It is a delusion to think that old age is respected in the village: it is not
respected. Even the village priest gains no extra authority by his age. The old man is of less
account than the stripling. The glorious man is the young man, the strong man. No one thinks
of honourable old age; no one retires from work till his limbs fail him, and then his life
is one of dishonour. The old man who cannot take his share in the work of the fields, but who needs
to be fed, is an encumbrance, he is a worn out tool. If he were a horse, the family would kill him,
and since they may not kill him he is more despicable than an old horse. The old man is ill-dressed,
ill-fed. When you come upon him in the village you see old age undisguised, in all its ugliness.
At the house in Petraovo I met a poor old man, the father of the ex-soldier.
He was nearly blind, and had been forced to give up work a year ago. Now there was great pain in
his head, and he continually heard a voice inside his skull as if a wind were blowing there — a
window broken in the old house — I thought, recalling Andreef's "Life of Man."
He was shrivelled up to the size of a child, as one might see, for he was only
covered by a ragged Oxford shirt, and a pair of cotton knickers — the shirt clung to his little
body, and probably belonged to one of the young boys of the family, the knickers also; he had no
"youthful hose, well saved," of his own.
The soldier and his family had much work in the fields before nightfall,
and they left me with the old grandfather, and we talked together. It was great gladness for
him, for nobody ever talked to him, or listened to him, or paid him any attention now, and no
one hoped anything but that he would soon be in his grave. We had a long, dull talk on England;
he thought England a province of Russia. He asked such questions as "Does wheat ripen with you?
Are the peasants poor? What proportion of rye do they grow? Have you Jews? Is the rate of wages
high?"
My simple answers pleased and warmed him; he asked me for a match and lit an old
pipe. He came very close to me and grasped me by the arm. The floor was covered with hay and new
hops ; he kneeled down on it at my feet, and looked up at me with eyes that saw nothing, and asked
in a quavering voice — "Do you think I shall die soon?" I said I thought not. He evidently wanted to
live, and feared death. He clung to life, if only for such a chance as the meeting with a stranger
like myself.
"I shall die soon," he went on. "My head aches all day; there is a whistling sound
in it. I have great pain. They want me to die too, and they beat me, beat me — since I can do no
work they beat me. Last night I made myself a coffin, and they said 'Hurry, or you'll die before
the coffin's made,' but now I have made it, and I live on, and it waits for me. They make me sleep
in it every night, and sometimes I think I shall be sleeping one morning, and they will say I
am dead. That would be dreadful."
He pointed to a box which was lying near the stove: it was filled with hay and
straw, and evidently made a comfortable bed as peasant beds go.
When the family came in and the samovar was prepared, no one offered him tea,
but presently they went out again, and I filled him up a cup, and gave him more sugar than he
had had for years. He accepted greedily ; took out the surplus sugar, and secreted it inside
his shirt. When he had finished he thanked me and blessed God, crossing himself devoutly.
He slept the night in the coffin, and I wrapped myself in my cloak and lay on
the hay and hops on the floor. "Surely," I thought, "death would be better for him now. But he
has no conception of the dignity of the grave, and no care for it, though in life his wretched
life squirms in a litter of hay and straw."
In the morning I gave him tea again, and after it he knelt by the grate
a long while, trying to light his pipe with a splinter of fir wood, just as the day before he had
knelt beside me when he was talking — old, old!
Once he was a handsome young man like the soldier his son, but now all the beauty
has vanished, and the spirit has gone. Part of the roof has fallen in, in the old house; the wind
blows, the rats are in the nursery, an old crone crawls down the creaking stairs; soon she will
open the door, and leave it open, and go away. Then, now and again in the night, the door will
slam —
I wrapped up my legs in my linen portanki, put fresh straw in my lapti, and took
the road once more. About two miles outside Petraovo a moujik took my lapti off, and put
them on in orthodox style. He laughed, and bellowed with laughter that anyone should not be able
to put his own portanki on. He then gave me lessons in the art of walking in lapti and restrained
my English briskness. I must walk more leisurely.
Nikolsk was only nine miles ahead, and as I proposed staying one or two days there
for washing and repairs, I did not hurry. I spent so much time on the way that it was four in
the afternoon before I reached the town.
