第 三百四十四 章 · 第344章

In the winter of 1813 Nicholas married Princess Mary and moved to Bald

Hills with his wife, his mother, and Sónya.

Within four years he had paid off all his remaining debts without

selling any of his wife’s property, and having received a small

inheritance on the death of a cousin he paid his debt to Pierre as well.

In another three years, by 1820, he had so managed his affairs that he

was able to buy a small estate adjoining Bald Hills and was negotiating

to buy back Otrádnoe—that being his pet dream.

Having started farming from necessity, he soon grew so devoted to it

that it became his favorite and almost his sole occupation. Nicholas was

a plain farmer: he did not like innovations, especially the English ones

then coming into vogue. He laughed at theoretical treatises on estate

management, disliked factories, the raising of expensive products,

and the buying of expensive seed corn, and did not make a hobby of any

particular part of the work on his estate. He always had before his

mind’s eye the estate as a whole and not any particular part of it. The

chief thing in his eyes was not the nitrogen in the soil, nor the oxygen

in the air, nor manures, nor special plows, but that most important

agent by which nitrogen, oxygen, manure, and plow were made

effective—the peasant laborer. When Nicholas first began farming

and began to understand its different branches, it was the serf who

especially attracted his attention. The peasant seemed to him not merely

a tool, but also a judge of farming and an end in himself. At first

he watched the serfs, trying to understand their aims and what they

considered good and bad, and only pretended to direct them and give

orders while in reality learning from them their methods, their manner

of speech, and their judgment of what was good and bad. Only when he

had understood the peasants’ tastes and aspirations, had learned to talk

their language, to grasp the hidden meaning of their words, and felt

akin to them did he begin boldly to manage his serfs, that is, to

perform toward them the duties demanded of him. And Nicholas’ management

produced very brilliant results.

Guided by some gift of insight, on taking up the management of the

estates he at once unerringly appointed as bailiff, village elder, and

delegate, the very men the serfs would themselves have chosen had they

had the right to choose, and these posts never changed hands. Before

analyzing the properties of manure, before entering into the debit and

credit (as he ironically called it), he found out how many cattle the

peasants had and increased the number by all possible means. He kept the

peasant families together in the largest groups possible, not allowing

the family groups to divide into separate households. He was hard alike

on the lazy, the depraved, and the weak, and tried to get them expelled

from the commune.

He was as careful of the sowing and reaping of the peasants’ hay

and corn as of his own, and few landowners had their crops sown

and harvested so early and so well, or got so good a return, as did

Nicholas.

He disliked having anything to do with the domestic serfs—the “drones”

as he called them—and everyone said he spoiled them by his laxity. When

a decision had to be taken regarding a domestic serf, especially if one

had to be punished, he always felt undecided and consulted everybody in

the house; but when it was possible to have a domestic serf conscripted

instead of a land worker he did so without the least hesitation. He

never felt any hesitation in dealing with the peasants. He knew that his

every decision would be approved by them all with very few exceptions.

He did not allow himself either to be hard on or punish a man, or to

make things easy for or reward anyone, merely because he felt inclined

to do so. He could not have said by what standard he judged what he

should or should not do, but the standard was quite firm and definite in

his own mind.

Often, speaking with vexation of some failure or irregularity, he would

say: “What can one do with our Russian peasants?” and imagined that he

could not bear them.

Yet he loved “our Russian peasants” and their way of life with his whole

soul, and for that very reason had understood and assimilated the one

way and manner of farming which produced good results.

Countess Mary was jealous of this passion of her husband’s and regretted

that she could not share it; but she could not understand the joys and

vexations he derived from that world, to her so remote and alien. She

could not understand why he was so particularly animated and happy

when, after getting up at daybreak and spending the whole morning in the

fields or on the threshing floor, he returned from the sowing or mowing

or reaping to have tea with her. She did not understand why he spoke

with such admiration and delight of the farming of the thrifty and

well-to-do peasant Matthew Ermíshin, who with his family had carted

corn all night; or of the fact that his (Nicholas’) sheaves were already

stacked before anyone else had his harvest in. She did not understand

why he stepped out from the window to the veranda and smiled under his

mustache and winked so joyfully, when warm steady rain began to fall

on the dry and thirsty shoots of the young oats, or why when the wind

carried away a threatening cloud during the hay harvest he would return

from the barn, flushed, sunburned, and perspiring, with a smell of

wormwood and gentian in his hair and, gleefully rubbing his hands, would

say: “Well, one more day and my grain and the peasants’ will all be

under cover.”

Still less did she understand why he, kindhearted and always ready to

anticipate her wishes, should become almost desperate when she brought

him a petition from some peasant men or women who had appealed to her

to be excused some work; why he, that kind Nicholas, should obstinately

refuse her, angrily asking her not to interfere in what was not her

business. She felt he had a world apart, which he loved passionately and

which had laws she had not fathomed.

Sometimes when, trying to understand him, she spoke of the good work he

was doing for his serfs, he would be vexed and reply: “Not in the least;

it never entered my head and I wouldn’t do that for their good! That’s

all poetry and old wives’ talk—all that doing good to one’s neighbor!

What I want is that our children should not have to go begging. I must

put our affairs in order while I am alive, that’s all. And to do that,

order and strictness are essential.... That’s all about it!” said he,

clenching his vigorous fist. “And fairness, of course,” he added, “for

if the peasant is naked and hungry and has only one miserable horse, he

can do no good either for himself or for me.”

And all Nicholas did was fruitful—probably just because he refused to

allow himself to think that he was doing good to others for virtue’s

sake. His means increased rapidly; serfs from neighboring estates came

to beg him to buy them, and long after his death the memory of his

administration was devoutly preserved among the serfs. “He was a

master... the peasants’ affairs first and then his own. Of course he was

not to be trifled with either—in a word, he was a real master!”