will consists the following points will treat. I have ruled, my day is over!»
Martin Petrovitch put his round iron spectacles on his nose, took one of the written sheets from the table, and began:
«Deed of partition of the estate of the retired non-commissioned officer and nobleman, Martin Harlov, drawn up by himself in his full and right understanding, and by his own good judgment, and wherein is precisely defined what benefits are assigned to his two daughters, Anna and Evlampia—bow!»—(they bowed), «and in what way the serfs and other property, and live stock, be apportioned between the said daughters! Under my hand!»
«This is their document!» the police-captain whispered to Kvitsinsky, with his invariable smile, «they want to read it for the beauty of the style, but the legal deed is made out formally, without all these flourishes.»
Souvenir was beginning to snigger. . . .
«In accordance with my will,» put in Harlov, who had caught the police captain’s remark.
«In accordance in every point,» the latter hastened to respond cheerfully; «only, as you’re aware, Martin Petrovitch, there’s no dispensing with formality. And unnecessary details have been removed. For the chamber can’t enter into the question of spotted cows and fancy drakes.»
«Come here!» boomed Harlov to his son-in-law, who had come into the room behind us, and remained standing with an obsequious air near the door. He skipped up to his father-in-law at once.
«There, take it and read! It’s hard for me. Only mind and don’t mumble it! Let all the gentlemen present be able to understand it.»
Sletkin took the paper in both hands, and began timidly, but distinctly, and with taste and feeling, to read the deed of partition. There was set forth in it with the greatest accuracy just what was assigned to Anna and what to Evlampia, and how the division was to be made. Harlov from time to time interspersed the reading with phrases. «Do you hear, that’s for you, Anna, for your zeal!» or, «That I give you, Evlampia!» and both the sisters bowed, Anna from the waist, Evlampia simply with a motion of the head. Harlov looked at them with stern dignity. «The farm house» (the little new building) was assigned by him to Evlampia, as the younger daughter, «by the well-known custom.» The reader’s voice quivered and resounded at these words, unfavourable for himself; while Zhitkov licked his lips. Evlampia gave him a sidelong glance; had I been in Zhitkov’s shoes, I should not have liked that glance. The scornful expression, characteristic of Evlampia, as of every genuine Russian beauty, had a peculiar shade at that moment. For himself, Martin Petrovitch reserved the right to go on living in the rooms he occupied, and assigned to himself, under the name of «rations,» a full allowance «of normal provisions,» and ten roubles a month for clothes. The last phrase of the deed Harlov wished to read himself. «And this my parental will,» it ran, «to carry out and observe is a sacred and binding duty on my daughters, seeing it is a command; seeing that I am, after God, their father and head, and am not bounden to render an account to any, nor have so rendered. And do they carry out my will, so will my fatherly blessing be with them, but should they not so do, which God forbid, then will they be overtaken by my paternal curse that cannot be averted, now and for ever, amen!» Harlov raised the deed high above his head. Anna at once dropped on her knees and touched the ground with her forehead; her husband, too, doubled up after her. «Well, and you?» Harlov turned to Evlampia. She crimsoned all over, and she too bowed to the earth; Zhitkov bent his whole carcase forward.
«Sign!» cried Harlov, pointing his forefinger to the bottom of the deed. «Here: ‘I thank and accept, Anna. I thank and accept, Evlampia!'»
Both daughters rose, and signed one after another. Sletkin rose too, and was feeling after the pen, but Harlov moved him aside, sticking his middle finger into his cravat, so that he gasped. The silence lasted a moment. Suddenly Martin Petrovitch gave a sort of sob, and muttering, «Well, now it’s all yours!» moved away. His daughters and son-in-law looked at one another, went up to him and began kissing him just above his elbow. His shoulder they could not reach. XIII
THE police captain read the real formal document, the deed of gift, drawn up by Martin Petrovitch. Then he went out on to the steps with the attorney and explained what had taken place to the crowd assembled at the gates, consisting of the witnesses required by law and other people from the neighbourhood, Harlov’s peasants, and a few house-serfs. Then began the ceremony of the new owners entering into possession. They came out, too, upon the steps, and the police captain pointed to them when, slightly scowling with one eyebrow, while his careless face assumed for an instant a threatening air, he exhorted the crowd to «subordination.» He might well have dispensed with these exhortations: a less unruly set of countenances than those of the Harlov peasants, I imagine, have never existed in creation. Clothed in thin smocks and torn sheepskins, but very tightly girt round their waists, as is always the peasants’ way on solemn occasions, they stood motionless as though cut out of stone, and whenever the police captain uttered any exclamation such as, «D’ye hear, you brutes? d’ye understand, you devils?» they suddenly bowed all at once, as though at the word of command. Each of these «brutes and devils» held his cap tight in both hands, and never took his eyes off the window, where Martin Petrovitch’s figure was visible. The witnesses themselves were hardly less awed. «Is any impediment known to you,» the police captain roared at them, «against the entrance into possession of these the sole and legitimate heirs and daughters of Martin Petrovitch Harlov?»
All the witnesses seemed to huddle together at once.
«Do you know any, you devils?» the police captain shouted again.
«We know nothing, your excellency,» responded sturdily a little old man, marked with small-pox, with a clipped beard and whiskers, an old soldier.
«I say! Eremeitch’s a bold fellow!» the witnesses said of him as they dispersed.
In spite of the police captain’s entreaties, Harlov would not come out with his daughters on to the steps. «My subjects will obey my will without that!» he answered. Something like sadness had come over him on the completion of the conveyance. His face had grown pale. This new unprecedented expression of sadness looked so out of place on Martin Petrovitch’s broad and kindly features that I positively was at a loss what to think. Was an attack of melancholy coming over him? The peasants, on their side, too, were obviously puzzled. And no wonder! «The master’s alive,—there he stands, and such a master, too; Martin Petrovitch! And all of a sudden he won’t be their owner. . . . A queer thing!» I don’t know whether Harlov had an inkling of the notions that were straying through his «subjects'» heads, or whether he wanted to display his power for the last time, but he suddenly opened the little window, stuck his head out, and shouted in a voice of thunder, «obedience!» Then he slammed-to the window. The peasants’ bewilderment was certainly not dispelled nor decreased by this proceeding. They became stonier than ever, and even seemed to cease looking at anything. The group of house-serfs (among them were two sturdy wenches, in short chintz gowns, with muscles such as one might perhaps match in Michael Angelo’s «Last Judgment,» and one utterly decrepit old man, hoary with age and half blind, in a threadbare frieze cloak, rumoured to have been «cornet-player» in the days of Potemkin,—the page Maximka, Harlov had reserved for himself) this group showed more life than the peasants; at least, it moved restlessly about. The new mistresses themselves were very dignified in their attitude, especially Anna. Her thin lips tightly compressed, she looked obstinately down . . . her stern figure augured little good to the house-serfs. Evlampia, too, did not raise her eyes; only once she turned round and deliberately, as it were with surprise, scanned her betrothed, Zhitkov, who had thought fit, following Sletkin, to come out, too, on to the steps. «What business have you here?» those handsome prominent eyes seemed to demand. Sletkin was the most changed of all. A bustling cheeriness showed itself in his whole bearing, as though he were overtaken by hunger; the movements of his head and his legs were as obsequious as ever, but how gleefully he kept working his arms, how fussily he twitched his shoulder-blades. «Arrived at last!» he seemed to say. Having finished the ceremony of the entrance into possession, the police captain, whose mouth was literally watering at the prospect of lunch, rubbed his hands in that peculiar manner which usually precedes the tossing-off of the first glass of spirits. But it appeared that Martin Petrovitch wished first to have a service performed with sprinklings of holy water. The priest put on an ancient and decrepit chasuble; a decrepit deacon came out of the kitchen, with difficulty kindling the incense in an old brazen church-vessel. The service began. Harlov sighed continually; he was unable, owing to his corpulence, to bow to the ground, but crossing himself with his right hand and bending his head, he pointed with the forefinger of his left hand to the floor. Sletkin positively beamed and even shed tears. Zhitkov, with dignity, in martial fashion, flourished his fingers only
