“Then how is it they have taken him, if he’s the only man?”

“Who can tell why they’ve done it?… Here am I, left alone with the children! There’s nothing for me but to die…. Only I’m sorry for the children! My last hope is in your kindness, because, you see, it was not right!”

I wrote down the name of her village, and her name and surname, and told her I would see about it and let her know.

“Help me, if it’s only ever so little!… The children are hungry, and, God’s my witness, I haven’t so much as a crust. The baby is worst of all … there’s no milk in my breasts. If only the Lord would take him!”

“Haven’t you a cow?” I asked.

“A cow? Oh, no!… Why, we’re all starving!” said she, crying, and trembling all over in her tattered coat.

I let her go, and prepared for my customary walk. It turned out that the doctor, who lives with us, was going to visit a patient in the village the soldier’s wife had come from, and another patient in the village where the District Police Station is situated, so I joined him, and we drove off together.

I went into the Police Station, while the doctor attended to his business in that village.

The District Elder was not in, nor the clerk, but only the clerk’s assistant — a clever lad whom I knew. I asked him about the woman’s husband, and why, being the only man in the family, he had been taken as a conscript.

The clerk’s assistant looked up the particulars, and replied that the woman’s husband was not the only man in the family: he had a brother.

“Then why did she say he was the only one?”

“She lied! They always do,” replied he, with a smile.

I made some inquiries about other matters I had to attend to, and then the doctor returned from visiting his patient, and we drove towards the village in which the soldier’s wife lived. But before we were out of the first village, a girl of about twelve came quickly across the road towards us.

“I suppose you’re wanted?” I said to the doctor.

“No, it’s your Honour I want,” said the girl to me.

“What is it?”

“I’ve come to your Honour, as mother is dead, and we are left orphans — five of us. Help us!… Think of our needs!”

“Where do you come from?”

The girl pointed to a brick house, not badly built.

“From here... that is our house. Come and see for yourself!”

I got out of the sledge, and went towards the house. A woman came out and asked me in. She was the orphans’ aunt. I entered a large, clean room; all the children were there, four of them: besides the eldest girl — two boys, a girl, and another boy of about two. Their aunt told me all about the family’s circumstances. Two years ago the father had been killed in a mine. The widow tried to get compensation, but failed. She was left with four children; the fifth was born after her husband’s death. She struggled on alone as best she could, hiring a labourer at first to work her land. But without her husband things went worse and worse. First they had to sell their cow, then the horse, and at last only two sheep were left. Still they managed to live somehow; but two months ago the woman herself fell ill and died, leaving five children, the eldest twelve years old.

“They must get along as best they can. I try to help them, but can’t do much. I can’t think what’s to become of them! I wish they’d die!… If one could only get them into some Orphanage — or at least some of them!”

The eldest girl evidently understood and took in the whole of my conversation with her aunt.

“If at least one could get little Nicky placed somewhere! It’s awful; one can’t leave him for a moment,” said she, pointing to the sturdy little two-year old urchin, who with his little sister was merrily laughing at something or other, and evidently did not at all share his aunt’s wish.

I promised to take steps to get one or more of the children into an Orphanage. The eldest girl thanked me, and asked when she should come for an answer. The eyes of all the children, even of Nicky, were fixed on me, as on some fairy being capable of doing anything for them.

Before I had reached the sledge, after leaving the house, I met an old man. He bowed, and at once began speaking about these same orphans.

“What misery!” he said; “it’s pitiful to see them. And the eldest little girlie, how she looks after them — just like a mother! Wonderful how the Lord helps her! It’s a mercy the neighbours don’t forsake them, or they’d simply die of hunger, the dear little things!… They are the sort of people it does no harm to help,” he added, evidently advising me to do so.

I took leave of the old man, the aunt, and the little girl, and drove with the doctor to the woman who had been to see me that morning.

At the first house we came to, I inquired where she lived. It happened to be the house of a widow I know very well; she lives on the alms she begs, and she has a particularly importunate and pertinacious way of extorting them. As usual, she at once began to beg. She said she was just now in special need of help to enable her to rear a calf.

“She’s eating me and the old woman out of house and home. Come in and see her.”

“And how is the old woman?”

“What about the old woman?… She’s hanging on….”

I promised to come and see, not so much the calf as the old woman, and again inquired where the soldier’s wife lived. The widow pointed to the next hut but one, and hastened to add that no doubt they were poor, but her brother-in-law “does drink dreadfully!”

Following her instructions, I went to the next house but one.

Miserable as are the huts of all the poor in our villages, it is long since I saw one so dilapidated as that. Not only the whole roof, but the walls were so crooked that the windows were aslant.

Inside, it was no better than outside. The brick oven took up one-third of the black, dirty little hut, which to my surprise was full of people. I thought I should find the widow alone with her children; but here was a sister-in-law (a young woman with children) and an old mother-in-law. The soldier’s wife herself had just returned from her visit to me, and was warming herself on the top of the oven. While she was getting down, her mother-in-law began telling me of their life. Her two sons had lived together at first, and they all managed to feed themselves.

“But who remain together nowadays? All separate,” the garrulous old woman went on. “The wives began quarrelling, so the brothers separated, and life became still harder. We had little land, and only managed to live by their wage-labour; and now they have taken Peter as a soldier! So where is she to turn to with her children? She’s living with us now, but we can’t manage to feed them all! We can’t think what we are to do. They say he may be got back.”

The soldier’s wife, having climbed down from the oven, continued to implore me to take steps to get her husband back. I told her it was impossible, and asked what property her husband had left behind with his brother, to keep her and the children. There was none. He had handed over his land to his brother, that he might feed her and the children. They had had three sheep; but two had been sold to pay the expenses of getting her husband off, and there was only some old rubbish left, she said, besides a sheep and two fowls. That was all she had. Her mother-in-law confirmed her words.

I asked the soldier’s wife where she had come from. She came from Sergíevskoe. Sergíevskoe is a large, well-to-do village some thirty miles off. I asked if her parents were alive. She said they were alive, and living comfortably.

“Why should you not go to them?” I asked.

“I thought of that myself, but am afraid they won’t have the four of us.”

“Perhaps they will. Why not write to them? Shall I write for you?”

The woman agreed, and I noted down her parents’ address.

While I was talking to the woman, the eldest child — a fat-bellied girl — came up to her mother, and, pulling at her sleeve, began asking for something, probably food. The woman went on talking to me, and paid no attention to the girl, who again pulled and muttered something.

“There’s no getting rid of you!” exclaimed the woman, and with a swing of her arm struck her on the head. The girl burst into a howl.

Having finished my business there, I left the hut and went back to the widow.

She was outside her house, waiting for me, and again asked me to come and look at her calf. I went in, and in the passage there really was a calf. The widow asked me to look at it. I did so, feeling that she was so engrossed in her calf that she could not imagine that anyone could help being interested in seeing it.

Having looked at the calf, I stepped inside, and asked:

“Where is the old woman?”

“The old woman?” the widow repeated, evidently surprised that after having seen the calf, I could still be interested in the old woman. “Why, on the top of the oven! Where else should she be?”

I went up to the oven, and greeted the old woman.

“Oh!… oh!” answered a hoarse, feeble voice. “Who is it?”

I told her, and asked how she was getting on.

“What’s my life worth?”

“Are you in pain?”

“Everything aches! Oh!… oh!”

“The doctor is here with me; shall I call him in?”

“Doctor!... Oh!... oh! What do I want with your doctor?... My doctor is up there…. Oh!... oh!”

“She’s old, you know,” said the widow.

“Not older than I am,” replied I.

“Not older? Much older! People say she is ninety,” said the widow. “All her hair has come out. I cut it all off the other day.”

“Why did you do that?”

“Why, it had nearly all come out, so I cut it off!”

“Oh!… oh!” moaned the old woman; “oh! God has forgotten me! He does not take my soul. If the Lord won’t take it, it can’t go of itself! Oh!… oh! It must be for my sins!… I’ve nothing to moisten my throat…. If only I had a drop of tea to drink before I die…. Oh!… oh!”

The doctor entered the hut, and I said goodbye and went out into the street.

We got into the sledge, and drove to a small neighbouring village to see the doctor’s last patient, who had sent for him the day before. We went into the hut together.

The room was small, but clean; in the middle of it a cradle hung from the ceiling, and a woman stood rocking it energetically. At the table sat a girl of about eight, who gazed at us with surprised and frightened eyes.

“Where is he?” the doctor asked.

“On the oven,” replied the woman, not ceasing to rock the cradle.

The doctor climbed up, and, leaning over the patient, did something to him.

I drew nearer, and asked about the sick man’s condition.

The doctor gave me no answer. I climbed up, too, and gazing through the darkness gradually began to discern the hairy head of the man on the oven-top. Heavy, stifling air hung about the sick man, who lay on his back. The doctor was holding his left hand to feel the pulse.

“Is he very bad?” I asked.

Without answering me, the doctor turned to the woman.

“Light a lamp,” he said.

She called the girl, told her to rock the cradle, and went and lit a lamp and handed it to the doctor. I got down, so as not to be in his way. He took the lamp, and continued to examine the patient.

The little girl, staring at us, did not rock the cradle strongly enough, and the baby began to cry piercingly and piteously. The mother, having handed the lamp to the doctor, pushed the girl angrily aside and again began to rock the cradle.

I returned to the doctor, and again asked how the patient was. The doctor, still occupied with the patient, softly whispered one word.

I did not hear, and asked again.

“The death-agony,” he repeated, purposely using a non-Russian word, and got down and placed the lamp on the table.

The baby did not cease crying in a piteous and angry voice.

“What’s that? Is he dead?” said the woman, as if she had understood the foreign word the doctor had used.

“Not yet, but there is no hope!” replied he.

“Then I must send for the priest,” said the woman in a dissatisfied voice, rocking the screaming baby more and more violently.

“If only my husband was at home!… But now, who can I send? They’ve all gone to the forest for firewood.”

“I can do nothing more here,” said the doctor; and we went away.

I heard afterwards that the woman found someone to send for the priest, who had just time to administer the Sacrament to the dying man.

We drove home in silence, both, I think, experiencing the same feeling.

“What was the matter with him?” I asked at length.

“Inflammation of the lungs. I did not expect it to end so quickly. He had a very strong constitution, but the conditions were deadly. With 105 degrees of fever, he went and sat outside the hut, where there were only 20 degrees.”

Again we drove on in silence for a long time.

“I noticed no bedding or pillow on the oven,” said I.

“Nothing!” replied the doctor. And, evidently knowing what I was thinking about, he went on:

“Yesterday I was at Kroutoe to see a woman who has had a baby. To examine her properly, as was necessary, she should have been placed so that she could lie stretched out full length; but there was no place in the whole hut where that could be done.”

Again we were silent, and again we probably both had the same thoughts. We reached home in silence. At the porch stood a fine pair of horses, harnessed tandem to a carpet-upholstered sledge. The handsome coachman was dressed in a sheepskin coat, and wore a thick fur cap. They belonged to my son, who had driven over from his estate.

And here we are sitting at the dinner-table, laid for ten persons. One of the places is empty. It is my little granddaughter’s. She is not quite well to-day, and is having her dinner in her room with her nurse. A specially hygienic dinner has been prepared for her: beef-tea and sago.

At our big dinner of four courses, with two kinds of wine, served by two footmen, and eaten at a table decorated with flowers, this is the kind of talk that goes on:

“Where do these splendid roses come from?” asks my son.

My wife tells him that a lady, who will not divulge her name, sends them from Petersburg.

“Roses like these cost three shillings each,” says my son, and goes on to relate how at some concert or play such roses were showered on a performer till they covered the stage. The conversation passes on to music, and then to a man who is a very good judge and patron of music.

“By the by, how is he?”

“Oh, he is always ailing. He is again going to Italy. He always spends the winter there, and his health improves wonderfully.”

“But the journey is very trying and tedious.”

“Oh no! Not if one takes the express — it is only thirty-nine hours.”

“All the same, it is very dull.”

“Wait a bit! We shall fly before long!”

Third Day.
Taxes

Besides my ordinary visitors and applicants, there are to-day some special ones. The first is a childless old peasant who is ending his life in great poverty. The second is a poor woman with a crowd of children. The third is, I believe, a well-to-do peasant.

All three have come from our village, and all have come about the same business. The taxes are being collected before the New Year, and the old man’s samovár, the woman’s only sheep, and one of the well-to-do peasant’s cows, have been noted down for seizure in case of non-payment. They all ask me to defend them or assist them, or to do both.

The well-to-do peasant, a tall, handsome, elderly man, is the first to speak. He tells me that the Village Elder came, noted down the cow, and demands twenty-seven roubles. This levy is for the obligatory Grain Reserve Fund, and ought not, the peasant thinks, to be collected at this time of year. I know nothing about it, and tell him that I will inquire in the District Government Office, and will let him know whether the payment of the tax can be postponed or not.

The second to speak is the old man whose samovár has been noted. The small, thin, weakly, poorly clad man relates, with pathetic grief and bewilderment, how they came, took his samovár, and demanded three roubles and seventy copecks of him, which he has not got and can’t get.

I ask him what the tax is for.

“Some kind of Government tax…. Who can tell what it is? Where am I and my old woman to get the money? As it is, we hardly manage to live!… What kind of laws are these? Have pity on our old age, and help us somehow!”

I promise to inquire, and to do what I can, and I turn to the woman. She is thin and worn-out. I know her, and know that her husband is a drunkard, and that she has five children.

“They have seized my sheep! They come and say: ‘Pay the money!’ ‘My husband is away, working,’ I say. ‘Pay up!’ say they. But where am I to find it? I only had one sheep, and they are taking it!” And she begins to cry.

I promise to find out, and to help her if I can. First, I go to the Village Elder, to find out what the taxes are, and why they are collecting them so rigorously.

In the village street, two other petitioners stop me. Their husbands are away at work. One asks me to buy some of her home-woven linen, and offers it for two roubles. “Because they have seized my hens! I had just reared them, and live by selling the eggs. Do buy it; it is good linen! I would not let it go for three roubles if I were not in great need!”

I send her away, promising to consider matters when I return — perhaps I may be able to arrange about the tax.