Tales of the Wilderness Part 21

"Not I! I will not go there."

"Idiot!"

"Ah, you have already learnt to snarl," the old woman jibed. "Ate your mash then! But perhaps you don't relish it after your Barin's pork."

She was right, he had already eaten--pork, and she had guessed it.

Ivan began to puff. "You are an idiot, I tell you," he growled.

He had come home to have a business talk about their affairs, but he left without settling anything. The old woman's sharp tongue had stung him in a tender spot. It was true that all the respectable peasants had stood aside, and only those who had nothing to lose had joined the Committee.

Ivan pa.s.sed through the village. As he walked across the park, he saw a light burning in the stables and went over to discover the reason.

He found some lads had a.s.sembled there and were playing cards and smoking. He watched them awhile, frowningly.

"This is stupid! You will set the place alight," he grumbled.

"What if we do?" the men answered sulkily. "It is for you to defend other people's property?"

"Not other peoples'--ours!" he retorted, then turned away.

"Ivan!" they shouted after him; "have you the wine-cellar key? There are spirits in there--if you don't give it to us, we shall break in...."

The house was dark and silent. The huge, s.p.a.cious apartments seemed strange, terrible. The Prince still occupied the drawing-room. Ivan entered his office--formerly the dining-room--and lighted a lamp. He went down on his knees and began to pick up the clods of earth that lay on the floor; he threw them out of the window, then fetched a brush and swept up. He could not understand why gentlemen's boots did not leave a trail of dirt behind them.

Then he went into the drawing-room and served the final notice on the Prince while the men were accommodating themselves in the kitchen.

Then he joined them, lying down on a form without undressing. After a long time he fell asleep.

He awoke the next morning while all were still sleeping, rose and walked round the manor. The lads were still playing cards in the stable.

"Why aren't you asleep?" one of them asked him.

"I have had all I want," he replied. He called the cow-herd. The man came out, stood still, scratched his head, and swore angrily-- indignant at being aroused.

"Don't meddle in other people's affairs," he grunted. "I know when to wake."

The dawn was fine, clear and chilly. A light appeared in the drawing- room, and Ivan saw the Prince go out, cross the terrace and depart into the Steppe.

At ten o'clock, the President entered the office, and set about what was, in his opinion, a torturous, useless business--the making out an inventory of the wheat and rye in each peasant's possession. It was useless because he knew, as did everyone in the village, how much each man had; it was torturous because it entailed such a great deal of writing.

Prince Prozorovsky had risen at daybreak. The sun glared fiercely over the bare autumn-swept park and into the drawing-room windows.

The wedding cry of the ravens echoed through the autumnal stillness that hung broodingly over the Steppe.

On such a dazzling golden day as this, the Prince's ancestors had set off with their blood-hounds in by-gone days. In this house a whole generation had lived--now the old family was forced to leave it--for ever!

A red notice--"The Bielokonsky Committee of the Poor"--had been affixed to the front door the previous evening, and the intruders had bustled all night arranging something in the hall. The drawing-room had not so far been touched; the gilt backs of books still glittered from behind gla.s.s cases in the study. Oh books! Will not your poison and your delights still abide?

Prince Prozorovsky went out into the fields; they were barren but for dead rye-stalks that stuck up starkly from the earth. Wolves were already on the trail. He wandered all day long, drank the last wine of autumn and listened to the ravens' wedding cries.

When he had beheld this bird's carnival as a child, he had clapped his hands, crying: "Hurrah for my wedding! Hurrah for my wedding!" He had never had a wedding. Now his days were numbered. He had lived for love. He had known many affections, had felt bitter pangs. He had tasted the poison of the Moscow streets, of books and of women; had been touched by the autumnal sadness of Bielokonsky, where he always stayed in the autumn. Now he knew grief!

He walked aimlessly through the trackless fields and down into hollows; the aspens glowed in a purple hue around him; on a hill behind him the old white house stood amid the lilac shrubbery of a decaying park. The crystal clear, vast, blue vista was immeasurably distant.

The hair on his temples was already growing thin and gray--there was no stopping, no returning!

He met a peasant, a rough, plain man in a sheep-skin jacket, driving a cart laden with sacks. The man took off his cap and stopped his horse, to make way for the ... _gentleman_.

"Good morning, little Father," he wheezed, then addressed his beast, pulled the reins, drove on, then stopped again and called out:

"Listen, Barin, I want to tell you...."

The Prince turned round and looked at the man. The peasant was old, his face was covered with hair and wrinkles.

"What will your Excellency do now?"

"That is difficult to say," replied the Prince.

"When will you go?" the old man asked. "Those Committees of the Poor are taking away the corn. There are no matches, no manufacturers, and I am burning splinters for light.... They say no corn is to be sold.... Listen, Barin, I will take some secretly to the station.

People are coming from Moscow ... and ... and ... about thirty five of them ... thirty five I tell you!... But then, what will there be to buy with the proceeds?... Well, well! It is a great time all the same ... a great time, Barin! Have a smoke, your Excellency."

Prozorovsky refused the proffered pipe, and rolled himself a small cigar of an inferior brand. Around was the Steppe. No one saw, no one knew of the peasant's compa.s.sion. The prince shook hands with him, turned sharply on his heel and went home.

The cold, clear, gla.s.sy water in the park lake was blue and limpid, for it was still too early for it to freeze all over. The sun was now sinking towards the west in an ocean of ruddy gold and amethyst.

Prince Prozorovsky entered his study, sat down at the desk and drew out a drawer full of letters. No! he could not take all his life away with him: He laid the drawer on the desk, then went into the drawing- room. A jug of milk and some bread stood on an alb.u.m-table. The Prince lighted the fire, burnt some papers, and stood by the mantelpiece drinking his milk and eating the bread, for he had grown hungry during the day.... The milk was sour, the bread stale.

Already the room was filling with the dim shadows of evening, a purplish mist hung outside; the fire burnt with a bright yellow flame.

Heavy footsteps echoed through the silence of the corridor, and Ivan Koloturov appeared in the doorway. Koloturov! As young lads they had played together, Ivan had developed into a sober, sensible, thrifty, and industrious peasant. Standing in the middle of the room, the President silently handed the Prince his paper--it had taken him a whole hour to type it out.

On the sheet was typed "To the Barin Prozorovsky. The Bielokonsky Committee of the Poor order you to withdraw from the Soviet Estate of Bielokonsky and from the district precincts. President Koloturov."

"Very well," said the Prince quietly; "I will go this evening."

"You will take no horse."

"I will go on foot."

"As you like," Koloturov replied. "You will take nothing with you."

He turned round, stood a moment with his back to the Prince, then went out of the room.

At that instant, a clock struck three quarters of the hour. It was the work of Kuvaldin, the eighteenth century master. It had been in the Moscow Kremlin and had afterwards travelled through the Caucasus with the Vadkovsky Princes. How many times had its ticking sounded during the course of those centuries.

Prozorovsky sat down by the window and looked out at the neglected park. He remained there for about an hour, leaning his arms on the marble sill, thinking, remembering. His reflections were interrupted by Koloturov. The peasant came in silently with two of his men and pa.s.sed through into the office. They endeavoured silently to lift a writing-table. Something cracked.

The Prince rose and put on his big grey overcoat, a felt hat, and went out. He walked through the rustling gold-green foliage of the park, pa.s.sed close by some stables and a distillery, descended into a dell, came up on its opposite side. Then, feeling tired, he decided to walk slowly--walk twenty miles on foot for the first time in his life. After all, how simple the whole thing was ... it was only terrible in its simplicity.

The sun had already sunk beneath the horizon. The last ravens had flown. An autumn hush over-hung the Steppe. He walked on briskly through the wide, windy, open s.p.a.ce, walking for the first time he knew not whither, nor wherefore. He carried nothing, he possessed nothing. The night was silent, dark, autumnal, and frosty.

He walked on briskly for eight miles, heedless of everything around, then he stopped a moment to tie his shoe lace. Suddenly he felt an overwhelming weariness and his legs began to ache; he had covered nearly forty miles during the day.