That smile and that reply completely disillusioned Nekhlyúdov of his hope of touching Epifán and bringing him to the right path by persuasion. Moreover he felt all the time as if it were indecorous for him, who had authority, to persuade his own serf, as if all that he had said was not at all what he ought to have said. He sadly bowed his head and went into the passage. The old woman was sitting on the threshold groaning aloud, as if to show her sympathy with the master’s words which she had overheard.
‘Here is something to buy yourself bread with,’ Nekhlyúdov whispered, giving her a ruble note. ‘But buy it yourself, and don’t give it to Epifán or he will drink it.’
The old woman took hold of the door-post with her bony hand, trying to rise and thank the master, but her head began shaking, and Nekhlyúdov had already crossed the road before she had got to her feet.
Chapter IX
‘WHITE DAVID wants grain and posts,’ was the next entry in Nekhlyúdov’s note-book.
After passing several homesteads, he met his steward, Jacob Alpátych, at the corner of the lane. The latter having seen his master in the distance had removed his oilskin cap, produced a foulard kerchief, and begun wiping his fat red face.
‘Put on your cap, Jacob! Put it on I tell you.…’
‘Where has your Excellency been pleased to go?’ said Jacob, holding up his cap to shade the sun, but not putting it on.
‘I’ve been to see Wiseman. Now tell me, why has he become like that?’ asked the master continuing on his way.
‘Like what, your Excellency?’ replied the steward, who followed his master at a respectful distance and having put on his cap was smoothing his moustache.
‘What indeed! He is a perfect scamp – lazy, a thief, a liar, ill-treats his mother, and seems to be such a confirmed good-for-nothing that there is no reforming him.’
‘I don’t know, your Excellency, why he has displeased you so.…’
‘And his wife too,’ his master interrupted him, ‘seems to be a horrid creature. The mother is dressed worse than any beggar and has nothing to eat, but the wife is all dressed up, and so is he. I don’t at all know what to do with him.’
Jacob grew visibly confused when Nekhlyúdov mentioned Epifán’s wife.
‘Well if he has let himself go like that,’ he began, ‘we ought to take measures. It’s true he’s poor, like all one-man householders, but unlike some others he does keep himself in hand a bit. He’s intelligent, can read and write, and seems pretty honest. He is always sent round to collect the poll-tax, and he has been village elder for three years while I have been here, and nothing wrong has been noticed. Three years ago it pleased your guardian to dismiss him, but he was all right also when he worked on the estate. Only he has taken rather to drink, having lived at the Post Station in town, so measures should be taken against that. When he misbehaved in the past we used to threaten him with a flogging and he’d come to his senses, and it was good for him and there was peace in the family; but as you don’t approve of such measures, I really don’t know what we are to do with him. I know he has let himself go pretty badly. He can’t be sent as a soldier because he has lost two teeth, as you will have noticed. He knocked them out purposely a long time ago.3 But he is not the only one, if I may take the liberty of reporting to your Excellence, who has got quite out of hand.’
‘Let that matter alone, Jacob!’ said Nekhlyúdov with a slight smile. ‘We have discussed it over and over again. You know what I think about it, and say what you will I shall still not change my mind.…’4
‘Of course your Excellence knows best,’ said Jacob, shrugging his shoulders and gazing at his master from behind as if what he saw boded no good. ‘As to the old woman, you are pleased to trouble about her needlessly,’ he continued. ‘It’s true she brought up her fatherless children, and raised Epifán and married him off and all that; but among the peasants it is the custom, when a mother or father hands over the homestead to a son, that the son and his wife become the masters and the old woman has to earn her bread as best she can. Of course they have no delicate feelings, but it is the usual way among the peasants. So I make bold to say that the old woman has troubled you needlessly. She is an intelligent woman and a good housekeeper, but why trouble the master about every trifle? Well, she had a dispute with her daughter-in-law, and the daughter-in-law may have pushed her – those are women’s affairs! They might have made it up again instead of troubling you. And besides, you take it all too much to heart,’ added the steward, looking with fatherly tenderness and condescension at his master who was walking silently up the street before him with long strides.
‘Are you going home, sir?’ he asked.
‘No, to see White David, or the Goat … how is he called?’
‘Now that’s another sluggard, let me tell you. The whole Goat family are like that. Whatever you may do with him nothing helps. I drove over the peasant fields yesterday, and he has not even sown his buckwheat. What is one to do with such people? If only the old man at least taught his son, but he is just such a sluggard himself – whether it’s for himself or for the owner he always bungles it.… Both your guardian and I – what have we not done to them? He’s been sent to the police-station, and been flogged at home – which is what you are pleased to disapprove of.…’
‘Who? Surely not the old man?’
‘The old man, sir. Your guardian has many a time had him flogged before the whole Commune. But would your Excellence believe it, it had no effect! He would give himself a shake, go home, and behave just the same. And I must admit that David is a quiet peasant and not stupid; he doesn’t smoke or drink, that is,’ Jacob explained, ‘but yet you see he’s worse than some drunkards. The only thing would be to conscript him, or exile him – nothing else can be done. The whole Goat family are like that. Matryúshka, who lives in that hovel, is of the same family and is a damned sluggard too. But your Excellence does not require me?’ added the steward, noticing that his master was not listening to him.
‘No, you may go,’ replied Nekhlyúdov absent-mindedly, and went on towards White David’s hut.
David’s hut stood crooked and solitary at the end of the village. It had no yard, no kiln, and no barn; only some dirty cattle sheds clung to one side of it while on the other brushwood and beams, prepared for outbuildings, lay all in a heap. Tall green grass was growing where there had once been a yard. There was not a living being near the hut, except a pig that lay grunting in a puddle by the threshold.
Nekhlyúdov knocked at a broken window, but as no one answered he went into the entry and shouted, ‘Hullo there!’ but got no reply to this either. He entered the passage, looked into the empty cattle stalls, and entered the open door of the hut. An old red cock and two hens, jerking their crops and clattering with their claws, were strutting about the floor and benches. Seeing a man they spread their wings and, cackling desperately, flew against the walls, one of them jumping up on the oven. The hut, which was not quite fourteen-foot square, was almost filled by the brick oven with its broken chimney, a weaving loom that had not been put away though it was summer, and a blackened table with a warped and cracked top.
Though it was dry outside there was still a dirty puddle inside near the threshold, which had been formed by a leak in the roof and ceiling during previous rain. There were no beds. It was difficult to believe that the place was inhabited – there was such an appearance of absolute neglect and disorder both within the hut and outside. Yet White David and his whole family lived there, and at that very moment, though it was a hot June day, David, wrapped head and all in his sheepskin, lay huddled in a corner on the top of the oven fast asleep. The frightened hen that had alighted there and had not yet quieted down was walking over his back without waking him.