Chapter 4

The young proprietor evidently wanted to ask the peasant people something else; he did not rise from the bench, and with indecision looked now at Churis, and now into the empty, cold oven.

" Have you had your dinner ? " he finally asked them.

Under Churis's mustache played a sarcastic smile, as though it amused him to hear the master ask such foolish questions ; he did not answer.

" What dinner, benefactor ? " said the old woman, with a deep sigh. " We have eaten some bread. That was our dinner. There was no time to-day to go for some sorrel, and so there was nothing to make soup with, and what kvas there was I gave to the children."

" To-day we have a hunger fast, your Grace," Churis chimed in, glossing his wife's words. " Bread and onions, — such is our peasant food. Thank the Lord I have some little bread ; by your favor it has lasted until now ; but the rest of our peasants have not even that. The onions are a failure this year. We sent a few days ago to Mikhaylo the gardener, but he asks a penny a bunch, and we are too poor for that. We have not been to church since Easter, and we have no money with which to buy a candle for St. Nicholas."

Nekhlyudov had long known, not by hearsay, nor trusting the words of others, but by experience, all the extreme wretchedness of his peasants ; but all that reality was so incompatible with his education, his turn of mind, and manner of life, that he involuntarily forgot the truth ; and every time when he was reminded of it in a vivid and palpable manner, as now, his heart felt intolerably heavy and sad, as though he were tormented by the recollection of some unatoned crime which he had committed.

" Why are you so poor ? " he said, involuntarily expressing his thought.

" What else are we to be, your Grace, if not poor ? You know yourself what kind of soil we have : clay and clumps, and we must have angered God, for since the cholera we have had very poor crops of grain. The meadows and fields have grown less ; some have been taken into the estate, others have been directly attached to the manorial fields. I am all alone and old, I would gladly try to do something, but I have no strength. My old woman is sick, and every year she bears a girl ; they have to be fed. I am working hard all by myself, and there are seven souls in the house. It is a sin before God our Lord, but I often think it would be well if he took some of them away as soon as possible. It would be easier for me and for them too, it would be better than to suffer here — "

" Oh, oh ! " the woman sighed aloud, as though confirming her husband's words.

" Here is my whole help," continued Churis, pointing to a flaxen-haired, shaggy boy of some seven years, with an immense belly, who, softly creaking the door, had just entered timidly, and, morosely fixing his wondering eyes upon the master, with both his hands was holding on to his father's shirt. " Here is my entire help," continued Churis, in a sonorous voice, passing his rough hand through his child's hair. " It will be awhile before he will be able to do anything, and in the meantime the work is above my strength. It is not so much my age as the rupture that is undoing me. In bad weather it just makes me scream. I ought to have given up the land long ago, and been accounted an old man. Here is Ermilov, Demkin, Zyabrev, — they are all younger than I, but they have long ago given up the land. But I have no one to whom I might turn over the land, — that's where the trouble is. I must support the family, so I am struggling, your Grace."

" I would gladly make it easier for you, really. How can I ? " said the young master, sympathetically, looking at the peasant.

" How make it easier ? Of course, he who holds land must do the manorial work ; that is an established rule. I shall wait for the little fellow to grow up. If it is your will, excuse him from school ; for a few days ago the village scribe came and said that your Grace wanted him to come to school. Do excuse him : what mind can he have, your Grace ? He is too young, and has not much sense yet."

" No ; this, my friend, must be," said the master. " Your boy can comprehend, it is time for him to study. I am saying it for your own good. You judge yourself : when he grows up, and becomes a householder, he will know how to read and write, and he will read in church, — everything will go well with you, with God's aid," said Nekhlyudov, trying to express himself as clearly as possible, and, at the same time, blushing and stammering.

" No doubt, your Grace, you do not wish us any harm ; but there is nobody at home; my wife and I have to work in the manorial field, and, small though he is, he helps us some, by driving the cattle home, and taking the horses to water. As little as he is, he is a peasant all the same," and Churis, smiling, took hold of his boy's nose between his thick fingers, and cleaned it.

" Still, send him when he is at home, and has time, — do you hear ? — without fail."

Churis drew a deep sigh, and did not reply.