Moralists would do better to order 'Scotch' or 'Irish' for themselves, and hold their tongues ; or else their inhuman philanthropy many evoke formidable replies.
To a servant, tea drunk in a tea-shop is quite a different thing.
Tea at home is not really tea : everything there reminds him that he is a servant - the pantry is dirty, he has to put the samovar4 on the table himself, his cup has lost its handle, his master's bell may ring at any moment. In the tea-shop he is a free man, a master ; the table is laid and the lamps lit for him ; for him the waiter hurries in with the tray, the cups shine, and the teapot glitters ; he gives orders, and other people obey him ; he feels happy and calls boldly for some cheap caviare or pastry to eat with his tea.
In all this there is more of childlike simplicity than of miscon-4· An urn with a central receptacle to hold hot charcoal : tea in Russia is regularly accompanied by a samovar.
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duct. Impressions take hold of them quickly but throw out no roots ; their minds are continually occupied - if one can call it occupation - with casual objects, trifling desires, and petty aims.
A childish belief in the marvellous turns a grown man into a coward, and the same belief consoles him in his darkest hours. I witnessed the death of several of my father's servants, and I was astonished. One could see then that their whole life had been spent, like a child's, without fears for the future, and that no great sins lay heavy on their souls ; even if there had been anything of the kind, a few minutes with the priest were enough to put all to rights.
It is on this resemblance between children and servants that their mutual attachment is based. Children resent the indulgent superiority of grown-up people ; they are clever enough to understand that servants treat them with more respect and take them seriously. For this reason, they enjoy a game of bezique with the maids much more than with visitors. Visitors play out of indulgence and to amuse the child : they let him win, or tease him, and stop when they feel inclined : but the maid plays just as much for her own amusement ; and thus the game gains in interest.
Servants have a very strong atta,chment to children; and this is not servility at all - it is a mutual alliance, with weakness and simplicity on both sides.
4
In former days there existed - it still exists in Turkey - a feudal bond of affection between the Russian landowner and his household servants. But the race of such servants, devoted to the family as a family, is now extinct with us. The reason of this is obvious.
The landowner has ceased to believe in his own authority ; he does not believe that he will answer, at the dreadful Day of Judgement, for his treatment of his people ; and he abuses his power for his own advantage. The servant does not believe in his inferiority ; he endures oppression, not as a punishment or trial inflicted by God, but merely because he is defenceless.
But I knew, in my young days, two or three specimens of that boundless loyalty which old gentlemen of seventy sometimes recall with a sigh : they speak of the wonderful zeal and devotion of their servants, but they never mention the return which they and their fathers made to that faithfulness.
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C H I L D H O O D, Y O U T H A N D E X I L E
There was Andrey Stepanov, whom I knew a s a decrepit old man, spending his last days, on very short commons, on an estate belonging to my uncle, the Senator.
When my father and uncle were young men in the Army, he was their valet, a kind, honest, sober man, who guessed what his young masters wanted - and they wanted a good deal - by a mere look at their faces ; I know this from themselves. Later he was in charge of an estate near Moscow. The war of 1812 cut him off at once from all communications ; the village was burnt down, and he lived on there alone and without money, and finally sold some wood, to save himself from starvation. When my uncle returned to Russia, he went into the estate accounts and discovered the sale of wood. Punishment followed : the man was disgraced and removed from his office, though he was old and burdened with a family. We often passed through the village where he lived and spent a day or two there; and the old man, now paralysed and walking on crutches, never failed to visit us, in order to make his bow to my father and talk to him.
I was deeply touched by the simple devotion of his language and by his miserable appearance; I remember the tufts of hair, between yellow and white, which covered both sides of his bare scalp.
'They tell me, Sir,' he said once to my father, 'that your brother has received another Order. I am getting old, batyushka, and shall soon give back my soul to God ; but I wish God would suffer me to see your brother wearing his Order ; just once before I die, I would like to see him with his ribbon and all his glory.'
My eyes were on the old man, and everything about him showed that he was speaking the truth - his expression as frank as a child's, his bent figure, his crooked face, dim eyes, and feeble voice. There was no falsehood or flattery there : he did really wish to see, once more before he died, the man who, for fourteen years, had never forgiven him for that wood ! Should I call him a saint or a madman ? Are there any who attain to sanctity, except madmen ?
But this form of idolatory is unknown to the rising generation; and, if there are cases of serfs who refuse emancipation, it is due either to mere indolence or selfish considerations. This is a worse condition of things, I admit, but it brings us nearer the end. The serfs of today may wish to see something round their master's
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neck ; but you may feel sure that it is not the ribbon of any Order of Chivalry I
s
This seems an opportunity to give some general account of the treatment shown to servants in our household.
Neither my father nor my uncle was specially tyrannical, at least in the way of corporal punishment. My uncle, being hot·
tempered and impatient, was often rough and unjust to servants ; but he thought so little about them and came in contact with them so seldom, that each side knew little of the other. My father wore them out by his fads : he could never pass over a look or a word or a movement without improving the occasion ; and a Russian often resents this treatment more than blows or bad language.
Corporal punishment was almost unknown with us ; and the two or three cases in which it was resorted to were so exceptional, that they formed the subject of conversation for whole months downstairs ; it should also be said that the offences which provoked it were serious.