§4
In former days there existed—it still exists in Turkey—a feudal bond of affection between the Russian landowner and his household servants. But the race of such servants, devoted to the family as a family, is now extinct with us. The reason of this is obvious. The landowner has ceased to believe in his own authority; he does not believe that he will answer, at the dreadful Day of Judgement, for his treatment of his people; and he abuses his power for his own advantage. The servant does not believe in his inferiority; he endures oppression, not as a punishment or trial inflicted by God, but merely because he is defenceless.
But I knew, in my young days, two or three specimens of that boundless loyalty which old gentlemen of seventy sometimes recall with a sigh: they speak of the wonderful zeal and devotion of their servants, but they never mention the return which they and their fathers made to that faithfulness.
There was Andréi Stepánov, whom I knew as a decrepit old man, spending his last days, on very short commons, on an estate belonging to my uncle, the Senator.
When my father and uncle were young men in the Army, he was their valet, a kind, honest, sober man, who guessed what his young masters wanted—and they wanted a good deal—by a mere look at their faces; I know this from themselves. Later he was in charge of an estate near Moscow. The war of 1812 cut him off at once from all communications; the village was burnt down, and he lived on there alone and without money, and finally sold some wood, to save himself from starvation. When my uncle returned to Russia, he went into the estate accounts and discovered the sale of wood. Punishment followed: the man was disgraced and removed from his office, though he was old and burdened with a family. We often passed through the village where he lived and spent a day or two there; and the old man, now paralysed and walking on crutches, never failed to visit us, in order to make his bow to my father and talk to him.
I was deeply touched by the simple devotion of his language and by his miserable appearance; I remember the tufts of hair, between yellow and white, which covered both sides of his bare scalp.
“They tell me, Sir,” he said once to my father, “that your brother has received another Order. I am getting old, bátyushka, and shall soon give back my soul to God; but I wish God would suffer me to see your brother wearing his Order; just once before I die, I would like to see him with his ribbon and all his glory.”
My eyes were on the old man, and everything about him showed that he was speaking the truth—his expression as frank as a child’s, his bent figure, his crooked face, dim eyes, and feeble voice. There was no falsehood or flattery there: he did really wish to see, once more before he died, the man who, for fourteen years, had never forgiven him for that wood! Should I call him a saint or a madman? Are there any who attain to sanctity, except madmen?
But this form of idolatry is unknown to the rising generation; and, if there are cases of serfs who refuse emancipation, it is due either to mere indolence or selfish considerations. This is a worse condition of things, I admit, but it brings us nearer the end. The serfs of to-day may wish to see something round their master’s neck; but you may feel sure that it is not the ribbon of any Order of Chivalry!