|
Soon after his admission to the Masonic Brotherhood, Pierre
went to the Kiev province, where he had the greatest number of
serfs, taking with him full directions which he had written down
for his own guidance as to what he should do on his estates.
When he reached Kiev he sent for all his stewards to the head
office and explained to them his intentions and wishes. He told
them that steps would be taken immediately to free his serfs-
and that till then they were not to be overburdened with labor,
women while nursing their babies were not to be sent to work,
assistance was to be given to the serfs, punishments were to be
admonitory and not corporal, and hospitals, asylums, and schools
were to be established on all the estates. Some of the stewards
(there were semiliterate foremen among them) listened with alarm,
supposing these words to mean that the young count was displeased
with their management and embezzlement of money, some after their
first fright were amused by Pierre's lisp and the new words they
had not heard before, others simply enjoyed hearing how the master
talked, while the cleverest among them, including the chief steward,
understood from this speech how they could best handle the master
for their own ends.
The chief steward expressed great sympathy with Pierre's intentions,
but remarked that besides these changes it would be necessary
to go into the general state of affairs which was far from satisfactory.
Despite Count Bezukhov's enormous wealth, since he had come
into an income which was said to amount to five hundred thousand
rubles a year, Pierre felt himself far poorer than when his father
had made him an allowance of ten thousand rubles. He had a dim
perception of the following budget:
About 80,000 went in payments on all the estates to the Land
Bank, about 30,000 went for the upkeep of the estate near Moscow,
the town house, and the allowance to the three princesses; about
15,000 was given in pensions and the same amount for asylums;
150,000 alimony was sent to the countess; about 70,00 went for
interest on debts. The building of a new church, previously begun,
had cost about 10,000 in each of the last two years, and he did
not know how the rest, about 100,000 rubles, was spent, and almost
every year he was obliged to borrow. Besides this the chief steward
wrote every year telling him of fires and bad harvests, or of
the necessity of rebuilding factories and workshops. So the first
task Pierre had to face was one for which he had very little aptitude
or inclination- practical business.
He discussed estate affairs every day with his chief steward.
But he felt that this did not forward matters at all. He felt
that these consultations were detached from real affairs and did
not link up with them or make them move. On the one hand, the
chief steward put the state of things to him in the very worst
light, pointing out the necessity of paying off the debts and
undertaking new activities with serf labor, to which Pierre did
not agree. On the other hand, Pierre demanded that steps should
be taken to liberate the serfs, which the steward met by showing
the necessity of first paying off the loans from the Land Bank,
and the consequent impossibility of a speedy emancipation.
The steward did not say it was quite impossible, but suggested
selling the forests in the province of Kostroma, the land lower
down the river, and the Crimean estate, in order to make it possible:
all of which operations according to him were connected with such
complicated measures- the removal of injunctions, petitions, permits,
and so on- that Pierre became quite bewildered and only replied:
"Yes, yes, do so."
Pierre had none of the practical persistence that would have
enabled him to attend to the business himself and so he disliked
it and only tried to pretend to the steward that he was attending
to it. The steward for his part tried to pretend to the count
that he considered these consultations very valuable for the proprietor
and troublesome to himself.
In Kiev Pierre found some people he knew, and strangers hastened
to make his acquaintance and joyfully welcomed the rich newcomer,
the largest landowner of the province. Temptations to Pierre's
greatest weakness- the one to which he had confessed when admitted
to the Lodge- were so strong that he could not resist them. Again
whole days, weeks, and months of his life passed in as great a
rush and were as much occupied with evening parties, dinners,
lunches, and balls, giving him no time for reflection, as in Petersburg.
Instead of the new life he had hoped to lead he still lived the
old life, only in new surroundings.
Of the three precepts of Freemasonry Pierre realized that
he did not fulfill the one which enjoined every Mason to set an
example of moral life, and that of the seven virtues he lacked
two- morality and the love of death. He consoled himself with
the thought that he fulfilled another of the precepts- that of
reforming the human race- and had other virtues- love of his neighbor,
and especially generosity.
In the spring of 1807 he decided to return to Petersburg.
On the way he intended to visit all his estates and see for himself
how far his orders had been carried out and in what state were
the serfs whom God had entrusted to his care and whom he intended
to benefit.
The chief steward, who considered the young count's attempts
almost insane- unprofitable to himself, to the count, and to the
serfs- made some concessions. Continuing to represent the liberation
of the serfs as impracticable, he arranged for the erection of
large buildings- schools, hospitals, and asylums- on all the estates
before the master arrived. Everywhere preparations were made not
for ceremonious welcomes (which he knew Pierre would not like),
but for just such gratefully religious ones, with offerings of
icons and the bread and salt of hospitality, as, according to
his understanding of his master, would touch and delude him.
The southern spring, the comfortable rapid traveling in a
Vienna carriage, and the solitude of the road, all had a gladdening
effect on Pierre. The estates he had not before visited were each
more picturesque than the other; the serfs everywhere seemed thriving
and touchingly grateful for the benefits conferred on them. Everywhere
were receptions, which though they embarrassed Pierre awakened
a joyful feeling in the depth of his heart. In one place the peasants
presented him with bread and salt and an icon of Saint Peter and
Saint Paul, asking permission, as a mark of their gratitude for
the benefits he had conferred on them, to build a new chantry
to the church at their own expense in honor of Peter and Paul,
his patron saints. In another place the women with infants in
arms met him to thank him for releasing them from hard work. On
a third estate the priest, bearing a cross, came to meet him surrounded
by children whom, by the count's generosity, he was instructing
in reading, writing, and religion. On all his estates Pierre saw
with his own eyes brick buildings erected or in course of erection,
all on one plan, for hospitals, schools, and almshouses, which
were soon to be opened. Everywhere he saw the stewards' accounts,
according to which the serfs' manorial labor had been diminished,
and heard the touching thanks of deputations of serfs in their
full-skirted blue coats.
What Pierre did not know was that the place where they presented
him with bread and salt and wished to build a chantry in honor
of Peter and Paul was a market village where a fair was held on
St. Peter's day, and that the richest peasants (who formed the
deputation) had begun the chantry long before, but that nine tenths
of the peasants in that villages were in a state of the greatest
poverty. He did not know that since the nursing mothers were no
longer sent to work on his land, they did still harder work on
their own land. He did not know that the priest who met him with
the cross oppressed the peasants by his exactions, and that the
pupils' parents wept at having to let him take their children
and secured their release by heavy payments. He did not know that
the brick buildings, built to plan, were being built by serfs
whose manorial labor was thus increased, though lessened on paper.
He did not know that where the steward had shown him in the accounts
that the serfs' payments had been diminished by a third, their
obligatory manorial work had been increased by a half. And so
Pierre was delighted with his visit to his estates and quite recovered
the philanthropic mood in which he had left Petersburg, and wrote
enthusiastic letters to his "brother-instructor" as
he called the Grand Master.
"How easy it is, how little effort it needs, to do so
much good," thought Pierre, "and how little attention
we pay to it!"
He was pleased at the gratitude he received, but felt abashed
at receiving it. This gratitude reminded him of how much more
he might do for these simple, kindly people.
The chief steward, a very stupid but cunning man who saw perfectly
through the naive and intelligent count and played with him as
with a toy, seeing the effect these prearranged receptions had
on Pierre, pressed him still harder with proofs of the impossibility
and above all the uselessness of freeing the serfs, who were quite
happy as it was.
Pierre in his secret soul agreed with the steward that it
would be difficult to imagine happier people, and that God only
knew what would happen to them when they were free, but he insisted,
though reluctantly, on what he thought right. The steward promised
to do all in his power to carry out the count's wishes, seeing
clearly that not only would the count never be able to find out
whether all measures had been taken for the sale of the land and
forests and to release them from the Land Bank, but would probably
never even inquire and would never know that the newly erected
buildings were standing empty and that the serfs continued to
give in money and work all that other people's serfs gave- that
is to say, all that could be got out of them.
|
