Leo Tolstoy Archive
Written: 1852
Source: Original Text from WikiSource.org
Transcription/Markup: Andy Carloff
Online Source: RevoltLib.com; 2021
The young proprietor, as he wrote to his aunt, had formed rules of action for his estate, and all his life and occupations were scheduled by hours, days, and months. Sunday was appointed for the reception of petitioners, domestic and manorial serfs, for the inspection of the farms of the needy peasants, and for the distribution of supplies with the consent of the Commune, which met every Sunday evening, and was to decide what aid each was to receive. More than a year passed in these occu- pations, and the young man was not entirely a novice, either in the practical or in the theoretical knowledge of farming.
It was a clear June Sunday when Nekhlyudov, after drinking his coffee, and running through a chapter of " Maison Eustique," with a note-book and a package of bills in the pocket of his light overcoat, walked out of the large, columnated, and terraced country-house, in which he occupied a small room on the lower story, and directed his way, over the neglected, weed-grown paths of the old English garden, to the village that was situated on both sides of the highway. Nekhlyudov was a tall, slender young man with long, thick, wavy, auburn hair, with a bright sparkle in his black eyes, with red cheeks, and ruby lips over which the first down of youth was just appearing. In all his movements and in his gait were to be seen strength, energy, and the good-natured self-satisfaction of youth. The peasants were returning in variegated crowds from church ; old men, girls, children, women with their suckling babes, in gala attire, were scattering to their huts, bowing low to their master, and making a circuit around him. When Nekhlyudov reached the street, he stopped, drew his note-book from his pocket, and on the last page, which was covered with a childish handwriting, read several peasant names, with notes. "Ivan Churis asked for fork posts," he read, and, proceeding in the street, walked up to the gate of the second hut on the right.
Churis's dwelling consisted of a half-rotten log square, musty at the corners, bending to one side, and so sunken in the ground that one broken, red, shding window, with its battered shutter, and another smaller window, stopped up with a bundle of flax, were to be seen right over the dung-heap. A plank vestibule, with a decayed threshold and low door ; another smaller square, more rickety and lower than the vestibule ; a gate, and a wicker shed clung to the main hut. All that had at one time been covered by one uneven thatch ; but now the black, rotting straw hung only over the eaves, so that in places the framework and the rafters could be seen. In front of the yard was a well, with a dilapidated box, with a remnant of a post and wheel, and a dirty puddle made by the tramping of the cattle, in which some ducks were splashing. Near the well stood two ancient, cracked, and broken willows, with scanty, pale green leaves. Under one of these willows, which witnessed to the fact that at some time in the past some one had tried to beautify the spot, sat an eight-year-old blond little maiden, with another two-year-old girl crawling on the ground. A pup, which was wagging his tail near them, ran headlong under the gate, the moment he noticed the master, and from there burst into a frightened, quivering bark.
" Is Ivan at home ? " asked Nekhlyudov.
The older girl was almost petrified at this question, and was opening her eyes wider and wider, but did not answer; the smaller one opened her mouth, and was getting ready to cry. A small old woman, in a torn checkered dress, girded low with an old, reddish belt, looked from behind the door, but did not answer. Nekhlyudov walked up to the vestibule, and repeated his question.
" At home, benefactor," said the old woman, in a quivering voice, bowing low, and agitated with terror.
When Nekhlyudov greeted her, and passed through the vestibule into the narrow yard, the old woman put her hand to her chin, walked up to the door, and, without turning her eyes away from the master, began slowly to shake her head.
The yard looked wretched. Here and there lay old blackened manure that had not been removed; on the manure-heap lay carelessly a musty block, a fork, and two harrows. The sheds about the yard, under which stood, on one side, a plow and a cart without a wheel, and lay a mass of empty, useless beehives in confusion, were nearly all unthatched, and one side had fallen in, so that the girders no longer rested on the fork posts, but on the manure.
Churis, striking with the edge and head of his ax, was trying to remove a wicker fence which the roof had crushed. Ivan Churis was a man about fifty years of age. He was below the average height. The features of his tanned, oblong face, encased in an auburn beard with streaks of gray, and thick hair of the same color, were fair and expressive. His dark blue, half-shut eyes shone with intelligence and careless good nature. A small, regular mouth, sharply defined under a scanty blond mustache, expressed, whenever he smiled, calm self-confidence and a certain derisive indifference to his surroundings. From the coarseness of his skin, deep wrinkles, sharply defined veins on his neck, face, and hands, from his unnatural stoop, and crooked, arch-like legs, it could be seen that all his life had passed in extremely hard labor, which was beyond his strength. His attire consisted of white hempen drawers, with blue patches over his knees, and a similar dirty shirt, which was threadbare on his back and arms. The shirt was girded low by a thin ribbon, from which hung a brass key.
" God aid you ! " said the master, entering the yard.
Churis looked around him, and again took up his work. After an energetic effort he straightened out the wicker work from under the shed ; then only he struck the ax into a block, pulled his shirt in shape, and walked into the middle of the yard.
" I wish you a pleasant holiday, your Grace ! " he said, making a low obeisance, and shaking his hair.
" Thank you, my dear. I just came to look at your farm," said Nekhlyudov, with childish friendliness and embarrassment, examining the peasant's garb. " Let me see for what you need the fork posts that you asked of me at the meeting of the Commune."
" The forks ? Why, your Grace, you know what forks are for. I just wanted to give a little support to it, — you may see for yourself. Only a few days ago a corner fell in, and by God's kindness there were no animals in it at the time. It barely hangs together," said Churis, contemptuously surveying his unthatched, crooked, and dilapidated sheds. " When it comes to that, there is not a decent girder, rafter, or box case in them. Where am I to get the timber ? You know that yourself."
" Then why do you ask for five forks when one shed is all fallen in, and the others soon will fall ? What you need is not forks, but rafters, girders, posts, — all new ones," said the master, obviously parading his familiarity with the subject.
Churis was silent.
"What you need, therefore, is timber and not forks. You ought to have said so."
" Of course, I need that, but where am I to get it ? It won't do to go for everything to the manor. What kind of peasants should we be if we were permitted to go to the manor to ask your Grace for everything ? But if you will permit me to take the oak posts that are lying uselessly in the threshing-floor of the manor," he said, bowing, and resting now on one foot, now on the other, " I might manage, by changing some, and cutting down others, to fix something with that old material."
" With the old material ? But you say yourself that everything of yours is old and rotten. To-day one corner is falling in, to-morrow another, and day after to-morrow a third. So, if you are to do anything about it, you had better put in everything new, or else your labor will be lost. Tell me, what is your opinion ? Can your buildings last through the winter, or not ? "
" Who knows ? "
" No, what do you think ? Will they fall in, or not ? "
Churis meditated for a moment.
" It will all fall in," he said, suddenly.
" Well, you see, you ought to have said at the meeting that you have to get the whole property mended, and not that you need a few forks. I am only too glad to aid you."
" We are very well satisfied with your favor," answered Churis, incredulously, without looking at the master. " If you would only favor me with four logs and the forks, I might manage it myself; and whatever useless timber I shall take out, might be used for supports in the hut."
" Is your hut in a bad condition, too ? "
" My wife and I are expecting every moment to be crushed," Churis answered, with indifference. " Lately a strut from the ceiling struck down my old woman."
" What ? Struck down ? "
" Yes, struck her down, your Grace. It just whacked her on the back so that she was left for dead until the evening."
" Well, did she get over it ? "
" She did get over it, but she is ailng now. Although, of course, she has been sickly since her birth."
" What, are you sick ? " Nekhlyudov asked the old woman, who continued to stand in the door, and began to groan the moment her husband spoke of her.
" Something catches right in here, that's all," she answered, pointing to her dirty, emaciated bosom.
" Again ! " angrily exclaimed the young master, shrugging his shoulders. " There you are, sick, and you did not come to the hospital. That is what the hospital was made for. Have you not been told of it ? "
" They told us, benefactor, but we have had no time : there is the manorial work, and the house, and the children, — I am all alone ! There is nobody to help me — "