The lady, his owner, had
brought him up from the village where he lived alone in a little hut,
apart from his brothers, and was reckoned about the most punctual of her
peasants in the payment of the seignorial dues. Endowed with
extraordinary strength, he did the work of four men; work flew apace
under his hands, and it was a pleasant sight to see him when he was
ploughing, while, with his huge palms pressing hard upon the plough, he
seemed alone, unaided by his poor horse, to cleave the yielding bosom of
the earth, or when, about St. Peter's Day, he plied his scythe with a
furious energy that might have mown a young birch copse up by the roots,
or swiftly and untiringly wielded a flail over two yards long; while the
hard oblong muscles of his shoulders rose and fell like a lever. His
perpetual silence lent a solemn dignity to his unwearying labor. He was
a splendid peasant, and, except for his affliction, any girl would have
been glad to marry him. . . But now they had taken Gerasim to Moscow,
bought him boots, had him made a full-skirted coat for summer, a
sheepskin for winter, put into his hand a broom and a spade, and
appointed him porter.
At first he intensely disliked his new mode of life.
Pages:
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25