The southern spring, the easy, rapid journey in his Vienna carriage, and the solitude of the road, had a gladdening influence on Pierre. The estates, which he had not before visited, were one more picturesque than the other; the peasantry seemed everywhere thriving, and touchingly grateful for the benefits conferred on them. Everywhere he was met by welcomes, which though they embarrassed Pierre, yet at the bottom of his heart rejoiced him. At one place the peasants had brought him bread and salt and the images of Peter and Paul, and begged permission in honour of his patron saints, Peter and Paul, and in token of love and gratitude for the benefits conferred on them, to erect at their own expense a new chapel in the church. At another place he was welcomed by women with babies in their arms, who came to thank him for being released from the obligation of heavy labour. In a third place he was met by a priest with a cross, surrounded by children, whom by the favour of the count he was instructing in reading and writing and religion. On all his estates Pierre saw with his own eyes stone buildings erected, or in course of erection, all on one plan, hospitals, schools, and almshouses, which were in short time to be opened. Everywhere Pierre saw the steward’s reckoning of service due to him diminished in comparison with the past, and heard touching thanks for what was remitted from deputations of peasants in blue, full-skirted coats.
But Pierre did not know that where they brought him bread and salt and were building a chapel of Peter and Paul there was a trading village, and a fair on St. Peter’s day, that the chapel had been built long ago by wealthy peasants of the village, and that nine-tenths of the peasants of that village were in the utmost destitution. He did not know that since by his orders nursing mothers were not sent to work on their master’s land, those same mothers did even harder work on their own bit of land. He did not know that the priest who met him with the cross oppressed the peasants with his exactions, and that the pupils gathered around him were yielded up to him with tears and redeemed for large sums by their parents. He did not know that the stone buildings were being raised by his labourers, and increased the forced labour of his peasants, which was only less upon paper. He did not know that where the steward pointed out to him in the account book the reduction of rent to one-third in accordance with his will, the labour exacted had been raised by one half. And so Pierre was enchanted by his journey over his estates, and came back completely to the philanthropic frame of mind in which he had left Petersburg, and wrote enthusiastic letters to his preceptor and ► brother, as he called the grand master.
'How easy it is, how little effort is needed to do so much good,’ thought Pierre, ‘and how little we trouble ourselves to do it!’
He was happy at the gratitude shown him, but abashed at receiving it. That gratitude reminded him how much more he could do for those simple, good-hearted people.
The head steward, a very stupid and crafty man, who thoroughly understood the clever and naive count, and played with him like a toy, seeing the effect produced on Pierre by these carefully arranged receptions, was bolder in advancing arguments to prove the impossibility, and even more, the uselessness of liberating the peasants, who were so perfectly happy without that.
In the recesses of his own heart, Pierre agreed with the steward that it was difficult to imagine people happier, and that there was no knowing what their future would be in freedom. But though reluctantly, he stuck to what he thought the right thing. The steward promised to use every effort to carry out the count’s wishes, perceiving clearly that the count would never be in a position to verify whether every measure had been taken for the sale of the forests and estates for the repayment of loans from the bank, would never probably even inquire, and would certainly never find out that the buildings, when finished, stood empty, and that the peasants were giving in labour and money just what they gave with other masters, that is, all that could be got out of them.
XI
Returning from his southern tour in the happiest frame of mind, Pierre carried out an intention he had long had, of visiting his friend Bolkonsky, whom he had not seen for two years.
Bogutcharovo lay in a flat, ugly part of the country, covered with fields and copses of fir and birch-trees, in parts cut down. The manor house was at the end of the straight village that ran along each side of the high road, behind an overflowing pond newly dug, and still bare of grass on its banks in the midst of a young copse, with several large pines standing among the smaller trees.
