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In the winter of 1813 Nicholas married Princess Mary and moved
to Bald Hills with his wife, his mother, and Sonya.
Within four years he had paid off all his remaining debts
without selling any of his wife's property, and having received
a small inheritance on the death of a cousin he paid his debt
to Pierre as well.
In another three years, by 1820, he had so managed his affairs
that he was able to buy a small estate adjoining Bald Hills and
was negotiating to buy back Otradnoe- that being his pet dream.
Having started farming from necessity, he soon grew so devoted
to it that it became his favorite and almost his sole occupation.
Nicholas was a plain farmer: he did not like innovations, especially
the English ones then coming into vogue. He laughed at theoretical
treatises on estate management, disliked factories, the raising
of expensive products, and the buying of expensive seed corn,
and did not make a hobby of any particular part of the work on
his estate. He always had before his mind's eye the estate as
a whole and not any particular part of it. The chief thing in
his eyes was not the nitrogen in the soil, nor the oxygen in the
air, nor manures, nor special plows, but that most important agent
by which nitrogen, oxygen, manure, and plow were made effective-
the peasant laborer. When Nicholas first began farming and began
to understand its different branches, it was the serf who especially
attracted his attention. The peasant seemed to him not merely
a tool, but also a judge of farming and an end in himself. At
first he watched the serfs, trying to understand their aims and
what they considered good and bad, and only pretended to direct
them and give orders while in reality learning from them their
methods, their manner of speech, and their judgment of what was
good and bad. Only when he had understood the peasants' tastes
and aspirations, had learned to talk their language, to grasp
the hidden meaning of their words, and felt akin to them did he
begin boldly to manage his serfs, that is, to perform toward them
the duties demanded of him. And Nicholas' management produced
very brilliant results.
Guided by some gift of insight, on taking up the management
of the estates he at once unerringly appointed as bailiff, village
elder, and delegate, the very men the serfs would themselves have
chosen had they had the right to choose, and these posts never
changed hands. Before analyzing the properties of manure, before
entering into the debit and credit (as he ironically called it),
he found out how many cattle the peasants had and increased the
number by all possible means. He kept the peasant families together
in the largest groups possible, not allowing the family groups
to divide into separate households. He was hard alike on the lazy,
the depraved, and the weak, and tried to get them expelled from
the commune.
He was as careful of the sowing and reaping of the peasants'
hay and corn as of his own, and few landowners had their crops
sown and harvested so early and so well, or got so good a return,
as did Nicholas.
He disliked having anything to do with the domestic serfs-
the "drones" as he called them- and everyone said he
spoiled them by his laxity. When a decision had to be taken regarding
a domestic serf, especially if one had to be punished, he always
felt undecided and consulted everybody in the house; but when
it was possible to have a domestic serf conscripted instead of
a land worker he did so without the least hesitation. He never
felt any hesitation in dealing with the peasants. He knew that
his every decision would be approved by them all with very few
exceptions.
He did not allow himself either to be hard on or punish a
man, or to make things easy for or reward anyone, merely because
he felt inclined to do so. He could not have said by what standard
he judged what he should or should not do, but the standard was
quite firm and definite in his own mind.
Often, speaking with vexation of some failure or irregularity,
he would say: "What can one do with our Russian peasants?"
and imagined that he could not bear them.
Yet he loved "our Russian peasants" and their way
of life with his whole soul, and for that very reason had understood
and assimilated the one way and manner of farming which produced
good results.
Countess Mary was jealous of this passion of her husband's
and regretted that she could not share it; but she could not understand
the joys and vexations he derived from that world, to her so remote
and alien. She could not understand why he was so particularly
animated and happy when, after getting up at daybreak and spending
the whole morning in the fields or on the threshing floor, he
returned from the sowing or mowing or reaping to have tea with
her. She did not understand why he spoke with such admiration
and delight of the farming of the thrifty and well-to-do peasant
Matthew Ermishin, who with his family had carted corn all night;
or of the fact that his (Nicholas') sheaves were already stacked
before anyone else had his harvest in. She did not understand
why he stepped out from the window to the veranda and smiled under
his mustache and winked so joyfully, when warm steady rain began
to fall on the dry and thirsty shoots of the young oats, or why
when the wind carried away a threatening cloud during the hay
harvest he would return from the barn, flushed, sunburned, and
perspiring, with a smell of wormwood and gentian in his hair and,
gleefully rubbing his hands, would say: "Well, one more day
and my grain and the peasants' will all be under cover."
Still less did she understand why he, kindhearted and always
ready to anticipate her wishes, should become almost desperate
when she brought him a petition from some peasant men or women
who had appealed to her to be excused some work; why he, that
kind Nicholas, should obstinately refuse her, angrily asking her
not to interfere in what was not her business. She felt he had
a world apart, which he loved passionately and which had laws
she had not fathomed.
Sometimes when, trying to understand him, she spoke of the
good work he was doing for his serfs, he would be vexed and reply:
"Not in the least; it never entered my head and I wouldn't
do that for their good! That's all poetry and old wives' talk-
all that doing good to one's neighbor! What I want is that our
children should not have to go begging. I must put our affairs
in order while I am alive, that's all. And to do that, order and
strictness are essential.... That's all about it!" said he,
clenching his vigorous fist. "And fairness, of course,"
he added, "for if the peasant is naked and hungry and has
only one miserable horse, he can do no good either for himself
or for me."
And all Nicholas did was fruitful- probably just because he
refused to allow himself to think that he was doing good to others
for virtue's sake. His means increased rapidly; serfs from neighboring
estates came to beg him to buy them, and long after his death
the memory of his administration was devoutly preserved among
the serfs. "He was a master... the peasants' affairs first
and then his own. Of course he was not to be trifled with either-
in a word, he was a real master!"
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