“The flowers have wilted, and the leaves begin to fall from the trees; the picture grows gloomy; it would be too melancholy to look upon; here it would be gloomy to live,” says the elder sister. “I do not like it. The halls are deserted; there is no one in the fields,” says the elder sister. “I have arranged this according to my sister, the tsaritsa’s desire.”
“Is the palace really deserted?”
“Yes, it is cold and damp here. Here, out of two thousand people, only ten or twenty of those originals for whom it seemed a pleasant variety to remain here for the present, in this solitude, in seclusion, to look at the northern autumn. After some time during the winter there will be constant change: small parties will come—lovers of winter sports—to spend several days here in winter fashion.”
“But where are they now?”
“Everywhere that is warm and comfortable,” says the elder sister. “In summer when there is much work here and it is pleasant, many different guests come here from the south; we were in the house when the whole company consisted of guests like you; but a good many houses are built for the guests in other places; and the guests belonging to different nations and the housekeepers live together, each one selecting the company which best pleases him. But while taking a good many guests in summer as helpers in the work, you, yourself, during seven or eight bad months of your year, leave for the south wherever you please. But you have in the south a special portion where the main portion of you live. That part is called New Russia.”
“Is that Odessa and Kherson?”
“That is in your time; but behold where the New Russia is.”
Mountains clad in gardens; amid the mountains narrow ravines, wide valleys. “These mountains used to be naked crags,” says the elder sister. “Now they are covered with a thick layer of earth, and often amid the garden grow copses of lofty trees, beneath which, on the damp hollows, are plantations of coffee-trees; higher up, date-palms, fig-trees, vineyards mingled with plantations of sugarcane; in the fields grow wheat, but there is more of rice.”
“What land is this?”
“Let us for a moment rise a little higher, and you shall see that it is boundless.” Far to the northwest are wide rivers, which unite and flow towards those eastern and southern places from which Viéra Pavlovna is looking. Farther, in that same southeasterly direction, she sees long, wide bays; on the south the land stretches far away between these bays, and the long, narrow sea which forms its western boundary. Between the narrow bays and the sea, which opens out towards the west is a narrow isthmus. “But we are in the centre of the desert,” says the astonished Viéra Pavlovna.
“Yes, the centre of what used to be a desert, but now, as you see, everything has been changed, all the space from the Green River on the northeast has been turned into a fertile land, just as it was in olden times; and again it has become that zone, extending to the north, which in olden times was said to ‘overflow with milk and honey.’
“We are not very far, as you see, from the southern boundary of the cultivated land; the mountainous part of the peninsula remains, as yet, a sandy, fruitless steppe, such as, in your day, the whole peninsula used to be. Every year the people, you Russians, are pushing away the boundary of the desert to the south; others are working in other lands; all have sufficient room, and enough to do to live comfortably and abundantly; yes, from the great northeastern rivers. All the region towards the south, till you come to the great peninsula, is green, and full of flowers; over the whole region stand built grand palaces, as in the north, three versts apart, like numberless, great chessmen on a mighty chessboard. Let us descend to one of them,” says the elder sister.
The same kind of grand crystal house, but its columns are white.
“They are made of aluminum,” says the elder sister; “because it is hot here, and white becomes less heated in the sun; it is somewhat dearer than cast-iron, but it is better suited to the climate.”
But besides, they have devised this plan: at a long distance, around the crystal palace, are placed rows of lofty, thin pillars, and upon them, high over the palace, over the whole dvor, and for half a verst around it is stretched a white awning.
“It is kept ever moistened with water.” says the elder sister; “you see from every column a little fountain rises higher than the awning, and scatters its drops around, and therefore it is comfortable to live here for the varying temperature to suit themselves.”
“But who likes heat and the bright southern sun?”
“You see at a distance there are tents and pavilions; everyone can live as he pleases: I lead the world, and I work with no other end in view.”
“So these cities remain for those who like cities?”
“Such people are few. There are less towns than before—almost only those which on the best harbors are needed as centres of communication, and the interchange of commodities with other centres of exchange. But these cities are larger and more beautiful than the former; people go there sometimes for recreation; the greater part of the inhabitants are all the time changing, and they remain there for work but a short time.”
“But who wants to live there constantly?”
“They live just as you do in your Petersburgs, Parises, Londons. Whose affair is that? Who is to interfere? Let everybody live as he pleases; but the greatest majority, ninety-nine out of every hundred, live just as I and my sister have showed you, because it is more pleasant, and more profitable to them. But go into the palace; it is quite late; it is time to see them.”
“But no, first I want to know how this happened.”
“What?”
“That a fruitless desert became a most fruitful land, where almost all of us spend two-thirds of our year.”
“How this happened? Is there anything miraculous in it? This happened not in the course of one year, not in ten; they have been bringing it about gradually. They brought clay from northeast, from the shores of the great river; from the northwest, from the shores of the great sea. They possess a great number of such powerful machines: the clay solidified the sand; they constructed canals; they arranged for irrigation; verdure made its appearance; the atmosphere became more moist; the work went forward step by step, for many versts, but sometimes only a verst a year, just as they are going towards the south; is there anything miraculous in this? They only became intelligent; they used for their own advancement a great many powers and expedients which had been expended before without utility or directly for their injury. It is not in vain that I am laboring and teaching. It was only hard for people to learn what was useful; they were in your time such savages, such ruffians, such barbarians, such idiots, but I kept on teaching them, teaching them; and as soon as they began to comprehend, then it was not hard to fulfil my teachings. I demand nothing difficult; you know it. You are doing some for my sake in my method, even now; is it difficult?”
“No.”
“Of course not. Remember your shop, your sewing union. Did you have great means? Did you have more than others?”
“No; what means did we have?”
“And yet your seamstresses have tenfold more conveniences, twenty-fold more happiness in life, and they experience a hundredfold less unpleasantness than others with such small means as you had. You yourself have proved that even in your time people can live very comfortably. It is only necessary to be reasonable, to make a good start, to know how to use your means to the best advantage.”
“Yes, yes, I know it.”
“Now go and see a little more carefully how these people are living some time after they began to understand what you understood long ago.”