From the crowd assembled in front of the house of the village elder came the sound of voices; but as soon as Nekhludoff came up the talking ceased, and all the peasants took off their caps, just as those in Kousminski had done. The peasants here were of a much poorer class than those in Kousminski. The men wore shoes made of bark and homespun shirts and coats. Some had come straight from their work in their shirts and with bare feet.
Nekhludoff made an effort, and began his speech by telling the peasants of his intention to give up his land to them altogether. The peasants were silent, and the expression on their faces did not undergo any change.
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“因为我认为,”聂赫留朵夫涨红了脸说,“不种地的不应该占有土地,而且人人都有权使用土地。”
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"Because I hold," said Nekhludoff, "and believe that every one has a right to the use of the land."
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“这个当然。这话说得很对,”几个农民响应说。
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"That’s certain. That’s so, exactly," said several voices.
Nekhludoff went on to say that the revenue from the land ought to be divided among all, and that he would therefore suggest that they should rent the land at a price fixed by themselves, the rent to form a communal fund for their own use. Words of approval and agreement were still to be heard, but the serious faces of the peasants grew still more serious, and the eyes that had been fixed on the gentleman dropped, as if they were unwilling to put him to shame by letting him see that every one had understood his trick, and that no one would be deceived by him.
Nekhludoff spoke clearly, and the peasants were intelligent, but they did not and could not understand him, for the same reason that the foreman had so long been unable to understand him.
They were fully convinced that it is natural for every man to consider his own interest. The experience of many generations had proved to them that the landlords always considered their own interest to the detriment of the peasants. Therefore, if a landlord called them to a meeting and made them some kind of a new offer, it could evidently only be in order to swindle them more cunningly than before.
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“那么,你们打算定个什么价钱使用土地呢?”聂赫留朵夫问。
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"Well, then, what are you willing to rent the land at?" asked Nekhludoff.
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“怎么要我们来定价钱?我们可不能定。地是您老爷的,权柄在您老爷手里,”人群中有人回答。
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"How can we fix a price? We cannot do it. The land is yours, and the power is in your hands," answered some voices from among the crowd.
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“不,这些钱将来都要用在你们村社的公益事业上。”
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"Oh, not at all. You will yourselves have the use of the money for communal purposes."
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“这我们不能定。村社是村社,钱是钱。”
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"We cannot do it; the commune is one thing, and this is another."
"Don’t you understand?" said the foreman, with a smile (he had followed Nekhludoff to the meeting), "the Prince is letting the land to you for money, and is giving you the money back to form a capital for the commune."
"We understand very well," said a cross, toothless old man, without raising his eyes. "Something like a bank; we should have to pay at a fixed time. We do not wish it; it is hard enough as it is, and that would ruin us completely."
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“这一套用不着。我们还是照老规矩办吧,”有几个人发出不满意的、甚至粗鲁的声音。
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"That’s no go. We prefer to go on the old way," began several dissatisfied, and even rude, voices.
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聂赫留朵夫提出要立一个契约,他将在上面签字,他们也得签字。他们听了,反对得更加激烈。
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The refusals grew very vehement when Nekhludoff mentioned that he would draw up an agreement which would have to be signed by him and by them.
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“签字干什么?以前我们怎样干活,以后还是怎样干活。要来这一套干什么?我们都是大老粗,没有文化。”
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"Why sign? We shall go on working as we have done hitherto. What is all this for? We are ignorant men."
"We can’t agree, because this sort of thing is not what we have been used to. As it was, so let it continue to be. Only the seeds we should like to withdraw."
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所谓取消种子,就是说,照现行规矩,在对分制的农田上种子应由农民出,现在他们要求种子由地主出。
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This meant that under the present arrangement the seeds had to be provided by the peasants, and they wanted the landlord to provide them.
"Then am I to understand that you refuse to accept the land?" Nekhludoff asked, addressing a middle-aged, barefooted peasant, with a tattered coat, and a bright look on his face, who was holding his worn cap with his left hand, in a peculiarly straight position, in the same way soldiers hold theirs when commanded to take them off.
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“是,老爷,”这个农民说,显然还没有改掉士兵的习惯,一听到口令,就好像中了催眠术。
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"Just so," said this peasant, who had evidently not yet rid himself of the military hypnotism he had been subjected to while serving his time.
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“这么说,你们的地够种啦?”聂赫留朵夫说。
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"It means that you have sufficient land," said Nekhludoff.
"No, sir, we have not," said the ex-soldier, with an artificially pleased look, carefully holding his tattered cap in front of him, as if offering it to any one who liked to make use of it.
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“嗯,你们还是把我的话好好琢磨琢磨吧,”聂赫留朵夫感到困感不解,把他的建议又说了一遍。
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"Well, anyhow, you’d better think over what I have said." Nekhludoff spoke with surprise, and again repeated his offer.
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“我们没什么好琢磨的。我们怎么说就怎么做,”脸色阴沉、牙齿脱落的老头儿怒气冲冲地说。
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"We have no need to think about it; as we have said, so it will be," angrily muttered the morose, toothless old man.
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“我明天还要在这儿待一天。你们要是改变主意,就派人来同我说。”
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"I shall remain here another day, and if you change your minds, send to let me know."
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农民们什么也没有回答。
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The peasants gave no answer.
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聂赫留朵夫就这样一无所获,回到帐房里。
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So Nekhludoff did not succeed in arriving at any result from this interview.
"If I might make a remark, Prince," said the foreman, when they got home, "you will never come to any agreement with them; they are so obstinate. At a meeting these people just stick in one place, and there is no moving them. It is because they are frightened of everything.
Why, these very peasants--say that white-haired one, or the dark one, who were refusing, are intelligent peasants. When one of them comes to the office and one makes him sit down to cup of tea it’s like in the Palace of Wisdom--he is quite diplomatist," said the foreman, smiling; "he will consider everything rightly. At a meeting it’s a different man--he keeps repeating one and the same . . ."
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“那么,能不能找几个最明白事理的农民到这儿来,”聂赫留朵夫说,“我想给他们详细解释解释。”
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"Well, could not some of the more intelligent men he asked to come here?" said Nekhludoff. "I would carefully explain it to them."
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“这个行,”管家笑嘻嘻地说。
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"That can he done," said the smiling foreman.
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“那么就请您约他们明天来一下。”
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"Well, then, would you mind calling them here to-morrow?"
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“这都好办,我召集他们明天来就是了,”管家说,更加欢畅地笑了笑。
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"Oh, certainly I will," said the foreman, and smiled still more joyfully. "I shall call them to-morrow."
"Just hear him; he’s not artful, not he," said a blackhaired peasant, with an unkempt beard, as he sat jolting from side to side on a well-fedmare, addressing an old man in a torn coat who rode by his side. The two men were driving a herd of the peasants’ horses to graze in the night, alongside the highroad and secretly, in the landlord’s forest.
"Give you the land for nothing--you need only sign--have they not done the likes of us often enough? No, my friend, none of your humbug. Nowadays we have a little sense," he added, and began shouting at a colt that had strayed.
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他想把马驹叫住,可是回头一看,马驹不在后面,而是往斜里闯到草场上去了。
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He stopped his horse and looked round, but the colt had not remained behind; it had gone into the meadow by the roadside.
"Bother that son of a Turk; he’s taken to getting into the landowner’s meadows," said the dark peasant with the unkempt beard, hearing the cracking of the sorrel stalks that the neighing colt was galloping over as he came running back from the scented meadow.
"Do you hear the cracking? We’ll have to send the women folk to weed the meadow when there’s a holiday," said the thin peasant with the torn coat, "or else we’ll blunt our scythes."