The History of the Village of Gorohina
Of all professions that of a man of letters has always seemed to me most enviable.
My parents, respectable but humble folk, had been brought up in the old fashion. They never read anything; and beyond an alphabet (bought for me), an almanack, and the latest letter-writer, they had no books in the house.
The letter-writer had long provided me with entertainment. I knew it by heart, yet daily found in it fresh beauties; and next to General N——, to whom my father had been aide-de-camp, Kurganoff, its author, was, in my estimation, one of the greatest men. I questioned everyone about him; but unhappily no one could gratify my curiosity. Nobody knew him personally. To all my questioning the reply was that Kurganoff was the author of the latest letter-writer, but that I knew already. He was wrapped in darkness and mystery like some ancient demi-god. At times I doubted even his existence. His name was perhaps an invention, the legend about him an empty myth awaiting the investigation of some new Niebuhr. Nevertheless he dogged my imagination. I tried to give some form to this very personage, and finally decided that he must be like the land-judge, Koriuchkin, a little old man with a red nose and glittering eyes.
In 1812 I was taken to Moscow and placed at a boarding school belonging to Karl Ivanovitch Meyer. There I stayed only some three months, because the school broke up in anticipation of the enemy’s coming. I returned to the country.
This epoch of my life was to me so important that I shall dilate upon it, apologizing beforehand if I trespass upon the good nature of the reader.
It was a dull autumn day. On reaching the station whence I must turn off to Gorohina (that was the name of our village) I engaged horses, and drove off by the country road. Though naturally calm, so impatient was I to revisit the scenes where I had passed the best years of my life, that I kept urging the driver to quicken speed with alternate promises of vodka and threats of chastisement. How much easier it was to belabour him than to unloose my purse. I own I struck him twice or thrice, a thing I had never done in my life before. I don’t know why, but I had a great liking for drivers as a class.
The driver urged his troika to a quicker pace, but to me it seemed that public-driver-like he coaxed the horses and waved his whip but at the same time tightened the reins. At last I caught sight of Gorohina wood, and in ten minutes more we drove into the courtyard of the manor house.
My heart beat violently. I looked round with unwonted emotion. For eight years I had not seen Gorohina. The little birches which I had seen planted near the palings had now grown into tall branching trees. The courtyard, once adorned with three regular flower beds divided by broad gravel paths, was now an unmown meadow, the grazing land of a red cow.
My britchka stopped at the front door. My servant went to open it, but it was fastened; yet the shutters were open, and the house seemed to be inhabited. A woman emerging from a servant’s hut asked what I wanted. Hearing the master had arrived, she ran back into the hut, and soon I had all the inhabitants of the courtyard around me. I was deeply touched to see the known and unknown faces, and I greeted each with a friendly kiss.
The boys my playmates had grown to men. The girls who used to squat upon the floor and run with such alacrity on errands were married women. The men wept. To the women I said unceremoniously:
“How you have aged.” And they answered sadly:
“And you, little father, how plain you have grown.”
They led me towards the back entrance; I was met by my old wet-nurse, by whom I was welcomed back with sobs and tears, like the much-suffering Ulysses. They hastened to heat the bath. The cook, who in his long holiday had grown a beard, offered to cook my dinner or supper, for it was growing dark. The rooms hitherto occupied by my nurse and my late mother’s maids were at once got ready for me. Thus I found myself in the humble home of my parents, and fell asleep in that room where three-and-twenty years before I had been born.
Some three weeks passed in business of various kinds. I was engaged with land judges, presidents, and every imaginable official of the province. Finally I got possession of my inheritance. I was contented: but soon the dulness of inaction began to torment me. I was not yet acquainted with my kind and venerable neighbour N—— Domestic occupations were altogether strange to me. The conversation of my nurse, whom I promoted to the rank of housekeeper, consisted of fifteen family anecdotes. I found them very interesting, but as she always related them in the same way she soon became for me another Niebuhr letter-writer, in which I knew precisely on what page every particular line occurred. That worthy book I found in the storeroom among a quantity of rubbish sadly dilapidated. I brought it out into the light and began to read it; but Kurganoff had lost his charm. I read him through once more and never after opened him again.
In this extremity it struck me:
“Why not write myself?” The reader has been already told that I was educated on copper money. Besides, to become an author seemed so difficult, so unattainable, that the idea of writing quite frightened me at first. Dare I hope ever to be numbered amongst writers, when my ardent wish even to meet one had not yet been gratified? This reminds me of something which I shall tell to show my unbounded enthusiasm for my native literature.
In 1820, while yet an ensign, I chanced to be on government business at Petersburg. I stayed a week; and although I had not one acquaintance in he place, I passed the time very pleasantly. I went daily to the theatre, modestly to the fourth row in the gallery. I learnt the names of all the actors and fell passionately in love with B——. She had played one Sunday with great artistic feeling as Eulalie in Hass und Reue (in English The Stranger.) In the morning, on my way from headquarters, I would call at a small confectioner’s, drink a cup of chocolate, and read a literary journal. One day, while thus deep in an article “by Goodintention, some one in a pea-green greatcoat suddenly approached and gently withdrew the Hamburg Gazette from under my newspaper. I was so occupied that I did not look up. The stranger ordered a steak and sat down facing me. I went on reading without noticing him.
Meanwhile he finished his luncheon, scolded the waiter for some carelessness, drank half a bottle of wine, and left. Two young men were also lunching.
“Do you know who that was?” inquired one of them.
“That was Goodintention... the writer.”
“The writer!” I exclaimed involuntarily, and leaving the article unread and the cup of chocolate undrunk, I hastily paid my reckoning, and without waiting for the change rushed into the street. Looking round I descried in the distance the pea-green coat and dashed along the Nevsky Prospect almost at a run. When I had gone several steps I felt myself stopped by some one, and looking back I found I had been noticed by an officer of the guards. I; ought not to have knocked against him on the pavement, but rather to have stopped and saluted. After this reprimand I was more careful. Unluckily I met an officer every moment, and every moment I had to stop, while the author got farther and farther away. Never before had my soldier’s overcoat proved so irksome, never had epaulettes appeared so enviable. At last near the Annitchkin Bridge I came up with the pea-green greatcoat.
“May I inquire,” I said, saluting, “are you Mr. Goodintention, whose excellent article I have had the pleasure of reading in the Zealous Enlightener?”
“Not at all,” he replied. “I am not a writer but a lawyer. But I know Goodintention very well. A quarter of an hour ago I passed him at the Police Bridge.” In this way my respect for Russian letters cost me 80 kopecks of change, an official reprimand, and a narrow escape of arrest, and all in vain.
In spite of all the protest of my reason, the audacious thought of becoming a writer kept recurring. At last, unable longer to resist it, I made a thick copy book and resolved to fill it somehow. All kinds of poems (humble prose did not yet enter into my reckoning) were in turn considered and approved. I decided to write an epic furnished on Russian history. I was not long in finding a hero. I chose Rurik, and I set to work.
I had acquired a certain aptitude for rhymes, by copying those in manuscript which used to circulate among our officers, such as the criticism on the Moscow Boulevards, the Presnensky Ponds, and the Dangerous Neighbour. In spite of that my poem progressed slowly, and at the third verse I dropped it. I concluded that the epic was not my style, and began Rurik, a Tragedy. The tragedy halted. I turned it into a ballad, but the ballad hardly seemed to do. At last I had a happy thought. I began and succeeded in finishing an ode to a portrait of Rurik. Despite the inauspicious character of such a title, particularly for a young bard’s first work, I yet felt that I had not been born a poet, and after this first attempt desisted. These essays in authorship gave me so great a taste for writing that I could now no longer abstain from paper and ink. I could descend to prose. But at first I wished to avoid the preliminary construction of a plot and the connection of parts. I resolved to write detached thoughts without any connection or order, just as they struck me. Unfortunately the thoughts would not come, and in the course of two whole days the only thought that struck me was the following:
He who disobeys reason and yields to the inclination of his passions often goes wrong and ends by repenting when it is too late.
This though no doubt true enough was not original.
Abandoning aphorism I took to tales; but being too unpractised in arranging incidents I selected such remarkable occurrences as I had heard of at various times and tried to ornament the truth by a lively style and the flowers of my own imagination. Composing these tales little by little, I formed my style and learnt to express myself correctly, pleasantly, and freely. My stock was soon exhausted, and I again began to seek a subject.
To abandon these childish anecdotes of doubtful authenticity, and narrate real and great events instead, was an idea by which I had long been haunted.
To be the judge, the observer, and the prophet of ages and of peoples seemed to me a most attainable object of ambition to a writer. What history could I write—I with my pitiable education? Where was I not forestalled by highly cultivated and conscientious men? What history had they left unexhausted. Should I write a universal history? But was there not already the immortal work of Abbé Millot. A national history of Russia, what could I say after Tatishtcheff Bolitin and Golikoff? And was it for me to burrow amongst records and to penetrate the occult meaning of a dead language—for me who could never master the Slavonian alphabet? Why not try a history on a smaller scale?—for instance, the history of our town! But even here how very numerous and insuperable seemed the obstacles—a journey to the town, a visit to the governor and the bishop, permission to examine the archives, the monastery, the cellars, and so on. The history of our town would have been easier; but it could interest neither the philosopher nor the artist, and afford but little opening for eloquence. The only noteworthy record in its annals relates to a terrible fire ten years ago which burnt the bazaar and the courts of justice. An accident settled my doubts. A woman hanging linen in a loft found an old basket full of shavings, dust, and books. The whole household knew my passion for reading. My housekeeper while I sat over my paper gnawing my pen and meditating on the experience of country prophets entered triumphantly dragging a basket into my room, and bringing joyfully “books! books!”
Books! I repeated in delight as I rushed to the basket. Actually a pile of them with covers of green and of blue paper. It was a collection of old almanacks. My ardour was cooled by the discovery, still they were books, and I generously rewarded her pains with half a silver ruble.
When she had gone I began to examine my almanacks; I soon became absorbed. They formed a complete series from 1744 to 1799 including exactly 55 years. The blue sheets of paper usually bound in the almanacks were covered with old-fashioned handwriting. Skimming these lines I noticed with surprise that besides remarks on the weather and accounts they contained scraps of historical information about the village of Gorohina. Among these valuable documents I began my researches, and soon found that they presented a full history of my native place for nearly a century, in chronological order, besides an exhaustive store of economical, statistical, meteorological, and other learned information. Thenceforth the study of these documents took up my time, for I perceived that from them a stately, instructive, and interesting history could be made. As I became sufficiently acquainted with these valuable notes, I began to search for new sources of information about the village of Gorohina, and I soon became astonished at the wealth of material. After devoting six months to a preliminary study of them, I at last began the long wished for work; and by God’s grace completed the same on the 3rd of November, 1827. To-day, like a fellow-historian, whose name I do not recollect, having finished my hard task, I lay down my pen and sadly walk into my garden to meditate upon my performance. It seems even to me that now the history of Gorohina is finished I am no longer wanted in the world. My task is ended; and it is time for me to die.
I add a list of the sources whence I drew the history of Gorohina.
I. A collection of ancient almanacks in fifty fifty—five parts. Of these the first twenty are covered with an old-fashioned writing; much abbreviated. The manuscript is that of my grandfather; Andrei Stepanovitch Belkin; and is remarkably clear and concise. For example: 4th of May. Snow.
Trishka for his impertinence beaten. 6th. The red cow died. Senka for drunkenness beaten. 8th. A fine day. 9th. Rain and snow. Trishka for drunkenness beaten.... and so on without comment. 11th. The weather fine, first snow; hunted three hares. The remaining thirty-five parts were in various hands mostly commercial with or without abbreviations, usually profuse; disjointed; and incorrectly written. Here and there a feminine handwriting appeared. In these years occurred my grandfather’s notes about his wife Bupraxic Aleksevna; others written by her and others by the steward Grobovitsky.
II. The notes of the Gorohina church clerk. This curious manuscript was discovered by me at the house of my priest; who has married the daughter of the writer. The first earlier sheets had been torn out and used by the priests children for making kites. One of these had fallen in the middle of my yard. I picked it up? and was about to restore it to the children when I noticed that it was written on. From the first lines I saw that the kite was made out of some one’s journal. Luckily I was in time to save the rest. These journals, which I got for a measure of oats, are remarkable for depth of thought and dignity of expression.
III. Oral legends. I despised no source of information, but I am specially indebted for much of this to Agrafena Tryphonovna, the mother of Avdei the starosta and reputed mistress of the steward Grobovitsky.
IV. Registry reports with remarks by the former starosta on the morality and condition of the peasants.
“31st October, 1830. Fabulous Times. The Starosta Tryphon.”
The foundation of Gorohina and the history of its original inhabitants are lost in obscurity. Dark legend tells how that Gorohina was once a large and wealthy village, that all its inhabitants were rich, that the obrok (the land proprietor’s tithes) was collected once a year and carted off in loads no one knew to whom. At that time everything was bought cheap and sold dear. There were no stewards, and the elders dealt fairly by all. The inhabitants worked little and lived merrily. The shepherds as they watched their flocks wore boots. We must not be deceived by this charming picture. The notion of a golden age is common to all nations, and only proves that as people are never contented with the present, and derive from experience small hope for the future, they adorn the irrevocable past with all the hues of fancy. What is certain, however, is that the village of Gorohina from ancient times has belonged to the distinguished race of Belkins. But these ancestors of mine had many other estates, and paid but little attention to this remote village. Gorohina paid small tithe and was managed by elders elected by the people in common council.
At that early period the inheritance of the Belkins was broken up, and fell in value. The impoverished grandchildren of the rich grandsire, unable to give up their luxurious habits, required from an estate now only producing one tenth of its former revenue the full income of former times. Threats followed threats. The starosta read them out in common council. The elders declaimed, the commune agitated, and the masters, instead of the double tithes, received tiresome excuses and humble complaints written on dirty paper and sealed with a polushka (less than a farthing).
A sombre cloud hung over Gorohina; but no one heeded it. In the last year of Tryphon’s power, the last of the starostas chosen by the people, the day of the church festival, when the whole population either crowded noisily round the house of entertainment (the public-house) or wandered through the streets embracing one another or loudly singing the songs of Arhip the Bald, there drove into the courtyard a covered hired britchka drawn by a couple of half-dead screws, with a ragged Jew upon the box. From the britchka a head in a cap looked out and seemed to peer curiously at the merry-making crowd. The inhabitants greeted the carriage with laughter and rude jokes. With the flaps of their coats turned up the madmen mocked the Jewish driver, shouting in doggrell rhyme, “Jew, Jew, eat a pig’s ear.” But how great was their astonishment (wrote the clerk) when the carriage stopped in the middle of the village and the occupant jumped out, and in an authoritative voice called for the starosta Tryphon. This officer was in the house of pleasure, whence two elders led him forth holding him under the arms. The stranger looked at him sternly, handed him a letter, and told him to read it at once. The starostas of Gorohina were in the habit of never reading anything themselves. The rural clerk Avdei was sent for. He was found asleep under a hedge and was brought before the stranger. But either from the sudden fright or from a sad fore-boding, the words distinctly written in the letter appeared to him in a mist, and he could not read them. The stranger sent the starosta Tryphon and the rural clerk Avdei with terrible curses to bed, postponing the reading of the letter till the morrow and entered the office hut, whither the Jew carried his small trunk. The people of Gorohina looked in amazement at this unusual incident, but the carriage, the stranger, and the Jew were quickly forgotten. They ended their day with noise and merriment, and Gorohina went to sleep without presentiments of the future.
At sunrise the inhabitants were awakened with knockings at the windows and a call to a meeting of the commune. The citizens one after the other appeared in the courtyard round the office hut, which served as a council ground. Their eyes were dim and red, their faces swollen; yawning and scratching their heads, they stared at the man with the cap, in an old blue caftan, standing pompously on the steps of the office hut, while they tried to recollect his features, which they seemed to have seen some time or another.
The starosta and his clerk Avdei stood by his side, bareheaded, with the same expression of dejection and sorrow.
“Are all here?” inquired the stranger.
“Are all here?” repeated the starosta.
“The whole hundred,” replied the citizens, when, the starosta informed them that he had received a letter from the master, and, directed the clerk to read it aloud to the commune. Avdei stepped forward and read as follows:
N.B. This alarming document, which he kept carefully shut up in the icon-case, together with other memorandum of his authority over the people of Gorohina, I copied at the house of Tryphon, our starosta.
“TRYPHON IVANOFF,
“The bearer of this letter, my agent.... is going to my patrimony, the village of Gorohina, to assume the management of it. Directly he arrives assemble the peasants and make known to them their master’s wishes; namely, that they are to obey my agent as they would myself, and attend to his orders without demur; otherwise he is empowered to treat them with great severity. I have been forced to take this step by their shameless disobedience and your, Tryphon Ivanoff, roguish indulgence.
“(Signed) NIKOLAI N....
Then the agent, with his legs extended like an X and his arms akimbo like a phitab, addressed to them the following pithy speech: “See that you are not too troublesome, or I will certainly beat the folly out of your heads quicker than the fumes of yesterday’s drink.” There were no longer any fumes left in the head of any man of Gorohina. All were dumbfounded, hung their noses, and dispersed in fear to their own houses. The agent seized the reins of government, called for the list of peasants, divided them into rich and poor, and began to carry into effect his political system, which deserves particular description. It was founded upon the following maxims: That the richer a peasant, the more fractious he grows, and the poorer, the quieter.
Consequently, like a good Christian, I cared most for the peace of the estate.
First, the deficits were distributed among the rich peasants, and were exacted from them with the greatest severity. Second, the defaulting or idle hands were forthwith set to plough, and if their labour proved insufficient according to his standard, he assigned them as workmen to the other peasants, who paid him for this a voluntary tax. The men given as bondsmen, on the other hand, possessed the right of redeeming themselves by paying, besides their deficit, a double annual tithe. All the communal obligations were thrown upon the rich peasants. But the recruiting arrangements were the masterpiece of the avaricious ruler, for by turns all the rich peasants bought themselves off, till at last the choice fell upon either the blackguard or the ruined one.
Communal assemblies were abolished. The tithes were collected in small sums and all the year round. The peasants, it seems, did not pay very much more than before, but they could not earn or save enough to pay. In three years Gorohina was quite pauperised. Gorohina quieted down; the bazaar was empty, the songs of Arhip the Bald were unsung, one half the men were ploughing in the fields, the other half serving them as bond labourers. The children went begging, and the day of the church fête became, according to the historian, not a day of joy and exultation, but an annual mourning and commemoration of sorrow.
FROM A GOROHINA ANNALIST.
The accursed steward put Anton Timofeieff into irons, but the old man Timofei bought his son’s freedom for one hundred rubles. The steward then put the irons on Petrusha Gremeieff, who likewise was ransomed by his father for sixty-eight rubles. The accursed one then wanted to handcuff Lech Tarassoff, but he escaped into the woods, to the regret of the steward, who vented his rage in words; but sent to town in place of Lech Tarassoff Vanka the drunkard, and gave him for a soldier as a substitute.