Three Days in the Village And Other Sketches

FROM THE DIARY

I am again staying with my friend, Tchertkóff, in the Moscow Government, and am visiting him now for the same reason that once caused us to meet on the border of the Orlóf Government, and that brought me to the Moscow Government a year ago. The reason is that Tchertkóff is allowed to live anywhere in the whole world, except in Toúla Government. So I travel to different ends of it to see him.

Before eight o'clock I go out for my usual walk. It is a hot day. At first I go along the hard clay road, past the acacia bushes already preparing to crack their pods and shed their seeds; then past the yellowing rye-field, with its still fresh and lovely cornflowers, and come out into a black fallow field, now almost all ploughed up. To the right an old man, in rough peasant-boots, ploughs with a sohá and a poor, skinny horse; and I hear an angry old voice shout: "Gee-up!" and, from time to time, "Now, you devil!" and again, "Gee-up, devil!" I want to speak with him; but when I pass his furrow, he is at the other end of the field. I go on. There is another ploughman further on. This one I shall probably meet when he reaches the road. If so, I'll speak to him, if there is a chance. And we do meet just as he reaches the road.

We go into the shade of the young birches. He sits down on the ground, and I stop in front of him.

The plough does not cut into the hard, beaten track that crosses the field, and he lifts it over and halts.

The mare really is, in build, size, and condition, such as a peasant rarely possesses.

He ploughs with a proper plough, harnessed to a big roan horse, and is a well-built young lad, well clad, and wearing good boots; and he answers my greeting of "God aid you!" pleasantly.

He looks at me seriously and attentively, evidently neither agreeing nor contradicting this, to him, new idea.

He leaves the plough, evidently wishing to have a rest, and inclined for a talk. I take the plough-handles, and touch the perspiring, well-fed, full-grown mare. She presses her weight into her collar, and I take a few steps. But I do not manage the plough, the share jumps out of the furrow, and I stop the horse.

He has a fresh, healthy, intelligent face, with hair just appearing on his chin and upper lip, and with intelligent grey eyes.

He backs his horse, to plough the part I have missed, but does not go on ploughing.

"You find the plough better than a sohá?"

"Yes, it's not a bad mare," he answers, with quiet pride.

"Yes, he sows about fifteen bushels of seed."

"Yes! One of our own villagers had it."

"Yes! I was left fatherless at seven. My brother works at a Moscow factory. At first my sister helped; she also worked at a factory. But since I was fourteen I've had no help in all my affairs, and have worked and earned," says he, with calm consciousness of his dignity.

"Why, you see, he's a thief!"

"Why, naturally!"

"Why, mother!"

"Why, certainly ... much easier!"

"Why are you ploughing so far from home?"

"What, so young?"

"What village are you from?"

"What then? The man will go to prison, and learn to steal worse!"

"Well, and did you have the law of him?"

"Two cows."

"This is not my land: it belongs to a peasant here. I have hired myself out to him."

"There it is, shimmering on the hill," says he, pointing.

"Then, who does your housework?"

"That doesn't matter—I'll put it right!"

"No—to plough this ground twice, and sow it, all properly."

"Not long—and it nearly got stolen...."

"No."

"No, you can't do it."

"No, I live at home. I'm my own master!"

"It is hot in the sun.... Let's go and sit under the bushes," says he, pointing to a little wood just across the field.

"Is that far?"

"I have only spoilt your furrow."

"I expect you are in service somewhere, and do carting?"

"Hired yourself out for the whole summer?"

"Have you, really?... And how old are you?" I ask.

"Have you had it long?"

"Has he much land, then?"

"From Botvínino."

"Does he! And is that horse your own? It's a good horse."

"But you got it back?"

"But why prosecute, if you got the plough back?"

"Are you married?"

"And you have a cow?"

"Eighteen," he replies, with a slight smile, understanding that it interests me to see that so young a fellow has been able to manage so well. This, evidently, pleases him.

"How young you still are!" I say. "And will you have to go as a soldier?"

"Of course ... be conscripted!" says he, with the calm expression with which people speak of old age, death, and in general of things it is useless to argue about, because they are unavoidable.

As always happens now when one speaks to peasants, our talk touches on the land, and, describing his life, he says he has not enough land, and that if he did not do wage-labour, sometimes with and sometimes without his horse, he would not have anything to live on. But he says this with merry, pleased and proud self-satisfaction; and again remarks that he was left alone, master of the house, when he was fourteen, and has earned everything himself.

"And do you drink vódka?"

He evidently does not like to say that he does, and still does not wish to tell a lie.

"I do," he says, softly, shrugging his shoulders.

"And can you read and write?"

"Very well."

"And haven't you read books about strong drink?"

"No, I haven't."

"Well, but wouldn't it be better not to drink at all?"

"Of course. Little good comes of it."

"Then why not give it up?"

He is silent, evidently understanding, and thinking it over.

"It can be done, you know," say I, "and what a good thing it would be!... The day before yesterday I went to Ívino. When I reached one of the houses, the master came out to greet me, calling me by name. It turned out that we had met twelve years before.... It was Koúzin—do you know him?"

"Of course I do! Sergéy Timoféevitch, you mean?"

I tell him how we started a Temperance Society twelve years ago with Koúzin, who, though he used to drink, has quite given it up, and now tells me he is very glad to be rid of so nasty a habit; and, one sees, is living well, with his house and everything well managed, and who, had he not given up drinking, would have had none of these things.

"Yes, that is so!"

"Well then, you know, you should do the same. You are such a nice, good lad.... What do you need vódka for, when you say yourself there is no good in it?... You, too, should give it up!... It would be such a good thing!"

He remains silent, and looks at me intently. I prepare to go, and hold out my hand to him.

"Truly, give it up from now! It would be such a good thing!"

With his strong hand he firmly presses mine, evidently regarding my gesture as challenging him to promise.

"Very well then ... it can be done!" says he, quite unexpectedly, and in a joyous and resolute tone.

"Do you really promise?" say I, surprised.

"Well, of course! I promise," he says, nodding his head and smiling slightly.

The quiet tone of his voice, and his serious, attentive face, show that he is not joking, but that he is really making a promise he means to keep.

Old age or illness, or both together, has made me very ready to cry when I am touched with joy. The simple words of that kindly, firm, strong man, so evidently ready for all that is good, and standing so alone, touch me so that sobs rise to my throat, and I step aside, unable to utter a word.

After going a few steps, I regain control of myself, and turn to him and say (I have already asked his name):

"Mind, Alexander! ... the proverb says, 'Be slow to promise, but having promised, keep it!'"

"Yes, that's so. It will be safe."

I have seldom experienced a more joyful feeling than I had when I left him.

I have omitted to say that during our talk I had offered to give him some leaflets on drink and some booklets. [A man in a neighbouring village posted up one of those same leaflets on the wall outside his house lately, but it was pulled down and destroyed by the policeman.] He thanked me, and said he would come and fetch them in the dinner-hour.

He did not come in the dinner-hour, and I, sinner that I am, suspected that our whole conversation was not so important to him as it seemed to me, and that he did not want the books, and that, in general, I had attributed to him what was not in him. But he came in the evening, all perspiring from his work and from the walk. After finishing his work, he had ridden home, put up the plough, attended to his horse, and had now come a quarter of a mile to fetch the books.

I was sitting, with some visitors, on a splendid veranda, looking out on to flower-beds with ornamental vases on flower-set mounds—in short, in luxurious surroundings such as one is always ashamed of when one enters into human relations with working people.

I went out to him, and at once asked, "Have you not changed your mind? Will you really keep your promise?"

And again, with the same kindly smile, he replied, "Of course!... I have already told mother. She's glad, and thanks you."

I saw a bit of paper behind his ear.

"You smoke?"

"I do," he said, evidently expecting that I should begin persuading him to leave that off too. But I did not try to.

He remained silent; and then, by some strange connection of thoughts (I think he saw the interest I felt in his life, and wished to tell me of the important event awaiting him in the autumn) he said:

"But I did not tell you.... I am already betrothed...."

And he smiled, looking questioningly into my eyes. "It's to be in the autumn!"

"Really! That's a good thing! Where is she from?"

He told me.

"Has she a dowry?"

"No; what dowry should she have? But she's a good girl."

The idea came to me to put to him the question which always interests me when I come in contact with good young people of our day.

"Tell me," said I, "and forgive my asking—but please tell the truth: either do not answer at all, or tell the whole truth...."

He looked at me quietly and attentively.

"Why should I not tell you?"

"Have you ever sinned with a woman?"

Without a moment's hesitation, he replied simply:

"God preserve me! There's been nothing of the sort!"

"That's good, very good!" said I. "I am glad for you."

There was nothing more to say just then.

"Well then, I will fetch you the books, and God's help be with you!"

And we took leave of one another.

Yes, what a splendid, fertile soil on which to sow, and what a dreadful sin it is to cast upon it the seeds of falsehood, violence, drunkenness and profligacy!