5

NEKHLYUDOV felt more at ease with the boys than with the older folk, and chatted to them as they went along. The little boy in the pink shirt stopped laughing and talked as intelligently and sensibly as the older child.

‘Who are the poorest people in your village?’ Nekhlyudov asked them.

‘The poorest? Mikhail is poor. So is Simeon Makarov. And Marfa’s mighty poor.’

‘What about Anisya –she’s poorer ’n any of ’em. Anisya ain’t even got a cow. They ’ave to go beggin’ for their livin’,’ said little Fedka.

‘She ain’t got no cow but there’s only three of ’em; but Marfa’s got five mouths to feed,’ objected the elder boy.

‘But the other one’s a widow‚’ said the little pink-shirted boy, standing up for Anisya.

‘You say Anisya’s a widow, but Marfa’s just the same as a widow,’ continued the elder boy. ‘She ain’t got no ‘usband either.’

‘Where is her husband, then?’ asked Nekhlyudov.

‘In gaol, feedin’ lice,’ said the elder boy, using the expression common among the peasants.

‘Last summer ’cos ’e cut down a couple of little birch-trees in the forest, they shut ’im up in prison – ’cos the forest belongs to the gentry, you see,’ the little boy in pink hastened to explain. ‘ ’E’s been there six months now, an’ ’is wife ‘as to go beggin’. She’s got three children an’ a poor old grandmother,’ he added circumstantially.

‘Where does she live?’ asked Nekhlyudov.

‘Over there – that’s their ’ome,’ said the boy, pointing to a hut in front of which, on the footpath where Nekhlyudov was walking, a tiny tow-haired child stood balancing itself with difficulty on its rickety legs.

‘Vasska! Where’s the little scamp got to?’ shouted a woman in a dirty grey blouse (it looked as if it had been dusted with ashes) who came running out of the hut. She rushed forward in front of Nekhlyudov, seized the child and carried it into the hut, her frightened face implying a fear that Nekhlyudov might do the baby some harm.

This was the woman whose husband was in gaol for cutting down Nekhlyudov’s birch-trees.

‘Well, and what about Matriona – is she poor?’ Nekhlyudov asked as they approached Matriona’s door.

‘She poor? Not likely. She sells spirits,’ the thin little boy in the pink shirt answered decidedly.

When they reached Matriona’s hut Nekhlyudov left the boys outside and went through the passage into the hut. Old Matriona’s hovel was just fourteen feet long and the bed which stood behind the stove would have been too short for a tall man to stretch out in. ‘On that very bed,’ Nekhlyudov thought, ‘Katusha bore her baby and then lay so ill.’ Most of the hut was taken up by a loom on which the old woman and her eldest grand-daughter were arranging the warp when Nekhlyudov entered, hitting his head against the low doorway. Two other grandchildren rushed headlong in after Nekhlyudov and stopped behind him in the doorway, clinging to the lintel.

‘Who is it you want?’ the old woman asked crossly, in a bad temper because the loom was giving trouble. Besides, as she carried on an illicit trade in spirits, she was afraid of all strangers.

‘I am the owner of the estate. I should like to speak to you.’

The old woman was silent, regarding him intently; then she was suddenly transformed.

‘Why it’s you, me dearie! What an old fool I am, not to recognize you. I thought it was someone passing by,’ she said in dulcet tones that did not ring true. ‘So it’s you, me blessed lamb…’

‘I should like a word with you alone,’ said Nekhlyudov, with a glance towards the open door where the children were standing, and behind them an emaciated woman holding a pale sickly baby, though it smiled all the time, wearing a little patchwork cap.

‘What are you staring at? I’ll give it to you! Just let me have me crutch!’ the old woman shouted at them. ‘Go on, shut that door!’

The children ran off, and the woman with the baby closed the door.

‘Thinks I to meself, now who can that be? And it’s the master himself, me jewel, me treasure!’ said the old woman. ‘To think that he should condescend to come here! Sit down, sweetheart, sit down, your honour, sit on the bench here,’ she said, dusting the bench with her apron. ‘And I was thinking who the devil was it coming in, and it’s your honour himself, our good master, our benefactor and protector. Forgive me, the old fool that I am – I must be going blind.’

Nekhlyudov sat down; the old woman stood in front of him, leaning her cheek on her right hand, her left hand supporting her bony elbow, and went on in a sing-song voice:

‘Dear me, your honour’s aged all right. Why, you used to be as fair as a daisy, and look at you now! I can see you have cares, too.’

‘I came to ask you something: do you remember Katusha Maslova?’

‘Katerina! I should think I do! She’s me own niece… I’m not likely to forget her, after all the tears I shed because of her. I know all about it. Eh, sir, show me the man who hasn’t sinned before God, who hasn’t offended against the Tsar. You were both young in those days, you used to drink tea and coffee together, so the devil got hold of you. He’s a strong one, he is! Well, there was no help for it. Now if you had thrown her out, but no, you did honest and fair by her, paid her a hundred roubles. And what did she do? She wouldn’t be reasonable. If she had listened to me, she’d have been all right. I must call a spade a spade, though she is my niece – that girl’s no good. I got a fine place for her, but she wouldn’t knuckle down, she was high and mighty with the master. Is it for the likes of us to put on airs with the gentry? Of course she lost the place. Then there was the forester’s: she might have stayed there, but she wouldn’t.’

‘I wanted to ask you about the child she had. She was confined here, wasn’t she? Where is the child?’

‘The child, sir, I thought a lot about the child at the time. She was mighty bad, I never expected her to get up again. So I christened the baby, proper like, and sent it to the Foundlings’.¹ Why leave a little angel to suffer because the mother is dying? I know plenty of them just leave the baby, don’t feed it and it dies. But no, thinks I, I’d rather take some trouble, and send it to the Foundlings’. We had the money, so we could send it away.’

‘Did he have a registration number?’

‘Yes, there was a number, but the child went and died straight off. She said she’d hardly got there before it snuffed out.’

‘Who is she?’

‘The woman who used to live in Skorodnoye. She made a business of it. Malanya was her name, she’s dead now. She was a clever one. What do you think she used to do? They’d bring her a baby, and she’d keep it and feed it till she had enough of them to take to the Foundlings’. And when she’d collected three or four of the little things, she’d take ’em off all together. Arranged it all so clever – she had a large cradle, a sort of double one, so she could put them in this way and that. And there was a handle to it. She would place four of’em with their heads at each end and feet together in the middle, so they shouldn’t kick each other, and that way she’d carry four at a time. She’d stick a rag dummy in their little mouths to keep ’em quiet, the pets.’

‘Well, go on.’

‘Well, she took Katerina’s baby, too. Kept it a couple of weeks or so first, I believe. It got worms while it was still with her.’

‘Was it a healthy child?’ asked Nekhlyudov.

‘Afiner child as you’d find nowhere. The image of its father,’ the old woman added with a wink.

‘Then why did it sicken? I suppose it wasn’t fed properly?’

‘Fed properly? It only got a lick and a promise. It wasn’t her child. All she cared about was to get him there alive. She told us it snuffed out just as they reached Moscow. She brought back a certificate and everything. A clever one, she was.’

And that was all Nekhlyudov could find out about his child.