Churis smiled and shuffled his feet, and for so long did not stretch out his hand for the money, that Nekhlyudov put it on the end of the table, and reddened even more.
“We are very well satisfied with your favour,” said Churis, with his usual, slightly sarcastic smile.
The old woman sighed heavily several times, standing under the beds, and seemed to be uttering a prayer.
The young master felt embarrassed; he hastily rose from his bench, walked out into the vestibule, and called Churis. The sight of a man to whom he had done a good turn was so pleasant, that he did not wish to part from it so soon.
“I am glad I can help you,” he said, stopping near the well. “It is all right to help you, because I know you are not a lazy man. You will work, and I will help you; with God’s aid things will improve.”
“There is no place for improvement, your Grace,” said Churis, suddenly assuming a serious, and even an austere, expression on his face, as though dissatisfied with the master’s supposition that he might improve. “I lived with my brothers when my father was alive, and we suffered no want; but when he died, and we separated, things went from worse to worse. It is all because we are alone!”
“But why did you separate?”
“All on account of the women, your Grace. At that time your grandfather was not living, or they would not have dared to; then there was real order. He looked after everything, like you, — and we should not have dared to think of separating. Your grandfather did not let the peasants off so easily. But after him the estate was managed by Audrey Ilich, — may he not live by this memory, — he was a drunkard and an unreliable man. We went to him once, and a second time. ‘ There is no getting along with the women,’ we said, ‘ let us separate.’ Well, he gave it to us, but, in the end, the women had their way, and we separated; and you know what a peasant is all by himself! Well, there was no order here, and Audrey Ilich treated us as he pleased. ‘ Let there be everything! ‘ but he never asked where a peasant was to get it. Then they increased the capitation tax, and began to collect more provisions for the table, but the land grew less, and the crops began to fail. And when it came to resurveying the land, he attached our manured land to the manorial strip, the rascal, and he left us just to die!
“Your father — the kingdom of heaven be his — was a good master, but we hardly ever saw him : he lived all the time in Moscow; of course, we had to carry supplies there frequently. There may have been bad roads, and no fodder, but we had to go! How could the master get along without it? We can’t complain about that, only there was no order. Now, your Grace admits every peasant into your presence, and we are different people, and the steward is a different man. But before, the estate was left in guardianship, and there was no real master; the guardian was master, and Ilich was master, and his wife was mistress, and the scribe was master. The peasants came to grief, oh, to so much grief!”
Again Nekhlyudov experienced a feeling akin to shame or to pricks of conscience. He raised his hat a little, and walked away.
VI
“YUKHVANKA THE SHREWD wants to sell a horse,” Nekhlyiidov read in his note-book, and crossed the street. Yukhvanka’s hut was carefully thatched with straw from the manorial barn, and was constructed of fresh, light gray aspen timbers (also from the manorial forest), with two shutters painted red, and a porch with a roof, and a quaint shingle balustrade of an artistic design. The vestibule and the “cold “hut were also in proper condition; but the general aspect of sufficiency and well-being, which this collection of buildings had, was somewhat impaired by the outhouse which leaned against the gate, with its unfinished wicker fence and open thatch which could be seen from behind it.
At the same time that Nekhlyudov was approaching the porch from one side, two peasant women came from the other with a full tub. One of them was the wife, the other the mother of Yukhvanka the Shrewd. The first was a plump, red-cheeked woman, with an unusually well-developed bosom, and broad, fleshy cheek-bones. She wore a clean shirt, embroidered on the sleeves and collar, an apron similarly decorated, a new linen skirt, leather shoes, glass beads, and a foppish square head-gear made of red paper and spangles.
The end of the yoke did not shake, but lay firmly on her broad and solid shoulder. The light exertion which was noticeable in her ruddy face, in the curvature of her back, and in the measured motion of her arms and legs, pointed to extraordinary health and masculine strength.
Yukhvanka’s mother, who was carrying the other end of the yoke, was, on the contrary, one of those old women who seem to have reached the extreme limit of old age and disintegration possible in living man. Her bony frame, covered with a black, torn shirt and colourless skirt, was so bent that the yoke rested more on her back than on her shoulder. Both her hands, with the distorted fingers of which she seemed to cling to the yoke, were of a dark brown colour, and seemed incapable of unbending; her drooping head, which was wrapped in a rag, bore the most monstrous traces of wretchedness and old age. From under her narrow brow, which was furrowed in all directions by deep wrinkles, two red eyes, bereft of their lashes, looked dimly to the ground. One yellow tooth protruded from her upper sunken lip, and, shaking continually, now and then collided with her sharp chin. The wrinkles on the lower part of her face and throat resembled pouches that kept on shaking with every motion. She breathed heavily and hoarsely; but her bare, distorted feet, though apparently shuffling with difficulty against the ground, moved evenly one after the other.
VII
HAVING ALMOST COLLIDED with the master, the young woman deftly put down the tub, looked abashed, made a bow, glanced timidly at the master with her sparkling eyes, and trying with the sleeve of her embroidered shirt to conceal a light smile, and tripping in her leather shoes, ran up the steps.
“Mother, take the yoke to Aunt Nastasya,” she said, stopping in the door and turning to the old woman.
The modest young proprietor looked sternly, but attentively, at the ruddy woman, frowned, and turned to the old woman, who straightened out the yoke with her crooked fingers, and, slinging it over her shoulder, obediently directed her steps to the neighbouring hut.
“Is your son at home? “asked the master.
The old woman bent her arched figure still more, bowed, and was about to say something, but she put her hands to her mouth and coughed so convulsively that Nekhlyudov did not wait for the answer, and walked into the hut.
Yukhvanka, who was sitting in the red ^ corner on a bench, rushed to the oven the moment he espied the master, as if trying to hide from him; he hastily pushed something on the beds, and twitching his mouth and eyes, pressed against the wall, as if to make way for the master.
Yukhvanka was a blond, about thirty years of age, spare, slender, with a young beard that ran down to a point; he would have been a handsome man but for his fleeting hazel eyes which looked unpleasantly beneath his wrinkled brows, and for the absence of two front teeth, which was very noticeable because his lips were short and in continuous motion. He was clad in a holiday shirt with bright red gussets, striped calico drawers, and heavy boots with wrinkled boot-legs.
The interior of Yukhvanka’s hut was not so small and gloomy as Churis’s, though it was as close, and smelled of smoke and sheepskins, and the peasant clothes and uten-sils were scattered about in the same disorderly fashion. Two things strangely arrested the attention : a small dented samovar, which stood on a shelf, and a black frame with a remnant of a glass, and a portrait of a general in a red uniform, which was hanging near the images.
Nekhlyudov looked with dissatisfaction at the samovar, at the general’s portrait, and at the beds, where from under a rag peeped out the end of a brass-covered pipe, and turned to the peasant.
“Good morning, Epifan,” he said, looking into his eyes.
Epifan bowed, and mumbled, “We wish you health, ‘r Grace,” pronouncing the last words with peculiar tenderness, and his eyes in a twinkle surveyed the whole form of the master, the hut, the floor, and the ceiling, not stopping at anything; then he hurriedly walked up to the beds, pulled down a coat from them, and began to put it on.
“Why are you dressing yourself? “said Nekhlyudov, seating himself on a bench, and obviously trying to
