So long as he had the burden of his work upon his shoulders, it took up all his powers of mind and kept him from the fatal passion for drink, which robbed him of his senses and removed the curb from his monstrous inhuman passions. Work was his salvation; but, when he had got both the new estates, Kurolyessovo and Parashino, into order, and built manor-houses at both, with a second smaller house at Parashino, then came the season of little work and much leisure. Drunkenness, with its usual consequences, and violence, gained complete mastery over him, and developed by degrees into an insatiable thirst for human blood and human suffering. Encouraged by the passive fear of all around him, he soon ceased to set any limit to his arbitrary violence. He chose from among his dependants a score of ruffians, fit instruments for his purposes, and formed them into a band of robbers. They saw that their master bore a charmed life, and believed in his power; drunken and debauched themselves, they carried out all his insane orders willingly and boldly. If any man offended Kurolyessoff by the slightest independence in word or action—if, for example, he failed to turn up when invited to one of their drunken revels—the gang set off at once at a sign from their master, seized the culprit either secretly or openly wherever they found him, and brought him back to Parashino, where he was treated with insult and chained up in a cellar underground or flogged by their master's orders. Kurolyessoff was a man of taste: he liked good horses, and he liked good pictures—he thought them good at least—to adorn his walls. If anything of the kind took his fancy in a neighbour's house or in any house where he happened to be, he at once proposed an exchange; in case of a refusal, he would sometimes, if he was in a good humour, offer money; but, if this also was refused, he gave warning that he would take it and give nothing for it. And he did actually turn up with his gang a short time after, pack up whatever he wanted, and carry it off. Complaints were made, and the preliminary steps for an inquiry were taken. But Kurolyessoff saw this must be stopped at once. He sent a message to the district magistrate, that he would flay with the "cat" any officer of the law who dared to present himself; and he remained master of the situation. Meantime the man who had dared to complain was seized and beaten, on his own estate and in his own house, with his wife and children kneeling round and imploring mercy. It was Kurolyessoff's custom to make it up with his victims after a time: sometimes he offered them pecuniary compensation, but more often he restored peace by terrorising them; in any case, the stolen goods remained his lawful property. During his carouses he liked to boast that he had taken "that pretty thing in the gilt frame" from so-and-so, and that inlaid writing-table from some one else; and often these very people were sitting at the table, pretending to be deaf or plucking up heart to laugh at their own losses. There were even worse acts of violence, but these also went scot free.
Kurolyessoff had a very powerful constitution: though he drank a great deal, it never disabled him but only put him on the move and roused a horrible activity in his clouded brain and inflamed body. One of his favourite amusements was to harness teams of spirited horses to a miscellaneous assortment of carriages, to pack the carriages with his ragtag and bobtail of men and women, and then scour over the fields and through the villages at full gallop, with the jingling of bells and the singing and shouting of his drunken rabble. He took a stock of liquor with him on these occasions and made every one he met, without regard to calling or sex or age, drink till they were intoxicated; and any one who dared to refuse was first flogged, and then tied to a tree or a post, though it might be raining or freezing at the time. Of more revolting acts of violence I say nothing. One day he was driving in this state of mind through a village, and, as he passed a threshing-floor, noticed a woman of remarkable beauty. "Stop!" he called out. "Petrushka, what do you think of that woman?" "She's uncommonly pretty," said Petrushka. "Would you like to marry her?" "How can I marry another man's wife?" asked Petrushka with a grin on his face. "I'll show you how! Seize her, my lads, and put her in the carriage beside me!" They did so; the woman was taken straight to the parish church, and there, though she protested that she had a husband living and two children, was married to Petrushka; and no complaints were made either in Kurolyessoff's lifetime or in that of his widow. When the estate came into my father's hands, he restored this woman with her husband and children to her former owner; her first husband had long been dead. My father also distributed various articles of property to their former owners when they asked for them; but many of the things had got worn out by tossing about in lumber-rooms. It is hard to believe that such things could happen in Russia, even eighty years ago; but the truth of the narrative it is impossible to dispute.
This life of drunken and criminal violence, horrible and disgusting enough in itself, led on to worse, till the man's natural cruelty became a ferocious thirst for blood. To inflict torture became with him a necessity as well as a pleasure. On the days when he could not gratify this passion, he was depressed and listless, uneasy and even ill; and this was why his visits to Choorassovo grew steadily rarer and his stay there shorter. But, on his return to the solitude of Parashino, he made haste to reward himself for his abstinence. He had only to watch the labourers at their work, to secure a sufficient number of victims; no excuses were accepted, and it is always possible to find trifling cases of neglect on the land if you are determined to hunt for them. Yet it was the personal servants and people about the house who suffered most from his ferocity. He seldom flogged a peasant, unless the man had committed a serious offence or was personally known to him; but his bailiffs and clerks suffered as much at his hands as the household servants. He spared no one: every one of his favourites had, some time or other, been flogged within an inch of his life, and some of them many times. It is remarkable that, when Kurolyessoff got violently angry, which seldom happened, he did not use violence; but, when he had got hold of a man and intended to torture him for his own amusement, he would say in a quiet and even affectionate tone: "Well, my good friend Grigóri Kuzmitch,"—Grishka[28] being his usual name—"it can't be helped; come, and I will settle accounts with you." Thus he would speak to his head-groom, who for some unknown reason was put to the torture more often than others. "Scratch him up a bit with the cat," said the master with a smile, and then the torture went on for hours, while the master drank tea with brandy in it, smoked his pipe, and from time to time passed jests on his victim till unconsciousness supervened. Trustworthy witnesses have assured me that only one expedient proved successful in saving life after such an ordeal: the lacerated body of the victim was wrapped up in sheepskins taken warm from the animals' backs as soon as they were slaughtered. Kurolyessoff would carefully examine his victim; then, if content, he would say, "Well, that's enough; take him away"—and then he became cheerful, jocular, and amiable for the whole day and sometimes for several days. In order to complete the portrait of this monster, I shall quote his own words which he repeated more than once among his boon-companions: "Don't talk to me of the knout or the stick! They kill a man before you mean it. The 'cat' is the thing for me: it gives pain without taking life!" I have told here only a tithe of what I know, but perhaps I have said enough. It is remarkable, as an instance of the inexplicable inconsistencies of corrupt human nature, that Kurolyessoff, at a time when he had reached the extreme limit of debauchery and cruelty, was zealously engaged in building a stone church at Parashino. At the time I am about to describe, the outside of the church was finished, and workmen had been hired for the internal decoration: carpenters, carvers, gilders, and ikon[29]-painters had been at work for some months and were occupying all the smaller manor-house of Parashino.
Praskovya Ivanovna had now been married fourteen years. She noticed something strange about her husband, whom for two years she had only seen at long intervals for a few days at a time, but she did not even suspect anything like the truth. She went on with her easy cheerful way of life: in summer she gave great attention to her orchard and the water-springs which she left in their natural state and liked to clean out with her own hands; at other seasons she spent her time with her visitors and became a great lover of cards. Suddenly she received, by post or special messenger, a letter from an old lady for whom she had great respect, a distant relation of her husband's. This letter gave a full description of Kurolyessoff's life, and ended in this way, that it would be sinful not to open the eyes of the mistress of a thousand serfs, when they were suffering such monstrous cruelty and she could protect them by cancelling the legal authority she had given her husband to manage her estates. "Their blood cries to heaven," she wrote, "and at this moment a servant known to you, Ivan Onufrieff, is dying in consequence of cruel maltreatment. You have nothing to fear yourself from Kurolyessoff: he will not venture to show his face at Choorassovo, and your good neighbours and the Governor himself will protect you."
This letter fell like a thunderbolt on Praskovya Ivanovna. I have heard her say myself that she was quite stunned for some minutes; but she was supported by her firm faith in God and the uncommon strength of her will, and soon determined on a step from which most brave men would have shrunk. She ordered horses to be harnessed, saying that she was going to Simbirsk, and then, with one maid and a man and the coachman, drove straight to Parashino. It was a long journey of 400 versts, and she had plenty of leisure to think over what she was doing. She used to say herself that she had formed no plan of action whatever; she merely wished to see with her own eyes and find out for certain what her husband was doing and how he lived. She did not entirely trust the letter from his kinswoman, who lived at a distance and might have been deceived by false reports; and she did not choose to question her old nurse at Choorassovo. The thought of danger never entered her head: her husband had always been so gentle and respectful with her, that it seemed to her quite natural and quite possible to induce him to return in her carriage to Choorassovo. She timed herself to arrive at Parashino in the evening, left her carriage outside the village, and walked unrecognised—few of the people there knew her—accompanied by her maid and man, to the court of the mansion-house. She passed through the back entrance, made her way to a wing from which loud sounds of singing and laughter were issuing, and opened the door with a steady hand.
Fortune, as if on purpose, had brought together everything that could reveal at one flash the kind of life her husband was leading. More intoxicated than usual, he was carousing with his boon-companions. Dressed in a shirt of red silk, he held a glass of punch in one hand[30] while a tipsy herd of servants, retainers, and country women danced and sang before him. Praskovya Ivanovna nearly fainted at the sight. She understood all now. Unnoticed, because the room was crowded with people, she shut the door and left the house. On the steps she came face to face with one of Kurolyessoff's servants, not a young man, and, fortunately, sober. He recognised his mistress and was just calling out, "Matushka[31] Praskovya Ivanovna, is it you?"—when she put her hand over his mouth and led him to the centre of the courtyard. She said in an ominous voice, "Is this the way you go on behind my back? The days of your feasting and dancing are done." The man fell at her feet weeping and said: "Matushka, do you suppose that we find pleasure in his goings-on, that we are responsible? God himself has brought you here." She told him to be silent and take her to see Ivan Onufrieff; she had heard that he was still living. She found him in a dying state, lying in a cow-byre in the backyard. He was too weak to tell her anything; but his brother, Alexyéi, a mere lad, who had been flogged only the day before, crawled somehow from his pallet, fell on his knees, and told her what had befallen his brother and himself and others as well. Praskovya Ivanovna's heart swelled with pity and horror. She felt that she also was to blame, and she formed a firm resolve to put an end to the crimes and atrocities of Kurolyessoff. She thought there would be no difficulty. She gave strict orders that her presence should be kept secret. Then, as she heard that the smaller house, which had been built some years before, but, from some caprice of her husband's, never furnished, contained one habitable room unoccupied by the workmen, she went off, intending to pass the remainder of the night there and to speak next morning to her husband when he was sober. But the secret of her arrival was not strictly kept. The report reached the ear of one of the most desperate of Kurolyessoff's gang, and he, moved by devotion or by fear, whispered it to his master. Kurolyessoff was dumbfounded by the news; it sobered him in a moment; he felt uneasy and scented danger ahead. His wife's firm and masculine temper had found few opportunities to display itself hitherto, but he guessed that it was there. Dismissing his band of revellers, he had two buckets of cold water poured over his head; and then, braced up and invigorated by this expedient, he changed into ordinary clothing and went to see if his wife was asleep. He had had time to reflect and fix on a line of action. He guessed the truth, that Praskovya Ivanovna had received from some quarter information as to his way of life, but that she was incredulous and had come to Parashino to ascertain the truth herself. He knew that her eye had rested for a moment on his revels, but he did not know that she had seen Onufrieff and that Alexyéi had told her the whole story. He intended to play the repentant sinner, to excuse himself as best he could for his riotous debauch, to pour oil on the troubled waters by his delicate attentions, and to take his wife away as soon as possible from Parashino.
It was morning by now, and the sun had actually risen. Kurolyessoff stole on tiptoe to the room occupied by Praskovya Ivanovna and softly opened the door. A bed had been made for her on the top of a chest, but the sheets were still smooth and no one had lain down on them. He looked all round the room and saw Praskovya Ivanovna. She was kneeling in prayer; there was no ikon in the room, and her eyes, full of tears, were fixed upon the Cross on the church, which was just opposite the window and glittered in the rays of the rising sun. He remained standing a few moments, and then said in a playful voice: "You have prayed long enough, my dear! I am delighted to see you. What made you think of coming?" Praskovya Ivanovna rose from her knees with no sign of confusion; she refused her husband's embrace; then, concealing the flame of her just anger under a cold determined manner, she told him that she knew all and had seen Ivan Onufrieff. She expressed in plain terms her aversion to the monster whom she could no longer regard as her husband, and she passed sentence upon him: he was to return the document which gave him authority over her estates, to leave Parashino at once, never to appear before her again, and never to set foot on any of her lands; if he refused, she would petition the Governor of the province, and reveal all his crimes; and his fate would be Siberia and penal servitude. Kurolyessoff was taken by surprise; he foamed at the mouth with rage and anger. "So that is the way you talk to me, my beauty! Then I shall change my tune too!" roared the infuriated ruffian. "You shall not leave Parashino till you sign a document transferring all your estates to me; if you refuse, I shall shut you up in a cellar and starve you to death." Then he caught up a stick from a corner of the room, felled his wife to the floor with his first blows, and went on beating her till she lost her senses. Next he ordered some of his trusted servants to carry their mistress to a stone cellar, which he locked with a huge padlock and put the key in his pocket. He was a formidable figure when he appeared before the assembled household; he had summoned them all, in order to discover the culprit who had led his mistress to the cow-byre; but the man had already sought safety in flight, accompanied by the coachman and manservant who had come from Choorassovo. The fugitives were pursued at once. Kurolyessoff did no injury to the maid, who had refused to desert her mistress: he gave her directions for exhorting the prisoner to submission, and then locked her up with his own hands in the same cellar. What did Kurolyessoff do next? He began to drink and riot more furiously than before. But alas! in vain did he swallow brandy like water, in vain did his revel rout dance and sing before him—he had turned gloomy and sullen. Yet this did not prevent him from working indefatigably for the attainment of his purpose. He procured from the local town a legal document by which Praskovya Ivanovna professed to sell Parashino and Kurolyessovo to one of his disreputable friends—Choorassovo he was kind enough to leave to her—and twice a day he went down to the cellar and pressed his wife to sign the paper; he begged pardon for his violence in the heat of the moment, promised that if she consented she should never see him again, and took an oath that he would restore all her property to her by his will. But Praskovya Ivanovna, though bruised and half-starved and suffering from fever, refused even to listen to any compromise whatever. So things went on for five days, and God only knows how it would all have ended.
All this time my grandfather Stepan Mihailovitch was living and prospering on his estate of New Bagrovo, which was 120 versts distant from Parashino. As I have mentioned already, he had frankly made it up with Kurolyessoff and was satisfied with him in general, though he felt no fancy for him. Kurolyessoff, on his side, showed great deference to Stepan Mihailovitch and all his family, and was ready to perform any services for them. When he had planted his colony at Parashino and was engaged in organising it, he came every year to Bagrovo and made himself very agreeable. He appealed to Stepan Mihailovitch, as a man of practical experience in colonising, for his advice; he received it gratefully, wrote it all down word for word, and really followed it. He even invited Stepan Mihailovitch twice to Parashino, to judge of his pupil's proficiency; and each time my grandfather approved entirely of what he saw; and on his last visit, when he had inspected the arable land and all the farming arrangements, he said to Kurolyessoff, "You are young, friend, but you've got on fast; I can teach you nothing." And, as a matter of fact, everything at Parashino was in excellent order. Of course the host received the old man as if he had been his own father, with all possible deference and attention. As years went on, ugly rumours about Kurolyessoff found their way to Bagrovo. As my grandfather disliked gossip, nothing was said to him at first; but the rumours grew steadily. The womankind at Bagrovo knew of them; and Arina Vassilyevna ventured at last to tell her husband that Kurolyessoff was leading a terribly wicked life. He would not believe it. He said: "Once you believe what people say, you will soon accuse your neighbour of robbing a church! I know what the Baktéyeff servants were like—thieves and shirkers, to a man! And my cousin's serfs too got spoilt, with no master to look after them. It's not surprising if they're terrified of honest work and decent order. Friend Mihail may have gone to work too fast: what of that? they'll learn to bear it. As to his drinking—if he takes a glass after his work, a man's none the worse for that, provided he doesn't neglect his business. There are beastly things a man shouldn't do; but there, I fancy, they're lying. You women are too fond of listening to gossip." For a long time after this, Stepan Mihailovitch heard nothing more of the rumours. At last, some Bagroff serfs, who had been transferred from the Government of Simbirsk to Parashino together with the serfs of the Baktéyeff family, came to visit their relations at New Bagrovo and told terrible stories of their master. Arina Vassilyevna again appealed to her husband, and begged that he would himself question one of these men who was now at Bagrovo; he was an old man with an established character for speaking the truth; and Stepan Mihailovitch had known him all his life. My grandfather consented. He sent for the man and questioned him, and heard a story which made his hair stand on end. He could not think what to do, or how to mend matters. Praskovya Ivanovna's occasional letters showed that she was quite happy and undisturbed; and he concluded that she knew nothing of her husband's conduct. In the old days he had warned her himself never to listen to tales against her husband; and he felt sure that she was following his advice only too well. He reflected, that, if she learnt the truth, it was doubtful if she could do anything; she would distress herself terribly, all to no purpose. It was therefore desirable that her eyes should never be opened. He could not now interfere; and he thought interference useless in the case of such a man. "I hope he will break his neck or be tried for a murder; he deserves it. No hand but God's can mend a man like that. He is not so hard upon his peasants and labourers, and the house-servants are a pack of scoundrels; let them suffer for their sins! I have no mind to soil my fingers with this dirty business." Thus Stepan Mihailovitch reasoned in his own way. He broke off all relations with Kurolyessoff, however, and ceased to answer his letters. This hint was understood, and the correspondence came to an end. But to Praskovya Ivanovna, Stepan Mihailovitch began to write oftener and more intimately than before.
So matters remained till the morning, when the three fugitives from Parashino made their appearance before my grandfather as he sat on his stoop. They had spent the first day concealed in an inaccessible swamp which joined on to the stackyards of Parashino; in the evening they learnt from some one in the village exactly what had happened, and made their way straight to Bagrovo, considering Stepan Mihailovitch as the only possible protector and champion of Praskovya Ivanovna. His feelings may be imagined when he heard what had happened at Parashino. He loved his one cousin not less, perhaps more, than his own daughters. The image of Parasha half-killed by her ruffian of a husband, of Parasha confined in a cellar for three days and perhaps dead already, presented itself so vividly to his lively imagination that he sprang up like one demented, and rushed down the courtyard and through the village, summoning his retainers and labourers in accents of frenzy. Those who were not in the cottages came running from the fields. When all were assembled, they were full of sympathy for their master's passionate despair, and cried with one voice that they would go on foot, if need be, to the rescue of Praskovya Ivanovna. In a short time three cars, drawn by teams of spirited horses from the stables of Bagrovo, and carrying a dozen men chosen for strength and courage, were galloping along the road to Parashino. The party included the fugitives from Parashino, and were armed with guns and swords, pikes and pitchforks. Later in the day two more cars followed to reinforce Stepan Mihailovitch; the men were armed in the same way; the horses were the best the peasants could produce. By the evening of the second day, the vanguard was within seven versts of Parashino. They fed the jaded horses, and in the first light of the summer dawn dashed into the wide courtyard and drove straight up to the cellar. It was close to the rooms occupied by Kurolyessoff. Stepan Mihailovitch jumped out and began to beat his fist against the wooden door of the cellar. A voice faintly asked, "Who is there?" My grandfather recognised his cousin's voice; dropping a tear of joy that he had found her alive, and crossing himself, he called out in a loud voice, "Thank God! It is your cousin, Stepan Mihailovitch; you are safe now!" He sent off the servants from Choorassovo to get ready Praskovya Ivanovna's carriage, and posted six armed men to defend the gate, while he himself and the rest of his men applied axes and crowbars to the cellar-door. It gave way in a moment; and Stepan Mihailovitch himself carried out Praskovya Ivanovna, placed her on a car between himself and her faithful maid, and drove unmolested out of the courtyard with all his retainers. The sun was rising as they drove past the church, and his first beams lit up the Cross on the roof. It was just six days since Praskovya Ivanovna had prayed with her eyes fixed on that Cross; and now she prayed again and thanked God for her deliverance. The carriage caught them up, when they were five versts from Parashino; and Stepan Mihailovitch moved his cousin into the carriage and drove with her back to Bagrovo.
But I shall be asked, "How did all this happen? did no one see it? what had become of Kurolyessoff and his trusty retainers? is it possible that he was unaware of it or absent at the time?" No: the liberation of Praskovya Ivanovna took place before many witnesses; and Kurolyessoff was at home and knew what was going on, but did not venture to show his face.