And that is easy to understand. The landowner no longer believes in his power, he does not believe that he will have to answer for his serfs at the terrible Day of Judgment, but simply makes use of his
·er for his OV'>n advantage. The servant does not believe in his subjection and endures violence not as a
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chastisement and trial from God, but simply because he is defenceless; the big fish swallows the little ones.
I used to know in my youth two or three examples of those zealots of slavery, of whom eighty-year-old landowners speak with a sigh, telling stories of their unflagging service and their great diligence, and forgetting to add in what way their fathers and themselves repaid such self-sacrifice.
On one of the Senator's estates a feeble old man called Andrey Stepanov was living in peace, that is, on free rations.
He had been valet to the Senator and my father when they were serving in the Guards, and was a good, honest, and sober man, who looked into his young masters' eyes, and, to use their own words, 'guessed from them what they wanted,' which, I imagine, was not an easy task. Afterwards he looked after the estate near Moscow. Cut off from the beginning of the war of 1812 from all communication, and afterwards left alone, without money, on the ashes of a village which had been burnt to the ground, he sold some beams to escape starvation. The Senator, on his return to Russia, proceeded to set his estate in order, and at last came to the beams. He punished his former valet by sending him away in disgrace, depriving him of his duties. The old man, burdened with a family, trudged off to pick up what food he could. vVe sometimes had to drive through the village where Andrey Stepanov lived, and stay there for a day or two. The feeble old man, crippled by paralysis, used to come every time leaning on his crutch, to pay his respects to my father and to have a talk with him.
The devotion and the gentleness with which he talked, his sorrowful appearance, the locks of yellowish grey hair on each side of his bald pate, touched me deeply.
'I have heard, sir,' he said on one occasion, 'that your brother has thought proper to receive another decoration. I am getting old, your honour, I shall soon give up my soul to God, and yet the Lord has not vouchsafed to me to see your brother in his decorations: if only I might once before my end behold his honour in his ribbons and all his i nsignia ! '
I looked at the old man: his face was so childishly candid, his bent figure, his painfully twisted face, lustreless eyes, and weak voice-all inspired confidence; he was not lying, he was not flattering, he really longed before his death to see, in 'his decorations and insignia,' the man who for fifteen years could not forgive him the loss of a few beams. "\Vas this a saint, or a madman? But perhaps it is only m'l.dmen who attain saintliness?
The new generation has not this idolatrous worship, and if
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there are cases of serfs not caring for freedom, that is simply due to indolence and material considerations. It is more depraved, there is no doubt, but it is a sign that it is nearer to its ending; if they want to see anything on their master's neck, it is certainly not the Vladimir ribbon.
Here I will say something of the situation of our 0\Vn servants.
Neither the Senator nor my father oppressed the house-serfs particularly: that is, they did not ill-treat them physically. The Senator was hasty and impatient, and consequently often rough and unjust, but he had so little contact with the house-serfs and took so little notice of them that they scarcely knew each other.
My father wearied them with his caprices, never let pass a look, a word or a movement, and was everlastingly lecturing them; to a Russian this is often worse than blows and abuse.
Corporal punishment was almost unknown in our house, and the hvo or three cases in which the Senator and my father resorted to the revolting method of the police station were so exceptional that all the servants talked about it for months afterwards; and it was only provoked by glaring offences.
More frequently house-serfs were sent for soldiers, and this punishment was a terror to all the young men ; without kith or kin, they still preferred to remain house-serfs, rather than to be in harness for twenty years. I \vas greatly affected by those terrible scenes . . . . Two soldiers of the police would appear at the summons . of the landowner: they would stealthily, in a casual, sudden way, seize the appointed victim. The village elder commonly announced at this point that the master had the evening before ordered that he was to be produced at the recruitingoffice, and the man would try through his tears to put a brave face on it, while the women wept: everyone made him presents and I gave him everything I could, that is, perhaps a neckerchief worth twenty kopecks.
I remember, too, my father's ordering some village elder's beard to be shaved off, because he had spent the obrok7 which he had collected. I did not understand this punishment, but was struck by the appearance of this old man of sixty; he was in floods of tears, and kept bowin�?: to the ground and begging for a fine of a hundred silver rouhlC's in addition to the obrok if only he might be spared this disgrace.
\VhC'n the Scnator was living with us, the common household 7 Payment in money or kind by a serf in lieu of lnbour for his master.
( Tr.)
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consisted of thirty men and almost as many women; the married women, however, performed no service: they looked after their own families; there were five or six maids and laundresses, who never came upstairs. To these must be added the boys and girls who were being trained in their duties, that is, in sloth and idleness, in lying and the use of corn-spirit.
To give an idea of the life in Russia of those days, I think it will not be out of place to say a few words on the maintenance of the house-serfs. At first they used to be given five paper roubles a month for victuals, and afterwards six. The \vomen had a rouble a month less, and children under ten had half the full allowance.
The servants made up 'artels'B and did not complain of the allowance being too small, which shows how extraordinarily cheap provisions were. The highest wage was a hundred roubles a year, while others received half that amount and some only thirty roubles. Boys under eighteen got no wages at all. In addition to their wages, servants were given clothes, greatcoats, shirts, sheets, blankets, towels and mattresses made of canvas; boys, who did not get wages, \vere allowed money for their physical and moral purification, that is, for the bath-house and for preparing for communion. Taking everything into account, a servant cost about three hundred paper roubles a year; if to this we add a share of medicine, of a doctor and of the surplus stores brought from the country, even then it is not over 350 roubles.
This is only a quarter of the cost of a servant in Paris or London.
Slave-owners usually take into account the insurance premium of slavery, that is, the maintenance of wife and children by the owner, and a meagre crust of bread somewhere in the village for the slave in old age. Of course this must be taken into account; but the cost is greatly lessened by the fear of corporal punishment, the impossibility of changing their condition, and a much lower scale of maintenance.