“I do,” he says, softly, shrugging his shoulders.
“And can you read and write?”
“Very well.”
“And haven’t you read books about strong drink?”
“No, I haven’t.”
“Well, but wouldn’t it be better not to drink at all?”
“Of course. Little good comes of it.”
“Then why not give it up?”
He is silent, evidently understanding, and thinking it over.
“It can be done, you know,” say I, “and what a good thing it would be! … The day before yesterday I went to Ívino. When I reached one of the houses, the master came out to greet me, calling me by name. It turned out that we had met twelve years before. … It was Koúzin—do you know him?”
“Of course I do! Sergéy Timoféevitch, you mean?”
I tell him how we started a Temperance Society twelve years ago with Koúzin, who, though he used to drink, has quite given it up, and now tells me he is very glad to be rid of so nasty a habit; and, one sees, is living well, with his house and everything well managed, and who, had he not given up drinking, would have had none of these things.
“Yes, that is so!”
“Well then, you know, you should do the same. You are such a nice, good lad. … What do you need vodka for, when you say yourself there is no good in it? … You, too, should give it up! … It would be such a good thing!”
He remains silent, and looks at me intently. I prepare to go, and hold out my hand to him.
“Truly, give it up from now! It would be such a good thing!”
With his strong hand he firmly presses mine, evidently regarding my gesture as challenging him to promise.
“Very well then … it can be done!” says he, quite unexpectedly, and in a joyous and resolute tone.
“Do you really promise?” say I, surprised.
“Well, of course! I promise,” he says, nodding his head and smiling slightly.
The quiet tone of his voice, and his serious, attentive face, show that he is not joking, but that he is really making a promise he means to keep.
Old age or illness, or both together, has made me very ready to cry when I am touched with joy. The simple words of that kindly, firm, strong man, so evidently ready for all that is good, and standing so alone, touch me so that sobs rise to my throat, and I step aside, unable to utter a word.
After going a few steps, I regain control of myself, and turn to him and say (I have already asked his name):
“Mind, Alexander! … the proverb says, ‘Be slow to promise, but having promised, keep it!’ ”
“Yes, that’s so. It will be safe.”
I have seldom experienced a more joyful feeling than I had when I left him.
I have omitted to say that during our talk I had offered to give him some leaflets on drink and some booklets. [A man in a neighbouring village posted up one of those same leaflets on the wall outside his house lately, but it was pulled down and destroyed by the policeman.] He thanked me, and said he would come and fetch them in the dinner-hour.
He did not come in the dinner-hour, and I, sinner that I am, suspected that our whole conversation was not so important to him as it seemed to me, and that he did not want the books, and that, in general, I had attributed to him what was not in him. But he came in the evening, all perspiring from his work and from the walk. After finishing his work, he had ridden home, put up the plough, attended to his horse, and had now come a quarter of a mile to fetch the books.
I was sitting, with some visitors, on a splendid veranda, looking out on to flowerbeds with ornamental vases on flower-set mounds—in short, in luxurious surroundings such as one is always ashamed of when one enters into human relations with working people.
I went out to him, and at once asked, “Have you not changed your mind? Will you really keep your promise?”
And again, with the same kindly smile, he replied, “Of course! … I have already told mother. She’s glad, and thanks you.”
I saw a bit of paper behind his ear.
“You smoke?”
“I do,” he said, evidently expecting that I should begin persuading him to leave that off too. But I did not try to.
He remained silent; and then, by some strange connection of thoughts (I think he saw the interest I felt in his life, and wished to tell me of the important event awaiting him in the autumn) he said:
“But I did not tell you. … I am already betrothed. …”
And he smiled, looking questioningly into my eyes. “It’s to be in the autumn!”
“Really! That’s a good thing! Where is she from?”
He told me.
“Has she a dowry?”
“No; what dowry should she have? But she’s a good girl.”
The idea came to me to put to him the question which always interests me when I come in contact with good young people of our day.
“Tell me,” said I, “and forgive my asking—but please tell the truth: either do not answer at all, or tell the whole truth. …”
He looked at me quietly and attentively.
“Why should I not tell you?”
“Have you ever sinned with a woman?”
Without a moment’s hesitation, he replied simply:
“God preserve me! There’s been nothing of the sort!”
“That’s good, very good!” said I. “I am glad for you.”
There was nothing more to say just then.
“Well then, I will fetch you the books, and God’s help be with you!”
And we took leave of one another.
Yes, what a splendid, fertile soil on which to sow, and what a dreadful sin it is to cast upon it the seeds of falsehood, violence, drunkenness and profligacy!
Fedor Mihailovich Smokovnikov, the president of the local Income Tax Department, a man of unswerving honesty—and proud of it, too—a gloomy Liberal, a freethinker, and an enemy to every manifestation of religious feeling, which he thought a
