The winning of this irregular case by the peasants surprised all the neighbours and even the peasants themselves. This success of theirs could be explained only on the supposition that Iván Petróvich Apýkhtin, a very meek, peaceful man, who was opposed to litigations and was convinced of the righteousness of this matter, had taken no measures against the action of the peasants. On the other hand, Iván Mirónov, the peasants' representative, a dry, hook-nosed, literate peasant, who had been a township elder and had acted in the capacity of collector of taxes, had collected fifty kopeks from each peasant, which money he cleverly applied in the distribution of presents, and had very shrewdly conducted the whole affair.
Immediately after the decision handed down by the County Court, Apýkhtin, seeing the danger, gave a power of attorney to the shrewd manumitted serf, Ilyá Mitrofánov, who appealed to the higher court against the decision of the County Court. Ilyá Mitrofánov managed the affair so shrewdly that, in spite of all the cunning of the peasants' representative, Iván Mirónov, in spite of the considerable presents distributed by him to the members of the higher court, the case was retried in the Government Court in favour of the proprietor, and the land was to go back to him from the peasants, of which fact their representative was duly informed.
The representative, Iván Mirónov, told the peasants at the meeting of the Commune that the gentleman in the Government capital had pulled the proprietor's leg and had "mixed up" the whole business, so that they wanted to take the land back again, but that the proprietor would not be successful, because he had a petition all written up to be sent to the Senate, and that then the land would be for ever confirmed to the peasants; all they had to do was to collect a rouble from each soul. The peasants decided to collect the money and again to entrust the whole matter to Iván Mirónov. When Mirónov had all the money in his hands, he went to St. Petersburg.
When, in the year 1817, during Passion-week,—it fell late that year,—the time came to plough the ground, the Izlegóshcha peasants began to discuss at a meeting whether they ought to plough the land under litigation during that year, or not; and, although Apýkhtin's clerk had come to see them during Lent with the order that they should not plough the land and should come to some agreement with him in regard to the rye already planted in what had been the doubtful, and now was Apýkhtin's land, the peasants, for the very reason that the winter crop had been sowed on the debatable land, and because Apýkhtin, in his desire to avoid being unfair to them, wished to arbitrate the matter with them, decided to plough the land under litigation and to take possession of it before touching any other fields.
On the very day when the peasants went out to plough, which was Maundy Thursday, Iván Petróvich Apýkhtin, who had been preparing himself for communion during the Passion-week, went to communion, and early in the morning drove to the church in the village of Izlegóshcha, of which he was a parishioner, and there he, without knowing anything about the matter, amicably chatted with the church elder. Iván Petróvich had been to confession the night before, and had attended vigils at home; in the morning he had himself read the Rules, and at eight o'clock had left the house. They waited for him with the mass. As he stood at the altar, where he usually stood, Iván Petróvich rather reflected than prayed, which made him dissatisfied with himself.
Like many people of that time, and, so far as that goes, of all times, he was not quite clear in matters of religion. He was past fifty years of age; he never omitted carrying out any rite, attended church, and went to communion once a year; in talking to his only daughter, he instructed her in the articles of faith; but, if he had been asked whether he really believed, he would not have known what to reply.
On that day more than on any other, he felt meek of spirit, and, standing at the altar, he, instead of praying, thought of how strangely everything was constructed in the world: there he was, almost an old man, taking the communion for perhaps the fortieth time in his life, and he knew that everybody, all his home folk and all the people in the church, looked at him as a model and took him for an example, and he felt himself obliged to act as an example in matters of religion, whereas he himself did not know anything, and soon, very soon, he would die, and even if he were killed he could not tell whether that in which he was showing an example to others was true. And it also seemed strange to him how every one considered—that he saw—old people to be firm and to know what was necessary and what not (thus he always thought about old men), and there he was old and positively failed to know, and was just as frivolous as he had been twenty years before; the only difference was that formerly he did not conceal it, while now he did. Just as in his childhood it had occurred to him during the service that he might crow like a cock, even so now all kinds of foolish things passed through his mind, and he, the old man, reverentially bent his head, touching the flagstones of the church with the old knuckles of his hands, and Father Vasíli was evidently timid in celebrating mass in his presence, and incited to zeal by his zeal.
"If they only knew what foolish things are running through my head! But that is a sin, a sin; I must pray," he said to himself, when the service commenced; and, trying to catch the meaning of the responses, he began to pray. Indeed, he soon transferred himself in feeling to the prayer and thought of his sins and of everything which he regretted.
A respectable-looking old man, bald-headed, with thick gray hair, dressed in a fur coat with a new white patch on one-half of his back, stepping evenly with his out-toeing bast shoes, went up to the altar, bowed low to him, tossed his hair, and went beyond the altar to place some tapers. This was the church elder, Iván Fedótov, one of the best peasants of the village of Izlegóshcha. Iván Petróvich knew him. The sight of this stern, firm face led Iván Petróvich to a new train of thoughts. He was one of those peasants who wanted to take the land away from him, and one of the best and richest married farmers, who needed the land, who could manage it, and had the means to work it. His stern aspect, ceremonious bow, and measured gait, and the exactness of his wearing-apparel,—the leg-rags fitted his legs like stockings and the laces crossed each other symmetrically on either leg,—all his appearance seemed to express rebuke and enmity on account of the land.
"I have asked forgiveness of my wife, of Mánya" (his daughter), "of the nurse, of my valet, Volódya, but it is his forgiveness that I ought to ask for, and I ought to forgive him," thought Iván Petróvich, and he decided that after matins he would ask Iván Fedótov to forgive him.