“I hear, sir,” he slowly muttered through his teeth.
X
JUST THEN THE head of a peasant woman carrying linen on a yoke flashed by the window, and a minute later Davydka’s mother entered the hut. She was a tall woman of about fifty years, and was well preserved and active. Her pockmarked and wrinkled face was not handsome, but her straight, firm nose, her compressed thin lips, and her keen gray eyes expressed intelligence and energy. The angularity of her shoulders, the flatness of her bosom, the bony state of her hands, and the well-developed muscles on her black bare feet witnessed to the fact that she had long ceased to be a woman, and was only a labourer.
She entered boldly into the room, closed the door, pulled down her skirt, and angrily looked at her son. Nekhlyudov wanted to tell her something, but she turned away from him, and began to make the signs of the cross before a black wooden image that peered out from behind the loom. Having finished her devotion, she straightened out her dirty checkered kerchief in which her head was wrapped, and made a low obeisance before the master.
“A pleasant Lord’s Day to your Grace,” she said. “May God preserve you, our father — !”
When Davydka saw his mother he evidently became embarrassed, bent his back a little, and lowered his neck even more.
“Thank you, Arina,” answered Nekhlyudov. “I have just been speaking with your son about your farm.”
Anna, or, as the peasants had called her when she was still a maiden, Arishka-Burlak,^ supported her chin with the fist of her right hand, which, in its turn, was resting on the palm of her left hand; and, without hearing what the master had still to say, began to speak in such a penetrating and loud voice that the whole hut was filled with sound, and in the street it might have appeared that several women were speaking at the same time.
“What use, father, is there of speaking to him? He can’t even speak like a man. There he stands, block-head,” she continued, contemptuously pointing with her head to Davydka’s wretched, massive figure. “My farm, your Grace? We are mendicants; there are no people in your whole village more wretched : we have neither of our own, nor anything for the manorial dues — a shame! He has brought us to all this. I bore him, raised, and fed him, and with anticipation waited for him to grow up. Here he is: the grain is bursting, but there is no more work in him than in this rotten log. All he knows how to do is to lie on the oven, or to stand and scratch his stupid head,” she said, mocking him. “If you, father, could threaten him somehow! I beg you : punish him for the Lord’s sake; send him to the army, and make an end of it. I have lost my patience with him, I tell you.”
“How is it you are not ashamed, Davydka, to bring your mother to such a state? “said Nekhlyudov, reproachfully turning to the peasant.
Davydka did not budge.
“It would be different if he were a sickly man,” Arina continued, with the same vivacity and gestures, “but you look at him, he is fatter than a mill pig. He is a good-looking chap, fit enough to work! But no, he lies like a lubber all day on the oven. My eyes get tired looking when he undertakes to do something; when he rises, or moves, or anything,” she said, drawling her words and awkwardly turning her angular shoulders from side to side. “Now, for example, to-day the old man has gone for brushwood into the forest, and he has told him to dig holes; but no, not he, he has not had the spade in his hands— “She grew silent for a moment. “He has undone me, abandoned woman! “she suddenly whined, waving her hands, and walking up to her son with a threatening gesture. “Your smooth, good-for-nothing snout, the Lord forgive me!”
She turned away contemptuously and in despair from him, spit out, and again turned to the master, continuing to wave her hands, with the same animation and with tears in her eyes :
“I am all alone, benefactor. My old man is sick and old, and there is little good in him, and I am all sole alone. It is enough to make a stone burst. It would be easier if I just could die; that would be the end. He has worn me out, that rascal! Our father! I have no more strength! My daughter-in-law died from work, and I shall, too.”
1 Biu’lak is a labourer towing boats up the Volga.
XI
“WHAT, DIED? “NEKHLYUDOV asked, incredulously.
“She died from exertion, benefactor, as God is holy. We took her two years ago from Baburin,” she continued, suddenly changing her angry expression to one of tearfulness and sadness. “She was a young, healthy, obedient woman, father. She had lived, as a maiden, in plenty, at her father’s home, and had experienced no want; but when she came to us, and had to do the work, — in the manor and at home, and everywhere — She and I, that was all there was. To me it did not matter much. I am used to it, but she was pregnant, and began to suffer; and she worked all the while beyond her strength, until she, my dear girl, overworked herself. Last year, during St. Peter’s Fast, she, to her misfortune, bore a boy, and there was no bread; we barely managed to pick up something, father; the hard work was on hand, and her breasts dried up.
It was her first-born, there was no cow, and we are peasant people, and it is not for us to bring up children on the bottle; and, of course, she was a foolish woman, and worried her life away. And when her baby died, she cried and cried from sorrow, and sobbed and sobbed, my darling, and there was want, and work, ever worse and worse; she wore herself out all summer, and died, my darling, on the day of St. Mary’s Intercession. It is he who has undone her, beast! “She again turned to her son with the anger of despair. « I wanted to ask you, your Grace,” she continued after a short silence, lowering her head, and bowing.
“What is it? “Nekhlyudov asked absent-mindedly, still agitated by her recital.
“He is a young man yet. You can’t expect much work from me; to-day I am alive, to-morrow dead. How can he be without a wife? He will not be a peasant, if he is not married. Have pity on us, father.”
“That is, you want to marry him off? Well?”
“Do us this favour before God! You are our father and mother.”
She gave her son a sign, and both dropped on the ground before their master’s feet.
“Why do you make these earth obeisances? “said Nekhlyudov, angrily raising her by her shoulder. “Can’t you tell it without doing so? You know that I do not like it. Marry off your son, if you wish. I should be glad to hear that you have a bride in view.”
The old woman rose, and began to wipe off her dry eyes with her sleeve. Davydka followed her example, and, having wiped his eyes with his dry fist, continued to stand in the same patient and subservient attitude as before, and to listen to what Arina was saying.
“There is a bride, why not? Mikhey’s Vasyiitka is a likely enough girl, but she will not marry him without your will.”
“Does she not consent?”
“No, benefactor, not if it comes to consenting.”
“Well, then what is to be done? I cannot compel her; look for another girl, if not here, elsewhere; I will buy her out, as long as she will give her own consent, but you can’t marry by force. There is no law for that, and it would be a great sin.”
“benefactor! But is it likely that any girl would be willing to marry him, seeing our manner of life and poverty? Even a soldier’s wife would not wish to take upon herself such misery. What peasant will be willing to give his daughter to us? The most desperate man will not give his. We are mendicants, and nothing else. They will say that we have starved one woman, and would do so with their daughter. Who will give his? “she added, skeptically shaking her head. “Consider this, your Grace.”
« But what can I do?”
“Think of some plan for us, father!” Arina repeated, persuasively. “What are we to do?”
“What plan can I find? I can do nothing for you in this matter.”
“Who will do something for us, if not you? “said Arina, dropping her head, and waving her hands with an expression of sad perplexity.
“You have asked for grain, and I will order it to be given to you,” said the master, after a short silence, during which Arina drew deep breaths and Davydka seconded her. « That is all I can do.”
Nekhlyudov stepped into the vestibule. The woman and her son followed the master, bowing.
XII
“O MY ORPHANHOOD! “said Arina, drawing a deep breath.
She stopped, and angrily looked at her son. Davydka immediately wheeled around and, with difficulty lifting his fat leg, in an immense dirty bast shoe, over the threshold, was lost in the opposite door.
“What am I going to do with him, father? “continued Arina, turning to the master. “You see yourself what he is! He is not a bad peasant
