“I am—the owner of the neighbouring estates, and should like to speak to you.”
“Dear me; why, it’s you, my honey; and I, fool, thought it was just some passer-by. Dear me, you—it’s you, my precious,” said the old woman, with simulated tenderness in her voice.
“I should like to speak to you alone,” said Nekhludoff, with a glance towards the door, where the children were standing, and behind them a woman holding a wasted, pale baby, with a sickly smile on its face, who had a little cap made of different bits of stuff on its head.
“What are you staring at? I’ll give it you. Just hand me my crutch,” the old woman shouted to those at the door.
“Shut the door, will you!” The children went away, and the woman closed the door.
“And I was thinking, who’s that? And it’s ‘the master’ himself. My jewel, my treasure. Just think,” said the old woman, “where he has deigned to come. Sit down here, your honour,” she said, wiping the seat with her apron. “And I was thinking what devil is it coming in, and it’s your honour, ‘the master’ himself, the good gentleman, our benefactor. Forgive me, old fool that I am; I’m getting blind.”
Nekhludoff sat down, and the old woman stood in front of him, leaning her cheek on her right hand, while the left held up the sharp elbow of her right arm.
“Dear me, you have grown old, your honour; and you used to be as fresh as a daisy. And now! Cares also, I expect?”
“This is what I have come about: Do you remember Katusha Maslova?”
“Katerina? I should think so. Why, she is my niece. How could I help remembering; and the tears I have shed because of her. Why, I know all about it. Eh, sir, who has not sinned before God? who has not offended against the Tsar? We know what youth is. You used to be drinking tea and coffee, so the devil got hold of you. He is strong at times. What’s to be done? Now, if you had chucked her; but no, just see how you rewarded her, gave her a hundred roubles. And she? What has she done? Had she but listened to me she might have lived all right. I must say the truth, though she is my niece: that girl’s no good. What a good place I found her! She would not submit, but abused her master. Is it for the likes of us to scold gentlefolk? Well, she was sent away. And then at the forester’s. She might have lived there; but no, she would not.”
“I want to know about the child. She was confined at your house, was she not? Where’s the child?”
“As to the child, I considered that well at the time. She was so bad I never thought she would get up again. Well, so I christened the baby quite properly, and we sent it to the Foundlings’. Why should one let an innocent soul languish when the mother is dying? Others do like this: they just leave the baby, don’t feed it, and it wastes away. But, thinks I, no; I’d rather take some trouble, and send it to the Foundlings’. There was money enough, so I sent it off.”
“Did you not get its registration number from the Foundlings’ Hospital?”
“Yes, there was a number, but the baby died,” she said. “It died as soon as she brought it there.”
“Who is she?”
“That same woman who used to live in Skorodno. She made a business of it. Her name was Malania. She’s dead now. She was a wise woman. What do you think she used to do? They’d bring her a baby, and she’d keep it and feed it; and she’d feed it until she had enough of them to take to the Foundlings’. When she had three or four, she’d take them all at once. She had such a clever arrangement, a sort of big cradle—a double one she could put them in one way or the other. It had a handle. So she’d put four of them in, feet to feet and the heads apart, so that they should not knock against each other. And so she took four at once. She’d put some pap in a rag into their mouths to keep ’em silent, the pets.”
“Well, go on.”
“Well, she took Katerina’s baby in the same way, after keeping it a fortnight, I believe. It was in her house it began to sicken.”
“And was it a fine baby?” Nekhludoff asked.
“Such a baby, that if you wanted a finer you could not find one. Your very image,” the old woman added, with a wink.
“Why did it sicken? Was the food bad?”
“Eh, what food? Only just a pretence of food. Naturally, when it’s not one’s own child. Only enough to get it there alive. She said she just managed to get it to Moscow, and there it died. She brought a certificate—all in order. She was such a wise woman.”
That was all Nekhludoff could find out concerning his child.
VI
Reflections of a landlord.
Again striking his head against both doors, Nekhludoff went out into the street, where the pink and the white boys were waiting for him. A few newcomers were standing with them. Among the women, of whom several had babies in their arms, was the thin woman with the baby who had the patchwork cap on its head. She held lightly in her arms the bloodless infant, who kept strangely smiling all over its wizened little face, and continually moving its crooked thumbs.
Nekhludoff knew the smile to be one of suffering. He asked who the woman was.
“It is that very Anisia I told you about,” said the elder boy.
Nekhludoff turned to Anisia.
“How do you live?” he asked. “By what means do you gain your livelihood?”
“How do I live? I go begging,” said Anisia, and began to cry.
Nekhludoff took out his pocket-book, and gave the woman a 10-rouble note. He had not had time to take two steps before another woman with a baby caught him up, then an old woman, then another young one. All of them spoke of their poverty, and asked for help. Nekhludoff gave them the 60 roubles—all in small notes—which he had with him, and, terribly sad at heart, turned home, i.e., to the foreman’s house.
The foreman met Nekhludoff with a smile, and informed him that the peasants would come to the meeting in the evening. Nekhludoff thanked him, and went straight into the garden to stroll along the paths strewn over with the petals of apple-blossom and overgrown with weeds, and to think over all he had seen.
At first all was quiet, but soon Nekhludoff heard from behind the foreman’s house two angry women’s voices interrupting each other, and now and then the voice of the ever-smiling foreman. Nekhludoff listened.
“My strength’s at an end. What are you about, dragging the very cross[22] off my neck,” said an angry woman’s voice.
“But she only got in for a moment,” said another voice. “Give it her back, I tell you. Why do you torment the beast, and the children, too, who want their milk?”
“Pay, then, or work it off,” said the foreman’s voice.
Nekhludoff left the garden and entered the porch, near which stood two dishevelled women—one of them pregnant and evidently near her time. On one of the steps of the porch, with his hands in the pockets of his holland coat, stood the foreman. When they saw the master, the women were silent, and began arranging the kerchiefs on their heads, and the foreman took his hands out of his pockets and began to smile.
This is what had happened. From the foreman’s words, it seemed that the peasants were in the habit of letting their calves and even their cows into the meadow belonging to the estate. Two cows belonging to the families of these two women were found in the meadow, and driven into the yard. The foreman demanded from the women 30 copecks for each cow or two days’ work. The women, however, maintained that the cows had got into the meadow of their own accord; that they had no money, and asked that the cows, which had stood in the blazing sun since morning without food, piteously lowing, should be returned to them, even if it had to be on the understanding that the price should be worked off later on.
“How often have I not begged of you,” said the smiling foreman, looking back at Nekhludoff as if calling upon him to be a witness, “if you drive your cattle home at noon, that you should have an eye on them?”