“Do they live peaceably? “asked the master.
“As long as there is a real head in the house, there wHl be peace. Though with the Dutlovs it is as elsewhere with women : the daughters-in-law quarrel behind the oven, yet the sons live peacefully together under the old man.”
The nurse grew silent for a moment.
“Now the old man wants to make his eldest son, Karp, the master of the house. He says he is getting too old and that his business is with the bees. Well, Karp is a good man, an accurate man, but he will not be such a manager as the old man, by a good deal. He has not his intellect.”
“Maybe Karp will be willing to take up land and forests, what do you think? “said the master, wishing to find out from his nurse what she knew about her neighbours.
“I doubt it, sir,” continued the nurse; “the old man has not disclosed his money to his son. As long as the old man is alive, and the money is in his house, his mind will direct affairs; besides, they are more interested in teaming.”
“And the old man will not consent?”
“He will be afraid.”
“What will he be afraid of?”
“How can a manorial peasant declare his money, sir? There might be an unlucky hour, and all his money would be lost! There, he went into partnership with the porter, and he made a mistake. How could he sue him? And thus the money was all lost; and with the proprietor it would be lost without appeal.”
“Yes, on this account— “said Nekhlyudov, blushing. “Good-bye, nurse.”
“Good-bye, your Grace. I thank you humbly.”
1 A desyatina is equal to 2,400 square fathoms.
XIV
“HAD I NOT better go home? “thought Nekhlyudov, walking up to Dutlov’s gate, and feeling an indefinable melancholy and moral fatigue.
Just then the new plank gate opened before him with a creak, and a fine-looking, ruddy, light-complexioned lad, of about eighteen years of age, in driver’s attire, appeared in the gateway, leading behind him a set of three stout-legged, sweaty, shaggy horses; boldly shaking his flaxen hair, he bowed to the master.
“Is your father at home, Пуа? “asked Nekhlyudov.
“He is with the bees, back of the yard,” answered the lad, leading one horse after another through the half-open gate.
“No, I will stick to my determination; I will make the proposition to him, and will do my part,” thought Nekhlyudov, and, letting the horses pass by, he went into Dutlov’s spacious yard. He could see that the manure had lately been removed : the earth was still black and sweaty, and in places, particularly near the gate, lay scattered red-fibred shreds. In the yard, and under the high sheds, stood in good order many carts, ploughs, sleighs, blocks, tubs, and all kinds of peasant possessions. Pigeons flitted to and fro and cooed in the shade under the broad, solid rafters. There was an odour of manure and tar.
In one corner Karp and Ignat were fixing a new transom-bed on a large, three-horse, steel-rimmed cart. Dutlov’s three sons resembled each other very much. The youngest, Ilya, whom Nekhlyildov had met iu the gate, had no beard, and was smaller, ruddier, and more foppishly clad than the other two. The second, Ignat, was taller, more tanned, had a pointed beard, and, although he too wore boots, a driver’s shirt, and a lambskin cap, he did not have the careless, holiday aspect of his younger brother. The eldest, Karp, was taller still, wore bast shoes, a gray caftan, and a shirt without gussets; he had a long red beard, and looked not only solemn, but even gloomy.
“Do you command me to send for father, your Grace? “he said, walking up to the master and bowing slightly and awkwardly.
“No, I will go myself to the apiary; I wish to look at his arrangement of it; but I want to talk with you,” said Nekhlyudov, walking over to the other end of the yard, so that Ignat might not hear what he was going to say to Karp.
The self-confidence and a certain pride, which were noticeable in the whole manner of these two peasants, and that which his nurse had told him, so embarrassed the young master that he found it hard to make up his mind to tell him of the matter in hand. He felt as though he were guilty of something; and it was easier for him to speak to one of the brothers, without being heard by the other. Karp looked somewhat surprised at being asked by the master to step aside, but he followed him.
“It is this,” began Nekhlyudov, hesitating, “I wanted to ask you how many horses you had.”
“There will be some five sets of three; there are also some colts,” Karp answered, freely, scratching his back.
“Do your brothers drive the stage?”
“We drive the stage with three troykas. Ilyushka has been doing some hauling; he has just returned.”
“Do you find that profitable? How much do you earn in this manner?”
“What profit can there be, your Grace? We just feed ourselves and the horses, and God be thanked for that.”
“Then why do you not busy yourselves with something else? You might buy some forest or rent some land.”
“Of course, your Grace, we might rent some land, if it came handy.”
“This is what I want to propose to you. What is the use of teaming, just to earn your feed, when you can rent some thirty desyatinas of me? I will let you have the whole parcel which lies behind Sapov’s, and you can start a large farm.”
Nekhlyudov was now carried away by his plan of a peasant farm, which he had thought over and recited to himself more than once, and he began to expound to Karp, without stammering, his plan of a peasant farm. Karp listened attentively to the words of the master.
“We are very well satisfied with your favour,” he said, when ISTekhlyudov stopped and looked at him, expecting an answer. “Of course, there is nothing bad in this. It is better for a peasant to attend to the soil than to flourish his whip. Peasants of our kind get easily spoilt, when they travel among strange men, and meet all kinds of people. There is nothing better for a peasant than to busy himself with the land.”
“What do you think of it, then?”
“As long as father is alive, your Grace, there is no use in my thinking. His will decides.”
“Take me to the apiary; I will talk to him.”
“This way, if you please,” said Karp, slowly turning toward the barn in the back of the yard. He opened a low gate which led to the beehives, and, letting the master walk through it, and closing it, he walked up to Ignat, and resumed his interrupted work.
XV
NEKHLYUD0V BENT HIS head, and passed through the low gate underneath the shady shed to the apiary, which was back of the yard. The small space, surrounded by straw and a wicker fence which admitted the sunlight, where stood symmetrically arranged the beehives, covered with small boards, and surrounded by golden bees circling noisilу about them, was all bathed in the hot, brilliant rays of the June sun.
A well-trodden path led from the gate through the middle of the apiary to a wooden-roofed cross with a brass-foil image upon it, which shone glaringly in the sun. A few stately linden-trees, which towered with their curly tops above the straw thatch of the neighbouring yard, rustled their fresh dark green foliage almost inaudibly, on account of the buzzing of the bees. All the shadows from the roofed fence, from the lindens, and from the beehives that were covered with boards, fell black and short upon the small, wiry grass that sprouted between the hives.
The small, bent form of an old man, with his uncovered gray, and partly bald, head shining in the sun, was seen near the door of a newly thatched, moss-calked plank building, which was situated between the lindens. Upon hearing the creaking of the gate, the old man turned around and, wiping off his perspiring, sunburnt face with the skirt of his shirt, and smiling gently and joyfully, came to meet the master.
The apiary was so cosy, so pleasant, so quiet, and so sunlit; the face of the gray-haired old man, with the abundant гау-Ике wrinkles about his eyes, in his wide shoes over his bare feet, who, waddling along and smiling good-naturedly and contentedly, welcomed the master in his exclusive possessions, was so simple-hearted and kind, that Nekhlyudov immediately forgot the heavy impressions of the morning, and his favourite dream rose up before
