Bab Bab 10 · The Agent

THE AGENT

Twelve miles from my place lives an acquaintance of mine, a landowner

and a retired officer in the Guards--Arkady Pavlitch Pyenotchkin. He

has a great deal of game on his estate, a house built after the design

of a French architect, and servants dressed after the English fashion;

he gives capital dinners, and a cordial reception to visitors, and,

with all that, one goes to see him reluctantly. He is a sensible and

practical man, has received the excellent education now usual, has been

in the service, mixed in the highest society, and is now devoting

himself to his estate with great success. Arkady Pavlitch is, to judge

by his own words, severe but just; he looks after the good of the

peasants under his control and punishes them--for their good. 'One has

to treat them like children,' he says on such occasions; 'their

ignorance, _mon cher; il faut prendre cela en considération_.' When

this so-called painful necessity arises, he eschews all sharp or

violent gestures, and prefers not to raise his voice, but with a

straight blow in the culprit's face, says calmly, 'I believe I asked

you to do something, my friend?' or 'What is the matter, my boy? what

are you thinking about?' while he sets his teeth a little, and the

corners of his mouth are drawn. He is not tall, but has an elegant

figure, and is very good-looking; his hands and nails are kept

perfectly exquisite; his rosy cheeks and lips are simply the picture of

health. He has a ringing, light-hearted laugh, and there is sometimes a

very genial twinkle in his clear brown eyes. He dresses in excellent

taste; he orders French books, prints, and papers, though he's no great

lover of reading himself: he has hardly as much as waded through the

_Wandering Jew_. He plays cards in masterly style. Altogether, Arkady

Pavlitch is reckoned one of the most cultivated gentlemen and most

eligible matches in our province; the ladies are perfectly wild over

him, and especially admire his manners. He is wonderfully well

conducted, wary as a cat, and has never from his cradle been mixed up

in any scandal, though he is fond of making his power felt,

intimidating or snubbing a nervous man, when he gets a chance. He has a

positive distaste for doubtful society--he is afraid of compromising

himself; in his lighter moments, however, he will avow himself a

follower of Epicurus, though as a rule he speaks slightingly of

philosophy, calling it the foggy food fit for German brains, or at

times, simply, rot. He is fond of music too; at the card-table he is

given to humming through his teeth, but with feeling; he knows by heart

some snatches from _Lucia_ and _Somnambula_, but he is always apt to

sing everything a little sharp. The winters he spends in Petersburg.

His house is kept in extraordinarily good order; the very grooms feel

his influence, and every day not only rub the harness and brush their

coats, but even wash their faces. Arkady Pavlitch's house-serfs have,

it is true, something of a hang-dog look; but among us Russians there's

no knowing what is sullenness and what is sleepiness. Arkady Pavlitch

speaks in a soft, agreeable voice, with emphasis and, as it were, with

satisfaction; he brings out each word through his handsome perfumed

moustaches; he uses a good many French expressions too, such as: _Mais

c'est impayable! Mais comment donc_? and so so. For all that, I, for

one, am never over-eager to visit him, and if it were not for the

grouse and the partridges, I should probably have dropped his

acquaintance altogether. One is possessed by a strange sort of

uneasiness in his house; the very comfort is distasteful to one, and

every evening when a befrizzed valet makes his appearance in a blue

livery with heraldic buttons, and begins, with cringing servility,

drawing off one's boots, one feels that if his pale, lean figure could

suddenly be replaced by the amazingly broad cheeks and incredibly thick

nose of a stalwart young labourer fresh from the plough, who has yet

had time in his ten months of service to tear his new nankin coat open

at every seam, one would be unutterably overjoyed, and would gladly run

the risk of having one's whole leg pulled off with the boot....

In spite of my aversion for Arkady Pavlitch, I once happened to pass a

night in his house. The next day I ordered my carriage to be ready

early in the morning, but he would not let me start without a regular

breakfast in the English style, and conducted me into his study. With

our tea they served us cutlets, boiled eggs, butter, honey, cheese, and

so on. Two footmen in clean white gloves swiftly and silently

anticipated our faintest desires. We sat on a Persian divan. Arkady

Pavlitch was arrayed in loose silk trousers, a black velvet smoking

jacket, a red fez with a blue tassel, and yellow Chinese slippers

without heels. He drank his tea, laughed, scrutinised his finger-nails,

propped himself up with cushions, and was altogether in an excellent

humour. After making a hearty breakfast with obvious satisfaction,

Arkady Pavlitch poured himself out a glass of red wine, lifted it to

his lips, and suddenly frowned.

'Why was not the wine warmed?' he asked rather sharply of one of the

footmen.

The footman stood stock-still in confusion, and turned white.

'Didn't I ask you a question, my friend?' Arkady Pavlitch resumed

tranquilly, never taking his eyes off the man.

The luckless footman fidgeted in his place, twisted the napkin, and

uttered not a word.

Arkady Pavlitch dropped his head and looked up at him thoughtfully from

under his eyelids.

'_Pardon, mon cher_', he observed, patting my knee amicably, and again

he stared at the footman. 'You can go,' he added, after a short

silence, raising his eyebrows, and he rang the bell.

A stout, swarthy, black-haired man, with a low forehead, and eyes

positively lost in fat, came into the room.

'About Fyodor ... make the necessary arrangements,' said Arkady

Pavlitch in an undertone, and with complete composure.

'Yes, sir,' answered the fat man, and he went out.

'_Voilà, mon cher, les désagréments de la campagne_,' Arkady Pavlitch

remarked gaily. 'But where are you off to? Stop, you must stay a

little.'

'No,' I answered; 'it's time I was off.'

'Nothing but sport! Oh, you sportsmen! And where are you going to shoot

just now?'

'Thirty-five miles from here, at Ryabovo.'

'Ryabovo? By Jove! now in that case I will come with you. Ryabovo's

only four miles from my village Shipilovka, and it's a long while since

I've been over to Shipilovka; I've never been able to get the time.

Well, this is a piece of luck; you can spend the day shooting in

Ryabovo and come on in the evening to me. We'll have supper

together--we'll take the cook with us, and you'll stay the night with

me. Capital! capital!' he added without waiting for my answer.

'_C'est arrangé_.... Hey, you there! Have the carriage brought out, and

look sharp. You have never been in Shipilovka? I should be ashamed to

suggest your putting up for the night in my agent's cottage, but you're

not particular, I know, and at Ryabovo you'd have slept in some

hayloft.... We will go, we will go!'

And Arkady Pavlitch hummed some French song.

'You don't know, I dare say,' he pursued, swaying from side to side;

'I've some peasants there who pay rent. It's the custom of the

place--what was I to do? They pay their rent very punctually, though. I

should, I'll own, have put them back to payment in labour, but there's

so little land. I really wonder how they manage to make both ends meet.

However, _c'est leur affaire_. My agent there's a fine fellow, _une

forte tête_, a man of real administrative power! You shall see....

Really, how luckily things have turned out!'

There was no help for it. Instead of nine o'clock in the morning, we

started at two in the afternoon. Sportsmen will sympathise with my

impatience. Arkady Pavlitch liked, as he expressed it, to be

comfortable when he had the chance, and he took with him such a supply

of linen, dainties, wearing apparel, perfumes, pillows, and

dressing-cases of all sorts, that a careful and self-denying German

would have found enough to last him for a year. Every time we went down

a steep hill, Arkady Pavlitch addressed some brief but powerful remarks

to the coachman, from which I was able to deduce that my worthy friend

was a thorough coward. The journey was, however, performed in safety,

except that, in crossing a lately-repaired bridge, the trap with the

cook in it broke down, and he got squeezed in the stomach against the

hind-wheel.

Arkady Pavlitch was alarmed in earnest at the sight of the fall of

Karem, his home-made professor of the culinary art, and he sent at once

to inquire whether his hands were injured. On receiving a reassuring

reply to this query, his mind was set at rest immediately. With all

this, we were rather a long time on the road; I was in the same

carriage as Arkady Pavlitch, and towards the end of the journey I was a

prey to deadly boredom, especially as in a few hours my companion ran

perfectly dry of subjects of conversation, and even fell to expressing

his liberal views on politics. At last we did arrive--not at Ryabovo,

but at Shipilovka; it happened so somehow. I could have got no shooting

now that day in any case, and so, raging inwardly, I submitted to my

fate.

The cook had arrived a few minutes before us, and apparently had had

time to arrange things and prepare those whom it concerned, for on our

very entrance within the village boundaries we were met by the village

bailiff (the agent's son), a stalwart, red-haired peasant of seven

feet; he was on horseback, bareheaded, and wearing a new overcoat, not

buttoned up. 'And where's Sofron?' Arkady Pavlitch asked him. The

bailiff first jumped nimbly off his horse, bowed to his master till he

was bent double, and said: 'Good health to you, Arkady Pavlitch, sir!'

then raised his head, shook himself, and announced that Sofron had gone

to Perov, but they had sent after him.

'Well, come along after us,' said Arkady Pavlitch. The bailiff

deferentially led his horse to one side, clambered on to it, and

followed the carriage at a trot, his cap in his hand. We drove through

the village. A few peasants in empty carts happened to meet us; they

were driving from the threshing-floor and singing songs, swaying

backwards and forwards, and swinging their legs in the air; but at the

sight of our carriage and the bailiff they were suddenly silent, took

off their winter caps (it was summer-time) and got up as though waiting

for orders. Arkady Pavlitch nodded to them graciously. A flutter of

excitement had obviously spread through the hamlet. Peasant women in

check petticoats flung splinters of wood at indiscreet or over-zealous

dogs; an old lame man with a beard that began just under his eyes

pulled a horse away from the well before it had drunk, gave it, for

some obscure reason, a blow on the side, and fell to bowing low. Boys

in long smocks ran with a howl to the huts, flung themselves on their

bellies on the high door-sills, with their heads down and legs in the

air, rolled over with the utmost haste into the dark outer rooms, from

which they did not reappear again. Even the hens sped in a hurried

scuttle to the turning; one bold cock with a black throat like a satin

waistcoat and a red tail, rumpled up to his very comb, stood his ground

in the road, and even prepared for a crow, then suddenly took fright

and scuttled off too. The agent's cottage stood apart from the rest in

the middle of a thick green patch of hemp. We stopped at the gates. Mr.

Pyenotchkin got up, flung off his cloak with a picturesque motion, and

got out of the carriage, looking affably about him. The agent's wife

met us with low curtseys, and came up to kiss the master's hand. Arkady

Pavlitch let her kiss it to her heart's content, and mounted the steps.

In the outer room, in a dark corner, stood the bailiff's wife, and she

too curtsied, but did not venture to approach his hand. In the cold

hut, as it is called--to the right of the outer room--two other women

were still busily at work; they were carrying out all the rubbish,

empty tubs, sheepskins stiff as boards, greasy pots, a cradle with a

heap of dish-clouts and a baby covered with spots, and sweeping out the

dirt with bathbrooms. Arkady Pavlitch sent them away, and installed

himself on a bench under the holy pictures. The coachmen began bringing

in the trunks, bags, and other conveniences, trying each time to subdue

the noise of their heavy boots.

Meantime Arkady Pavlitch began questioning the bailiff about the crops,

the sowing, and other agricultural subjects. The bailiff gave

satisfactory answers, but spoke with a sort of heavy awkwardness, as

though he were buttoning up his coat with benumbed fingers. He stood at

the door and kept looking round on the watch to make way for the nimble

footman. Behind his powerful shoulders I managed to get a glimpse of

the agent's wife in the outer room surreptitiously belabouring some

other peasant woman. Suddenly a cart rumbled up and stopped at the

steps; the agent came in.

This man, as Arkady Pavlitch said, of real administrative power, was

short, broad-shouldered, grey, and thick-set, with a red nose, little

blue eyes, and a beard of the shape of a fan. We may observe, by the

way, that ever since Russia has existed, there has never yet been an

instance of a man who has grown rich and prosperous without a big,

bushy beard; sometimes a man may have had a thin, wedge-shape beard all

his life; but then he begins to get one all at once, it is all round

his face like a halo--one wonders where the hair has come from! The

agent must have been making merry at Perov: his face was unmistakably

flushed, and there was a smell of spirits about him.

'Ah, our father, our gracious benefactor!' he began in a sing-song

voice, and with a face of such deep feeling that it seemed every minute

as if he would burst into tears; 'at last you have graciously deigned

to come to us ... your hand, your honour's hand,' he added, his lips

protruded in anticipation. Arkady Pavlitch gratified his desire. 'Well,

brother Sofron, how are things going with you?' he asked in a friendly

voice.

'Ah, you, our father!' cried Sofron; 'how should they go ill? how

should things go ill, now that you, our father, our benefactor,

graciously deign to lighten our poor village with your presence, to

make us happy till the day of our death? Thank the Lord for thee,

Arkady Pavlitch! thank the Lord for thee! All is right by your gracious

favour.'

At this point Sofron paused, gazed upon his master, and, as though

carried away by a rush of feeling (tipsiness had its share in it too),

begged once more for his hand, and whined more than before.

'Ah, you, our father, benefactor ... and ... There, God bless me! I'm a

regular fool with delight.... God bless me! I look and can't believe my

eyes! Ah, our father!'

Arkady Pavlitch glanced at me, smiled, and asked: '_N'est-ce pas que

c'est touchant?_'

'But, Arkady Pavlitch, your honour,' resumed the indefatigable agent;

'what are you going to do? You'll break my heart, your honour; your

honour didn't graciously let me know of your visit. Where are you to

put up for the night? You see here it's dirty, nasty.'

'Nonsense, Sofron, nonsense!' Arkady Pavlitch responded, with a smile;

'it's all right here.'

'But, our father, all right--for whom? For peasants like us it's all

right; but for you ... oh, our father, our gracious protector! oh, you

... our father!... Pardon an old fool like me; I'm off my head, bless

me! I'm gone clean crazy.'

Meanwhile supper was served; Arkady Pavlitch began to eat. The old man

packed his son off, saying he smelt too strong.

'Well, settled the division of land, old chap, hey?' enquired Mr.

Pyenotchkin, obviously trying to imitate the peasant speech, with a

wink to me.

'We've settled the land shares, your honour; all by your gracious

favour. Day before yesterday the list was made out. The Hlinovsky folks

made themselves disagreeable about it at first ... they were

disagreeable about it, certainly. They wanted this ... and they wanted

that ... and God knows what they didn't want! but they're a set of

fools, your honour!--an ignorant lot. But we, your honour, graciously

please you, gave an earnest of our gratitude, and satisfied Nikolai

Nikolaitch, the mediator; we acted in everything according to your

orders, your honour; as you graciously ordered, so we did, and nothing

did we do unbeknown to Yegor Dmitritch.'

'Yegor reported to me,' Arkady Pavlitch remarked with dignity.

'To be sure, your honour, Yegor Dmitritch, to be sure.'

'Well, then, now I suppose you 're satisfied.'

Sofron had only been waiting for this.

'Ah, you are our father, our benefactor!' he began, in the same

sing-song as before. 'Indeed, now, your honour ... why, for you, our

father, we pray day and night to God Almighty.... There's too little

land, of course....'

Pyenotchkin cut him short.

'There, that'll do, that'll do, Sofron; I know you're eager in my

service.... Well, and how goes the threshing?'

Sofron sighed.

'Well, our father, the threshing's none too good. But there, your

honour, Arkady Pavlitch, let me tell you about a little matter that

came to pass.' (Here he came closer to Mr. Pyenotchkin, with his arms

apart, bent down, and screwed up one eye.) 'There was a dead body found

on our land.'

'How was that?'

'I can't think myself, your honour; it seems like the doing of the evil

one. But, luckily, it was found near the boundary; on our side of it,

to tell the truth. I ordered them to drag it on to the neighbour's

strip of land at once, while it was still possible, and set a watch

there, and sent word round to our folks. "Mum's the word," says I. But

I explained how it was to the police officer in case of the worst. "You

see how it was," says I; and of course I had to treat him and slip some

notes into his hand.... Well, what do you say, your honour? We shifted

the burden on to other shoulders; you see a dead body's a matter of two

hundred roubles, as sure as ninepence.'

Mr. Pyenotchkin laughed heartily at his agent's cunning, and said

several times to me, indicating him with a nod, '_Quel gaillard_, eh!'

Meantime it was quite dark out of doors; Arkady Pavlitch ordered the

table to be cleared, and hay to be brought in. The valet spread out

sheets for us, and arranged pillows; we lay down. Sofron retired after

receiving his instructions for the next day. Arkady Pavlitch, before

falling asleep, talked a little more about the first-rate qualities of

the Russian peasant, and at that point made the observation that since

Sofron had had the management of the place, the Shipilovka peasants had

never been one farthing in arrears.... The watchman struck his board; a

baby, who apparently had not yet had time to be imbued with a sentiment

of dutiful self-abnegation, began crying somewhere in the cottage ...

we fell asleep.

The next morning we got up rather early; I was getting ready to start

for Ryabovo, but Arkady Pavlitch was anxious to show me his estate, and

begged me to remain. I was not averse myself to seeing more of the

first-rate qualities of that man of administrative power--Sofron--in

their practical working. The agent made his appearance. He wore a blue

loose coat, tied round the waist with a red handkerchief. He talked

much less than on the previous evening, kept an alert, intent eye on

his master's face, and gave connected and sensible answers. We set off

with him to the threshing-floor. Sofron's son, the seven-foot bailiff,

by every external sign a very slow-witted fellow, walked after us also,

and we were joined farther on by the village constable, Fedosyitch, a

retired soldier, with immense moustaches, and an extraordinary

expression of face; he looked as though he had had some startling shock

of astonishment a very long while ago, and had never quite got over it.

We took a look at the threshing-floor, the barn, the corn-stacks, the

outhouses, the windmill, the cattle-shed, the vegetables, and the

hempfields; everything was, as a fact, in excellent order; only the

dejected faces of the peasants rather puzzled me. Sofron had had an eye

to the ornamental as well as the useful; he had planted all the ditches

with willows, between the stacks he had made little paths to the

threshing-floor and strewn them with fine sand; on the windmill he had

constructed a weathercock of the shape of a bear with his jaws open and

a red tongue sticking out; he had attached to the brick cattle-shed

something of the nature of a Greek facade, and on it inscribed in white

letters: 'Construt in the village Shipilovky 1 thousand eight Hunderd

farthieth year. This cattle-shed.' Arkady Pavlitch was quite touched,

and fell to expatiating in French to me upon the advantages of the

system of rent-payment, adding, however, that labour-dues came more

profitable to the owner--'but, after all, that wasn't everything.' He

began giving the agent advice how to plant his potatoes, how to prepare

cattle-food, and so on. Sofron heard his master's remarks out with

attention, sometimes replied, but did not now address Arkady Pavlitch

as his father, or his benefactor, and kept insisting that there was too

little land; that it would be a good thing to buy more. 'Well, buy some

then,' said Arkady Pavlitch; 'I've no objection; in my name, of

course.' To this Sofron made no reply; he merely stroked his beard.

'And now it would be as well to ride down to the copse,' observed Mr.

Pyenotchkin. Saddle-horses were led out to us at once; we went off to

the copse, or, as they call it about us, the 'enclosure.' In this

'enclosure' we found thick undergrowth and abundance of wild game, for

which Arkady Pavlitch applauded Sofron and clapped him on the shoulder.

In regard to forestry, Arkady Pavlitch clung to the Russian ideas, and

told me on that subject an amusing--in his words--anecdote, of how a

jocose landowner had given his forester a good lesson by pulling out

nearly half his beard, by way of a proof that growth is none the

thicker for being cut back. In other matters, however, neither Sofron

nor Arkady Pavlitch objected to innovations. On our return to the

village, the agent took us to look at a winnowing machine he had

recently ordered from Moscow. The winnowing machine did certainly work

beautifully, but if Sofron had known what a disagreeable incident was

in store for him and his master on this last excursion, he would

doubtless have stopped at home with us.

This was what happened. As we came out of the barn the following

spectacle confronted us. A few paces from the door, near a filthy pool,

in which three ducks were splashing unconcernedly, there stood two

peasants--one an old man of sixty, the other, a lad of twenty--both in

patched homespun shirts, barefoot, and with cord tied round their

waists for belts. The village constable Fedosyitch was busily engaged

with them, and would probably have succeeded in inducing them to retire

if we had lingered a little longer in the barn, but catching sight of

us, he grew stiff all over, and seemed bereft of all sensation on the

spot. Close by stood the bailiff gaping, his fists hanging irresolute.

Arkady Pavlitch frowned, bit his lip, and went up to the suppliants.

They both prostrated themselves at his feet in silence.

'What do you want? What are you asking about?' he inquired in a stern

voice, a little through his nose. (The peasants glanced at one another,

and did not utter a syllable, only blinked a little as if the sun were

in their faces, and their breathing came quicker.)

'Well, what is it?' Arkady Pavlitch said again; and turning at once to

Sofron, 'Of what family?'

'The Tobolyev family,' the agent answered slowly.

'Well, what do you want?' Mr. Pyenotchkin said again; 'have you lost

your tongues, or what? Tell me, you, what is it you want?' he added,

with a nod at the old man. 'And don't be afraid, stupid.'

The old man craned forward his dark brown, wrinkled neck, opened his

bluish twitching lips, and in a hoarse voice uttered the words,

'Protect us, lord!' and again he bent his forehead to the earth. The

young peasant prostrated himself too. Arkady Pavlitch looked at their

bent necks with an air of dignity, threw back his head, and stood with

his legs rather wide apart. 'What is it? Whom do you complain of?'

'Have mercy, lord! Let us breathe.... We are crushed, worried,

tormented to death quite. (The old man spoke with difficulty.)

'Who worries you?'

'Sofron Yakovlitch, your honour.'

Arkady Pavlitch was silent a minute.

'What's your name?'

'Antip, your honour.'

'And who's this?'

'My boy, your honour.'

Arkady Pavlitch was silent again; he pulled his moustaches.

'Well! and how has he tormented you?' he began again, looking over his

moustaches at the old man.

'Your honour, he has ruined us utterly. Two sons, your honour, he's

sent for recruits out of turn, and now he is taking the third also.

Yesterday, your honour, our last cow was taken from the yard, and my

old wife was beaten by his worship here: that is all the pity he has

for us!' (He pointed to the bailiff.)

'Hm!' commented Arkady Pavlitch.

'Let him not destroy us to the end, gracious protector!'

Mr. Pyenotchkin scowled, 'What's the meaning of this?' he asked the

agent, in a low voice, with an air of displeasure.

'He's a drunken fellow, sir,' answered the agent, for the first time

using this deferential address, 'and lazy too. He's never been out of

arrears this five years back, sir.'

'Sofron Yakovlitch paid the arrears for me, your honour,' the old man

went on; 'it's the fifth year's come that he's paid it, he's paid

it--and he's brought me into slavery to him, your honour, and here--'

'And why did you get into arrears?' Mr. Pyenotchkin asked

threateningly. (The old man's head sank.) 'You're fond of drinking,

hanging about the taverns, I dare say.' (The old man opened his mouth

to speak.) 'I know you,' Arkady Pavlitch went on emphatically; 'you

think you've nothing to do but drink, and lie on the stove, and let

steady peasants answer for you.'

'And he's an impudent fellow, too,' the agent threw in.

'That's sure to be so; it's always the way; I've noticed it more than

once. The whole year round, he's drinking and abusive, and then he

falls at one's feet.'

'Your honour, Arkady Pavlitch,' the old man began despairingly, 'have

pity, protect us; when have I been impudent? Before God Almighty, I

swear it was beyond my strength. Sofron Yakovlitch has taken a dislike

to me; for some reason he dislikes me--God be his judge! He will ruin

me utterly, your honour.... The last ... here ... the last boy ... and

him he....' (A tear glistened in the old man's wrinkled yellow eyes).

'Have pity, gracious lord, defend us!'

'And it's not us only,' the young peasant began....

Arkady Pavlitch flew into a rage at once.

'And who asked your opinion, hey? Till you're spoken to, hold your

tongue.... What's the meaning of it? Silence, I tell you, silence!...

Why, upon my word, this is simply mutiny! No, my friend, I don't advise

you to mutiny on my domain ... on my ... (Arkady Pavlitch stepped

forward, but probably recollected my presence, turned round, and put

his hands in his pockets ...) '_Je vous demande bien pardon, mon

cher_,' he said, with a forced smile, dropping his voice significantly.

'_C'est le mauvais côté de la médaille_ ... There, that'll do, that'll

do,' he went on, not looking at the peasants: 'I say ... that'll do,

you can go.' (The peasants did not rise.) 'Well, haven't I told you ...

that'll do. You can go, I tell you.'

Arkady Pavlitch turned his back on them. 'Nothing but vexation,' he

muttered between his teeth, and strode with long steps homewards.

Sofron followed him. The village constable opened his eyes wide,

looking as if he were just about to take a tremendous leap into space.

The bailiff drove a duck away from the puddle. The suppliants remained

as they were a little, then looked at each other, and, without turning

their heads, went on their way.

Two hours later I was at Ryabovo, and making ready to begin shooting,

accompanied by Anpadist, a peasant I knew well. Pyenotchkin had been

out of humour with Sofron up to the time I left. I began talking to

Anpadist about the Shipilovka peasants, and Mr. Pyenotchkin, and asked

him whether he knew the agent there.

'Sofron Yakovlitch? ... ugh!'

'What sort of man is he?'

'He's not a man; he's a dog; you couldn't find another brute like him

between here and Kursk.'

'Really?'

'Why, Shipilovka's hardly reckoned as--what's his name?--Mr.

Pyenotchkin's at all; he's not the master there; Sofron's the master.'

'You don't say so!'

'He's master, just as if it were his own. The peasants all about are in

debt to him; they work for him like slaves; he'll send one off with the

waggons; another, another way.... He harries them out of their lives.'

'They haven't much land, I suppose?'

'Not much land! He rents two hundred acres from the Hlinovsky peasants

alone, and two hundred and eighty from our folks; there's more than

three hundred and seventy-five acres he's got. And he doesn't only

traffic in land; he does a trade in horses and stock, and pitch, and

butter, and hemp, and one thing and the other.... He's sharp, awfully

sharp, and rich too, the beast! But what's bad--he beats them. He's a

brute, not a man; a dog, I tell you; a cur, a regular cur; that's what

he is!'

'How is it they don't make complaints of him?'

'I dare say, the master'd be pleased! There's no arrears; so what does

he care? Yes, you'd better,' he added, after a brief pause; 'I should

advise you to complain! No, he'd let you know ... yes, you'd better try

it on.... No, he'd let you know....'

I thought of Antip, and told him what I had seen.

'There,' commented Anpadist, 'he will eat him up now; he'll simply eat

the man up. The bailiff will beat him now. Such a poor, unlucky chap,

come to think of it! And what's his offence?... He had some wrangle in

meeting with him, the agent, and he lost all patience, I suppose, and

of course he wouldn't stand it.... A great matter, truly, to make so

much of! So he began pecking at him, Antip. Now he'll eat him up

altogether. You see, he's such a dog. Such a cur--God forgive my

transgressions!--he knows whom to fall upon. The old men that are a bit

richer, or've more children, he doesn't touch, the red-headed devil!

but there's all the difference here! Why he's sent Antip's sons for

recruits out of turn, the heartless ruffian, the cur! God forgive my

transgressions!'

We went on our way.