‘See about Fyodor,’ said Arkady Pavlych in a low voice and with perfect self-control.
‘Certainly, sir,’ the fat man answered and went out.
‘Voilà, mon cher, les désagréments de la campagne,’ Arkady Pavlych gaily remarked. ‘And where are you off to? Stay here and sit a while longer.’
‘No,’ I answered, ‘it’s time for me to go.’
‘Always off hunting! You hunters’ll be the death of me! Where are you off to today?’
‘To Ryabovo, about twenty-five miles from here.’
‘To Ryabovo, are you? Good Lord, in that case I’ll come with you. Ryabovo is only about three miles from my own Shipilovka, and I haven’t been in Shipilovka for ages – I haven’t been able to find the time for it. See how things have worked out: you’ll go hunting in Ryabovo today and this evening you’ll be my guest. Ce sera charmant. We’ll have dinner together – we can take my cook with us – and then you’ll spend the night with me. Excellent! Excellent!’ he added without waiting for my answer. ‘C’est arrangé… Hey, is there anyone there? Order them to get the carriage ready, and be quick about it! You’ve never been in Shipilovka, have you? I would hesitate to suggest that you spend the night in my bailiff’s hut except that I know you’re not averse to it and would probably spend the night in Ryabovo in a hay barn… Let’s be off, let’s be off!’
And Arkady Pavlych began singing some French love-song.
‘Of course you very likely don’t know,’ he continued, rocking on his heels, ‘that my peasants there are paying quit-rent. That’s the Constitution for you – what else can one do? However, they pay me their rent correctly. I would long ago, I admit, have had them working for me directly, but there’s not much land there to work: it surprises me really how they make ends meet. However, c’est leur affaire. The bailiff I’ve got there is a good chap, une forte tête, statesman-like! You’ll see how well it’s all worked out, that’s for sure!’
I had no choice. Instead of leaving at nine in the morning we left at two in the afternoon. Hunters will understand my impatience. Arkady Pavlych liked, as he expressed it, ‘to look after himself’ on such an occasion and took with him such a fantastic amount of linen, supplies, clothes, scents, cushions and different cases that any economical and self-disciplined German would have found such an abundance of things sufficient to last him a whole year. At each downgrade Arkady Pavlych delivered a short but strongly worded speech to his driver, from which I was able to conclude that my acquaintance was unmistakably a coward. However, the journey was accomplished very satisfactorily; save that during the crossing of a small, recently repaired bridge, the cart carrying the cook broke down and his stomach was crushed by a rear wheel.
Arkady Pavlych, upon seeing the fall sustained by his home-bred Carême,4 considered it no joking matter, and, in a fright, at once sent word to know whether the man’s hands were unhurt. Having received an affirmative answer, he quickly regained his composure. All in all, we took a fairly long time travelling; I sat in the same carriage as Arkady Pavlych and towards the end of the journey became bored to death, the more so because in the course of several hours my acquaintance had become quite worn out and began pretending to be a liberal. Eventually we arrived, though not at Ryabovo but directly in Shipilovka; somehow or other that’s how it had worked out. That day, regardless, I could not go out hunting, and with a heavy heart I submitted to my fate.
The cook had arrived a few minutes ahead of us and had evidently succeeded in giving orders and warning the people concerned, because upon entering the outskirts of the village we were met by the village elder (the Bailiff’s son), a hefty red-haired peasant a good couple of metres high, on horseback and hatless, with a new coat unbuttoned at the front.
‘But where’s Sofron?’ Arkady Pavlych asked him.
The elder first of all jumped briskly off the horse, bowed low in his master’s direction, declared: ‘Good day to you, good master, Arkady Pavlych,’ then raised his head, gave himself a shake and announced that Sofron had set off for Perov, but that someone had been sent after him.
‘Well, then, follow behind us,’ said Arkady Pavlych.
Out of politeness the elder led his horse to one side, tumbled on to it and set off at a trot behind the carriage, holding his cap in his hand. We drove through the village. We came across several peasants in empty carts on the way; they were driving from the threshing and singing songs, being bounced up and down by their carts with their legs swinging in the air; but at the sight of our carriage and the elder they suddenly grew quiet, took off their winter caps (it was summer at the time) and raised themselves as if expecting to be given orders. Arkady Pavlych bowed graciously to them. An alarmed excitement was clearly spreading through the village. Women in woollen checked skirts flung bits of wood at unappreciative or unduly noisy dogs; a lame old man with a beard that started below his very eyes pulled a horse that had not finished drinking away from the well, struck it for some unknown reason on the flank and then bowed low. Little boys in long shirts ran howling towards the huts, placed their tummies over the high doorsteps, hung their heads down, kicked up their legs behind them and in this way rolled themselves very briskly through the doors and into the dark entrance-ways, from which they did not reappear. Even chickens streamed at a hurried trot through the spaces below the gates; one lively cock, with a black breast like a satin waistcoat and a red tail that twirled right round to its comb, would have remained on the road and was just on the point of crowing, but suddenly took fright and ran off like the others.
The Bailiff’s hut stood on its own amid an allotment of thick green hemp. We stopped in front of the gates. Mr Penochkin stood up, picturesquely threw off his travelling cloak and stepped out of the carriage, looking affably around him. The Bailiff’s wife greeted us with low bows and approached her master’s small hand. Arkady Pavlych permitted her to kiss it to her heart’s content and stepped on to the porch. In the entranceway to the hut, in a dark corner, stood the elder’s wife, who also bowed, but she did not dare to approach the master’s hand. In the so-called cold room, to the right of the entrance, two other women were already busy; they were carrying out all manner of rubbish, such as empty jugs, sheepskin coats of lath-like stiffness, butter jars, a cradle containing a pile of rags and a child arrayed in a motley of garments, and they were sweeping up the dirt with bath-house twigs. Arkady Pavlych sent them packing and set himself down on a bench under the icons. The drivers began to bring in trunks, boxes and other items for their master’s comfort, endeavouring in every possible way to moderate the clattering made by their heavy boots.
Meanwhile, Arkady Pavlych was questioning the elder about the harvest, the sowing and other economic matters. The elder gave satisfactory answers, but somehow flabbily and awkwardly, as if he were doing up the buttons of his coat with frozen fingers. He stood by the door and all the time shrank back and glanced over his shoulder to make way for the bustling valet. Beyond his enormous shoulders I succeeded in catching sight of the Bailiff’s wife quietly pummelling some other woman in the entranceway. Suddenly a cart clattered up and stopped in front of the porch. The Bailiff came in.
This statesman-like man, as Arkady Pavlych had described him, was small in stature, broad-shouldered, grey and thickset, with a red nose, little pale-blue eyes and a beard shaped like a fan. Let me remark in this regard that, ever since Russia has existed, there has never as yet been an example of a man gaining riches and corpulence who has not possessed a thoroughgoing beard; a man may all his Life have worn nothing but a wispy goatee of a beard and suddenly, lo and behold, he’s sprouted all over as if bathed in radiant light – and the wonder is where all the hairs came from! The Bailiff had assuredly been having a drop in Perov: his face had become thoroughly puffy and he dispensed around him strong whiffs of drink.
‘Oh, our veritable father, our benefactor,’ he began in a singsong voice and with such a look of exaltation on his face that it seemed he would instantly burst into tears, ‘you
’ve obliged yourself to visit us! Permit me your hand, your hand,’ he added, stretching out his lips in anticipation. Arkady Pavlych satisfied his wish.
‘Well, Sofron, my friend, how are your affairs going?’ he asked in an unctuous voice.
‘Oh, our veritable father,’ Sofron exclaimed, ‘how could they indeed go badly – our affairs, that is! You, our veritable father, our benefactor, you’ve most surely allowed light to shine into the life of our little village by your visit and you’ve given us pleasure to last the rest of our days! Glory be to thee, O Lord, Arkady Pavlych, glory be to thee, O Lord! Through your gracious kindness everything’s in perfect order.’
At this point Sofron stopped a moment, looked at his master and, as though again carried away by an uncontrollable surge of emotion (the drink, mind you, had a part to play in this), once more asked for a hand and broke out in a singsong worse than before:
‘Oh, our veritable father, our benefactor… and… See what’s happened! My God, I’ve become a complete fool from the joy of it… My God, I look at you and I can’t believe it… Oh, our veritable father!’
Arkady Pavlych glanced at me, smirked and asked: ‘N’est-ce pas que c’est touchant?’
‘Indeed, good master, Arkady Pavlych,’ the indefatigable Bailiff went on, ‘how could you do such a thing? You have crushed me completely by not letting me know of your coming. After all, where’ll you be spending the night? For sure, it’s all filthy dirty here…’
‘It’s nothing, Sofron, nothing,’ Arkady Pavlych answered with a smile. ‘It’s all right here.’
‘But father of us all – who is it really all right for? It may be all right for our peasant friends, but surely you, my father, how can you…? Forgive me, fool that I am, I’ve gone quite out of my wits, my God! I’ve lost all my senses!’
Supper was meanwhile served; Arkady Pavlych began to eat. The old man drove out his son, explaining that he wanted to make the room less stuffy.
‘Well, me old dear, have you marked off the boundaries?’ asked Mr Penochkin, who clearly wanted to give the impression of knowing peasant speech and kept on winking at me.
‘ ’Tis done, good master, all of it done through your kindness. The day afore yesterday documents an’ all were signed. Them Khlynov people at first were for makin’ difficulties, that they were… difficulties, father, an’ no mistake. Such demands they made… demands… God alone knows what they weren’t demanding, but it was all a lot of foolishness, good master, stupid people they are. But we, good master, by your kindness did give thanks and did what was right by Mikolay Mikolayich, the one as was mediatin’, an’ everything was done accordin’ to your orders, good master. Just as you saw fit to order it, that is how it was done, and ’twas all done with the knowledge of Yegor Dmitrich.’
‘So Yegor has informed me,’ Arkady Pavlych remarked importantly.
‘Aye, good master, Yegor Dmitrich.’
‘Well, you ought to be satisfied now, eh?’
Sofron had been waiting for just this.
‘Oh, our veritable father, our benefactor!’ he commenced his singsong again. ‘Have mercy on me, for isn’t it, our veritable father, day in and day out, night in and night out, that we’re all prayin’ to God for ye?… Of course, the land’s on the short side, smallish…’
Penochkin interrupted him:
‘Well, all right, Sofron, I know you serve me conscientiously… Now what about the threshing?’
Sofron sighed.
‘Well, father to us all that you are, the threshin’s not goin’ awful well. An’ there’s something, good master, Arkady Pavlych, let me inform you, some little matter as ’as cropped up.’ (At this point he drew closer to Mr Penochkin with outspread arms, bent forward and screwed up one eye.) ‘A dead body did ’appen to be on our land.’
‘How so?’
‘Can’t apply my mind to understandin’ it, good master, father of us all – likely an enemy, it was, ’as done some devilish work. The blessin’ was that it was by someone else’s hand, and yet – there’s no good concealin’ it – it was right on our land. So I straightaway ordered it to be dragged on t’other land, so long as we had chance of doin’ it, and set a guard by it and told our people: “Don’t no one breathe a word” – that’s what I says. But in any event I explained it to the constable, I did. I said: “It’s how things are” – that’s what I says, and I give him a bit o’ tea and somethin’ what’d make him grateful… An’ so what d’you think, good master? It stayed over on t’others’ land, hangin’ round their necks. An’ after all a dead body’s likely to cost us two hundred roubles – no tuppence-worth o’ bread that isn’t.’
Mr Penochkin laughed a great deal at his Bailiff’s ruse and remarked to me several times, nodding in the old man’s direction. ‘Quel gaillard, hein?’
In the meantime it had become quite dark outside. Arkady Pavlych ordered the table cleared and hay brought in. The valet laid out sheets for us and set out pillows; we lay down. Sofron retired to his quarters, having received the orders for the following day. Arkady Pavlych, on the point of going to sleep, persisted in chatting a little about the splendid qualities of the Russian peasant and remarked to me à propos of this that since Sofron had taken charge of the Shipilovka peasants there had been not so much as a farthing’s-worth of quit-rent arrears… The night-watchman gave a rat-tat on his board; a child, who had evidently not yet succeeded in becoming imbued with the requisite spirit of self-denial, started whimpering somewhere in the hut. We fell asleep.
The next morning we rose fairly early. I had wanted to set off for Ryabovo, but Arkady Pavlych wanted to show me his estate and begged me to stay. For my own part, I was not exactly averse to convincing myself in practice of the splendid qualities of that statesman-like man, Sofron. He appeared. He wore a blue peasant coat tied with a red sash. He was a good deal less talkative than he had been the previous day, directed keen, steady looks into his master’s eyes and gave cogent, business-like answers to questions.
Together with him we set off for the threshing-floor. Sofron’s son, the seven-foot-tall elder, to all appearances a man of extreme stupidity, walked along behind us, and we were also joined by the Bailiff’s clerk, Fedoseyich, an ex-soldier with enormous whiskers and a most unusual expression on his face which suggested that he had been extraordinarily startled by something a very long time ago and had not yet come to his senses. We looked around the threshing-floor, the barn, the store-houses, the outbuildings, the windmill, the cattle-shed, the vegetable allotments and land planted to hemp: everything was undoubtedly in splendid order and it was only the despondent faces of the peasants that gave me cause to feel slightly puzzled. Apart from practical matters, Sofron also concerned himself with making the place pretty: all the banks of the ditches had been planted with broom, paths had been made between the ricks on the threshing-floor and spread with sand, a weathervane had been fixed to the windmill in the shape of a bear with an open maw and red tongue, a kind of Grecian pediment had been stuck on the brick-built cattle-shed and beneath the pediment was written in white paint: ‘Puilt in Shipilofka vilage in year one thousend aight hunted farty. This Cattle Shet.’
Arkady Pavlych was completely overwhelmed and embarked for my benefit on a dissertation in French about the benefits of the quit-rent system, although he remarked by the way that the system of direct work was more profitable for landowners – but what of it, anyhow! He began giving his Bailiff advice on how to plant potatoes, how to prepare fodder for the cattle and so forth. Sofron listened attentively to his master’s words, occasionally making his own comments, but no longer endowing Arkady Pavlych with such grandiose titles as ‘our veritable father’ or ‘our benefactor’, and insisting all the time that the land, after all, was on the small side and that it would do no harm to buy some more.
‘Buy it, then,’ said Arkady Pavlych, ‘in my name, I’m not against that.’
To which Sofron said nothing in return, simply stroked his beard.
‘Now, however, there’d be no harm in riding into the forest,’ remarked Mr Penochkin. At once horses were brought for us and we rode into the forest or ‘reserve’, as we are accustomed to call forest areas. In this ‘reserve’ we found a terrific abundance of thickets and wild life, for which Arkady Pavlych praised Sofron and patted him on the back. Mr Penochkin upheld Russian notions about forestry and recounted to me on the spot a highly diverting – in his view – instance of how a certain landowner, who was fond of joking, had enlightened his woodsman by pulling out practically half the man’s beard as proof of the fact that felling trees does not make a forest grow any thicker… Nevertheless, in other respects, Sofron and Arkady Pavlych did not fight shy of innovations. On returning to the village, the Bailiff took us to see the winnowing machine which he had recently ordered from Moscow. The winnowing machine, it is true, worked well, but if Sofron had known the unpleasantness that awaited both him and his master on this final walk, he would no doubt have stayed at home with us.
This is what happened. As we left the outbuilding, we were confronted with the following spectacle. A few steps from the door, beside a muddy pool of water in which three ducks were carelessly splashing about, two peasants were kneeling: one was an old man of about sixty, the other a young fellow of about twenty, both barefoot, in patched shirts made of coarse hemp with rope belts at the waist. The clerk, Fedoseyich, was zealously fussing round them and would probably have succeeded in persuading them to go away, if we had stayed longer in the outbuilding, but on catching sight of us, he straightened up taut as a violin string and froze on the spot. The elder also stood there with wide-open mouth and fists clenched in bewilderment. Arkady Pavlych frowned, bit his lip and approached the petitioners. Both of them bowed silently at his feet.
‘What’s up with you? What are you petitioning about?’ he asked in a stern voice and slightly through the nose. (The peasants looked at each other and said not a word, simply screwed up their eyes, just as if the sun were blinding them, and began to breathe faster.)