by Leo Tolstoy

  The women arranged the kerchiefs on their heads and let down their skirts, and stood looking with surprise at the clean gentleman with gold studs to his sleeves who was entering their house. Two little girls, with nothing on but coarse chemises, rushed out of the hut. Nekhludoff took off his hat, and, stooping to get through the low door, entered, through a passage into the dirty, narrow hut, that smelt of sour food, and where much space was taken up by two weaving looms. In the but an old woman was standing by the stove, with the sleeves rolled up over her thin, sinewy brown arms.

  "Here is our master come to see us," said the old man.

  "I'm sure he's very welcome," said the old woman, kindly.

  "I would like to see how you live."

  "Well, you see how we live. The hut is coming down, and might kill one any day; but my old man he says it's good enough, and so we live like kings," said the brisk old woman, nervously jerking her head. "I'm getting the dinner; going to feed the workers."

  "And what are you going to have for dinner?"

  "Our food is very good. First course, bread and kvas; [kvas is a kind of sour, non-intoxicant beer made of rye] second course, kvas and bread," said the old woman, showing her teeth, which were half worn away.

  "No," seriously; "let me see what you are going to eat."

  "To eat?" said the old man, laughing. "Ours is not a very cunning meal. You just show him, wife."

  "Want to see our peasant food? Well, you are an inquisitive gentleman, now I come to look at you. He wants to know everything. Did I not tell you bread and kvas and then we'll have soup. A woman brought us some fish, and that's what the soup is made of, and after that, potatoes."

  "Nothing more?"

  "What more do you want? We'll also have a little milk," said the old woman, looking towards the door. The door stood open, and the passage outside was full of people--boys, girls, women with babies--thronged together to look at the strange gentleman who wanted to see the peasants' food. The old woman seemed to pride herself on the way she behaved with a gentleman.

  "Yes, it's a miserable life, ours; that goes without saying, sir," said the old man. "What are you doing there?" he shouted to those in the passage. "Well, good-bye," said Nekhludoff, feeling ashamed and uneasy, though unable to account for the feeling.

  "Thank you kindly for having looked us up," said the old man.

  The people in the passage pressed closer together to let Nekhludoff pass, and he went out and continued his way up the street.

  Two barefooted boys followed him out of the passage the elder in a shirt that had once been white, the other in a worn and faded pink one. Nekhludoff looked back at them.

  "And where are you going now?" asked the boy with the white shirt. Nekhludoff answered: "To Matrona Kharina. Do you know her?" The boy with the pink shirt began laughing at something; but the elder asked, seriously:

  "What Matrona is that? Is she old?"

  "Yes, she is old."

  "Oh--oh," he drawled; "that one; she's at the other end of the village; we'll show you. Yes, Fedka, we'll go with him. Shall we?"

  "Yes, but the horses?"

  "They'll be all right, I dare say."

  Fedka agreed, and all three went up the street.

  CHAPTER V

  .

  MASLOVA'S AUNT.

  Nekhludoff felt more at case with the boys than with the grown-up people, and he began talking to them as they went along. The little one with the pink shirt stopped laughing, and spoke as sensibly and as exactly as the elder one.

  "Can you tell me who are the poorest people you have got here?" asked Nekhludoff.

  "The poorest? Michael is poor, Simon Makhroff, and Martha, she is very poor."

  "And Anisia, she is still poorer; she's not even got a cow. They go begging," said little Fedka.

  "She's not got a cow, but they are only three persons, and Martha's family are five," objected the elder boy.

  "But the other's a widow," the pink boy said, standing up for Anisia.

  "You say Anisia is a widow, and Martha is no better than a widow," said the elder boy; "she's also no husband."

  "And where is her husband?" Nekhludoff asked.

  "Feeding vermin in prison," said the elder boy, using this expression, common among the peasants.

  "A year ago he cut down two birch trees in the land-lord's forest," the little pink boy hurried to say, "so he was locked up; now he's sitting the sixth month there, and the wife goes begging. There are three children and a sick grandmother," he went on with his detailed account.

  "And where does she live?" Nekhludoff asked.

  "In this very house," answered the boy, pointing to a hut, in front of which, on the footpath along which Nekhludoff was walking, a tiny, flaxen-headed infant stood balancing himself with difficulty on his rickety legs.

  "Vaska! Where's the little scamp got to?" shouted a woman, with a dirty grey blouse, and a frightened look, as she ran out of the house, and, rushing forward, seized the baby before Nekhludoff came up to it, and carried it in, just as if she were afraid that Nekhludoff would hurt her child.

  This was the woman whose husband was imprisoned for Nekhludoff's birch trees.

  "Well, and this Matrona, is she also poor?" Nekhludoff asked, as they came up to Matrona's house.

  "She poor? No. Why, she sells spirits," the thin, pink little boy answered decidedly.

  When they reached the house Nekhludoff left the boys outside and went through the passage into the hut. The hut was 14 feet long. The bed that stood behind the big stove was not long enough for a tall person to stretch out on. "And on this very bed," Nekhludoff thought, "Katusha bore her baby and lay ill afterwards." The greater part of the hut was taken up by a loom, on which the old woman and her eldest granddaughter were arranging the warp when Nekhludoff came in, striking his forehead against the low doorway. Two other grandchildren came rushing in after Nekhludoff, and stopped, holding on to the lintels of the door.

  "Whom do you want?" asked the old woman, crossly. She was in a bad temper because she could not manage to get the warp right, and, besides, carrying on an illicit trade in spirits, she was always afraid when any stranger came in.

  "I am--the owner of the neighbouring estates, and should like to speak to you."

  "Dear me; why, it's you, my honey; and I, fool, thought it was just some passer-by. Dear me, you--it's you, my precious," said the old woman, with simulated tenderness in her voice.

  "I should like to speak to you alone," said Nekhludoff, with a glance towards the door, where the children were standing, and behind them a woman holding a wasted, pale baby, with a sickly smile on its face, who had a little cap made of different bits of stuff on its head.

  "What are you staring at? I'll give it you. Just hand me my crutch," the old woman shouted to those at the door.

  "Shut the door, will you!" The children went away, and the woman closed the door.

  "And I was thinking, who's that? And it's 'the master' himself. My jewel, my treasure. Just think," said the old woman, "where he has deigned to come. Sit down here, your honour," she said, wiping the seat with her apron. "And I was thinking what devil is it coming in, and it's your honour, 'the master' himself, the good gentleman, our benefactor. Forgive me, old fool that I am; I'm getting blind."

  Nekhludoff sat down, and the old woman stood in front of him, leaning her cheek on her right hand, while the left held up the sharp elbow of her right arm.

  "Dear me, you have grown old, your honour; and you used to be as fresh as a daisy. And now! Cares also, I expect?"

  "This is what I have come about: Do you remember Katusha Maslova?"

  "Katerina? I should think so. Why, she is my niece. How could I help remembering; and the tears I have shed because of her. Why, I know all about it. Eh, sir, who has not sinned before God? who has not offended against the Tsar? We know what youth is. You used to be drinking tea and coffee, so the devil got hold of you. He is strong at times. What's to be done? Now, if you had chucked her; but no,
just see how you rewarded her, gave her a hundred roubles. And she? What has she done? Had she but listened to me she might have lived all right. I must say the truth, though she is my niece: that girl's no good. What a good place I found her! She would not submit, but abused her master. Is it for the likes of us to scold gentlefolk? Well, she was sent away. And then at the forester's. She might have lived there; but no, she would not."

  "I want to know about the child. She was confined at your house, was she not? Where's the child?"

  "As to the child, I considered that well at the time. She was so bad I never thought she would get up again. Well, so I christened the baby quite properly, and we sent it to the Foundlings'. Why should one let an innocent soul languish when the mother is dying? Others do like this: they just leave the baby, don't feed it, and it wastes away. But, thinks I, no; I'd rather take some trouble, and send it to the Foundlings'. There was money enough, so I sent it off."

  "Did you not get its registration number from the Foundlings' Hospital?"

  "Yes, there was a number, but the baby died," she said. "It died as soon as she brought it there."

  "Who is she?"

  "That same woman who used to live in Skorodno. She made a business of it. Her name was Malania. She's dead now. She was a wise woman. What do you think she used to do? They'd bring her a baby, and she'd keep it and feed it; and she'd feed it until she had enough of them to take to the Foundlings'. When she had three or four, she'd take them all at once. She had such a clever arrangement, a sort of big cradle--a double one she could put them in one way or the other. It had a handle. So she'd put four of them in, feet to feet and the heads apart, so that they should not knock against each other. And so she took four at once. She'd put some pap in a rag into their mouths to keep 'em silent, the pets."

  "Well, go on."

  "Well, she took Katerina's baby in the same way, after keeping it a fortnight, I believe. It was in her house it began to sicken."

  "And was it a fine baby?" Nekhludoff asked.

  "Such a baby, that if you wanted a finer you could not find one. Your very image," the old woman added, with a wink.

  "Why did it sicken? Was the food bad?"

  "Eh, what food? Only just a pretence of food. Naturally, when it's not one's own child. Only enough to get it there alive. She said she just managed to get it to Moscow, and there it died. She brought a certificate--all in order. She was such a wise woman."

  That was all Nekhludoff could find out concerning his child.

  CHAPTER VI

  .

  REFLECTIONS OF A LANDLORD.

  Again striking his head against both doors, Nekhludoff went out into the street, where the pink and the white boys were waiting for him. A few newcomers were standing with them. Among the women, of whom several had babies in their arms, was the thin woman with the baby who had the patchwork cap on its head. She held lightly in her arms the bloodless infant, who kept strangely smiling all over its wizened little face, and continually moving its crooked thumbs.

  Nekhludoff knew the smile to be one of suffering. He asked who the woman was.

  "It is that very Anisia I told you about," said the elder boy.

  Nekhludoff turned to Anisia.

  "How do you live?" he asked. "By what means do you gain your livelihood?"

  "How do I live? I go begging," said Anisia, and began to cry.

  Nekhludoff took out his pocket-book, and gave the woman a 10-rouble note. He had not had time to take two steps before another woman with a baby caught him up, then an old woman, then another young one. All of them spoke of their poverty, and asked for help. Nekhludoff gave them the 60 roubles--all in small notes--which he had with him, and, terribly sad at heart, turned home, i.e., to the foreman's house.

  The foreman met Nekhludoff with a smile, and informed him that the peasants would come to the meeting in the evening. Nekhludoff thanked him, and went straight into the garden to stroll along the paths strewn over with the petals of apple-blossom and overgrown with weeds, and to think over all he had seen.

  At first all was quiet, but soon Nekhludoff heard from behind the foreman's house two angry women's voices interrupting each other, and now and then the voice of the ever-smiling foreman. Nekhludoff listened.

  "My strength's at an end. What are you about, dragging the very cross [those baptized in the Russo-Greek Church always wear a cross round their necks] off my neck," said an angry woman's voice.

  "But she only got in for a moment," said another voice. "Give it her back, I tell you. Why do you torment the beast, and the children, too, who want their milk?"

  "Pay, then, or work it off," said the foreman's voice.

  Nekhludoff left the garden and entered the porch, near which stood two dishevelled women--one of them pregnant and evidently near her time. On one of the steps of the porch, with his hands in the pockets of his holland coat, stood the foreman. When they saw the master, the women were silent, and began arranging the kerchiefs on their heads, and the foreman took his hands out of his pockets and began to smile.

  This is what had happened. From the foreman's words, it seemed that the peasants were in the habit of letting their calves and even their cows into the meadow belonging to the estate. Two cows belonging to the families of these two women were found in the meadow, and driven into the yard. The foreman demanded from the women 30 copecks for each cow or two days' work. The women, however, maintained that the cows had got into the meadow of their own accord; that they had no money, and asked that the cows, which had stood in the blazing sun since morning without food, piteously lowing, should he returned to them, even if it had to be on the understanding that the price should be worked off later on.

  "How often have I not begged of you," said the smiling foreman, looking back at Nekhludoff as if calling upon him to be a witness, "if you drive your cattle home at noon, that you should have an eye on them?"

  "I only ran to my little one for a bit, and they got away."

  "Don't run away when you have undertaken to watch the cows."

  "And who's to feed the little one? You'd not give him the breast, I suppose?" said the other woman. "Now, if they had really damaged the meadow, one would not take it so much to heart; but they only strayed in a moment."

  "All the meadows are damaged," the foreman said, turning to Nekhludoff. "If I exact no penalty there will be no hay."

  "There, now, don't go sinning like that; my cows have never been caught there before," shouted the pregnant woman.

  "Now that one has been caught, pay up or work it off."

  "All right, I'll work it off; only let me have the cow now, don't torture her with hunger," she cried, angrily. "As it is, I have no rest day or night. Mother-in-law is ill, husband taken to drink; I'm all alone to do all the work, and my strength's at an end. I wish you'd choke, you and your working it off."

  Nekhludoff asked the foreman to let the women take the cows, and went back into the garden to go on thinking out his problem, but there was nothing more to think about.

  Everything seemed so clear to him now that he could not stop wondering how it was that everybody did not see it, and that he himself had for such a long while not seen what was so clearly evident. The people were dying out, and had got used to the dying-out process, and had formed habits of life adapted to this process: there was the great mortality among the children, the over-working of the women, the under-feeding, especially of the aged. And so gradually had the people come to this condition that they did not realise the full horrors of it, and did not complain. Therefore, we consider their condition natural and as it should be. Now it seemed as clear as daylight that the chief cause of the people's great want was one that they themselves knew and always pointed out, i.e., that the land which alone could feed them had been taken from them by the landlords.

  And how evident it was that the children and the aged died because they had no milk, and they had no milk because there was no pasture land, and no land to grow corn or make hay on. It was quite ev
ident that all the misery of the people or, at least by far the greater part of it, was caused by the fact that the land which should feed them was not in their hands, but in the hands of those who, profiting by their rights to the land, live by the work of these people. The land so much needed by men was tilled by these people, who were on the verge of starvation, so that the corn might be sold abroad and the owners of the land might buy themselves hats and canes, and carriages and bronzes, etc. He understood this as clearly as he understood that horses when they have eaten all the grass in the inclosure where they are kept will have to grow thin and starve unless they are put where they can get food off other land.