For a few copper coins a woman will hand over to the ‘eagle’ not only the meanest cast-off rag but frequently even her husband’s shirt and her own day skirt. Recently the womenfolk have found it worth while to steal from each other and to unload their ill-gotten hemp or homemade sacking on the ‘eagles’ – an important augmentation and consummation of their business! The peasants, for their part, have pricked up their ears and at the least sign, at the merest hint of the approach of an ‘eagle’, they resort briskly and vigorously to remedial and preventive measures. In fact, it’s downright insulting, isn’t it? It’s their business to sell the hemp, and they do indeed sell it, though not in the town – they would have to drag themselves to the town for that – but to itinerant traders who, for want of a proper measure, consider that forty handfuls are equal to thirty-six pounds in weight – and you know the size a Russian can give to his handful or his palm when he’s in real earnest!

I, inexperienced as I am and not a ‘countryman’ (as we say in the Oryol district), had had my fill of such stories. But Khor did not do all the talking; he also asked me a great deal. He knew that I had been abroad, and his curiosity was aroused. Kalinych betrayed no less interest, but he was chiefly affected by descriptions of natural scenery, mountains, waterfalls, unusual buildings and large cities. Khor was concerned with questions of administration and government. He took things one at a time: ‘Are things there like they are here, or not the same? Well, sir, what’s you got to say about that?’ Whereas during the course of my recital Kalinych would exclaim – ‘Ah, dear Lord, Thy will be done!’ Khor would be quiet, knitting his thick brows and only occasionally remarking: ‘That wouldn’t likely be the thing for us, but t’other – that’s the proper way, that’s good.’ I cannot convey all his queries, and, besides, there’s no need. But from our talks I derived one conviction which my readers probably cannot have expected – the conviction that Peter the Great was predominantly Russian in his national characteristics and Russian specifically in his reforms. A Russian is so sure of his strength and robustness that he is not averse to overtaxing himself: he is little concerned with his past and looks boldly towards the future. If a thing’s good, he’ll like it; if a thing’s sensible, he’ll not reject it, but he couldn’t care a jot where it came from. His sane common sense will gladly make fun of the thin-as-a-stick rationalism of the Germans; but the Germans, in Khor’s words, were interesting enough folk and he was ready to learn from them. Owing to the peculiar nature of his social station, his virtual independence, Khor mentioned many things in talking with me that even a crowbar wouldn’t have dislodged in someone else or, as the peasants say, you couldn’t grind out with a millstone. He took a realistic view of his position. During my talks with Khor I heard for the first time the simple, intelligent speech of the Russian peasant. His knowledge was fairly broad, after his own fashion, but he could not read; whereas Kalinych could.

‘That rascal’s been able to pick up readin’ and writin’,’ Khor remarked, ‘an’ ’e’s never had a single bee die on ’im since he was born.’

‘And have your children learned to read and write?’

After a pause Khor said: ‘Fedya knows.’

‘And the others?’

‘The others don’t.’

‘Why not?’

The old man did not answer and changed the subject. As a matter of fact, despite all his intelligence, he clung to many prejudices and preconceived notions. Women, for example, he despised from the depths of his soul, and when in a jovial mood derived amusement from them and made fun of them. His wife, an aged and shrewish woman, spent the whole day over the stove and was the source of persistent complaints and abuse; her sons paid no attention to her, but she put the fear of God into her daughters-in-law. It’s not surprising that in the Russian song the mother-in-law sings:

O, you’re no son o’ mine,
You’re not a family man!
’Cos you don’t beat your wife,
You don’t beat your young one…

Once I thought of standing up for the daughters-in-law and attempted to solicit Khor’s sympathy; but he calmly retorted that ‘Maybe you like to bother yourself with such nonsense… Let the women quarrel… You’ll only be worse off if you try to part them, and it isn’t even worth dirtying your hands with it.’ Sometimes the bad-tempered old woman crawled down from the stove and called in the dog from the yard, enticing it with: ‘Come on, come on, nice dog!’ – only to belabour its scraggy spine with a poker, or she would stand under the awning out front and ‘bark insults’ at whoever passed by, as Khor expressed it. Her husband, however, she feared and, at his command, would climb back on to her perch on the stove.

But it was particularly curious to hear how Kalinych and Khor disagreed when talking about Polutykin. ‘Now, look here, Khor, don’t you say anything against him while I’m here,’ Kalinych would say. ‘Then why doesn’t he see that you’ve got a proper pair of boots to wear?’ the other would object. ‘To hell with boots! Why do I need boots? I’m a peasant…’ ‘And I’m also a peasant, but just look…’ Saying this, Khor would raise his leg and show Kalinych a boot that looked as if it had been cobbled from the skin of a mammoth. ‘Oh, you’re not an ordinary peasant!’ Kalinych would answer. ‘Well, surely he ought to give you something to buy them sandals with? After all, you go out hunting with him and everyday you’ll need new ones.’ ‘He gives me something to get bast sandals with.’ ‘That’s right, last year he grandly gave you ten copecks.’ At this Kalinych would turn away in annoyance and Khor would burst out laughing, his tiny little eyes almost vanishing completely.

Kalinych had quite a pleasant singing voice and could strum a little on the balalaika. Khor would listen and listen, and then he would bend his head to one side and begin to accompany in a plaintive voice. He particularly liked the song: ‘O, mine’s a hard lot, a hard life!’

Fedya never let pass an opportunity to poke fun at his father, saying, ‘Well, old man, what’ve you got to complain about?’

But Khor would rest his cheek on his hand, close his eyes and continue complaining about his hard lot. Yet at other times no one was more active than he: he would always be busying himself with something – repairing the cart, making new fence supports or taking a look at the harness. He did not, however, insist on exceptional cleanliness, and in answer to my comments once remarked that ‘a hut ought to have a lived-in smell’.

‘But,’ I remarked in return, ‘look how clean it is out at Kalinych’s where he keeps bees.’

‘Bees wouldn’t live there, see, sir, unless it was clean,’ he said with a sigh.

On another occasion he asked me:

‘Do you have your own estate, sir?’

‘I do.’

‘Is it far from here?’

‘Sixty or seventy miles.’

‘Well, sir, do you live on your estate?’

‘I do.’

‘But mostly, I reckon, you’re out enjoying yourself with that gun?’

‘Yes, I must admit that.’

‘And that’s a good thing you’re doing, sir.