EVERY morning at six o’clock I set out tor my work in the market-place. Imet interesting people there. There was the carpenter, Osip, a gray-hairedman who looked like Saint Nikolai, a clever workman, and witty; there wasthe humpbacked slater, Ephimushka, the pious bricklayer, Petr, a thoughtfulman who also reminded me of a saint; the plasterer, Gregory Shishlin, aflaxen-bearded, blue-eyed, handsome man, beaming with quiet good-nature.
I had come to know these people during the second part of my life at thedraughtsman’s house. Every Sunday they used to appear in the kitchen,grave, important-looking, with pleasant speech, and with words which had anew flavor for me. All these solid-looking peasants had seemed to me then tobe easy to read, good through and through, all pleasantly different from thespiteful, thieving, drunken inhabitants of the Kunavin and its environs.
The plasterer, Shishlin, pleased me most of all, and I actually asked if Imight join his gang of workmen. But scratching his golden brow with a whitefinger, he gently refused to have me.
“It is too soon for you,” he said. “Our work is not easy; wait anotheryear.”
Then throwing up his handsome head, he asked:
“You don’t like the way you are living? Never mind, have patience; learnto live a life of your own, and then you will be able to bear it!”
I do not know all that I gained from this good advice, but I remember itgratefully.
These people used to come to my master’s house every Sunday morning,sit on benches round the kitchen-table, and talk of interesting things whilethey waited for my master. When he came, he greeted them loudly and gayly,shaking their strong hands, and then sat down in the chief corner. Theyproduced their accounts and bundles of notes, the workmen placed theirtattered account-books on the table, and the reckoning up for the weekbegan.
Joking and bantering, the master would try to prove them wrong in theirreckoning, and they did the same to him. Sometimes there was a fiercedispute, but more often friendly laughter.
“Eh, you’re a dear man; you were born a rogue!” the workmen would sayto the master.
And he answered, laughing in some confusion:
“And what about you, wild fowl? There’s as much roguery about you asabout me!”
“How should we be anything else, friend?” agreed Ephimushka, butgrave Petr said :
“You live by what you steal; what you earn you give to God and theemperor.”
“Well, then I’ll willingly make a burnt offering of you,” laughed themaster.
They led him on good-naturedly :
“Set fire to us, you mean?”
“Burn us in a fiery furnace?”
Gregory Shishlin, pressing his luxuriant beard to his breast with hishands, said in a sing-song voice :
“Brothers, let us do our business without cheating. If we will only livehonestly, how happy and peaceful we shall be, eh? Shall we not, dearpeople?”
His blue eyes darkened, grew moist ; at that moment he lookedwonderfully handsome. His question seemed to have upset them all; they allturned away from him in confusion.
“A peasant does not cheat much,” grumbled good-looking Osip with asigh, as if he pitied the peasant.
The dark bricklayer, bending his round-shouldered back over the table,said thickly:
“Sin is like a sort of bog; the farther you go, the more swampy it gets!”
And the master said to them, as if he were making a speech :
“What about me? I go into it because something calls me. Though I don’twant to.”
After this philosophising they again tried to get the better of one another,but when they had finished their accounts, perspiring and tired from theeffort, they went out to the tavern to drink tea, inviting the master to go withthem.
On the market-place it was my duty to watch these people, to see thatthey did not steal nails, or bricks, or boards. Every one of them, in additionto my master’s work, held contracts of his own, and would try to stealsomething for his own work under my very nose.
They welcomed me kindly, and Shishlin said :
“Do you remember how you wanted to come into my gang? And look atyou now; put over me as chief!”
“Well, well,” said Osip bantcringly, “keep watch over the river-banks, andmay God help you!”
Petr observed in an unfriendly tone :
“They have put a young crane to watch old mice.”
My duties were a cruel trial to me. I felt ashamed in the presence of thesepeople. They all seemd to possess some special knowledge which was hiddenfrom the rest of the world, and I had to watch them as if they had beenthieves and tricksters. The first part of the time it was very hard for me, butOsip soon noticed this, and one day he said to me privately :
“Look here, young fellow, you won’t do any good by sulking —understand ?”
Of course I did not understand, but I felt that he realized the absurdity ofmy position, and I soon arrived at a frank understanding with him.
He took me aside in a corner and explained:
“If you want to know, the biggest thief among us is the bricklayer,Petrukha. He is a man with a large family, and he is greedy. You want towatch him well. Nothing is too small for him; everything comes in handy. Apound of nails, a dozen of bricks, a bag of mortar — he’ll take all. He is agood man. God-fearing, of severe ideas, and well educated, but he loves tosteal! Ephimushka lives like a woman.
He is peaceable, and is harmless as far as you are concerned. He isclever, too — humpbacks are never fools! And there’s Gregory Shishlin. Hehas a fad — he will neither take from others nor give of his own. He works fornothing; any one can take him in, but he can deceive no one. He is notgoverned by his reason.”
“He is good, then?”
Osip looked at me as if I were a long way from him, and uttered thesememorable words :
“True enough, he is good. To be good is the easiest way for lazy people.
To be good, my boy, does not need brains.”
“And what about you?” I asked Osip.
He laughed and answered:
“I? I am like a young girl. When I am a grandmother I will tell you allabout myself; till then you will have to wait. In the meanwhile you can setyour brains to work to find out where the real T is hidden. Find out; that iswhat you have to do!”
He had upset all my ideas of himself and his friends.
It was difficult for me to doubt the truth of his statement. I saw thatEphimushka, Petr, and Gregory regarded the handsome old man as moreclever and more learned in worldly wisdom than themselves. They tookcounsel with him about everything, listened attentively to his advice, andshowed him every sign of respect.
“Will you be so good as to give us your advice,” they would ask him. Butafter one of these questions, when Osip had gone away, the bricklayer saidsoftly to Grigori:
“Heretic!”
And Grigori burst out laughing and added:
“Clown!”
The plasterer warned me in a friendly way:
“You look out for yourself with the old man, Maximich. You must becareful, or he will twist you round his finger in an hour; he is a bitter oldman. God save you from the harm he can do.”
“What harm?”
“That I can’t say!” answered the handsome workman, blinking.
I did not understand him in the least. I thought that the most honest andpious man of them all was the bricklayer, Petr; He spoke of everythingbriefly, suggestively; his thoughts rested mostly upon God, hell, and death.
“Ekh! my children, my brothers, how can you not be afraid”? How canyou not look forward, when the grave and the churchyard let no one passthem?”
He always had the stomachache, and there were some days when hecould not eat anything at all. Even a morsel of bread brought on the pain tosuch an extent as to cause convulsions and a dreadful sickness.
Humpbacked Ephimushka also seemed a very good and honest, butalways queer fellow. Sometimes he was happy and foolish, like a harmlesslunatic. He was everlastingly falling in love with different women, aboutwhom he always used the same words:
“I tell you straight, she is not a woman, but a flower in cream — ei, bo —o!”
When the lively women of Kunavin Street came to wash the floors in theshops, Ephimushka let himself down from the roof, and standing in a cornersomewhere, mumbled, blinking his gray, bright eyes, stretch — ing hismouth from ear to ear:
“Such a butterfly as the Lord has sent to me; such a joy has descendedupon me! Well, what is she but a flower in cream, and grateful I ought to befor the chance which has brought me such a gift! Such beauty makes me fullof life, afire!”
At first the women used to laugh at him, calling out to each other:
“Listen to the humpback running on! Oh Lord!”
The slater caused no little laughter. His high cheek-boned face wore asleepy expression, and he used to talk as if he were raving, his honeyedphrases flowing in an intoxicating stream which obviously went to thewomen’s heads. At length one of the elder ones said to her friend in a tone ofamazement :
“Just listen to how that man is going on! A clean young fellow he is!”
“He sings like a bird.”
“Or like a beggar in the church porch,” said an obstinate girl, refusing togive way.
But Ephimushka was not like a beggar at all. He stood firmly, like a squattree-trunk; his voice rang out like a challenge; his words became more andmore alluring; the women listened to him in silence. In fact, it seemed as ifhis whole being was flowing away in a tender, narcotic speech.
It ended in his saying to his mates in a tone of astonishment at suppertime,or after the Sabbath rest, shak — ing his heavy, angular head:
“Well, what a sweet little woman, a dear little thing! I have never beforecome across anything like her!”
When he spoke of his conquests Ephimushka was not boastful, norjeered at the victim of his charms, as the others always did. He was onlyjoyfully and gratefully touched, his gray eyes wide open with astonishment.
Osip, shaking his head, exclaimed :
“Oh, you incorrigible fellow! How old are you?”
“Forty — four years, but that’s nothing! I have grown five years youngertoday, as if I had bathed in the healing water of a river. I feel thoroughly fit,and my heart is at peace! Some women can produce that effect, diVThe bricklayer said coarsely:
“You are going on for fifty. You had better be careful, or you will find thatyour loose way of life will leave a bitter taste.”
“You are shameless, Ephimushka!” sighed Grigori Shishlin.
And it seemed to — me that the handsome fellow envied the success ofthe humpback.
Osip looked round on us all from under his level silver brows, and saidjestingly:
“Every Mashka has her fancies. One will love cups and spoons, anotherbuckles and earrings, but all Mashkas will be grandmothers in time.”
Shishlin was married, but his wife was living in the country, so he alsocast his eyes on the floorscrubbers. They were all of them easy of approach.
All of them “earned a bit” to add to their income, and they regarded thismethod of earning money in that poverty — stricken area as simply as theywould have regarded any other kind of work. But the handsome workmannever approached the women. He just gazed at them from afar with apeculiar expression, as if he were pitying some one — himself or them. Butwhen they be — gan to sport with him and tempt him, he laughed bash —fully and went away.
“Well, you —”
“What’s the matter with you, you fool?” asked Ephimushka, amazed. “Doyou mean to say you are going to lose the chance?”
“I am a married man,” Grigori reminded him.
“Well, do you think your wife will know anything about it?”
“My wife would always know if I lived unchastely. I can’t deceive her, mybrother.”
“How can she know?”
“That I can’t say, but she is bound to know, while she lives chaste herself;and if I lead a chaste life, and she were to sin, I should know it.”
“But how?” cried Ephimushka, but Grigori repeated calmly:
“That I can’t say.”
The slater waved his hands agitatedly.
“There, if you please! Chaste, and doesn’t know! Oh, you blockhead!”
Shishlin’s workmen, numbering seven, treated him as one of themselvesand not as their master, and behind his back they nicknamed him “The Calf.”
When he came to work and saw that they were lazy, he would take atrowel, or a spade, and artistically do the work himself, calling out coaxingly:
“Set to work, children, set to work!”
One day, carrying out the task which my master had angrily set me, Isaid to Grigori :
“What bad workmen you have.”
He seemed surprised.
“Why?”
“This work ought to have been finished yesterday, and they won’t finishit even today.”
“That is true; they won’t have time,” he agreed, and after a silence headded cautiously:
“Of course, I see that by rights I ought to dismiss them, but you see theyare all my own people from my own village. And then again the punishmentof God is that every man should eat bread by the sweat of his brow, and thepunishment is for all of us — for you and me, too. But you and I labor lessthan they do, and — well, it would be awkward to dismiss them.”
He lived in a dream. He would walk along the deserted streets of themarket-place, and suddenly halt — ing on one of the bridges over theObvodni Canal, would stand for a long time at the railings, looking into thewater, at the sky, or into the distance beyond the Oka. If one overtook himand asked:
“What are you doing?”
“What?” he would reply, waking up and smiling confusedly. “I was juststanding, looking about me a bit.”
“God has arranged everything very well, brother,” he would often say.
“The sky, the earth, the flowing rivers, the steamboats running. You can geton a boat and go where you like — to Riazan, or to Ribinsk, to Perm, toAstrakhan. I went to Riazan once. It wasn’t bad — a little town — but verydull, duller than Nijni. Our Nijni is wonderful, gay! And Astrakhan is stillduller. There are a lot of Kalmucks there, and I don’t like them. I don’t likeany of those Mordovans, or Kalmucks, Persians, or Germans, or any of theother nations.”
He spoke slowly ; his words cautiously felt for sympathy in others, andalways found it in the bricklayer, Petr.
“Those are not nations, but nomads,” said Petr with angry conviction.
“They came into the world before Christ and they’ll go out of it before Hecomes again.”
Grigori became animated ; he beamed.
“That’s it, isn’t it? But I love a pure race like the Russians, my brother,with a straight look. I don’t like Jews, either, and I cannot understand howthey are the people of God. It is wisely arranged, no doubt.”
The slater added darkly :
“Wisely — but there is a lot that is superfluous!”
Osip listened to what they said, and then put in, mockingly andcaustically :
“There is much that is superfluous, and your conversation belongs tothat category. Ekh! you bab — blers; you want a thrashing, all of you!”
Osip kept himself to himself, and it was impossible to guess with whomhe would agree, or with whom he would quarrel. Sometimes he seemedinclined to agree calmly with all men, and with all their ideas; but more oftenone saw that he was bored by all of them, regarding them as half-witted, andhe said to Petr, Grigori, and Ephimushka:
“Ekh, you sow’s whelps!”
They laughed, not very cheerfully or willingly, but still they laughed.
My master gave me five copecks a day for food. This was not enough, andI was rather hungry. Seeing this, the workmen invited me to breakfast andsup — per with them, and sometimes the contractors would invite me to atavern to drink tea with them. I willingly accepted the invitations. I loved tosit among them and listen to their slow speeches, their strange stories. I gavethem great pleasure by my readings out of church books.
“You ‘ve stuck to books till you are fed up with them. Your crop is stuffedwith them,” said Osip, regarding me attentively with his cornflower-blueeyes. It was difficult to catch their expression; his pupils always seemed to befloating, melting.
“Take it a drop at a time — it is better; and when you are grown up, youcan be a monk and console the people by your teaching, and in that way youmay become a millionaire.”
“A missioner,” corrected the bricklayer in a voice which for some reasonsounded aggrieved.
“What?” asked Osip.
“A missioner is what you mean! You are not deaf, are you?”
“All right, then, a missioner, and dispute with heretics. And even thosewhom you reckon as heretics have the right to bread. One can live even witha heretic, if one exercises discretion.”
Grigori laughed in an embarrassed manner, and Petr said in his beard :
“And wizards don’t have a bad time of it, and other kinds of godlesspeople.”
But Osip returned quickly:
“A wizard is not a man of education; education is not usually apossession of the wizard.”
And he told me :
“Now look at this; just listen. In our district there lived a peasant, Tushekwas his name, an emaciated little man, and idle. He lived like a feather,blown about here and there by the wind, neither a worker nor a do-nothing.
Well, one day he took to praying, because he had nothing else to do, andafter wandering about for two years, he suddenly showed himself in a newcharacter. His hair hung down over his shoulders ; he wore a skull-cap, and abrown cassock of leather; he looked on all of us with a baneful eye, and saidstraight out : ‘Repent, ye cursed!’ And why not repent, especially if youhappened to be a woman”? And the business ran its course: Tushek overfed,Tushek drunk, Tushek having his way with the women to his heart’s content—”
The bricklayer interrupted him angrily :
“What has that got to do with the matter, his over-feeding, oroverdrinking”?”
“What else has to do with it, then?”
“His words are all that matter.”
“Oh, I took no notice of his words; I am abundantly gifted with wordsmyself.”
“We know all we want to know about Tushinkov, Dmitri Vassilich,” saidPetr indignantly, and Grigori said nothing, but let his head droop, and gazedinto his glass.
“I don’t dispute it,” replied Osip peaceably. “I was just telling ourMaximich of the different pathways to the morsel — ”
“Some of the roads lead to *!”
“Occasionally,” agreed Osip. “But you will meet with priests on all kindsof paths; one must learn where to turn off.”
He was always somewhat inclined to make fun of these pious people, theplasterer and the bricklayer; perhaps he did not like them, but he skilfullyconcealed the fact. His attitude towards people was always elusive.
He looked upon Ephimushka more indulgently, with more favor thanupon the other. The slater did not enter into discussions about God, thetruth, sects, the woes of humanity, as his friends did. Setting his chairsidewise to the table, so that its back should not be in the way of his hump,he would calmly drink glass after glass of tea. Then, suddenly alert, he wouldglance round the smoky room, listening to the incoherent babel of voices,and darting up, swiftly disap — pear. That meant that some one had comeinto the tavern to whom Ephimushka owed money, — he had a good dozencreditors, — so, as some of them used to beat him when they saw him, he justfled from sin.
“They get angry, the oddities!” he would say in a tone of surprise. “Can’tthey understand that if I had the money I would give it to them?”
“Oh, bitter poverty!” Osip sped after him.
Sometimes Ephimushka sat deep in thought, hearing and seeingnothing; his high cheek-boned face softened, his pleasant eyes lookingpleasanter than usual.
“What are you thinking about?” they would ask him. .
“I was thinking that if I were rich I would marry a real lady, anoblewoman — by God, I would! A colonel’s daughter, for example, and,Lord! how I would love her! I should be on fire with love of her. because, mybrothers, I once roofed the country house of a certain colonel — ”
“And he had a widowed daughter; we ‘ve heard all that before!”
interrupted Petr in an unfriendly tone.
But Ephimushka, spreading his hands out on his knees, rocked to andfro, his hump looking as if it were chiselling the air, and continued:
“Sometimes she went into the garden, all in white: glorious she looked. Ilooked at her from the roof, and I didn’t know what the sun had done to me.
But what caused that white light? It was as if a white dove had flown fromunder her feet! She was just a cornflower in cream! With such a lady as that,one would like all one’s life to be night.”
“And how would you get anything to eat?” asked Petr gruffly. But this didnot disturb Ephimushka.
“Lord!” he exclaimed. “Should we want much? Besides, she is rich.”
Osip laughed.
“And when are you going in for all this dissipation, Ephimushka, yourogue?”
Ephimushka never talked on any other subject but women, and he wasan unreliable workman. At one time he worked excellently and profitably, atanother time he did not get on at all; his wooden hammer tapped the ridgeslazily, leaving crevices. He always smelt of train-oil, but he had a smell of hisown as well, a healthy, pleasant smell like that of a newly cut tree.
One could discuss everything that was interesting with the carpenter. Hiswords always stirred one’s feelings, but it was hard to tell when he wasserious and when joking.
With Grigori it was better to talk about God; this was a subject which heloved, and on which he was an authority.
“Grisha,” I asked, “do you know there are people who do not believe inGod?”
He laughed quietly.
“What do you mean?”
“They say there is no God.”
“Oh, that’s what you mean! I know that.”
And as if he were brushing away invisible flies, he went on:
“King David said in his time, you remember, ‘The fool hath said in hisheart “There is no God.” ’ That’s what he said about that kind of fool. Wecan’t do without God!”
Osip said, as if agreeing with him :
“Take away God from Petrukha here, and he will show you!”
Shishlin’s handsome face became stern. He touched his beard withfingers the nails of which were covered with dried lime, and saidmysteriously:
“God dwells in every incarnate being; the conscience and all the inner lifeis God-given.”
“And sin?’
“Sin comes from the flesh, from Satan! Sin is an external thing, likesmallpox, and nothing more! He who thinks too much of sin, sins all themore. If you do not remember sin, you will not sin. Thoughts about sin arefrom Satan, the lord of the flesh, who suggests.”
The bricklayer queried this.
“You are wrong there.”
“I am not! God is sinless, and man is in His image and likeness. It is theimage of God, the flesh, which sins, but His likeness cannot sin; it is a spirit.”
He smiled triumphantly, but Petr growled :
“That is wrong.”
“According to you, I suppose,” Osip asked the brick-layer, “if you don’tsin, you can’t repent, and if you don’t repent, you won’t be saved?”
“That’s a more hopeful way. Forget the devil and you cease to love God,the fathers said.”
Shishlin was not intemperate, but two glasses would make him tipsy. Hisface would be flushed, his eyes childish, and his voice would be raised insong.
“How good everything is, brothers! Here we live, work a little, and haveas much as we want to eat, God be praised! Ah, how good it is!”
He wept. The tears trickled down his beard and gleamed on the silkenhairs like false pearls.
His laudation of our life and those tears were unpleasant to me. Mygrandmother had sung the praises of life more convincingly, moresympathetically, and not so crudely.
All these discussions kept me in a continual tension, and aroused a dullemotion in me. I had already read many books about peasants, and I sawhow utterly unlike the peasants in the books were to those in real life. Inbooks they were all unhappy. Good or evil characters, they were all poorer inwords and ideas than peasants in real life. In books they spoke less of God, ofsects, of churches, and more of government, land, and law. They spoke lessabout women, too, but quite as coarsely, though more kindly. For thepeasants in real life, women were a pastime, but a danger — ous one. Onehad to be artful with women; other — wise they would gain the upper handand spoil one’s whole life. The muzhik in books may be good or bad, but he isaltogether one or the other. The real muzhik is neither wholly good norwholly bad, but he is wonderfully interesting. If the peasant in real life doesnot blurt out all his thoughts to you, you have a feeling that he is keepingsomething back which he means to keep for himself alone, and that veryunsaid, hidden thing is the most important thing about him.
Of all the peasants I had read of in books, the one I liked the best wasPetr in “The Carpenter’s Gang.” I wanted to read the story to my comrades,and I brought the book to the Yarmaka. I often spent the night in one oranother of the workshops ; sometimes it was because I was so tired that Ilacked the strength to get home.
When I told them that I had a book about carpenters, my statementaroused a lively interest, espe — cially in Osip. He took the book out of myhands, and turned over the leaves distrustfully, shaking his head.
“And it is really written about us! Oh, you rascal! Who wrote it? Somegentleman? I thought as much! Gentlemen, and chinovniks especially, areexperts at anything. Where God does not even guess, a chinovnik has it allsettled in his mind. That’s what they live for.”
“You speak very irreverently of God, Osip,” observed Petr.
“That’s all right! My words are less to God than a snowflake or a drop ofrain are to me. Don’t you worry; you and I don’t touch God.”
He suddenly began to play restlessly, throwing off sharp little sayingslike sparks from a flint, cutting off with them, as with scissors, whatever wasdispleasing to him. Several times in the course of the day he asked me :
“Are we going to read, Maximich? That’s right! A good idea!”
When the hour for rest arrived we had supper with him in his workshop,and after supper appeared Petr with his assistant Ardalon, and Shishlin withthe lad Phoma. In the shed where the gang slept there was a lamp burning,and I began to read. They listened without speaking, but they moved about,and very soon Ardalon said crossly:
“I’ve had enough of this!”
And he went out. The first to fall asleep was Grigori, with his mouth opensurprisingly; then the carpenters fell asleep ; but Petr, Osip, and Phoma drewnearer to me and listened attentively. When I finished reading Osip put outthe lamp at once. By the stars it was nearly midnight.
Petr asked in the darkness :
“What was that written for? Against whom?”
“Now for sleep!” said Osip, taking off his boots.
Petr persisted in his question :
“I asked, against whom was that written?”
“I suppose they know!” replied Osip, arranging himself for sleep on ascaffolding.
“If it is written against stepmothers, it is a waste of time. It won’t makestepmothers any better,” said the bricklayer firmly. “And if it is meant forPetr. it is also futile; his sin in his answer. For murder you go to Siberia, andthat’s all there is about it! Books are no good for such sins; no use, eh?”
Osip did not reply, and the bricklayer added :
“They can do nothing themselves and so they discuss other people’swork. Like women at a meeting. Good-by, it is bedtime.”
He stood for a minute in the dark blue square of the open door, andasked:
“Are you asleep, Osip? What do you think about it?”
“Eh?” responded the carpenter sleepily.
“All right; go to sleep.”
Shishlin had fallen on his side where he had been sitting. Phoma lay onsome trampled straw beside me. The whole neighborhood was asleep. In thedistance rose the shriek of the railway engines, the heavy rumbling of ironwheels, the clang of buffers. In the shed rose the sound of snoring indifferent keys. I felt uncomfortable. I had expected some sort of discussion,and there had been nothing of the kind.
But suddenly Osip spoke softly and evenly :
“My child, don’t you believe anything of that. You are young; you have along while to live; treasure > up your thoughts. Your own sense is worthtwice some one else’s. Are you asleep, Phoma?”
“No,” replied Phoma with alacrity.
“That’s right! You have both received some education, so you go onreading. But don’t believe all you read. They can print anything, you know.
That is their business!”
He lowered his feet from the scaffolding, and resting his hands on theedge of the plank, bent over us, and continued:
“How ought you to regard books? Denunciation of certain people, that’swhat a book is! Look, they say, and see what sort of a man this is — acarpenter, or any one else — and here is a gentleman, a different kind ofman! A book is not written without an object, and generally around someone.”
Phoma said thickly:
“Petr was right to kill that contractor!”
“That was wrong. It can never be right to kill a man. I know that you donot love Grigori, but put that thought away from you. We are none of us richpeople. Today I am master, tomorrow a workman again.”
“I did not mean you, Uncle Osip.”
“It is all the same.”
“You are just — ”
“Wait; I am telling you why these books are written,” Osip interruptedPhoma’s angry words. “It is a very cunning idea! Here we have a gentlemanwithout a muzhik; here a muzhik without a gentleman! Look now! Both thegentleman and the muzhik are badly off. The gentleman grows weak, crazy,and the muzhik becomes boastful, drunken, sickly, and offensive. That’swhat happens! But in his lord’s castle it was better, they say. The lord hidhimself behind the muzhik and the muzhik behind the master, and so theywent round and round, well-fed, and peaceful. I don’t deny that it was morepeaceful living with the nobles. It was no advantage to the lord if his muzhikwas poor, but it was to his good if he was rich and intelligent. He was then aweapon in his hand. I know all about it; you see I lived in a nobleman’sdomain for nearly forty years. There’s a lot of my experience written on myhide.”
I remembered that the carter, Petr, who committed suicide, used to talkin the same way about the nobility, and it was very unpleasant to my mindthat the ideas of Osip should run on the same lines as those of that evil oldman.
Osip touched my leg with his hand, and went on :
“One must understand books and all sorts of writings. No one doesanything without a reason, and books are not written for nothing, but tomuddle people’s heads. Every one is created with intelligence, without whichno one can wield an ax, or sew a shoe.”
He spoke for a long time, and lay down. Again he jumped up, throwinggently his well turned, quaint phrases into the darkness and quietness.
“They say that the rlobles are quite a different race from the peasants,but it is not true. We are just like the nobles, only we happen to have beenbom low down in the scale. Of course a noble learns from books, while Ilearn by my own noddle, and a gentleman has a delicate skin; that is all thedifference. No — o, lads, it is time there was a new way of living; all thesewritings ought to be thrown aside! Let every one ask himself ‘What am IT Aman! ‘And what is he? Also a man! What then? Does God need hissuperfluous wealth? No-o, we are equal in the sight of God when it comes togifts.”
At last, in the morning, when the dawn had put out the light of the stars,Osip said to me:
“You see how I could write? I have talked about things that I have neverthought about. But you mustn’t place too much faith in what I say. I wastalking more because I was sleepless than with any serious intention. You liedown and think of something to amuse you. Once there was a raven whichflew from the fields to the hills, from boundary to boundary, and livedbeyond her time; the Lord punished her. The raven is dead and dried up.
What is the meaning of that? There is no meaning in it, none. Now go tosleep; it will soon be time to get up.”
