me of it. Difficulties on
the farm sprang up every day--senseless, distressing difficulties. The
troubles with the hired labourers had become insupportable. Some asked
for their wages to be settled, or for an increase of wages, while
others made off with the wages they had received in advance; the horses
fell sick; the harness fell to pieces as though it were burnt; the work
was carelessly done; a threshing machine that had been ordered from
Moscow turned out to be useless from its great weight, another was
ruined the first time it was used; half the cattle sheds were burnt
down through an old blind woman on the farm going in windy weather with
a burning brand to fumigate her cow ... the old woman, it is true,
maintained that the whole mischief could be traced to the master's plan
of introducing newfangled cheeses and milk-products. The overseer
suddenly turned lazy, and began to grow fat, as every Russian grows fat
when he gets a snug berth. When he caught sight of Nikolai Petrovitch
in the distance, he would fling a stick at a passing pig, or threaten a
half-naked urchin, to show his zeal, but the rest of the time he was
generally asleep. The peasants who had been put on the rent system did
not bring their money at the time due, and stole the forest-timber;
almost every night the keepers caught peasants' horses in the meadows
of the 'farm,' and sometimes forcibly bore them off. Nikolai Petrovitch
would fix a money fine for damages, but the matter usually ended after
the horses had been kept a day or two on the master's forage by their
returning to their owners. To crown all, the peasants began quarrelling
among themselves; brothers asked for a division of property, their
wives could not get on together in one house; all of a sudden the
squabble, as though at a given signal, came to a head, and at once the
whole village came running to the counting-house steps, crawling to the
master often drunken and with battered face, demanding justice and
judgment; then arose an uproar and clamour, the shrill wailing of the
women mixed with the curses of the men. Then one had to examine the
contending parties, and shout oneself hoarse, knowing all the while
that one could never anyway arrive at a just decision.... There were
not hands enough for the harvest; a neighbouring small owner, with the
most benevolent countenance, contracted to supply him with reapers for
a commission of two roubles an acre, and cheated him in the most
sham