REFLECTIONS OF A LANDLORD
AGAIN striking his head against the tops of both doors, Nekhlyudov went out into the street, where the white and the pink boys were waiting for him. A few new-comers were standing with them. Among the women, several of whom had babies in their arms, was the thin woman with the baby in the patchwork cap. The bloodless infant, held lightly in her arms, was smiling strangely all over its wizened little face, and continually moved its crooked thumb.
Nekhlyudov knew the smile to be one of suffering. He asked who the woman was.
“It is that very Anisya I told you about,” said the elder boy.
Nekhlyudov turned to Anisya.
“How do you live?” he asked. “What do you do for a living?”
“How do I live – I go begging,” said Anisya, and began to cry.
The wizened infant smiled all over its face and wriggled his legs, hardly thicker than worms.
Nekhlyudov took out his pocket-book, and gave the woman a ten-rouble note. Before he had gone two steps another woman with a baby caught him up, then an old woman, then another young one. All of them spoke of their poverty, and asked for help. Nekhlyudov gave them the sixty rubles – all in small notes – which he had with him, and terribly sick at heart turned back to the bailiff’s house.
The bailiff met Nekhlyudov with a smile, and informed him that the peasants would gather for the meeting in the evening. Nekhlyudov thanked him, and went straight into the garden to stroll along the paths strewn with the petals of apple blossom and overgrown with weeds, and to think over all he had seen.
At first all was quiet, but soon Nekhlyudov heard from behind the bailiff’s house two angry women’s voices interrupting each other, and now and then the voice of the ever-smiling bailiff. Nekhlyudov listened.
“My strength’s at an end. What are you doing, dragging the very cross off my neck?” said an angry woman’s voice.
“But she only got in for a moment,” said another voice. “Give her back, I tell you. What do you want to torment the beast for; and the children, too, who want their milk?”
“Pay, then, or work it off,” said the bailiff’s voice.
Nekhlyudov left the garden and entered the porch, near which stood two dishevelled women – one of them pregnant and evidently near her time. On one of the steps of the porch, with his hands in the pockets of his holland coat, stood the bailiff. When they saw “the master”, the women were silent and began arranging the kerchiefs on their heads, and the bailiff took his hands out of his pockets and began to smile.
This is what had happened. From what the bailiff said, it seemed that the peasants were in the habit of letting their calves and even their cows into the meadow belonging to the estate. Two cows belonging to the families of these two women had been found in the meadow, and driven into the yard. The bailiff demanded from the women thirty kopeyks for each cow or two days’ work. The women, however, maintained that the cows had got into the meadow of their own accord; said that they had no money, and asked that the cows, which had stood without food in the blazing sun since morning, piteously lowing, should be returned to them, even if it had to be on the understanding that the money should be worked off later on.
“How often have I not begged of you,” said the smiling bailiff, looking back at Nekhlyudov as if calling upon him to be a witness, “when you drive your cattle home at noon, to keep an eye on them?”
“I only ran to my little one for a bit, and they got away.”
“They don’t run away when you have undertaken to watch the cows.”
“And who’s to feed the little one? You’d not give him the breast, I suppose?” said the other woman. “Now, if they had really damaged the meadow one would not take it so much to heart; but they only strayed in for a moment.”
“All the meadows are damaged,” the bailiff said, turning to Nekhlyudov. “If I exact no penalty there will be no hay.”