“Will you not have a net, your Grace? The bees are angry now, and they sting,” said the old man, taking down from the fence a dirty linen bag fragrant with honey, which was sewed to a bark hoop, and offering it to the master. “The bees know me, and do not sting me,” he added, with a gentle smile, which hardly ever left his handsome, sunburnt face.
“Then I shall not need it, either. Well, are they swarming already?” asked Nekhlyudov, also smiling, though he knew not why.
“They are swarming, Father Dmitri Nikolaevich,” answered the old man, wishing to express his especial kindness by calling his master by his name and patronymic, “but they have just begun to do it properly. It has been a cold spring, you know.”
“I have read in a book,” began Nekhlyudov, warding off a bee that had lost itself in his hair, and was buzzing over his very ear, “that when the combs are placed straight on little bars, the bees begin to swarm earlier. For this purpose they make hives out of boards — with cross-bea— “
“Please do not wave your hand, it will make it only worse,” said the old man. “Had I not better give you the net?”
Nekhlyudov was experiencing pain, but a certain childish conceit prevented him from acknowledging it; he again refused the net, and continued to tell the old man about the construction of beehives, of which he had read in the “Maison Rustique,” and in which the bees, according to his opinion, would swarm twice as much; but a bee stung his neck, and he stopped confused in the middle of his argument.
“That is so, Father Dmitri Nikolaevich,” said the old man, glancing at the master with fatherly condescension, “they write so in books. But they may write so maliciously. ‘ Let him do,’ they probably say, ‘ as we write, and we will have the laugh on him.’ I believe that is possible! For how are you going to teach the bees where to build their combs? They fix them in the hollow blocks as they please, sometimes crossways, and at others straight. Look here, if you please,” he added, uncorking one of the nearest blocks, and looking through the opening, which was covered with buzzing and creeping bees along the crooked combs.
“Now here, these young ones, they have their mind on a queen bee, but they build the comb straightways and aslant, just as it fits best into the block,” said the old man, obviously carried away by his favourite subject, and not noticing the master’s condition. “They are coming heavily laden to-day, it is a warm day, and everything can be seen,” he added, corking up the hive, and crushing a creeping bee with a rag, and then brushing off with his coarse hand a few bees from his wrinkled brow. The bees did not sting him. But Nekhlyudov could no longer repress his desire to run out of the apiary; the bees had stung him in three places, and they were buzzing on all sides about his head and neck.
“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
