"Then we should sweep you English bastards into the sea!" he roared. "A few of your Scarletts and Flashmans and Carragans—that is the name, no?—that is all we need!"
But drunk as he was, when he finally rose from the table he was careful to turn in the direction of the church and cross himself devoutly, before stumbling to guide me up the stairs.
I was to see a different side to Pencherjevsky—and to all of them for that matter—in the winter that followed but for the first few weeks of my sojourn at Starotorsk I thoroughly enjoyed myself, and felt absolutely at home. It was so much better than I had expected, the Count was so amiable in his bear-like, thundering way, his ladies were civil (for I'd decided to go warily before attempting a more intimate acquaintance with Valla) and easy with me, and East and I were allowed such freedom, that it was like month of week-ends at an English country-house, without any of the stuffiness. You could come and go as you pleased, treat the place as your own, attend at mealtimes or feed in your chamber, whichever suited—it was Liberty Hall, no error. I divided my days between working really-hard at my Russian, going for walks or rides with Valla and Sara or East, prosing with the Count in the evenings playing cards with the family they have a form of whist called "biritsch" which has caught on in England this last few years, and we played that most evenings—and generally taking life easy. My interest in Russian they found especially flattering, for they are immensely proud and sensitive about their country, and I made even better progress than usual. I soon spoke and understood it better than East—"He has a Cossack somewhere in his family!" Pencherjevsky would bawl. "Let him add a beard to those foolish English whiskers and he can ride with the Kubans—eh, colonel?"
All mighty pleasant—until you discovered that the civility and good nature were no deeper than a May frost, the thin covering on totally alien beings. For all their apparent civilization, and even good taste, the barbarian was just under the surface, and liable to come raging out. It was easy to forget this, until some word or incident reminded you—that this pleasant house and estate were like a medieval castle, under feudal law; that this jovial, hospitable giant, who talked so knowledgeably of cavalry tactics and the hunting field, and played chess like a master, was also as dangerous and cruel as a cannibal chief; that his ladies, chattering cheerfully about French dressmaking or flower arrangement, were in some respects rather less feminine than Dahomey Amazons.
One such incident I'll never forget. There was an evening when the four of us were in the salon, Pencherjevsky and I playing chess—he had handicapped himself by starting without queen or castle, to make a game of it—and the women at some two-handed game of cards across the room. Aunt Sara was quiet, as usual, and Valla prattling gaily, and squeaking with vexation when she lost. I wasn't paying much attention, for I was happy with the Count's brandy, and looked like beating him for once, too, but when I heard them talking about settling the wager I glanced across, and almost fell from my chair.
Valla's maid and the housekeeper had come into the room. The maid—a serf girl—was kneeling by the card table, and the housekeeper was carefully shearing off her long red hair with a pair of scissors. Aunt Sara was watching idly; Valla wasn't even noticing until the housekeeper handed her the tresses."Ah, how pretty!" says she, and shrugged, and tossed them over to Aunt Sara, who stroked them, and said:
"Shall I keep them for a wig, or sell them? Thirty roubles in Moscow or St Petersburg_ " And she held them up in the light, considering.
"More than Vera is worth now, at any rate," says Valla, carelessly. Then she jumped up, ran across to Pencherjevsky, and put her arms round his shaggy neck from behind, blowing in his ear. "Father, may I have fifty roubles for a new maid?"
"What's that?" says he, deep in the game. "Wait, child, wait; I have this English rascal trapped, If only … "
"Just fifty roubles, father. See, I cannot keep Vera now."
He looked up, saw the maid, who was still kneeling, cropped like a convict, and guffawed. "She doesn't need hair to hang up your dresses and fetch your shoes, does she? Learn to count your aces, you silly girl."
"Oh, father! You know she will not do now! Only fifty roubles—please—from my kind little batiushka!"* (*Father.)
"Ah, plague take you, can a man not have peace? Fifty roubles, then, to be let alone. And next time, bet something that I will not have to replace out of my purse." He pinched her cheek. "Check, colonel."
I've a strong stomach, as you know, but I'll admit that turned it—not the disfigurement of a pretty girl, you understand, although I didn't hold with that, much, but the cheerful unconcern with which they did it—those two cultured ladies, in that elegant room, as though they had been gaming for sweets or counters . And now Valla was leaning on her father's shoulder, gaily urging him on to victory, and Sara was running the hair idly through her hands, while the kneeling girl bowed her pathetically shorn head to the floor and then followed the housekeeper from the room. Well, thinks I, they'd be a rage in London society, these two. You may have noticed , by the way, that the cost of a maid was fifty roubles, of which her hair was worth thirty.
Of course, they didn't think of her as human. I've told you something of the serfs already, and most of that I learned first-hand on the Pencherjevsky estate, where they were treated as something worse than cattle. The more fortunate of them lived in the outbuildings and were employed about the house, but most of them were down in the village, a filthy, straggling place of log huts, called isbas, with entrances so low you had to stoop to go in. They were foul, verminous hovels, consisting of just one room, with a huge bed bearing many pillows, a big stove, and a "holy corner" in which there were poor, garish pictures of their saints.
Their food was truly fearful—rye bread for the most part, and cabbage soup with a lump of fat in it, salt cabbage, garlic stew, coarse porridge, and for delicacies, sometimes a little cucumber or beetroot. And those were the well-fed ones. Their drink was as bad—bread fermented in alcohol which they call gvass ("it's black, it's thick, and it makes you drunk," as they said), and on special occasions vodka, which is just poison. They'll sell their souls for brandy, but seldom get it.
Such conditions of squalor, half the year in stifling heat, half in unimaginable cold, and all spent in back-breaking labour, are probably enough to explain why they were such an oppressed, dirty, brutish, useless people—just like the Irish, really, but without the gaiety. Even the Mississippi niggers were happier—there was never a smile on the face of your serf, just patient, morose misery.
And yet that wasn't the half of their trouble. I remember the court that Pencherjevsky used to hold in a barn at the back of the house, and those cringing creatures crawling on their bellies along the floor to kiss the edge of his coat, while he pronounced sentence on them for their offences. You may not believe them, but they're true, and I noted them at the time.
There was the local dog-killer—every Russian village is plagued in winter by packs of wild dogs, who are a real danger to life, and this fellow had to chase and club them to death—he got a few kopecks for each pelt. But he had been shirking his job, it seemed.