“It is just as if I were his general,” said he to him-self, and he instantly remembered the words spoken by his German tutor, whom he once took with him to the altar to witness the Russian service; how this German had amused him and angered his wife by saying :
“Der Pop war ganz bose, dass ich iJim A lies nachgesehen hatte? It also occurred to him how a young Turk had once declared that there was no God, because he had nothing more to eat.
“And here I am taking the communion,” he said to himself, and, frowning, he performed the reverences.
And, taking off his bearskin shuba, and remaining only in a blue coat with bright buttons and a high white cravat and waistcoat and close-fitting trousers in heelless boots with pointed toes, he went in his quiet, unobtrusive, and easy gait to bow before the images of the church. And again even here he met with the same complaisance on the part of the participants, who made room for him.
“They seem to be saying, apres votts s’il en reste” he remarked to himself, as he made his obeisances to the very ground, with an awkwardness which arose from the fact that he had to find the mean between what might be irreverence and hypocrisy. At last the doors opened. He followed the priest in the reading of the prayer repeating the yako razboinika^ they covered his cravat with the sacred veil, and he partook of the sacra-ment, and of the tepid water in the ancient vessel, and placed his coins in the ancient plates. He listened to the last prayers, bowed low toward the cross, and, putting on his shuba, left the church acknowledging the saluta-tions and experiencing a pleasant sensation of a good work accomplished. As he left the church he again fell in with Ivan Feodotovitch.
“Thank you, thank you,” said he, in reply to his sal-utation. “Tell me, are you going to plow soon?”
“The boys have begun, the boys have begun,” replied Ivan Feodotovitch, even more timidly than usual. He supposed that Ivan Petrovitch already knew where the men of Izlegoshchi had gone to plow. “Well, it has been wet, been wet. It is yet early, as yet it is early.”
Ivan Petrovitch went to the memorial of his father and mother, bowed low, and then took his seat in his calash drawn by six horses with outrider.
“Well, thank the Lord,” said he to himself, as he swayed gently on the soft easy springs, and gazed up at the spring sky with scattered clouds, and at the bare ground, and at the white spots of still unmelted snow, and at the closely twisted tail of the off horse, and breathed in the joyous, fresh spring air which was espe-cially pleasant after the atmosphere of the church.
“Thank God that I have partaken of the communion, and thank God that I can take a little snuff.”
And he took out his snuff-box and long held the to-bacco between his thumb and finger, and with the same hand, not applying the snuff, he raised his hat in reply to the low bows of the people whom he met, especially the women scrubbing their chairs and benches in front of their doorsteps, as the calash with a swift dash of the spanking horses went splashing and dashing through the muddy street of the village of Izlegoshchi.
Ivan Petrovitch, anticipating the pleasant sensation of the tobacco, held the snuff between his thumb and finger all the way through the village, even till after they had got beyond the bad place at the foot of the hill, up which the coachman evidently could not drive without difficulty; he gathered up the re.ins, settled him-self better in his seat, and shouted to the outrider to keep to the ice. When they had passed beyond the brfdge and had got out of the broken ice and mud, Ivan Petrovitch, looking at two lapwings rising above the ravine, took his snuff, and, feeling that it was rather cool, he put on his gloves, wrapped himself up, sunk his chin into his high cravat, and said to himself, almost aloud, the word “slavno” glorious, which was his favorite ex-pression whenever everything seemed good to him.
During the night the snow had fallen, and even when Ivan Petrovitch was going to church the snow had not wholly melted, but was soft; but now, although there was no sun, the snow was almost liquid, and along the highway, by which he had to drive for three versts be-fore he reached the side road to Chirakovo, there were only gleams of snow on the last year’s grass growing between the ruts. The horses trampled through the viscous mud on the black road. But for the fat, well-fed horses of his team it was no effort to draw the calash, and it seemed to go of itself, not only over the grass where the black tracks were left, but also through the mud itself.
“Ivan Petrovitch gave himself up to pleasant thoughts; he thought about his home, his wife, and his daughter.
“Masha will meet me on the steps, and with enthusiasm. She will see in me such a saint! She is a strange, sweet girl; only she takes everything to heart so. And the role which I have to play before her the role of dignity and importance has already begun to seem to me seri-ous and ridiculous. If she only knew how much I stand in awe of her,” he said to himself. “Well, Kato “that was his wife “will probably be in good spirits to-day really in good spirits, and the day will be excellent. Not as it was last week, owing to those Proshkinsky peasant women. She is a wonderful creature. And how afraid of her I am. But what is to be done about it? She herself is not happy.”
Then he recalled a famous anecdote about a calf; how a proprietor who had quarreled with his wife was one day sitting at his window and saw a calf gambol-ing. “I would marry you,” said the proprietor; and again he smiled, deciding everything puzzling and diffi-cult, as was his wont, by a jest, generally directed against himself.
At the third verst, near the chapel, the postilion turned off to the left to take the cross-road, and the coachman shouted to him because he turned so short it struck the shaft horses with the pole, and from here on the calash rolled almost all the way down hill. Be-fore they reached the house, the postilion looked at the coachman and pointed at something; the coachman looked at the lackey and also pointed at something. And they all gazed in one direction.
“What are you looking at? “asked Ivan Petro-vitch.
“Wild geese,” said MikhaTla.
“Where?”
But, though he strained his eyes, he could not see anything.
“Yonder, there is a forest, and beyond is a cloud, and there between, if you will be good enough to look.”
Still Ivan Petrovitch could not see anything. “Well, it is time for them. A week from to-day will be Annunciation.”
“So it will.”
“Well, go ahead.”
At the little lodge Mishka jumped down from the foot-board and examined the road, then climbed back again, and the calash rolled smoothly along by the edge of the pond into the park, mounted the driveway, passed the ice-house and the laundry, from which the water was dripping, and skilfully rounding up stopped at the porch. The Chernuishefs’ britchka was only just driving away from the yard. Immediately some people came hurrying down from the house : a surly-looking old man, Daniluitch, with side-whiskers, Nikola, Mikhai’la’s brother, and the boy Pavlushka, and behind them a girl with large black eyes and red arms bare above the elbows, and also with open neck.
“Marya Ivanovna, Marya Ivanovna. Where are you? Here, your mamasha is getting anxious about you. Come,” said the voice of the stout Katerina in the background.
But the little girl did not heed her; as her father expected, she seized him by the hand, and looked at him with a peculiar look.
“Tell me, papenka, have you had the sacrament,” she asked, with a sort of terror.
“Yes, I have had the sacrament. Why, were you afraid that I was such a sinner that they would not let me have it?”
The little girl was evidently shocked at her father’s levity on such a solemn occasion. She sighed, and as she went with him she held him by the hand and kissed it.
“Who has come?”
“It is young Chernuishef. He is in the drawing-room.”
“Has mamma got up? What is she doing?
“Mamenka is better to-day. She is sitting down stairs.”
In the passage-way Ivan Petrovitch met the nurse Yevpraksia, his foreman Andrei’ Ivanovitch, and his surveyor, who was staying there to divide the land. All congratulated Ivan Petrovitch. In the drawing-room were sitting Luiza Karlovna Turgoni, for ten years a friend of the family, an emigree governess, and a young man of sixteen, Chernuishef, with his French tutor.
THIRD FRAGMENT
(VARIANT OF THE First Chapter)
ON the 1 4th of August, 1817, the sixth department of the Controlling Senate rendered a decision in the lawsuit between the “ekonom “l peasants of the village of Izlegoshchi and Prince Chernuishef, granting the land that was in dispute to the peasants.
This decision was unexpected and serious, and un-fortunate for Chernuishef. The suit had been dragging along already for five years. Having been brought originally by the advocate of the rich and populous vil-lage of Izlegoshchi, it had been gained by the peasants in the
