menu_book Chapter 36

Book 6, Chapter 4 of A Family of Noblemen by Mikhail Saltykovshchedrin, translated by Avram Yarmolinsky, 1890-1975. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Expatriate in Bangor, Maine. Book 6, The Deserted Manor House, Chapter 4.

As a result of this scene, Yudushka's life outwardly changed for the better. Distracted by no material hindrances, he gave himself completely over to his solitude, so that he did not even notice how the summer passed away. It was late in August, the days grew shorter, it drizzled ceaselessly and the soil became boggy.

The trees looked mournful with their yellow leaves bestrewing the ground. The silence reigned in the courtyard and about the servants' quarters. The domestics sat quietly under cover, partly because of the weather, partly because they finally perceived that something was the matter with the master. Yet Proxia came completely to her senses, forgot the silk dresses and her lovers, and

sat in the maid's room for hours on end, brooding and wondering what she could do. The drunken procor teased her that she had designs on the master's life, that she had poisoned him and she could not escape the road to Siberia. Meanwhile, Yudushka sat in his study deep in reveries. The ceaseless patter of the rain on the window panes lulled him half to sleep, the most favorable

state for the play of his fancy. He imagined he was invisible and was inspecting his possessions accompanied by old Ilya, who had served as bailiff under Yudushka's father and whose bones had long since been rotting in the village courtyard. Ilya is a clever fellow, argued Porfiry Vladimirich with himself, glad that Ilya had arisen from

the dead. An old servant. Nowadays his kind is getting rarer. Nowadays they know how to chat and fidget, but when it comes to business they're good for nothing.

After saying an appropriate prayer, Yudushka and Ilya picked their way leisurely across meadows and ravines, dales and hills, and soon reached the Ukhovshina waste. For a while they stand dazed, unable to believe their own eyes. Straight before them looms up a magnificent pine forest, their tops tossing in the wind. Some of the trees are so big in circumference that two or even three men could not embrace

them. Their trunks are straight, naked, crowned with mighty spreading tops, all signs of vigor and longevity. What a forest, brother, exclaimed Yudushka, enraptured. This wood has been protected from felling, explains Ilya.

Under your late grandfather Mikhail Vasilyevich, a procession with holy icons went around it. And look how tall the trees have grown. How large do you think the forest is? At that time it held just seventy desyatins, and the desyatin was then, as you know, one and a half times the present size.

And how many trees do you think are there on one desyatin? I can't tell, only God has counted them. I reckon there are no less than six or seven hundred trees to a desyatin, I mean the desyatin now used. Wait, if we take the number to be six hundred, or let us say six hundred and fifty trees,

how many trees are there on one hundred and five desyatins? Porphyry Vladimirich takes a sheet of paper and multiplies one hundred and five by sixty five and gets six thousand eight hundred twenty five trees. Now see here, if I were to sell all this timber, do you think I can get ten roubles a tree? Old Ilya shakes his head.

Ten is little, he says. Look at these trees. Each trunk will give two mill beams and some planks and boards and firewood. What do you think is the price of a mill wheel beam? Porphyry Vladimirich makes believe he does not know, although he figured out everything

to a copac long ago. Here continues the peasant, a beam is worth ten roubles, but if we take it to Moscow it will be worth its weight in gold. It is a tremendous beam. You will hardly haul it on a three-horse team.

And think of the second beam that can be made out of the stem and the boards and laths and firewood and branches. Seventy roubles, I should think, is the lowest price for a tree. Porphyry Vladimirich listens and takes in his words greedily. A clever, faithful servant, this Ilya, and how well he has picked out his help.

Old Vavilov, Ilya's assistant, he too has been resting in the churchyard for a good many years, is quite worthy of his superior. The foresters too are all tried, stalwart men, and the hounds at the corn lofts are fierce. Both the men and the dogs are ready to grapple with the devil himself for the master's good. Let's figure out, brother, if we sell the whole forest, what will it come to?

Porphyry Vladimirich again makes a mental calculation of the value of a large beam, a smaller beam, a plank, a lath, a firewood, and the branches. He adds up, multiplies, now omitting fractions, now adding them. Columns of numbers fill the sheet. Here is the total, brother, says Yadushka, showing Ilya's phantom an altogether fabulous sum.

The old servant is dazed. Is it not a little too large, he says, pensively shrugging his shoulders? But Porphyry Vladimirich has already cast off all doubts and giggles gleefully. You are a queer fellow, brother, he exclaims. It isn't I who say it, it's the number that says it.

There is a science called arithmetic. It never tells a lie, brother. Well, this will do for Ukhovskina. Now let's have a look at Lisiyami, brother. It's a long time since I have been there.

I have a strong suspicion the peasants have become thievish. There's Garanka the guard, I know, I know. Garanka is a good, faithful guard. That's true enough. Still, you know, it seems to me he is not what he used to be, either.

They plow noiselessly and unseen through a birch thicket and stop suddenly holding their breath. A peasant's cart lies sprawling across the road on its side and the peasant is standing by looking at the broken axle in perplexity. He has been standing there for some time cursing the axle and himself and whipping the horse now and then.

Finally, he sees he cannot loaf there all day long. He looks around and pricks up his ears to make sure no one is coming along the road. Then he selects a suitable birch tree and takes out an axe. Meanwhile, Yudushka stands motionless and watches. The young birch shudders, sways, and suddenly sinks to the ground like a sheaf of corn reaped

by the sickle. The thief is about to lop off the length of an axle from the trunk, but Yudushka has decided that the moment has come. He steals upon him and in a trice snatches the axe from his hand. Ah, is all the thief taken red-handed, has time to exclaim.

Ah, Yudushka mimics him. Are you allowed to steal timber? Ah, is it your birch tree you have just felled? Forgive me, sir. I forgave everyone long ago, brother.

I am myself a sinner before the Lord and I dare not judge another. It is the law, not I, that condemns you. Take the tree you have felled to the manor house and pay up a fine of one ruble. In the meantime, I shall keep your axe, don't you worry. It is in good hands, brother.

Glad that he was able to prove to Ilya how well-grounded were his suspicions in regard to Garanka, Yudushka transports himself in imagination to the forester's cottage and reprimands him soundly. On his way back home, he catches three hens belonging to peasants in the act of feeding on his oats.

Back in his study, he falls again to work and a peculiar system of household management is suddenly born in his brain. The system is based on the assumption that all mankind suddenly has begun to steal his wood and damage his fields by letting cattle graze upon them. But this does not grieve Yudushka.

On the contrary, he rubs his hands in delight. Let your cattle graze on my fields. Fell my trees. I shall be the better off for it, he repeats, hugely pleased. And he takes a fresh sheet of paper and resumes his ciphering and reckoning.

The problems to be solved are these. First, how much oats grows on one desyatin, and what will the fines amount to if the peasants' hens scratch the oats up? And second, how many birches grow in lisiyami, and how much money can they bring in if the peasants fell them illegally and pay the fine?

A birch, though felled, reflects Yudushka gleefully, will in the end get to the house and be used as firewood. Firewood free of charge, mind you. Long rows of figures appear on the paper. Yudushka becomes so tired and excited that he rises from the table all perspiring and

lies down on the sofa to rest. Here his imagination does not cease its work. It merely selects an easier theme. Mama was a clever woman, Mama was, muses poor free Vladimirich. She knew how to be exacting and how to set one at ease.

That is why people served her so willingly. Still, she was not without sin. Oh, yes, she had plenty of them. No sooner does Yudushka think of Irina Petrovna than she appears before him in person, coming straight from the grave.

I don't know, my friend. I don't know what fault you have to find with me, she says dejectedly. It seems to me that I, I know, I know, Yudushka cuts her short unceremoniously. Let me be frank and thrash out the matter with you. For instance, why did you not stop Aunt Varvara Mikhailovna that time?

But how in the world could I stop her? She was of age and she had the full right to dispose of herself. Oh no, permit me, mother dear. What sort of a husband had she? An old drunkard, not much of a man, I should say.

Nevertheless, they had four children. Where did they come from, I'm asking you? But how strangely you speak, my friend, as if I were the cause of it all. Cause or no cause, you could have influenced her. You ought to have treated her kindly, she would have been shamed by you.

But you did the contrary. You kept on scolding her and calling her shameless, and you suspected almost every man in the neighborhood of being her lover. Of course she kicked up the dust, it's a pity. The Goryushkino estate would have been ours now.

You cannot forget that Goryushkino, says Irina Petrovna, evidently brought to a standstill. What do I care for Goryushkino? I don't need anything. If I have enough to buy a church candle and some oil for the image lamp, I am satisfied. But what about justice, dear mama, justice?

Yes, mother dear, I would be glad to hold my tongue, but I cannot help being frank with you. A sin on your conscience, a great sin indeed. Irina Petrovna does not answer, and it is impossible to tell whether she is dejected or merely perplexed.

Another thing Yadushka goes on, evidently reveling in mother dear's embarrassment. Why did you buy a house for brother Stepan? I had to, my friend. I had to give him some share, says Irina Petrovna, trying to defend herself. And he squandered it away, of course, as if you did not know him.

You knew he was a loafer, a disrespectful, foul-mouthed scamp, and to think that you wanted to give him the Vologda village, too. A neat little estate with a nice little forest and a tiny lake lying like a shelled egg, Christ be with it. It is well that I happened to be around and kept you from taking that imprudent step.

Oh, mama dear, mama dear, how could you? He was a son of mine, you understand? A son. I know, I understand very well. And still, I repeat, you ought not to have done it.

You paid 12,000 for the house, where is the money? And Goryushkino is worth at least 15,000, so the loss comes to quite a sum. Well that will do, that will do. Don't be angry with me, please don't. I am not angry, dearest mother.

I am only upholding the cause of justice. What's true is true, and I loathe falsehood. I was born with truth, have lived with truth, and with truth I shall die. God loves truth, and he would have us, too, love it. Take the case of Pogorelka, for instance.

I shall always say you invested too much money in it, but I myself live there. Yudushka clearly reads, you silly bloodsucker, on his mother's face, but he makes believe he does not. Well yes, you lived there. Still, the image case is in Pogorelka.

Whose is it, I'd like to know? And the pony in the tea caddy. I saw that tea caddy at Golovliovo with my own eyes when papa was still alive. What a beautiful little box. Well, but no, dearest mother, let me speak.

Of course it looks like a trifling matter, but a ruble here, half a ruble there, come to quite a sum in the end. Let me use exact figures and make it clear to you. Figures are holy, they never lie. Porfiry Vladimirich runs over to the table with the intention of finally determining

the exact amount of loss that his mother dear had caused him to sustain. He manipulates the counting board, covers sheets of paper with rows of figures, arms himself to convict Irina Petrovna. Unfortunately for her, his wavering thoughts cannot remain fixed on one subject for a long time.

Unnoticed by himself, a new thought enters his mind, and as if by magic, gives an entirely different trend to his ideas. The image of his mother, a minute ago so clear before his eyes, suddenly drops away. He forgets her, his notions become confused, other notions enter his mind. Porfiry Vladimirich has long had the intention of figuring out what his crops could bring

him in. The opportune moment is here. He knows the peasant is always in want, is always on the lookout to borrow provender, and always pays his debts with interest. He knows also that the peasant is especially generous with his work, which costs him nothing,

and is not considered as possessing any value in settling accounts. There are many needy people in Russia, oh, how many. There are many people who do not know what the next day will bring them, who see nothing but despair and emptiness wherever they turn their weary eyes, and who hear everywhere only one clamor, pay your debt, pay your debt.

It is around these shiftless, utterly destitute men that Yudushka weaves his net with a delight passing sometimes into an orgy. It is April, and the peasant as usual has nothing to eat. You have gobbled up all your crops, my dear fellows, Porfiry Vladimirich muses. All winter you feasted, and in spring your stomach is shriveled from hunger.

He has just settled the accounts of last year's crops. The threshing was completed in February, the grain was in the granaries in March, and the amount was recorded in the numerous books the other day. Yudushka stands at the window and waits. On the bridge, afar off, the peasant Fokha appears in his cart.

At the bend of the road leading to Golovliovo, he shakes the reins rather hastily, and for want of a whip hits his battered jade with his fist. He's heading here, whispers Yudushka. Look at the horse. A wonder it can drag its feet.

But if you had fed it well a month or two, it would become quite a horse. You might get twenty-five roubles for it, or even as much as thirty. Meanwhile Fokha drives up to the servant's house. He ties the animal to the hedge, throws it a handful of hay, and a minute later stands in the maid's quarters shifting from one foot to another.

It is in the maid's quarters that poor free Vladimirich usually receives such visitors. Well, friend, how are things going? Please, sir, what I need is some corn. How's that? Are you through with your own?

What a pity! If you drank less vodka and worked more and prayed to God, the soil would feel it. Where one grain grows now, two grains would grow. Then there would be no need for you to borrow. Fokha smiles vaguely instead of replying.

You think if God is far from us he does not see, poor free Vladimirich goes on moralizing. God is here and there and everywhere. He is with us while we are talking here. He sees everything and hears everything. He only pretends not to see things.

Let my creatures live after their own way, and we shall see whether they will remember me. And we sinners take advantage of that, and instead of buying a candle for God from our meager means, we keep on going to the public house. That's why God gives us no corn.

Am I not right, friend? You are quite right, sir. There's no denying it. Well, you see, you understand it now. And why is it that you understand it?

Because the Lord withdrew his mercy from you. If you had had an abundant crop of corn, you would carry on again. But since God, right sir, and if, wait a minute, let me say a word, the Lord recalls himself to those who forgot him. That is always the case.

And we must not grumble over it, but understand that God does it for our good. Were we to remember God, he would never forget us. He would grant us everything, corn and oats and potatoes, more than we need. And he would take care of our animals. Look at your horse.

It has skin and bones. And if you have chickens, he would keep them in condition too. You are quite right, sir. Man's first duty is to honor God. Man's second duty is to honor his superiors, those who have been distinguished by the czars

themselves, the gentry for instance. It seems to me, sir, that I, that's just it. It seems to me. Just give a little thought to the matter, and you will find out that it's all different. Now, when you have come to borrow corn, you are very respectful and bland.

But two years ago, you remember, when I needed harvesters and came to you peasants to ask for help, what did you answer? We have to harvest ourselves, you said. It is not the way it used to be, you said, when we worked for the landlords. Now we are free.

Free and no corn. Yudushka looks at foca, but foca does not stir. You are very proud, that's why you have no luck. Take me, for example. The Lord has blessed me, and the czar has distinguished me.

But I am not proud. How can I be? What am I but a worm, a moth, a nothing? God took and blessed me for my humility. He loaded me with favors and put it into the czar's mind to favor me too.

Porphyry Vladimirich, I think that under serfdom we were far better off, foca remarks, playing the flatterer. Yes, brother, those were fine days for you peasants. You had plenty of everything, corn and hay and potatoes. But why recall the old times?

I am not rancorous. I have long forgotten about the harvesters. I only mentioned them in passing. Let me see. Did you say you needed corn?

Yes, I did, sir. You have come to buy some, have you? How can I? I should like to borrow some until the new corn comes. My, my.

Corn is not to be had for money nowadays. I really don't know what to do with you. Porphyry Vladimirich ponders for a while as if really perplexed. I can lend you some corn, my friend, he finally says. I have none for sale, for I loath to traffic in God's gifts.

But I will gladly lend you some corn. Today I'll lend it to you. Tomorrow you'll lend to me. Today I have plenty. Take some, help yourself.

You want a measure of corn? Take a measure. You want half a measure? Take half a measure. Tomorrow may find me knocking at your window saying,

Dear Focke, lend me half a measure of corn. I have nothing to eat. Oh, sir, will you come to me? I shall not. That was merely an example.

The world has seen greater reverses. There was Napoleon, about whom the newspapers have written so much. That's how it is, brother. So how much corn do you want?

A measure, if you please. Well, I can let you have a measure. Only let me warn you, corn is tremendously dear nowadays. This is what we are going to do. I shall give you six Chetvericks, and in eight months

you will deliver a measure to me. I don't take any interest, but an additional Chetverick or two. Yadushka's offer makes Focke gasp. For some time he says nothing, only shrugs his shoulders. Won't that be a bit too much, sir, he asks at last,

evidently alarmed? If it's too much, go to others. You see, my friend, I am not forcing you. I am only making you an offer in a friendly way. I didn't send for you, did I?

You came here yourself. You came to ask for something, and that's my answer. Isn't it so, friend? Well, yes, quite so. But don't you think it's too much interest?

Ah, ah, ah. And I thought you were a just, respectable peasant. Well, you will say to me, what am I going to live on? How will I meet my expenses? Do you know what expenses I have?

My dear man, there is no end to them. I've got to pay here and meet my obligations there and produce cash in a third place. I've got to satisfy everyone. All are after poor, free Vladimirich.

All ask something of him. And I get to get along with them as best I can. And then again, if I sold the corn to the dealer, I should get money at once. And money, my friend, is a sacred thing.

With money, I can buy securities, put them in a safe place, and draw interest. No worry, you know, of any kind, no trouble at all. Just clip the coupon and get your money. But with the corn, you've got to go carefully about it

and look after it and all that. A lot of it will dry up and be wasted, and the mice will eat it up. No, brother, money is the best thing, nothing like it. It would be high time for me to become sensible

and turn everything into money and leave you folks. Oh, poor, free Vladimirich, stay with us. Well, my dear man, I should like to, but I can't stand it any longer. If I had the strength of my youth,

of course I would stay with you and keep at it. But no, it's time to rest. I will go to the Trinity monastery. I will find shelter under the wing of the saints, and not a soul will hear from me.

And how good I'll feel. All will be peaceful and quiet and honest, no noise, no quarrels, like in heaven. In a word, in spite of all of Foca's protestations, poor, free Vladimirich arranges the bargain to suit himself.

But that is not enough. At the very moment that Foca consents to the terms of the loan, a thought flashes through Yudushka's mind. A certain Shalapika meadow appears on the scene.

It doesn't amount to much, hardly a desyatin to mow. You see, I am doing you a favor, so you do me one in return, says poor, free Vladimirich. This is not interest, but just a favor.

God does favors to us all, and we've got to do likewise to one another. You will mow this desyatin in no time, and I'll be much obliged to you. You see, brother, I am a plain man.

You'll do me a ruble's worth of service, and I, poor, free Vladimirich, rises, faces the church, and makes the sign of the cross to show that the transaction is at an end. Foca also rises and makes the sign of the cross.

Foca has disappeared. Poor, free Vladimirich produces a sheet of paper, arms himself with the counting board, and the beads begin jumping fast under his skillful fingers. Little by little, an orgy of numbers commences.

The whole world becomes enwrapped in mist. With feverish haste, Yudushka passes from the paper to the counting board, and from the counting board to the paper. The rows of figures keep growing larger and larger.

End of book six, recording by Expatriate in Bangor, Maine.