V
Meanwhile the Meeting had been vociferating in front of the office. The business before them was not a trifling one. Almost all the peasants were present. While the steward was with the proprietress they put on their caps, more voices joined in, and they talked more loudly. The hum of the deep voices, at rare intervals interrupted by breathless hoarse and shrill tones, filled the air, and entering through the windows of the proprietress’s house sounded like the noise of the distant sea, making her feel a nervous agitation resembling that produced by a heavy thunderstorm—a sensation between fear and discomfort. She felt as if the voices might at any moment grow yet louder and faster, and then something would happen.
“As if it could not all be done quietly, peaceably, without disputing and shouting,” she thought, “according to the Christian law of brotherly love and meekness!”
Many voices were speaking at once, but Theodore Resoún, a carpenter, shouted loudest. There were two grown-up young men in his family, and he was attacking the Doútlofs. Old Doútlof was defending himself: he had stepped forward out of the crowd behind which he had at first stood. Now spreading out his arms, now clutching at his little beard, he sputtered and snuffled in such a manner that it would have been hard for himself to understand what he was saying. His sons and nephews—splendid fellows, all of them—stood pressing behind him, and the old man resembled the mother-hen in the game of hawk-and-chickens. The hawk was Resoún; and not only Resoún, but all the men who had two grown lads in their family, were attacking Doútlof. The point was, that Doútlof’s brother had been recruited thirty years before, and that Doútlof wished to be excused therefore from taking his turn with the families in which there were three grown-up young men, and wanted his brother’s service in the army to be counted to the advantage of his family, so that it should be given the same chance as those in which there were only two young men; and that these should all draw lots equally, and the third recruit be chosen from among all of them. Besides Doútlof’s family, there were four others in which there were three young men, but one was the village elder’s family, and the proprietress had exempted him. From the second, a recruit had been taken the year before, and from the remaining families two recruits were now being taken. One of them had not even come to this Meeting, only his wife stood sorrowfully behind all the others, vaguely expecting that the wheel of fortune might somehow turn her way. The red-haired Román, the father of the other recruit, in a tattered coat—though he was not poor—hung his head and silently leant against the porch railing, only now and then attentively looking up at anybody who raised his voice, and then hanging his head again. Misery seemed to breathe from his whole figure. Old Simeon Doútlof was a man to whose keeping anyone who knew him would have trusted hundreds and thousands of roubles. He was a steady, God-fearing, well-to-do man, and was churchwarden. Therefore the predicament in which he found himself was all the more startling.
Resoún the carpenter was a tall, dark man, a riotous drunkard, very smart in a dispute and in arguing with workmen, tradespeople, peasants, and gentlefolk at meetings and fairs. He was quiet now and sarcastic, and from his superior height he was crushing down the spluttering churchwarden with the whole strength of his ringing voice and oratorical talent. The churchwarden was exasperated out of his usual sober groove. Besides these, the youngish, round-faced, square-headed, curly-bearded, thickset Garáska Kopýlof, one of the talkers of the younger generation, was taking part in the dispute. He came next to Resoún in importance. He had already gained some weight at the Meetings, having distinguished himself by his trenchant speeches. Then there was Theodore Mélnitchny, a tall, thin, yellow-faced, round-shouldered man, still young, with a thin beard and small eyes, always embittered and gloomy, seeing the dark side of everything, and often puzzling the Meeting by his unexpected and abrupt questions and remarks. Both these speakers sided with Resoún. Besides these, now and then two chatterers joined in: one with a most good-humoured face and flowing brown beard, called Hrapkóf, who kept repeating the words, “Oh, my dearest friend!” the other, Zhidkóf, a little fellow with a birdlike face, who also kept remarking at every opportunity, “That’s how it is, brothers mine!” addressing himself to everybody and speaking fluently, but without rhyme or reason. They both sided first with one and then with the other party, but no one listened to them. There were others like them, but these two, who kept moving through the crowd and shouting louder than anybody and frightening the proprietress, were listened to less than anyone else, and, intoxicated by the noise and shouting, gave themselves up entirely to the pleasure of wagging their tongues.
There were many other characters among the members of the Commune, stern, respectable, indifferent, dismal, or downtrodden; and there were women standing behind the men, but, God willing, I’ll speak of them some other time. The greater part of the crowd, however, consisted of peasants who stood as if they were in church, whispering behind each other’s backs about home affairs, about how best to mark the trees in the forest, or silently hoping that the jabbering would soon cease. There were also rich peasants, whose well-being the Meeting could not add to nor diminish. Such was Ermíl, with his broad, shiny face, whom the peasants called the “full-bellied,” because he was rich. Such too was Stárostin, whose face seemed to say, “You may talk away, but no one will touch me! I have four sons, but not one of them will have to go.” Now and then these two were attacked by some independent thinker such as Kopýlof or Resoún, but they replied quietly and firmly, and with a sense of their own immunity. If Doútlof was like the mother-hen in the game of hawk-and-chickens, his lads did not much resemble the chicks. They did not flutter about and squeak, but stood quietly behind him. His eldest son, Ignát, was already thirty; the second, too, was already a married man, and, moreover, not fit for service; the third was his nephew Elijah, who had just got married—a fair, rosy young man in a smart sheepskin coat (he was post-horse driver). He stood looking at the crowd, sometimes scratching his head under his hat, as if the whole matter was no concern of his, though it was just him that the hawks wished to swoop down on.
“Why, my grandfather was a soldier,” said one, “and so I might in just the same way refuse to draw lots! … There’s no such law, friend. Last recruiting, Mihéyevitch was enlisted, and his uncle had then not even returned from service.”
“Neither your father nor any uncle of yours has served the Tsar,” Doútlof was saying at the same time. “Why, you have not even served the proprietress or the Commune, but spend all your time in the pub. Your sons have separated from you because it’s impossible to live with you, so you go suggesting other people’s sons for recruits! And I have done police duty for ten years and been churchwarden. Twice I have suffered from fires, and no one helped me over it; and now, because things go on peaceably and honourably in my homestead, am I to be ruined? … Give me my brother back, then! I dare say he has died in service. … Judge righteously, according to God’s will, Christian Commune, and don’t listen to a drunkard’s drivel.”
And at the same time Gerásim was saying to Doútlof:
“You are using your brother as an excuse, but he was not enlisted by the Commune. He was sent by the proprietor because of his evil ways, so he is no excuse for you.”
Gerásim had not finished when the long, yellow-faced Theodore Mélnitchny stepped forward and began dismally:
“Yes, that’s the way! The proprietors send whom they list, and then the Commune has got to get the muddle straight. The Commune has chosen your lad, and if you don’t like it, go and ask the lady. Perhaps she will order me, the one man of the family, to leave my children and go! … There’s law for you!” he said bitterly, and, waving his hand, he returned to his former place.
The red-haired Román, whose son had been chosen as a recruit, raised his head and muttered: “That’s it, that’s it!” and even sat down on the step in vexation.
But these were not the only ones who were speaking all at once. Besides those behind, who were talking about their own affairs, the chatterers did not neglect their part.
“And so it is, faithful Commune,” said the little Zhidkóf, repeating Doútlof’s words. “One must judge in a Christian manner. … In a Christian way, I mean, brothers, we must judge.”
“One must judge according to one’s conscience, my dear friend,” spoke the good-humoured Hrapkóf, repeating Kopýlof’s words, and pulling Doútlof by his sheepskin.
“That was the proprietor’s will, and not the decision of the Commune.”
“That’s right! That’s what it is,” said others.
“What drunkard is drivelling?” Resoún retorted to Doútlof. “Did you stand me any drinks? Or is your son, whom they pick up by the roadside, going to reproach me with drink? … Friends, we must decide! If you want to spare Doútlof, choose not only out of families with two men, but even the one man of a family, and he will have the laugh of us!”
“Doútlof’s will have to go! What’s the good of talking?”
“It’s evident the three-men families must be the first to draw lots,” began different voices.
“We must first see what the proprietress will say. Egór Miháylovitch was saying that they wanted to send a domestic serf,” put in a voice.
This remark stopped the dispute for a while, but soon it flared up anew, and again came down to personalities.
Ignát, whom Resoún had accused of being picked up drunk by the roadside, began to make out that Resoún had stolen a saw from some passing carpenter, and that, when drunk, he had nearly beaten his wife to death.
Resoún replied that he beat his wife, drunk or sober, and still it was not enough; and this set everybody laughing. But about the saw he became suddenly indignant, stepped closer to Ignát and asked:
“Who stole? …”
“You did,” replied the sturdy Ignát, drawing still closer.
“Who stole? … Was it not yourself?” shouted Resoún.
“No, it was you,” said Ignát.
From the saw they went on to a stolen horse, a bag of oats, some strip of kitchen-garden, a dead body; and the two peasants said such terrible things to one another, that if a one-hundredth part of them had been true they would at the very least have legally deserved exile to Siberia.
In the meantime old Doútlof had chosen another way of defending himself. He did not like his son’s shouting, and tried to stop him, saying: “It’s a sin. … Leave off, I tell you!”
At the same time he argued that not only those who had three young men at home were three-men families, but also those whose sons had separated from them.
Stárostin smiled slightly, cleared his throat, and, stroking his beard with the air of a rich man, answered that it all depended on the proprietress, and that evidently his sons had deserved well, since the order was for them to be exempt.
Gerásim answered Doútlof’s arguments with respect to the families that had broken up, by the remark that they ought not to have been allowed to break up, as was the rule during the lifetime of the late proprietor; that it was no use crying over spilt milk; and that, after all, one could not enlist the only man left in a household.
“Did they break up their households for fun? Why should they now be completely ruined?” came the voices of the men whose families had separated; and the chatterers joined in, too.
“You’d better buy a substitute, if you’re not satisfied. You can afford it!” said Resoún to Doútlof.
Doútlof wrapped his coat round him with a despairing gesture, and stepped back behind the others.
“I suppose you’ve counted my money?” he muttered angrily. “We shall see what Egór Miháylovitch will say, when he comes from the proprietress.”