Short Fiction by Leo Tolstoy (book reader for pc TXT) 📕

The report, from the lady’s point of view, meant listening to a statement of the business done on her estate, and giving instructions for further business. From Egór Miháylovitch’s (the steward’s) point of view, “reporting” was a ceremony of standing straight on both feet, with turned-out toes, in a corner facing the sofa, and listening to all sorts of chatter unconnected with business, and by different ways and means getting the mistress into a state of mind in which she would quickly and impatiently say, “All right, all right!” to all that Egór Miháylovitch proposed.

Recruiting was the business under consideration. The Pokróvsk estate had to supply three recruits. Two of them seemed to have been marked out by Fate itself, by a coincidence of family, moral, and economic circumstances. As far as they were concerned, there could be no hesitation or dispute either on the part of the proprietress, the Commune, or of public opinion. But who the third was to be, was a debatable point. The steward was anxious to defend the Doútlofs (in which family there were three men of an age to be recruited), and to send Polikoúshka, a married domestic serf with a very bad reputation, who had been caught more than once stealing sacks, reins, and hay; but the proprietress, who often petted Polikoúshka’s ragged children, and improved his morals by exhortations from the Bible, did not wish to send him. Neither did she wish to injure the Doútlofs, whom she did not know and had never even seen. But somehow she did not seem able to grasp the fact, and the steward could not make up his mind to tell her straight out, that if Polikoúshka did not go, one of the Doútlofs would have to.

“But I don’t wish the Doútlofs any ill!” she said feelingly.

“If you don’t, then pay three hundred roubles for a substitute,” should have been the steward’s reply; but that would have been bad policy.

So Egór Miháylovitch took up a comfortable position, and even leaned imperceptibly against the lintel of the door, while keeping a servile expression on his face and watching the movements of the lady’s lips and the flutter of the frills on her cap, and their shadow on the wall beneath a picture. But he did not consider it at all necessary to attend to the meaning of her words. The lady spoke long, and said much. A desire to yawn gave him cramp behind his ears, but he adroitly turned the spasm into a cough, and, holding his hand to his mouth, gave a croak. A little while ago I saw Lord Palmerston sitting with his hat over his face while a member of the Opposition was storming at the Ministry, and then suddenly rise, and in a three hours’ speech answer his opponent point by point. I saw it and was not surprised, because I had seen the same kind of thing hundreds of times going on between Egór Miháylovitch and his mistress. At last⁠—perhaps he was afraid of falling asleep, or thought she was letting herself go too far⁠—changing the weight of his body from his left to his right foot, he began, as he always did, with an unctuous preface:

“Just as you please to order, madam.⁠ ⁠… Only, the meeting of the Commune is at present being held in front of my office window, and we must come to some conclusion. The order says that the recruits are to be in town before the Feast of Pokróf.205 From among the peasants the Doútlofs are being suggested, and there is no one else to suggest. And the Mír does not trouble about your interests. What does it care if it ruins the Doútlofs? Don’t I know what a fight they’ve been having? Ever since I first had the stewardship they have been living in want. The old man’s youngest nephew has scarcely had time to grow up to be a help, and now they’re to be ruined again! And I, as you well know, am as careful of your property as of my own.⁠ ⁠… It’s a pity, madam, whatever you’re pleased to think!⁠ ⁠… After all, they’re neither kith nor kin to me, and I’ve received nothing from them.⁠ ⁠…”

“Why, Egór, as if I ever thought of such a thing!” interrupted the lady, and at once suspected him of having been bribed by the Doútlofs.

“… Only theirs is the best homestead in the whole of Pokróvsk. They’re God-fearing, hardworking peasants. The old man has been thirty years churchwarden; he doesn’t drink nor use bad language; he goes to church” (the steward well knew with what to bait the hook). “… But the principal thing that I would like to report to you is that he has only two sons; the others are nephews adopted out of charity, and so they ought to cast lots only with the two-men families. Many families have split up because of their improvidence, and their own sons have separated from them, and so they are safe now⁠—while these will have to suffer just because of their charitableness.”

Here the lady could not follow at all. She did not understand what he meant by a “two-men family” nor “charitableness.” She only heard sounds and observed the nankeen buttons on the steward’s coat. The top one, which he probably did not button up so often, was fixed on tightly; the middle one was hanging by a thread, and ought long ago to have been sewn on. But it is a well-known fact that in a conversation, especially a business conversation, it is not at all necessary to understand what is being said to you, but only to remember what you yourself want to say. The lady acted accordingly.

“How is it you won’t understand, Egór Miháylovitch?” she said. “I have not the least desire that a Doútlof should go as a soldier. One would think that, knowing me as you