At ten o'clock, the President entered the office, and set about what was, in his opinion, a torturous, useless business—the making out an inventory of the wheat and rye in each peasant's possession. It was useless because he knew, as did everyone in the village, how much each man had; it was torturous because it entailed such a great deal of writing.
Prince Prozorovsky had risen at daybreak. The sun glared fiercely over the bare autumn-swept park and into the drawing-room windows. The wedding cry of the ravens echoed through the autumnal stillness that hung broodingly over the Steppe.
On such a dazzling golden day as this, the Prince's ancestors had set off with their blood-hounds in by-gone days. In this house a whole generation had lived—now the old family was forced to leave it—for ever!
A red notice—"The Bielokonsky Committee of the Poor"—had been affixed to the front door the previous evening, and the intruders had bustled all night arranging something in the hall. The drawing-room had not so far been touched; the gilt backs of books still glittered from behind glass cases in the study. Oh books! Will not your poison and your delights still abide?
Prince Prozorovsky went out into the fields; they were barren but for dead rye-stalks that stuck up starkly from the earth. Wolves were already on the trail. He wandered all day long, drank the last wine of autumn and listened to the ravens' wedding cries.
When he had beheld this bird's carnival as a child, he had clapped his hands, crying: "Hurrah for my wedding! Hurrah for my wedding!" He had never had a wedding. Now his days were numbered. He had lived for love. He had known many affections, had felt bitter pangs. He had tasted the poison of the Moscow streets, of books and of women; had been touched by the autumnal sadness of Bielokonsky, where he always stayed in the autumn. Now he knew grief!
He walked aimlessly through the trackless fields and down into hollows; the aspens glowed in a purple hue around him; on a hill behind him the old white house stood amid the lilac shrubbery of a decaying park. The crystal clear, vast, blue vista was immeasurably distant.
The hair on his temples was already growing thin and gray—there was no stopping, no returning!
He met a peasant, a rough, plain man in a sheep-skin jacket, driving a cart laden with sacks. The man took off his cap and stopped his horse, to make way for the … gentleman.
"Good morning, little Father," he wheezed, then addressed his beast, pulled the reins, drove on, then stopped again and called out: