“Have you many hives? “he asked, retreating to the gate.
“As many as God has given,” answered Dutlov, smiling. “One must not count them, father! the bees do not like that. Now, your Grace, I wanted to ask you,” he continued, pointing to thin hives that stood near the fence, “in regard to Osip, the nurse’s husband. Could you not tell him to stop it? It is mean to act thus to a neighbour of your own village.”
“What is mean? — But they do sting me! “answered the master, taking hold of the latch of the gate.
“Every year he lets out his bees against my young ones. They ought to have a chance to improve, but somebody else’s bees steal their wax, and do other damage,” said the old man, without noticing the master’s grimaces.
“All right, later, directly,” said Nekhlyiidov, and, unable to stand the pain any longer, he rushed out of the gate, defending himself with both hands.
“Rub it in with dirt; it will pass,” said the old man, following the master into the yard. The master rubbed with dirt the place where he had been stung, blushingly looked at Karp and Iguat, who did not see him, and frowned angrily.
XVI
“I WANTED TO ask your Grace about my children,” said the old man, accidentally or purposely paying no attention to the master’s angry look.
“What?”
“Thank the Lord, we are well off for horses, and we have a hired man, so there will be no trouble about the manorial dues.”
“What of it?”
“If you would be kind enough to let my sons substitute money payment for their manorial labour, Ilyushka and Ignat would take out three troykas to do some teaming all summer. They may be able to earn something.”
“Where will they go?”
“Wherever it may be,” replied Ilyushka, who had in the meantime tied the horses under the shed, and had come up to his father. “The Kadma boys took eight troykas out to Eomen, and they made a good living, and brought back home thirty roubles for each troyka; and they say fodder is cheap in Odessa.”
“It is precisely this that I wanted to talk to you about,” said the master, turning to the old man, and trying to introduce the discussion about the farm as deftly as possible. “Tell me, if you please, is it more profitable to do hauling than attend to a farm?”
“No end more profitable, your Grace! “again interrupted Ilya, boldly shaking his hair. “There is no fodder at home to feed the horses with.”
“Well, and how much do you expect to earn in a summer?”
“In the spring, when fodder was dreadfully expensive, we travelled to Kiev with goods; in Kursk we again took a load of grits for Moscow, and we made our living, the horses had enough to eat, and I brought fifteen roubles home.”
“It is not a disgrace to have an honest trade,” said the master, again turning to the old man, “but it seems to me one might find another occupation; besides, it is a kind of work where a young fellow travels about, sees all kinds of people, and gets easily spoilt,” he said, repeating Karp’s words.
“What are we peasants to take up, if not hauling? “answered the old man, with his gentle smile. “If you have a good job at teaming, you yourself have enough to eat, and so have the horses. And as to spoiling, thank the Lord, they are not hauling the first year; and I myself have done teaming, and have never seen anything bad, nothing but good.”
“There are many things you might take up at home : land and meadows— “
“How can we, your Grace? “Ilyiishka interrupted him with animation. “We were born for this; we know all about it; the business is adapted to us, and we like it very much, your Grace, and there is nothing like teaming for us fellows.”
“Your Grace, will you do us the honour to walk into the hut? You have not yet seen our new house,” said the old man, bowing low, and winking to his son. Ilyushka ran at full speed into the hut, and Nekhlyudov followed him, with the old man.
XVII
WHEN THEY ENTERED the hut, the old man bowed again, wiped off the bench in the front corner with the flap of his coat, and, smiling, asked :
“What may we serve to you, your Grace?”
The hut was white (with a chimney), spacious, and had both hanging and bench beds. The fresh aspen-wood beams, between which the moss-calking had just begun to fade, had not yet turned black; the new benches and beds had not yet become smooth, and the floor was not yet stamped down.
A young, haggard peasant woman, with an oval, pensive face, Ilya’s wife, was sitting on the bench-bed, and rocking with her foot a cradle that hung down from the ceiling by a long pole. In the cradle a suckling babe lay stretched out, and slept, barely breathing, and closing its eyes. Another, a plump, red-cheeked woman, Karp’s wife, stood, with her sunburnt arms bared above the elbows, near the oven, and cut onions into a wooden bowl. A third, a pockmarked, pregnant woman, stood at the oven, shielding herself with her sleeve. The hut was hot, not only from the sun, but from the oven also, and was fragrant with freshly baked bread. From the hanging beds the flaxen heads of two boys and a girl, who had climbed there in expectation of dinner, looked down with curiosity at the master.
Nekhlyudov was happy to see this well-being; but, at the same time, he felt embarrassed before these women and children who gazed at him. He sat down on the bench, blushing.
“Give me a piece of warm bread, I like it,” he said, and blushed even more.
Karp’s wife cut off a big slice of bread, and handed it to the master on a plate. Nekhlyudov was silent, not knowing what to say; the women were silent, too; the old man smiled gently.
“Really, what am I ashamed of? I am acting as though I were guilty of something,” thought Nekhlyudov. “Why should I not make the proposition about the farm to him? How foolish! “But still he kept silent.
“Well, Father Dmitri Nikolaevich, what will your order be about the boys? “said the old man.
“I should advise you not to send them away, but to find work for them here,” suddenly spoke Nekhlyudov, taking courage. “Do you know what I have thought out for you? Buy in partnership with me a young grove in the Crown forest, and fields— “
“How, your Grace? Where shall I get the money for it? “he interrupted the master.
“A small grove, for about two hundred roubles,” remarked Nekhlyiidov.
The old man smiled angrily.
“It would not hurt to buy it if I had the money,” he said.
“Do you mean to tell me you have not that amount? “said the master, reproachfully.
“Oh, your Grace! “answered the old man, in a sorrowful voice, looking at the door. “I have enough to do to feed the family, and it is not for me to buy groves.”
“But you have money, and why should it lie idle? “insisted Nekhlyudov.
The old man became greatly agitated; his eyes flashed, he began to shrug his shoulders.
“It may be evil people have told you something about me,” he spoke in a trembling voice, “but, as you believe in God,” he said, becoming more and more animated, and turning his eyes to the image, “may my eyes burst, may I go through the floor, if I have anything outside of the fifteen roubles which Ilyushka has brought me, and I must pay the capitation tax, and, you know yourself, I have just built a new hut— “
“All right, all right! “said the master, rising from the bench. “Good-bye, people!”
XVIII
“MY GOD! MY God! “thought Nekhlyudov, making his way with long strides to the house through the shady avenues of the weed-grown garden, and absent-mindedly tearing off leaves and branches on his way. “Is it possible all my dreams of the aims and duties of my life have been absurd? Why do I feel so oppressed and melancholy, as though I were dissatisfied with myself, whereas I had imagined that the moment I entered on the path, I would continually experience that fulness of a morally satisfied feeling which I had experienced when these thoughts came to me for the first time?”
He transferred himself, in imagination, with extraordinary vividness and clearness, a year back, to that blissful moment.
He had risen early in the morning before everybody in the house, painfully agitated by some secret, inexpressible impulses of youth; had aimlessly walked into the garden, thence into the forest; and, amidst the strong, luscious, but calm Nature of a May day, he had long wandered alone, without thought, suffering from an excess of some feeling, and unable to find an expression for it.
His youthful imagination, full of the charm of the unknown, represented to him the voluptuous image of a woman, and it seemed to him that this was the unexpressed desire. But another higher feeling said to him, “Not this,” and compelled him to seek something else. Then again, his vivid imagination, rising higher and higher, into the sphere of abstractions, opened up to him. as he thought, the laws of being, and he dwelt with proud delight upon these thoughts.
And again a higher feeling said, “Not this,” and again caused him to seek and be agitated.
Without ideas and desires, as always happens after an intensified activity, he lay down on his
