"Forty strokes of the cudgel," says Pencherjevskey. And then he added: "Siberia," at which a great wail went up from the crowd trembling at the far end of the barn. One of the Cossacks just lashed at them with his nagaika*(* Cossack whip.) and the wail died.
There was an iron collar for a woman whose son had run off, and floggings, either with the cudgel or the whip, for several who had neglected their labouring in Pencherjevsky's fields. There was Siberia for a youth employed to clean windows at the house, who had started work too early and disturbed Valla, and for one of the maids who had dropped a dish. You will say, "Ah, here Flashy pulling the long bow", but I'm not, and if you don't believe me, ask any professor of Russian history.25
But here's the point—if you'd suggested to Pencherjevsky or his ladies, or even to the serfs, that such punishments were cruel, they'd have thought you were mad. It seemed the most natural thing in the world to them.—why, I've seen a man cudgelled by the Cossacks in Pencherjevsky's courtyard—tied to a post half-naked in the freezing weather, and smashed with heavy rods until he was a moaning lump of bruised and broken flesh, with half his ribs cracked—and through it all Valla was standing not ten yards away, never even glancing in his direction, but discussing a new sledge-harness with one of the grooms.
Pencherjevsky absolutely believed that his moujiks were well off. "Have I not given them a stone church, with a blue dome and gilt stars? How many villages can show the like, eh?" And when those he had condemned to years of exile in Siberia were driven off in a little coffle under the nagaikas of the Cossacks—they would be taken to the nearest town, to join other unfortunates, and they would all walk the whole way—he was there to give them his blessing, and they would embrace his knees, crying: "Izvenete, batiushka, veno vat,"* (*Pardon, father, I am guilty.) and he would nod and say "Horrosho,"*(*Very well.) while the housekeeper gave them bundles of dainties from the "Sudarinia*(*Lady.) Valla". God knows what they were—cucumber rinds, probably.
"From me they have strict justice, under the law," says this amazing gorilla. "And they love me for it. Has anyone ever seen the knout, or the butuks,* (*Press for crushing feet.) used on my estate? No, and never shall. If I correct them, it is because without correction they will become idle and shiftless, and ruin me—and themselves. For without me, where are they? These poor souls, they believe the world rests on three whales swimming in the Eternal Sea! What are you to do with such folk? I will meet with the best; the wisest of them, the spokesman of their gromada,* (*Village assembly.) driving his droshky.*(*Gig.). 'Ha, Ivan,' I will say, 'your axles squeal; why do you not grease them?' And he ponders, and replies, 'Only a thief is afraid to make a noise, batiushka.' So the axles remain ungreased—unless I cudgel his foolish head, or have the Cossacks whip and salt his back for him. And he respects me"—he would thump his great fist on his thigh as he said it "because he knows I am a bread and salt man, and go with my neck open, as he does.26 And I am just—to the inch."
And you may say he was: when he flogged his dvornik*(*Porter.) for insolence, and the fellow collapsed before the prescribed punishment was finished, they sent him to the local quack—and when he was better, gave him the remaining strokes. "Who would trust me again, if I excused him a single blow?" says Pencherjevsky.
Now, I don't recite all these barbarities to shock or excite your pity, or to pose as one of those holy hypocrites who pretend to be in a great sweat about man's inhumanity to man. I've seen too much of it, and know it happens wherever strong folk have absolute power over spiritless creatures. I merely tell you truly what I saw—as for my own view, well, I'm all for keeping the peasants in order, and if hammering 'em does good, and makes life better for the rest of us, you won't find me leaping between the tyrant and his victim crying "Stay, cruel despot!" But I would observe that much of the cruelty I saw in Russia was pure senseless brutishness—I doubt if they even enjoyed it much. They just knew no better.
I wondered sometimes why the serfs, dull, ignorant, superstitious clods though they were, endured it. The truth, as I learned it from Pencherjevsky, was that they didn't, always. In the thirty years just ending when I was in Russia, there had been peasant revolts once every fortnight, in one part of the country or another, and as often as not it had taken the military to put them down. Or rather, it had taken the Cossacks, for the Russian army was a useless thing, as we'd seen in the Crimea. You can't make soldiers out of slaves. But the Cossacks were free, independent tribesmen; they had land, and paid little tax, had their own tribal laws, drank themselves stupid, and served the Tsar from boyhood till they were fifty because they loved to ride and fight and loot—and they liked nothing better than to use their nagaikas on the serfs, which was just nuts to them.
Pencherjevsky wasn't worried about revolution among his own moujiks because, as I say, he regarded himself as a good master. Also he had Cossacks of his own to strike terror into any malcontents. "And I never commit the great folly," says he. "I never touch a serf-woman—or allow one to be used or sold as a concubine." (Whether he said it for my benefit or not, it was bad news, for I hadn't had a female in ages, and some of the peasants—like Valla's maid—were not half bad-looking once they were washed.) "These uprisings on other estates—look into them, and I'll wager every time the master has ravished some serf wench, or stolen a moujik's wife, or sent a young fellow into the army so that he can enjoy his sweetheart. They don't like it, I tell you—and I don't blame them! If a lord wants a woman, let him marry one, or buy one from far afield—but let him slake his lust on one of his own serf-women, and he'll wake up one fine morning with a split head and his roof on fire. And serve him right!"
I gathered he was unusual in this view: most landlords just used the serf-wenches the way American owners used their nigger girls, and pupped 'em all over the place. But Pencherjevsky had his own code, and believed his moujiks thought the better of him for it, and were content. I wondered if he wasn't gammoning himself.
Because I paid attention, toady-like, to his proses, and was eager in studying his language, he assumed I was interested in his appalling country and its ways, and was at pains to educate me, as he saw it. From him I learned of the peculiar laws governing the serfs—how they might be free if they could run away for ten years, how some of them were allowed to leave the estates and work in the towns, provided they sent a proportion of earnings to their master; how some of these serfs became vastly rich—richer than their masters, sometimes, and worth millions—but still could not buy their freedom unless he wished. Some serfs even owned serfs. It was an idiotic system, of course, but the landowners were all for it, and even the humanitarian ones believed that if it were changed, and political reforms allowed, the country would dissolve in anarchy. I daresay they were right, but myself I believe it will happen anyway; it was starting even then, as Pencherjevsky admitted.
"The agitators are never idle," says he. "You have heard of the pernicious German Jew, Marx?" (I didn't like to tell him Marx had been at my wedding, as an uninvited guest.*(*See Royal Flash)) "He vomits his venom over Europe—aye, he and other vile rascals like him would spread their poison even to our country if they could.27 Praise God the moujiks are unlettered folk—but they can hear, and our cities crawl with revolutionary criminals of the lowest stamp. What do they understand of Russia, these filth? What do they seek to do but ruin her? And yet countries like your own give harbour to such creatures, to brew their potions of hate against us! Aye, and against you, too, if you could only see it! You think to encourage them, for the downfall of your enemies, but you will reap the wild wind also, Colonel Flashman!"