he advent of Shatov or Virginsky,
when Stepan Trofimovitch was still living in the same house with Varvara
Petrovna. For some time before the great day Stepan Trofimovitch
fell into the habit of muttering to himself well-known, though rather
far-fetched, lines which must have been written by some liberal
landowner of the past:

_"The peasant with his axe is coming,_
_Something terrible will happen."_

Something of that sort, I don't remember the exact words. Varvara
Petrovna overheard him on one occasion, and crying, "Nonsense,
nonsense!" she went out of the room in a rage. Liputin, who happened to
be present, observed malignantly to Stepan Trofimovitch:

"It'll be a pity if their former serfs really do some mischief to
_messieurs les_ landowners to celebrate the occasion," and he drew his
forefinger round his throat.

"_Cher ami,_" Stepan Trofimovitch observed, "believe me that--this (he
repeated the gesture) will never be of any use to our landowners nor to
any of us in general. We shall never be capable of organising anything
even without our heads, though our heads hinder our understanding more
than anything."

I may observe that many people among us anticipated that something
extraordinary, such as Liputin predicted, would take place on the day
of the emancipation, and those who held this view were the so-called
"authorities" on the peasantry and the government. I believe Stepan
Trofimovitch shared this idea, so much so that almost on the eve of the
great day he began asking Varvara Petrovna's leave to go abroad; in fact
he began to be uneasy. But the great day passed, and some time
passed after it, and the condescending smile reappeared on Stepan
Trofimovitch's lips. In our presence he delivered himself of some
noteworthy thoughts on the character of the Russian in general, and the
Russian peasant in particular.

"Like hasty people we have been in too great a hurry with our peasants,"
he said in conclusion of a series of remarkable utterances. "We have
made them the fashion, and a whole section of writers have for several
years treated them as though they were newly discovered curiosities. We
have put laurel-wreaths on lousy heads. The Russian village has given us
only 'Kamarinsky' in a thousand years. A remarkable Russian poet who was
also something of a wit, seeing the great Rachel on the stage for the
first time cried in ecstasy, 'I wouldn't exchange Rachel for a peasant!'
I am prepared to go further. I