'Come, putting the nobles aside,' I began, 'what have you to tell me about the peasant proprietors, Luka Petrovitch?'
'No, you must let me off that,' he said hurriedly. 'Truly…. I could tell you … but what's the use!' (with a wave of his hand). 'We had better have some tea…. We are common peasants and nothing more; but when we come to think of it, what else could we be?'
He ceased talking. Tea was served. Tatyana Ilyinitchna rose from her place and sat down rather nearer to us. In the course of the evening she several times went noiselessly out and as quietly returned. Silence reigned in the room. Ovsyanikov drank cup after cup with gravity and deliberation.
'Mitya has been to see us to-day,' said Tatyana Ilyinitchna in a low voice.
Ovsyanikov frowned.
'What does he want?'
'He came to ask forgiveness.'
Ovsyanikov shook his head.
'Come, tell me,' he went on, turning to me, 'what is one to do with relations? And to abandon them altogether is impossible…. Here God has bestowed on me a nephew. He's a fellow with brains—a smart fellow —I don't dispute that; he has had a good education, but I don't expect much good to come of him. He went into a government office; threw up his position—didn't get on fast enough, if you please…. Does he suppose he's a noble? And even noblemen don't come to be generals all at once. So now he is living without an occupation…. And that, even, would not be such a great matter—except that he has taken to litigation! He gets up petitions for the peasants, writes memorials; he instructs the village delegates, drags the surveyors over the coals, frequents drinking houses, is seen in taverns with city tradesmen and inn-keepers. He's bound to come to ruin before long. The constables and police-captains have threatened him more than once already. But he luckily knows how to turn it off—he makes them laugh; but they will boil his kettle for him some day…. But, there, isn't he sitting in your little room?' he added, turning to his wife; 'I know you, you see; you're so soft-hearted—you will always take his part.'
Tatyana Ilyinitchna dropped her eyes, smiled, and blushed.
'Well, I see it is so,' continued Ovsyanikov. 'Fie! you spoil the boy! Well, tell him to come in…. So be it, then; for the sake of our good guest I will forgive the silly fellow…. Come, tell him, tell him.'
Tatyana Ilyinitchna went to the door, and cried 'Mitya!'
Mitya, a young man of twenty-eight, tall, well-made, and curly-headed, came into the room, and seeing me, stopped short in the doorway. His costume was in the German style, but the unnatural size of the puffs on his shoulders was enough alone to prove convincingly that the tailor who had cut it was a Russian of the Russians.
'Well, come in, come in,' began the old man; 'why are you bashful? You must thank your aunt—you're forgiven…. Here, your honour, I commend him to you,' he continued, pointing to Mitya; 'he's my own nephew, but I don't get on with him at all. The end of the world is coming!' (We bowed to one another.) 'Well, tell me what is this you have got mixed up in? What is the complaint they are making against you? Explain it to us.'
Mitya obviously did not care to explain matters and justify himself before me.
'Later on, uncle,' he muttered.
'No, not later—now,' pursued the old man…. 'You are ashamed, I see, before this gentleman; all the better— it's only what you deserve. Speak, speak; we are listening.'
'I have nothing to be ashamed of,' began Mitya spiritedly, with a toss of his head. 'Be so good as to judge for yourself, uncle. Some peasant proprietors of Reshetilovo came to me, and said, 'Defend us, brother.' 'What is the matter?'' 'This is it: our grain stores were in perfect order—in fact, they could not be better; all at once a government inspector came to us with orders to inspect the granaries. He inspected them, and said, 'Your granaries are in disorder—serious neglect; it's my duty to report it to the authorities.' 'But what does the neglect consist in?' 'That's my business,' he says…. We met together, and decided to tip the official in the usual way; but old Prohoritch prevented us. He said, 'No; that's only giving him a taste for more. Come; after all, haven't we the courts of justice?' We obeyed the old man, and the official got in a rage, and made a complaint, and wrote a report. So now we are called up to answer to his charges.' 'But are your granaries actually in order?' I asked. 'God knows they are in order; and the legal quantity of corn is in them.' 'Well, then,' say I, 'you have nothing to fear'; and I drew up a document for them…. And it is not yet known in whose favour it is decided…. And as to the complaints they have made to you about me over that affair—it's very easy to understand that—every man's shirt is nearest to his own skin.
'Everyone's, indeed—but not yours seemingly,' said the old man in an undertone. 'But what plots have you been hatching with the Shutolomovsky peasants?'
'How do you know anything of it?'
'Never mind; I do know of it.'
'And there, too, I am right—judge for yourself again. A neighbouring landowner, Bezpandin, has ploughed over four acres of the Shutolomovsky peasants' land. 'The land's mine,' he says. The Shutolomovsky people are on the rent-system; their landowner has gone abroad—who is to stand up for them? Tell me yourself? But the land is theirs beyond dispute; they've been bound to it for ages and ages. So they came to me, and said, 'Write us a petition.' So I wrote one. And Bezpandin heard of it, and began to threaten me. 'I'll break every bone in that Mitya's body, and knock his head off his shoulders….' We shall see how he will knock it off; it's still on, so far.'
'Come, don't boast; it's in a bad way, your head,' said the old man.
'You are a mad fellow altogether!'
'Why, uncle, what did you tell me yourself?'
'I know, I know what you will say,' Ovsyanikov interrupted him; 'of course a man ought to live uprightly, and he is bound to succour his neighbour. Sometimes one must not spare oneself…. But do you always behave in that way? Don't they take you to the tavern, eh? Don't they treat you; bow to you, eh? 'Dmitri Alexyitch,' they say, 'help us, and we will prove our gratitude to you.' And they slip a silver rouble or note into your hand. Eh? doesn't that happen? Tell me, doesn't that happen?'
'I am certainly to blame in that,' answered Mitya, rather confused; 'but I take nothing from the poor, and I don't act against my conscience.'
'You don't take from them now; but when you are badly off yourself, then you will. You don't act against your conscience—fie on you! Of course, they are all saints whom you defend!… Have you forgotten Borka Perohodov? Who was it looked after him? Who took him under his protection—eh?'
'Perohodov suffered through his own fault, certainly.'
'He appropriated the public moneys…. That was all!'
'But, consider, uncle: his poverty, his family.'
'Poverty, poverty…. He's a drunkard, a quarrelsome fellow; that's what it is!'
'He took to drink through trouble,' said Mitya, dropping his voice.
'Through trouble, indeed! Well, you might have helped him, if your heart was so warm to him, but there was no need for you to sit in taverns with the drunken fellow yourself. Though he did speak so finely … a prodigy, to be sure!'
'He was a very good fellow.'
'Every one is good with you…. But did you send him?' … pursued
Ovsyanikov, turning to his wife; 'come; you know?'
Tatyana Ilyinitchna nodded.
'Where have you been lately?' the old man began again.
'I have been in the town.'
'You have been doing nothing but playing billiards, I wager, and drinking tea, and running to and fro about the government offices, drawing up petitions in little back rooms, flaunting about with merchants' sons? That's it, of course?… Tell us!'
'Perhaps that is about it,' said Mitya with a smile…. 'Ah! I had almost forgotten—Funtikov, Anton Parfenitch
