2

NEKHLYUDOV woke at nine o’clock in the morning. The young clerk who waited on ‘the master’ heard him stir and 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 beginning to assemble. Nekhlyudov jumped out of bed, collecting his thoughts. Not a trace remained of yesterday’s regret at the idea of surrendering the land and breaking up the estate. He was surprised that he had ever felt any regret. Now he looked forward happily to what lay before him, and was involuntarily proud of it. Through the window he could see the tennis court, overgrown with succory, where the peasants were gathering in obedience to the orders of the bailiff. No wonder the frogs had been croaking the night before: it was a cloudy morning. There was no wind. A soft warm rain had been falling since early in the day and hung in drops on leaves, twigs and grass. Through the window came the smell of earth crying for more rain, as well as the fragrance of fresh vegetation. While dressing, Nekhlyudov several times looked out of the window to watch the peasants gathering on the tennis court. One by one they arrived, took off their caps as they bowed to one another, and placed themselves in a circle, leaning on their sticks. The bailiff, a stout, muscular strong young man in short pea-jacket with a green stand-up collar and enormous buttons, came in to tell Nekhlyudov that they were all assembled but that they could wait until Nekhlyudov had had his breakfast – tea or coffee, whichever he pleased, both were ready.

‘No, I would rather go and see them at once,’ said Nekhlyudov, feeling quite unexpectedly shy and ill at ease at the thought of the talk he was going to have with the peasants.

He was about to fulfil their dearest wish – one they never dared dream of even: to let the land to them at a low price; that is, he was going to do them a great kindness, and yet he felt ashamed of something. When he went out to them and the brown heads and grey heads, curly heads and bald heads were bared before him he was so embarrassed that he could say nothing. The rain continued to fall in a fine drizzle, leaving drops clinging to their hair, their beards and the nap of their long tunics. The peasants looked at ‘the master’, waiting to hear what he had to say to them, but he was too abashed to speak. The awkward silence was broken by the quiet, self-possessed German bailiff, who considered that what he didn’t know about the Russian peasant wasn’t worth knowing, and who spoke Russian like a native. This overfed Hercules of a man, like Nekhlyudov himself, presented a striking contrast to the peasants with their thin wrinkled faces and lean shoulder-blades sticking out under their tunics.

‘The prince here wishes to do you a good turn – he is drinking of letting the land to you, only you don’t deserve it,’ said the bailiff.

‘Why don’t we deserve it, Vassily Karlovich? Haven’t we worked well for you? The late mistress – the Kingdom of Heaven to her! – was very good to us, and the young prince, God be thanked, doesn’t abandon us,’ began a red-haired peasant who had the gift of the gab.

‘I have called you here because I want you to have all the land, if you would like it,’ Nekhlyudov brought out.

The peasants were silent; either they did not understand him or they could not believe their ears.

‘How do you mean – let us have the land?’ asked a middle-aged peasant in a long-waisted coat.

‘To let you have it to farm for yourselves, and charge you a very small rent.’

‘I say, that’s something like,’ said an old man.

‘If only the rent won’t be more than us can afford,’ said another.

‘Why shouldn’t we take the land?’

‘We know how to farm – we make our living off the land!’

‘All the better for him, it’ll be,’ several voices were heard saying. ‘Nothing to do but sit and let the money come in. But think of the worry and trouble there is now!’

‘It’s you who cause the worry and trouble,’ said the German. ‘If only you did your work properly and behaved yourselves…’

‘That’s easy said, Vassily Karlovich,’ put in a thin sharp-nosed little old man. ‘You say to me, “Why did you let your ’orse get into the wheat?” but let me ask you ’ose fault it was. All day long likely I was swinging a scythe or something, till the day seems as long as a year, or I drops off to sleep while I’m watching the ’orses at night, and before I knows it me ’orse is in your wheat. Then you flay me alive.’

‘Well, you should be more careful.’

‘It’s all very well for you to say that, but it just ain’t in us,’ objected a tall, shaggy, dark-haired man, who was not very old.

‘Then why don’t you give us the timber,’ protested a short ill-favoured little peasant from the back. ‘I was goin’ to put up a fence this ‘ere summer, and cut down a sapling, when you stuck me in the lock-up to be eaten by vermin for three months. That was the end of that fence.’

‘What is he talking about?’ Nekhlyudov asked the bailiff.

‘Der erste Dieb im Dorfe,’¹ answered the bailiff in German. ‘Every year he’s caught stealing wood from the forest. You’d better learn to respect other people’s property,’ he said.

‘Don’t we show you respect enough?’ said an old man. ‘We can’t not show you respect because we’re in your power: you do what you like with us.’

‘Oh, there’s no getting the better of you, my fine fellow: all I ask is that you shouldn’t get the better of us.’

‘Is that so, indeed! Didn’t you smash my jaw for me last summer, and did I get any damages? You know yourself it’s no good goin’ to law with the rich.’

‘And you see to it you don’t break the law.’

Obviously this was a tournament of words, with the participants not understanding too clearly what they were arguing about or why. But it was not difficult to discern bitterness held in check by fear on the one side, and on the other a consciousness of superiority and power. Nekhlyudov found it distressing to listen to, and he tried to return to the matter about the rent and dates of payment.

‘Well now, about the land. Do you want it? And what rent do you suggest if I let you have it all?’

‘It’s your land, you say what you want.’

Nekhlyudov named a figure. As always, though it was much lower than other rents paid in the neighbourhood, the peasants began to haggle and to find the figure too high. Nekhlyudov had expected that his offer would be welcomed with delight, but no signs of pleasure were visible. Only one thing showed Nekhlyudov that his offer was to the peasants’ advantage, and that was the bitter disputes which broke out when the question of who should rent the land was discussed: should it be the whole commune or a representative body from each village? The peasants in favour of keeping out the feeble and the poor payers argued fiercely with those they wanted to exclude. At last, thanks to the bailiff, the amount of rent and dates of payment were settled, and the peasants, talking noisily, started down the hill in the direction of their villages, while Nekhlyudov and the bailiff went into the office to draw up the terms of the agreement.

Everything was arranged in the way Nekhlyudov wanted and expected it to be: the peasants were to receive the land at about thirty per cent less than was asked in the neighbourhood; his income from the land was cut to almost half, but was more than enough for Nekhlyudov, especially with the addition of the sum he received for a forest he sold, and another which he would get from the sale of his livestock and farm machinery. Everything, it would seem, was going splendidly, yet all the time Nekhlyudov felt restless and ill at ease with himself. He saw that the peasants, though they spoke words of gratitude to him, were dissatisfied and had expected something more. It turned out that he had made a serious sacrifice and yet not fulfilled the peasants’ expectations.

On the following day the agreement was signed between them, and Nekhlyudov, escorted by a deputation of elderly peasants who had come to see him off, stepped into the bailiff’s ‘swell’ troika (as the driver from the station had called it) and drove off to catch the train, with the unpleasant feeling of something left unfinished. He said good-bye to the peasants, who stood puzzled and discontentedly shaking their heads. Nekhlyudov was dissatisfied with himself. What made him dissatisfied, he did not know, but he felt all the time depressed for some reason, and for some reason ashamed.