PAGE 6
The Black Monk
by
III
After supper, when the visitors had gone, he went to his room and lay down on the sofa: he wanted to think about the monk. But a minute later Tanya came in.
“Here, Andryusha; read father’s articles,” she said, giving him a bundle of pamphlets and proofs. “They are splendid articles. He writes capitally.”
“Capitally, indeed!” said Yegor Semyonitch, following her and smiling constrainedly; he was ashamed. “Don’t listen to her, please; don’t read them! Though, if you want to go to sleep, read them by all means; they are a fine soporific.”
“I think they are splendid articles,” said Tanya, with deep conviction. “You read them, Andryusha, and persuade father to write oftener. He could write a complete manual of horticulture.”
Yegor Semyonitch gave a forced laugh, blushed, and began uttering the phrases usually made us of by an embarrassed author. At last he began to give way.
“In that case, begin with Gaucher’s article and these Russian articles,” he muttered, turning over the pamphlets with a trembling hand, “or else you won’t understand. Before you read my objections, you must know what I am objecting to. But it’s all nonsense . . . tiresome stuff. Besides, I believe it’s bedtime.”
Tanya went away. Yegor Semyonitch sat down on the sofa by Kovrin and heaved a deep sigh.
“Yes, my boy . . .” he began after a pause. “That’s how it is, my dear lecturer. Here I write articles, and take part in exhibitions, and receive medals. . . . Pesotsky, they say, has apples the size of a head, and Pesotsky, they say, has made his fortune with his garden. In short, ‘Kotcheby is rich and glorious.’ But one asks oneself: what is it all for? The garden is certainly fine, a model. It’s not really a garden, but a regular institution, which is of the greatest public importance because it marks, so to say, a new era in Russian agriculture and Russian industry. But, what’s it for? What’s the object of it?”
“The fact speaks for itself.”
“I do not mean in that sense. I meant to ask: what will happen to the garden when I die? In the condition in which you see it now, it would not be maintained for one month without me. The whole secret of success lies not in its being a big garden or a great number of labourers being employed in it, but in the fact that I love the work. Do you understand? I love it perhaps more than myself. Look at me; I do everything myself. I work from morning to night: I do all the grafting myself, the pruning myself, the planting myself. I do it all myself: when any one helps me I am jealous and irritable till I am rude. The whole secret lies in loving it– that is, in the sharp eye of the master; yes, and in the master’s hands, and in the feeling that makes one, when one goes anywhere for an hour’s visit, sit, ill at ease, with one’s heart far away, afraid that something may have happened in the garden. But when I die, who will look after it? Who will work? The gardener? The labourers? Yes? But I will tell you, my dear fellow, the worst enemy in the garden is not a hare, not a cockchafer, and not the frost, but any outside person.”
“And Tanya?” asked Kovrin, laughing. “She can’t be more harmful than a hare? She loves the work and understands it.”
“Yes, she loves it and understands it. If after my death the garden goes to her and she is the mistress, of course nothing better could be wished. But if, which God forbid, she should marry,” Yegor Semyonitch whispered, and looked with a frightened look at Kovrin, “that’s just it. If she marries and children come, she will have no time to think about the garden. What I fear most is: she will marry some fine gentleman, and he will be greedy, and he will let the garden to people who will run it for profit, and everything will go to the devil the very first year! In our work females are the scourge of God!”