“You’ve kindly come to look us up, eh?” said the garrulous old man.
“Yes, I have. Well, how are you getting on?”
“How do we get on? We get on very badly,” the old man drawled, as if it gave him pleasure.
“Why so badly?” Nekhludoff asked, stepping inside the gate.
“What is our life but the very worst life?” said the old man, following Nekhludoff into that part of the yard which was roofed over.
Nekhludoff stopped under the roof.
“I have got 12 of them there,” continued the old man, pointing to two women on the remainder of the manure heap, who stood perspiring with forks in their hands, the kerchiefs tumbling off their heads, with their skirts tucked up, showing the calves of their dirty, bare legs. “Not a month passes but I have to buy six poods[20] of corn, and where’s the money to come from?”
“Have you not got enough corn of your own?”
“My own?” repeated the old man, with a smile of contempt; “why I have only got land for three, and last year we had not enough to last till Christmas.”
“What do you do then?”
“What do we do? Why, I hire out as a labourer; and then I borrowed some money from your honour. We spent it all before Lent, and the tax is not paid yet.”
“And how much is the tax?”
“Why, it’s 17 roubles for my household. Oh, Lord, such a life! One hardly knows one’s self how one manages to live it.”
“May I go into your hut?” asked Nekhludoff, stepping across the yard over the yellow-brown layers of manure that had been raked up by the forks, and were giving off a strong smell.
“Why not? Come in,” said the old man, and stepping quickly with his bare feet over the manure, the liquid oozing between his toes, he passed Nekhludoff and opened the door of the hut.
The women arranged the kerchiefs on their heads and let down their skirts, and stood looking with surprise at the clean gentleman with gold studs to his sleeves who was entering their house. Two little girls, with nothing on but coarse chemises, rushed out of the hut. Nekhludoff took off his hat, and, stooping to get through the low door, entered, through a passage into the dirty, narrow hut, that smelt of sour food, and where much space was taken up by two weaving looms. In the hut an old woman was standing by the stove, with the sleeves rolled up over her thin, sinewy brown arms.
“Here is our master come to see us,” said the old man.
“I’m sure he’s very welcome,” said the old woman, kindly.
“I would like to see how you live.”
“Well, you see how we live. The hut is coming down, and might kill one any day; but my old man he says it’s good enough, and so we live like kings,” said the brisk old woman, nervously jerking her head. “I’m getting the dinner; going to feed the workers.”
“And what are you going to have for dinner?”
“Our food is very good. First course, bread and kvas;[21] second course, kvas and bread,” said the old woman, showing her teeth, which were half worn away.
“No,” seriously; “let me see what you are going to eat.”
“To eat?” said the old man, laughing. “Ours is not a very cunning meal. You just show him, wife.”
“Want to see our peasant food? Well, you are an inquisitive gentleman, now I come to look at you. He wants to know everything. Did I not tell you bread and kvas and then we’ll have soup. A woman brought us some fish, and that’s what the soup is made of, and after that, potatoes.”
“Nothing more?”
“What more do you want? We’ll also have a little milk,” said the old woman, looking towards the door. The door stood open, and the passage outside was full of people—boys, girls, women with babies—thronged together to look at the strange gentleman who wanted to see the peasants’ food. The old woman seemed to pride herself on the way she behaved with a gentleman.
“Yes, it’s a miserable life, ours; that goes without saying, sir,” said the old man. “What are you doing there?” he shouted to those in the passage. “Well, good-bye,” said Nekhludoff, feeling ashamed and uneasy, though unable to account for the feeling.
“Thank you kindly for having looked us up,” said the old man.
The people in the passage pressed closer together to let Nekhludoff pass, and he went out and continued his way up the street.
Two barefooted boys followed him out of the passage the elder in a shirt that had once been white, the other in a worn and faded pink one. Nekhludoff looked back at them.
“And where are you going now?” asked the boy with the white shirt. Nekhludoff answered: “To Matrona Kharina. Do you know her?” The boy with the pink shirt began laughing at something; but the elder asked, seriously:
“What Matrona is that? Is she old?”
“Yes, she is old.”
“Oh—oh,” he drawled; “that one; she’s at the other end of the village; we’ll show you. Yes, Fedka, we’ll go with him. Shall we?”
“Yes, but the horses?”
“They’ll be all right, I dare say.”
Fedka agreed, and all three went up the street.
V
Maslova’s aunt.
Nekhludoff felt more at ease with the boys than with the grown-up people, and he began talking to them as they went along. The little one with the pink shirt stopped laughing, and spoke as sensibly and as exactly as the elder one.
“Can you tell me who are the poorest people you have got here?” asked Nekhludoff.
“The poorest? Michael is poor, Simon Makhroff, and Martha, she is very poor.”
“And Anisia, she is still poorer; she’s not even got a cow. They go begging,” said little Fedka.
“She’s not got a cow, but they are only three persons, and Martha’s family are five,” objected the elder boy.
“But the other’s a widow,” the pink boy said, standing up for Anisia.
“You say Anisia is a widow, and Martha is no better than a widow,” said the elder boy; “she’s also no husband.”
“And where is her husband?” Nekhludoff asked.
“Feeding vermin in prison,” said the elder boy, using this expression, common among the peasants.
“A year ago he cut down two birch trees in the landlord’s forest,” the little pink boy hurried to say, “so he was locked up; now he’s sitting the sixth month there, and the wife goes begging. There are three children and a sick grandmother,” he went on with his detailed account.
“And where does she live?” Nekhludoff asked.
“In this very house,” answered the boy, pointing to a hut, in front of which, on the footpath along which Nekhludoff was walking, a tiny, flaxen-headed infant stood balancing himself with difficulty on his rickety legs.
“Vaska! Where’s the little scamp got to?” shouted a woman, with a dirty grey blouse, and a frightened look, as she ran out of the house, and, rushing forward, seized the baby before Nekhludoff came up to it, and carried it in, just as if she were afraid that Nekhludoff would hurt her child.
This was the woman whose husband was imprisoned for Nekhludoff’s birch trees.
“Well, and this Matrona, is she also poor?” Nekhludoff asked, as they came up to Matrona’s house.
“She poor? No. Why, she sells spirits,” the thin, pink little boy answered decidedly.
When they reached the house Nekhludoff left the boys outside and went through the passage into the hut. The hut was 14 feet long. The bed that stood behind the big stove was not long enough for a tall person to stretch out on. “And on this very bed,” Nekhludoff thought, “Katusha bore her baby and lay ill afterwards.” The greater part of the hut was taken up by a loom, on which the old woman and her eldest granddaughter were arranging the warp when Nekhludoff came in, striking his forehead against the low doorway. Two other grandchildren came rushing in after Nekhludoff, and stopped, holding on to the lintels of the door.
“Whom do you want?” asked the old woman, crossly. She was in a bad temper because she could not manage to get the warp right, and, besides, carrying on an illicit trade in spirits, she was always afraid when any stranger came in.