(Variant of the First Chapter)

The lawsuit brought by the proprietor, Ivan Apuikhtin, retired lieutenant of the guard, for the possession of four thousand desyatins of land occupied by his neighbors, the crown-peasants of the village of Izlegoshchi, in the district of Krasnoslobodsky, government of Penza, had been decided at the first trial, by the District Court, in favor of the peasants, through the clever pleading of Ivan Mironof their advocate, and an enormous datcha, or parcel, of land, part forest, and part cultivated, cleared by Apuikhtin’s serfs, fell into the hands of the peasants in 1815; and in 1816 the peasants sowed this land and harvested the crops. The profit of this irregular action of the peasants surprised all the neighborhood and the peasants themselves.

This success of the peasants was explained solely by the fact that Ivan Petrovitch Apuikhtin, a man of very sweet and peaceable nature, and no lover of lawsuits, though he was convinced of his rights in the matter, had taken no measures against the peasants. Ivan Mironof, however, a peasant who had studied law, a dry, hawk-nosed, educated muzhik, who had been golova, or head man, and had been about as collector of taxes, made an assessment of fifty kopecks apiece from each of the men, and spent this money to the best advantage in bribes, and cleverly conducted the whole affair to a successful issue.

But shortly after the decision of the District Court, Apuikhtin, seeing his danger, gave a power of attorney to a skillful lawyer, Ilya Mitrofanof, who appealed the case to the higher court against the decision of the District Court. Ilya Mitrofanof conducted the affair so cleverly that, in spite of the efforts of Ivan Mironof, the peasants’ advocate, notwithstanding all the considerable gifts of money presented by him to the members of the tribunal, the decision of the District was reversed in favor of the proprietor, and the land once more had to to be given up by the peasants, and their advocate had to make the announcement to them. Their advocate, Ivan Mironof, explained to the assembled peasants, that the gentlemen of the government had “lengthened the proprietor’s arm and spoiled the affair entirely,” so they were going to take away the land from them again; but that the proprietor’s business would fall through because his petition had already been written to the senate, and there was a man there who had faithfully promised to do the right thing in the senate, and that then the land would be forever granted to the peasants: all that was wanted was a fresh assessment of a ruble apiece from every soul among them. The peasants voted to collect the money, and once more they entrusted the whole affair to Ivan Mironof. Having got the money, Mironof went to Petersburg.

When the season for plowing opened in Holy Week, 1817—it came late that year—the peasants of Izlegoshchi met in an assembly and began to discuss whether they should cultivate the disputed land that year; and notwithstanding the fact that Apuikhtin’s manager had come during Lent with an order to them not to plow his land, and to render account of the rye that they had harvested the year before, nevertheless the peasants, for the very reason that they had already sowed their winter crop on the disputed land, and because Apuikhtin, not wishing to be too hard on them, was trying to give them a fair chance, decided to cultivate the disputed land, and to take hold of it before they did anything else. On the very day the peasants went to plow the Berestof datcha, on Maundy Thursday, Ivan Petrovitch Apuikhtin, who had been fasting during Holy Week, partook of the communion and went early in the morning to the church in the village of Izlegoshchi, of which he was a parishioner, and there, being unwitting of the peasants’ action, attended mass amiably with the church elder.

Ivan Petrovitch made confession in the afternoon and had the vespers performed at his house; in the morning he himself read the precepts, and at eight o’clock he left his house. They were expecting him at mass. As he stood at the altar where he usually stood, Ivan Petrovitch reasoned rather than prayed; and so he was dissatisfied with himself. He, like many men of his time, indeed of all times, felt that his attitude toward the faith was not clear. He was now fifty years old, he had never neglected the Church ritual, he went to church regularly and fasted once a year; in talking with his only daughter he had tried to ground her in the fundamentals of the true faith: but if any one had asked him exactly what he himself believed, he would have found it hard to decide what answer to give. Especially on this particular day he felt his heart melt within him, and, as he stood by the altar, instead of saying the prayers, he kept thinking how strangely everything was arranged in this world: here he was, almost an old man, who had fasted perhaps forty times in his life, and he knew that all his domestics and all in the church regarded him as a model, took him as an example, and he felt himself bound to set this example in relation to religion; but here he did not know anything, and before long it would be time for him to die, and for the life of him he could not tell whether what he was giving his people as an example was true or not. And it was strange to him how all—as he could see—took it for granted that old people were firm in the faith and knew what was necessary and what was not necessary—so he had always thought of old people; and here he was an old man, and yet he really did not know and was just as uncertain as he had been when he was twenty; hitherto he had disguised this fact, but now he acknowledged it.

Just as when he was a child the thought had sometimes occurred to him during service to crow like a cock, so now all sorts of ridiculous notions went through his brain; but here he was, an old man, reverently bowing, resting the aged bones of his hand on the flagging of the floor, and here was Father Vasili showing evident signs of timidity in performing the service before him, and “thus by our zeal we encourage his!”

“But if they only knew what notions were flying through my head. But it is sin, it is sin, I must conquer it by prayer,” said he to himself as the service began; and as he listened to the significance of the Ektenia,[7] he tried to pray, and in fact his emotions speedily carried him over into the spirit of prayer, and he began to realize his sins, and all that he had confessed.

A pleasant old man, walking evenly in bark shoes which had lost their shape, with a bald spot in the midst of his thick gray hair, wearing a shuba with a patch half way down the back, came up to the altar, bowed to the ground, shook back his hair, and went behind the altar to place the candles.

This was the church starosta, or elder, Ivan Feodotof, one of the best muzhiks of the village of Izlegoshchi. Ivan Petrovitch knew him. The sight of this grave, firm face led Ivan Petrovitch into a new trend of thought. He was one of the muzhiks that wanted to get his land away from him, and one of the best and richest of the married farmers who needed land, who knew how to till it, and with good reason.

His grave face, his reverent obeisance, his dignified walk, the neatness of his attire,—his leg-wrappers clung round his calves like stockings, and the fastenings were symmetrically crossed so that they were the same on both,—his whole appearance, seemed to express reproach and animosity to all that was of the earth.

“Now I have asked forgiveness of my wife and of my daughter Mani, and of my servant Volodya, and now I must ask also this man’s forgiveness and forgive him,” said Ivan Petrovitch, and he determined to go and ask forgiveness of Ivan Feodotof after the service.

And so he did.

There were few people in the church. The majority made their devotions in the first or the fourth week of Lent. So that now there were only about forty men and women who had not been able to attend the services earlier, besides a few old men—devoted church attendants from among Apuikhtin’s house servants and those of his rich neighbors, the Chernuishefs. There were among them an old lady, a relative of the Chernuishefs, who lived with them, and the widow of a sacristan, whose son the Chernuishefs, out of sheer kindness, had educated and made a man of, and who was now serving as a functionary in the senate.

Between matins and mass comparatively few remained in the church. The peasant men and women stayed outside. There remained two beggar women, sitting in one corner, whispering together and occasionally glancing at Ivan Petrovitch with an evident desire to wish his health and talk with him, and two lackeys, his own lackey, in livery, and the Chernuishefs’, who had come with the old lady. These two were also whispering together with great animation when Ivan Petrovitch came out from behind the altar, and as soon as they saw him they stopped talking.

There was still another woman in the high head-dress decorated with glass beads, and a white shuba, which she wrapped round a sick infant, trying to keep it from screaming. Then there was still another, a hunchbacked old woman also in a peasant head-dress, but decorated with woolen tags, and in a white kerchief tied in old woman’s fashion, and wearing a gray chuprun, or sack, with cocks embroidered down the back, and she knelt in the middle of the church, bowing toward an ancient image which was placed between the grated windows, and covered with a new towel with red ends, and she prayed so fervently, solemnly, and passionately, that it was impossible to avoid noticing her.

Before going to speak to the church elder, who was standing at the closet, kneading the candle-ends into a ball of wax, Ivan Petrovitch paused to glance at this old woman praying. She prayed very fluently. She knelt as straight as one could when addressing an image; all of her limbs were composed with mathematical symmetry, the toes of her bark shoes touched the stone flagging in exactly the same spot, her body was bent back as far as the hump on her back permitted, her arms were folded with absolute regularity across her stomach, her head was thrown back, and her wrinkled face, with an expression of modest entreaty, with dim eyes was turning directly toward the towel-covered icon. After she had remained motionless in such a position for a minute or less, but still a definitely determined time, she drew a long sigh, and, withdrawing her right hand, with a wide swing she raised it higher than her head-dress, touched the crown of her head with her closed fingers, and thus widely made the sign of the cross on her abdomen and on her shoulders, and then bringing it back again she bowed her head down to her hands, spread according to rule on the ground, and once more she lifted herself and once more repeated the whole operation.

“There is true prayer,” said Ivan Petrovitch to himself, as he looked at her; “not such as us sinners offer; here is faith, though I know that she addresses her image or her towel or the jewels on the image, as they all do. But it is all right. Why not? Each person has his own creed,” said he to himself; “she prays to an image, and here I consider it necessary to beg pardon of a muzhik!”

And he started to find the starosta, involuntarily looking about the church to see if any one was watching his proposed action, which was both pleasing and humiliating to him. It was disagreeable to him to have the old women—beggars, he called them,—see him, but most disagreeable of all was it to have Mishka, his lackey, see him; in Mishka’s presence—he knew his keen, shrewd wit—he felt that he had not the power to seek Ivan Feodotof. And he beckoned Mishka to come to him.

“What do you wish?”

“Please go, brother, and get me the rug from the calash, it is so damp here for one’s legs.”

“I will do so.”

And as soon as Mishka had left the church, Ivan Petrovitch immediately went to Ivan Feodotof.

Ivan Feodotof was abashed, just as if he had been detected in some misdemeanor, as soon as his barin drew near. His bashfulness and nervous movements made a strange contrast with his grave face and his curly steel-gray hair and beard. “Do you wish a ten-kopeck candle,” he asked, lifting the cover of his desk, and only occasionally raising his large handsome eyes to his barin.

“No, I need no candle. Ivan, I ask you to pardon me for Christ’s sake, if I have in any way offended you..... Pardon me, for Christ’s sake,” he repeated, bowing low.

Ivan Feodotof was wholly dumbfounded, and at a loss what to say, but at last he said, with a gentle smirk, collecting his wits:—

“God pardons. As far as I know I have nothing to complain of from you. God pardons, there is no offense,” he hastily repeated.

“Still ....”

“God pardons, Ivan Petrovitch. Then you will have two ten-kopeck candles?”

“Yes, two.”

“He’s an angel, just an angel; he begs pardon of a mean peasant. O Lord, he is truly an angel!” exclaimed the deacon’s wife, who wore an old black capote and a black kerchief. “And just what we ought to expect.”

“Ah, Paramonovna,” exclaimed Ivan Petrovitch, turning to her. “Are you preparing for the sacrament? I ask your pardon also, for Christ’s sake.”

“God pardons, oh, you angel,[8] my kind benefactor, let me kiss your hand.”

“There, that will do, that will do! You know I don’t like that sort of thing,” said Ivan Petrovitch, smiling, and he went to the altar.

The mass, as it was ordinarily performed in the Izlegoshchi parish, was of short duration, the more so because there were few participants. When the “holy gates” were opened after “Our Father” had been said, Ivan Petrovitch glanced at the northern door to summon Mishka to take his shuba. When the priest noticed this movement, he sternly beckoned to the deacon; the deacon almost ran and summoned the lackey Mikhaïl. Ivan Petrovitch was in a self-satisfied and happy frame of mind, but this obsequiousness and the expression of deference shown by the priest who was officiating at mass, again distracted him, his thin, curved, smooth-shaven lips grew still more curved, and a flash of satire came into his kindly eyes.

“It is just as if I were his general,” said he to himself, and he instantly remembered the words spoken by his German tutor, whom he once took with him to the altar to witness the Russian service; how this German had amused him and angered his wife by saying:—

“Der Pop war ganz böse, dass ich ihm Alles nachgesehen hatte.[9] It also occurred to him how a young Turk had once declared that there was no God, because he had nothing more to eat.

“And here I am taking the communion,” he said to himself, and, frowning, he performed the reverences.

And, taking off his bearskin shuba, and remaining only in a blue coat with bright buttons and a high white cravat and waistcoat and close-fitting trousers in heelless boots with pointed toes, he went in his quiet, unobtrusive, and easy gait to bow before the images of the church. And again even here he met with the same complaisance on the part of the participants, who made room for him.

“They seem to be saying, après vous s’il en reste,” he remarked to himself, as he made his obeisances to the very ground, with an awkwardness which arose from the fact that he had to find the mean between what might be irreverence and hypocrisy. At last the doors opened. He followed the priest in the reading of the prayer repeating the yako razboïnika,[10] they covered his cravat with the sacred veil, and he partook of the sacrament, and of the tepid water in the ancient vessel, and placed his coins in the ancient plates. He listened to the last prayers, bowed low toward the cross, and, putting on his shuba, left the church acknowledging the salutations and experiencing a pleasant sensation of a good work accomplished. As he left the church he again fell in with Ivan Feodotovitch.

“Thank you, thank you,” said he, in reply to his salutation. “Tell me, are you going to plow soon?”

“The boys have begun, the boys have begun,” replied Ivan Feodotovitch, even more timidly than usual. He supposed that Ivan Petrovitch already knew where the men of Izlegoshchi had gone to plow. “Well, it has been wet, been wet. It is yet early, as yet it is early.”

Ivan Petrovitch went to the memorial of his father and mother, bowed low, and then took his seat in his calash drawn by six horses with outrider.

“Well, thank the Lord,” said he to himself, as he swayed gently on the soft easy springs, and gazed up at the spring sky with scattered clouds, and at the bare ground, and at the white spots of still unmelted snow, and at the closely twisted tail of the off horse, and breathed in the joyous, fresh spring air which was especially pleasant after the atmosphere of the church.

“Thank God that I have partaken of the communion, and thank God that I can take a little snuff.”

And he took out his snuff-box and long held the tobacco between his thumb and finger, and with the same hand, not applying the snuff, he raised his hat in reply to the low bows of the people whom he met, especially the women scrubbing their chairs and benches in front of their doorsteps, as the calash with a swift dash of the spanking horses went splashing and dashing through the muddy street of the village of Izlegoshchi.

Ivan Petrovitch, anticipating the pleasant sensation of the tobacco, held the snuff between his thumb and finger all the way through the village, even till after they had got beyond the bad place at the foot of the hill, up which the coachman evidently could not drive without difficulty; he gathered up the reins, settled himself better in his seat, and shouted to the outrider to keep to the ice. When they had passed beyond the bridge and had got out of the broken ice and mud, Ivan Petrovitch, looking at two lapwings rising above the ravine, took his snuff, and, feeling that it was rather cool, he put on his gloves, wrapped himself up, sunk his chin into his high cravat, and said to himself, almost aloud, the word “slavno,” glorious, which was his favorite expression whenever everything seemed good to him.

During the night the snow had fallen, and even when Ivan Petrovitch was going to church the snow had not wholly melted, but was soft; but now, although there was no sun, the snow was almost liquid, and along the highway, by which he had to drive for three versts before he reached the side road to Chirakovo, there were only gleams of snow on the last year’s grass growing between the ruts. The horses trampled through the viscous mud on the black road. But for the fat, well-fed horses of his team it was no effort to draw the calash, and it seemed to go of itself, not only over the grass where the black tracks were left, but also through the mud itself.

“Ivan Petrovitch gave himself up to pleasant thoughts; he thought about his home, his wife, and his daughter.

“Masha will meet me on the steps, and with enthusiasm. She will see in me such a saint! She is a strange, sweet girl; only she takes everything to heart so. And the rôle which I have to play before her—the rôle of dignity and importance—has already begun to seem to me serious and ridiculous. If she only knew how much I stand in awe of her,” he said to himself. “Well, Kato”—that was his wife—“will probably be in good spirits to-day—really in good spirits, and the day will be excellent. Not as it was last week, owing to those Proshkinsky peasant women. She is a wonderful creature. And how afraid of her I am. But what is to be done about it? She herself is not happy.”

Then he recalled a famous anecdote about a calf; how a proprietor who had quarreled with his wife was one day sitting at his window and saw a calf gamboling. “I would marry you,” said the proprietor; and again he smiled, deciding everything puzzling and difficult, as was his wont, by a jest, generally directed against himself.

At the third verst, near the chapel, the postilion turned off to the left to take the cross-road, and the coachman shouted to him because he turned so short it struck the shaft horses with the pole, and from here on the calash rolled almost all the way down hill. Before they reached the house, the postilion looked at the coachman and pointed at something; the coachman looked at the lackey and also pointed at something. And they all gazed in one direction.

“What are you looking at?” asked Ivan Petrovitch.

“Wild geese,” said Mikhaïla.

“Where?”

But, though he strained his eyes, he could not see anything.

“Yonder, there is a forest, and beyond is a cloud, and there between, if you will be good enough to look.”

Still Ivan Petrovitch could not see anything. “Well, it is time for them. A week from to-day will be Annunciation.”

“So it will.”

“Well, go ahead.”

At the little lodge Mishka jumped down from the foot-board and examined the road, then climbed back again, and the calash rolled smoothly along by the edge of the pond into the park, mounted the driveway, passed the ice-house and the laundry, from which the water was dripping, and skillfully rounding up stopped at the porch. The Chernuishefs’ britchka was only just driving away from the yard. Immediately some people came hurrying down from the house: a surly-looking old man, Daniluitch, with side-whiskers, Nikola, Mikhaïla’s brother, and the boy Pavlushka, and behind them a girl with large black eyes and red arms bare above the elbows, and also with open neck.

“Marya Ivanovna, Marya Ivanovna. Where are you? Here, your mamasha is getting anxious about you. Come,” said the voice of the stout Katerina in the background.

But the little girl did not heed her; as her father expected, she seized him by the hand, and looked at him with a peculiar look.

“Tell me, papenka, have you had the sacrament,” she asked, with a sort of terror.

“Yes, I have had the sacrament. Why, were you afraid that I was such a sinner that they would not let me have it?”

The little girl was evidently shocked at her father’s levity on such a solemn occasion. She sighed, and as she went with him she held him by the hand and kissed it.

“Who has come?”

“It is young Chernuishef. He is in the drawing-room.”

“Has mama got up? What is she doing?

“Mamenka is better to-day. She is sitting down-stairs.”

In the passage-way Ivan Petrovitch met the nurse Yevpraksia, his foreman Andreï Ivanovitch, and his surveyor, who was staying there to divide the land. All congratulated Ivan Petrovitch. In the drawing-room were sitting Luiza Karlovna Turgoni, for ten years a friend of the family, an emigrée governess, and a young man of sixteen, Chernuishef, with his French tutor.