IV
Summer and winter, the Governor rose at seven, had his cold tub, drank his milk, and took his two-hour walk—no matter what the weather. He had given up smoking early in life, hardly drank at all, and at fifty-six years, for all his white hair, he was as sound and fresh as a stripling. His teeth were even, powerful, and slightly yellowed with tartar, like those of an old horse. The eyes were a bit puffy, but full of fire still; and his great fleshy old nose bore the marks of his glasses. He never wore a pince-nez, but for reading or writing used a pair of gold-rimmed spectacles with powerful lenses.
In the country he busied himself very much with his garden. He cared very little for flowers, or the purely aesthetic side of horticulture, but had built fine conservatories and a forcing house, where he cultivated peaches. Since the day of the catastrophe he had only glanced into the hothouse one single time, and then had come hastily away—there was something so pleasant, so peaceful, and consequently so grievous! in the warm, damp air.
The greater part of his days, when he was not busy in town, he spent in the vast park, pacing with firm, direct steps down the long avenues that traversed its fifteen dessiatines. He was not much given to reflection. Now and again lively and interesting thoughts came to him, never with any particular sequence, and wandered through his brain like an unshepherded flock. And sometimes for hours he strode along, lost in thought and oblivious to his surroundings; yet could not have told what matters he had been pondering. Occasionally he was made aware of a deep and mighty working of his soul; at times tormenting, at times exalting—but to what it all tended he never understood. And only his changing moods, from grave to gay, from tender to severe, gave index in his character of this mysterious, secret expansion in the depths of his being. Since the catastrophe his moods (no matter what his clearer thoughts might be) were gloomy, wild, hopeless; and whenever he woke from his deep brooding he felt that he passed this interval through a long and horrible night.
In his youth he had once been caught by the fierce current of a river, and almost drowned; and for years he carried the impress on his soul of that strangling darkness, his faintness, the eager, greedy sucking depths. And what he now endured was that same feeling!
One sunny, windless morning, two days after his son’s departure, he was out again on the avenue, pacing in silent thought. The yellow leaves that had fallen in the night had already been swept away, and across the marks of the broom, the tracks of his large feet, with their high heels, and broad, square soles, showed clear—deep pressed into the soil; as though to the weight of the man himself had been added the burden of his ponderous thought, pressing him to the earth! Now and again he paused, and over his head in the tangle of sunlit branches was heard the rhythmic hammer of a woodpecker. Once while he stood still a little squirrel ran across the path. He darted from tree to tree like a fluffy ball of red fur.
“They will certainly kill me with a revolver—you can buy such good revolvers now,” he thought. “They don’t understand much about bombs here yet—and then bombs are only for the man who runs; Aljosha, for instance!—when he is made Governor they’ll kill him with a bomb!” thought Peter Iljitch, and his bearded lip curled with a slight ironical smile, though his eyes were fixed and gloomy. “I wouldn’t run—no, bad as it is, I wouldn’t run!”
He halted and brushed a cobweb from his fatigue jacket. “A pity, though, that no one will ever know of my notion of honour and my pluck. They know all the rest, but that they can never know. They’ll shoot me down like any old scoundrel. Too bad! But there’s nothing for it—I shan’t speak of it! Why try to rouse the Judge’s pity? It’s not honourable to work on his feelings—his position is hard enough at best—and now they come and whine for mercy! I am a man of honour, I tell you—honourable!” …
It was the first time he had thought of a judge; and he wondered how he had happened to think of it. It came to him as if the question had long ago been settled. As though he had slept, and in his dreams someone had explained most convincingly all the necessary details about the judge, and when he awoke he had forgotten the particulars, but only remembered that there was a judge—a law-abiding justice, panoplied with authority, and encompassed with threatening might! And now, after the first moment of astonishment, he met the thought of this unknown judge as though he were an old and valued friend. … “Aljosha could never understand that! According to him everything must be ‘for reasons of State.’ But what sort of statesmanship was that: shooting a hungry mob? Interests of State demand that the starving be fed—and not shot at! He is young and inexperienced yet, and easily influenced.”. … But before he had quite finished this complacent thought, he suddenly realised that he himself, and not Aljosha, had ordered the firing! … The air suddenly grew close, and he heard (absurdly enough) a single mighty, awful thunder: “Too late!” … He was not sure whether it were simply a thought or a feeling, or if he had pronounced it. It rang on every side, and menaced him like lightning overhead. Then came a long time of bewilderment; hasty disbanding of thoughts, and painful shattering of ideas—finally, a calm—so complete that it seemed indifference! …
The windows of the forcing house twinkled in the sunshine among the trees, and the wild grapevine’s red leaves glowed like bloodstains against the white angles of its walls. Following his custom, the Governor turned down the narrow path between the empty hotbeds and stepped into the forcing-house. Only one workman was pottering about, old Jegor.
“Is the gardener not here?”
“No, your Excellency. He has gone to town for cuttings today; this is Friday.”
“Aha! … And is everything doing well?”
“Thanks be!”
The sunshine streamed through the open windows, driving out the close, heavy dampness. You felt how hot and strong the sun was, and yet how gentle—how beneficent! The Governor sat down, the light sparkling on the metal of his uniform. He undid his jacket and, watching the old man attentively, said: “Well, how goes it, Brother Jegor?”
The old fellow answered this friendly but somewhat indefinite question with a polite smile. He stood up and rubbed his dirty hands together.
“Tell me, Jegor—I hear they’re going to kill me—on account of the workmen that time, you know!” Jegor kept on smiling politely, but no longer rubbed his hands—he hid them behind his back and was speechless! “What do you think about it, my man—will they kill me, or not? Can you read and write? … Then tell me what you think. … We two old fellows can talk it over frankly, can’t we?”
Jegor shook his head until a lock of soft grey fell over his eyes, stared at the Governor, and answered: “Who can tell? It may be so, Peter Iljitch!”
“And who is to kill me?”
“Why, the people, to be sure! ‘The Community,’ as they say in the village.”
“And what does the gardener think about it?”
“I don’t know, Peter Iljitch. … I haven’t heard.”
Both sighed deeply.
“It looks rather bad for us, doesn’t it, old fellow? … But sit down!”
Jagor did not accept the invitation, and was silent.
“And I thought I was doing the right thing! … the shooting, I mean. They were throwing stones, insulting me. They almost hit me!”
“They only do that when they’re in trouble. The other day again, on the marketplace, a drunken man—an apprentice or some such thing—who knows!—began to cry and cry; and then he picked up a stone, and bang! he let it fly! … and only just because he was in trouble!”
“They will kill me, and then they’ll be sorry themselves,” said the Governor thoughtfully, trying to call to his mind the face of his son Alexey Petrovitch.
“Sorry they’ll surely be—that’s certain. … Oh, how sorry they’ll be! Bitter tears they’ll shed!”
A ray of hope dawned.
“Then why do they want to kill me? … That’s nonsense, old man!”
The workman gazed wide-eyed into space, with veiled pupils and a rigid attitude. For an instant he seemed petrified; the soft folds of his worn cotton shirt, the fuzzy hair, the grimy hands, all seemed like an enchantment brought about by a skilful artist who had wrapped the hard stone in soft, downy raiment.
“Who can tell!” answered Jegor, without looking at him. “The people seem to wish it! … But don’t trouble about it any more, your Excellency. You know we have to have our foolish gossip. … And they’ll take a long time—and talk; and then forget it themselves!”
The ray of hope vanished.
What Jegor had said was nothing new, nor especially clever; but his words had a singular ring of conviction, like those dreams that came to the Governor as he paced his long lonely avenues. The one phrase, “The people wish it,” was a clear expression of what Peter Iljitch had felt—it was convincing, irrefutable! But perhaps this strange conviction lay not so much in the words of Jegor as in his set look—his fuzzy hair, and his broad, earth-stained hands! … And the sun still shone!
“Well, goodbye, Jegor. … Have you any children?”
“Good health to you, Peter Iljitch!”
The Governor shrugged his shoulders, buttoned his coat, and pulled a rouble from his pocket. “Here, take that, old man! Buy yourself something with it.”
With a nod of thanks, Jegor held out his old flat hand, where the silver balanced as on a roof.
“What singular beings they are!” mused the Governor, as he strode down the walk in the flickering shade; his own figure checkered by sun and shadow as he went. “Very strange creatures! … They wear no wedding rings, and you can never tell whether they are married or not. … However—No! They do wear rings, but they are silver … or tin maybe! How odd! Tin rings! … These fellows get married and cannot even afford gold wedding rings for three roubles—What misery! … I didn’t notice! Those bodies in the storeroom probably had tin rings on too. Yes, now I recollect: tin rings with a very thin band!”
Lower and lower, in ever-narrowing circles, swung his fancy; like a hawk hovering over a field, and swooping down to pick up one small grain! … A woodpecker hammered, a shrivelled leaf fell and floated away, and he himself floated off in a painful, troubled daydream. … A workman—his face is young and handsome, but in all the wrinkles black grime of toil has settled—iron filings that have eaten into the skin, and worn the hair prematurely. His broad mouth is hideously wide open … he screams! He is calling something. His shirt is torn over his chest, and he tears it yet more open—easily, noiselessly, like soft paper; baring his breast. His chest, and half his throat, are white; but above that line he is dark—as though his figure were like all other men’s, but they had put another sort of head upon it.
“Why do you tear your shirt? It is horrible to see your naked body!” But the bare, white breast is thrust wildly toward him. “Here, take it! Here it is! … But give us justice! … We want justice! …”
“But where shall I find justice? How singular you are!”
A woman speaks.
“The children are all dead! The children are all dead! The children … the children … the children have all died!”
“That is why it is so lonely down your lane!”
“The children! The children! The children are all dead! The children!”
“But it is impossible that a child should die of hunger! A child … a little creature who cannot even reach the cupboard door itself! You do not love your children! If my child were hungry I should give it food! … But you even wear tin rings!”
“Ah! We wear iron rings! Our bodies are bound. Our souls are bound. We wear iron rings!”
On the back steps in the shed a maid was brushing Maria Petrovna’s skirt. The kitchen windows stood open: one could see the cook in his spotless jacket. It smelled of refuse … it was dirty. “What have I come to!” said the Governor, in amazement. … “Why, it’s the kitchen. What was I thinking of? Ah yes! I wanted to see the time! How soon will luncheon be ready? It’s early yet … ten o’clock. … But it seems to disturb them to have me here. … I must go!” And he turned into his accustomed path, and wandered up and down, thinking steadily.
And the manner of his thought was of one who fords a great and unknown river. Now the water reaches to his knees … he presses on! But finally sinks from sight; only to struggle up later, breathless and pale! … He thought of his son Alexey Petrovitch—tried to think of his office and his affairs; but wherever he led his fancies they always harked back unexpectedly to the catastrophe, and burrowed there as in an inexhaustible mine. It seemed strange that nothing happening before that event had the power to hold his attention … the past all seemed so trivial, so superfluous!
It was in the second year of his governorship, some five years ago, that he had ordered the knout for the peasants of Sensiwjejewo. On that occasion also he had received an Honourable Mention from the Minister; and from that event dated the rapid and glittering career of Alexey Petrovitch, who was regarded with some attention as the son of an energetic and farsighted man. He dimly remembered (it was so long ago) that the peasants had taken some grain from the proprietors by force, and he had come, with a detachment of soldiers and police, to restore it to the owners of the estates. The affair was nothing terrible, nothing threatening in itself, but rather farcical!
The soldiers dragged away the sacks of grain, and the peasants lay down on them and were dragged too, amid the laughter and jeers of the force, to whom the whole thing was a huge lark! But the fellows began to shriek and fight; striking out and running amuck against the fences—the walls—the soldiers! … One of them, torn from his sack of grain, fumbled silently in the grass with his trembling hands, looking for a stone to throw. Not a stone could he find, but he kept on hunting till a policeman, at a signal from his chief, kicked him in the rear, so that he fell on all fours, and crawled away.
But they all, these peasants, seemed to be made of wood. They were so clumsy, almost creaking in their movements! To turn one of them forward where he belonged took two men. Then, faced about, he still was uncertain where to look; and when he was finally settled, he could not tear himself away again, so that it took two men to force him back.
“Here, uncle, off with your clothes! You’re going swimming!”
“What!” asked the peasant, dumbfounded. “How?”—although the thing was so perfectly clear and simple. A rough hand loosened the single button, the clothes fell, and the lean, bare peasant back stood out, unabashed. They laid the lash on lightly, more as a threat than as a punishment, and the mood of the whole affair was simply comical. On the homeward march the soldiers raised a jolly chorus, and those about the carts where the peasants were bound winked at them genially.
It was autumn. Windswept clouds hung over the bare stubble fields, and they all marched off to the city … to the light! But the village behind them still lay as before; under its depressing sky, in the midst of its dark, sodden, loamy fields, with their short, spare stubble …
“The children are all dead! The children are all dead! … The children! The children! …”
The gong sounded for luncheon. Its clear, penetrating tones rang cheerily through the park. Abruptly the Governor faced about and glanced sharply at his watch. “Ten minutes to twelve!” He put the watch back and stood still. “Disgraceful!” he cried, in a rage, his mouth trembling with emotion. “Disgraceful! I’m almost afraid I’m a coward!”
After luncheon he went to his study to look through the mail from town. Grumbling, and woolgathering and blinking through his glasses, he sorted the envelopes, laying some aside and cutting others carefully, to skim through their contents. Presently he came upon a note in a narrow envelope of cheap, thin paper, pasted over with yellow stamps of one copek. He opened it as carefully as he had the others. When he laid the envelope to one side he unfolded the thin, ink-splotched sheet, and read:
“Butcher of our Children!”
Whiter and whiter grew his face, till it was almost as white as his hair. And his dilated pupils stared through the thick convex glasses at the words:
“Butcher of our Children!”
The letters were large, crooked and pointed, and terribly black—they staggered uncertainly across the rough, coarse paper and cried:
“Butcher of our Children!”