Again striking his head against both doors, Nekhludoff went out into the street, where the pink and the white boys were waiting for him. A few newcomers were standing with them. Among the women, of whom several had babies in their arms, was the thin woman with the baby who had the patchwork cap on its head. She held lightly in her arms the bloodless infant, who kept strangely smiling all over its wizened little face, and continually moving its crooked thumbs.
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聂赫留朵夫知道这是一种痛苦的笑容。他打听这个女人是谁。
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Nekhludoff knew the smile to be one of suffering. He asked who the woman was.
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“她就是我对你说的那个阿尼霞,”岁数大些的男孩说。
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"It is that very Anisia I told you about," said the elder boy.
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聂赫留朵夫转身招呼阿尼霞。
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Nekhludoff turned to Anisia.
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“你的日子过得怎么样?”他问。“你靠什么过活?”
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"How do you live?" he asked. "By what means do you gain your livelihood?"
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“怎么过活吗?要饭,”阿尼霞说着哭起来。
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"How do I live? I go begging," said Anisia, and began to cry.
Nekhludoff took out his pocket-book, and gave the woman a 10-rouble note. He had not had time to take two steps before another woman with a baby caught him up, then an old woman, then another young one. All of them spoke of their poverty, and asked for help. Nekhludoff gave them the 60 roubles--all in small notes--which he had with him, and, terribly sad at heart, turned home, i.e., to the foreman’s house.
The foreman met Nekhludoff with a smile, and informed him that the peasants would come to the meeting in the evening. Nekhludoff thanked him, and went straight into the garden to stroll along the paths strewn over with the petals of apple-blossom and overgrown with weeds, and to think over all he had seen.
At first all was quiet, but soon Nekhludoff heard from behind the foreman’s house two angry women’s voices interrupting each other, and now and then the voice of the ever-smiling foreman. Nekhludoff listened.
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“我已经精疲力竭了,你为什么还要撕下我脖子上的十字架?”一个女人的愤怒声音说。
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"My strength’s at an end. What are you about, dragging the very cross [those baptized in the Russo-Greek Church always wear a cross round their necks] off my neck," said an angry woman’s voice.
"But she only got in for a moment," said another voice. "Give it her back, I tell you. Why do you torment the beast, and the children, too, who want their milk?"
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“你得赔钱,或者做工来抵偿,”管家若无其事地回答。
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"Pay, then, or work it off," said the foreman’s voice.
Nekhludoff left the garden and entered the porch, near which stood two dishevelled women--one of them pregnant and evidently near her time. On one of the steps of the porch, with his hands in the pockets of his holland coat, stood the foreman. When they saw the master, the women were silent, and began arranging the kerchiefs on their heads, and the foreman took his hands out of his pockets and began to smile.
This is what had happened. From the foreman’s words, it seemed that the peasants were in the habit of letting their calves and even their cows into the meadow belonging to the estate. Two cows belonging to the families of these two women were found in the meadow, and driven into the yard. The foreman demanded from the women 30 copecks for each cow or two days’ work.
The women, however, maintained that the cows had got into the meadow of their own accord; that they had no money, and asked that the cows, which had stood in the blazing sun since morning without food, piteously lowing, should he returned to them, even if it had to be on the understanding that the price should be worked off later on.
"How often have I not begged of you," said the smiling foreman, looking back at Nekhludoff as if calling upon him to be a witness, "if you drive your cattle home at noon, that you should have an eye on them?"
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“我刚跑开去看看我的娃娃,那些畜生就走掉了。”
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"I only ran to my little one for a bit, and they got away."
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“你既然在放牛,就不能随便走掉。”
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"Don’t run away when you have undertaken to watch the cows."
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“那么叫谁去喂娃娃呢?总不能要你去喂奶吧。”
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"And who’s to feed the little one? You’d not give him the breast, I suppose?"
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“要是牲口真的踩坏了草场,那我们也没有话说,可是它刚跑进去。”
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"Now, if they had really damaged the meadow, one would not take it so much to heart; but they only strayed in a moment."
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“整个草场都被踩坏了,”管家对聂赫留朵夫说。“要是不处分她们,将来一点干草都收不到。”
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"All the meadows are damaged," the foreman said, turning to Nekhludoff. "If I exact no penalty there will be no hay."
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“哎,别造孽了,”怀孕的女人叫道。“我的牲口从来没有被人捉住过。”
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"There, now, don’t go sinning like that; my cows have never been caught there before," shouted the pregnant woman.
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“喏,这会儿可捉住了,你要么罚款,要么做工抵偿。”
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"Now that one has been caught, pay up or work it off."
"All right, I’ll work it off; only let me have the cow now, don’t torture her with hunger," she cried, angrily. "As it is, I have no rest day or night. Mother-in-law is ill, husband taken to drink; I’m all alone to do all the work, and my strength’s at an end. I wish you’d choke, you and your working it off."
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聂赫留朵夫叫管家把牛放了,自己走到花园里继续想心事,但现在已没有什么可想的了。
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Nekhludoff asked the foreman to let the women take the cows, and went back into the garden to go on thinking out his problem, but there was nothing more to think about.
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他觉得事情一清二楚,因此弄不懂像这样清楚的问题人家怎么看不出,他自己又怎么这样长久一直没有看出来。
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Everything seemed so clear to him now that he could not stop wondering how it was that everybody did not see it, and that he himself had for such a long while not seen what was so clearly evident.
The people were dying out, and had got used to the dying-out process, and had formed habits of life adapted to this process: there was the great mortality among the children, the over-working of the women, the under-feeding, especially of the aged. And so gradually had the people come to this condition that they did not realise the full horrors of it, and did not complain.
Therefore, we consider their condition natural and as it should be. Now it seemed as clear as daylight that the chief cause of the people’s great want was one that they themselves knew and always pointed out, i.e., that the land which alone could feed them had been taken from them by the landlords.
And how evident it was that the children and the aged died because they had no milk, and they had no milk because there was no pasture land, and no land to grow corn or make hay on. It was quite evident that all the misery of the people or, at least by far the greater part of it, was caused by the fact that the land which should feed them was not in their hands, but in the hands of those who, profiting by their rights to the land, live by the work of these people.
The land so much needed by men was tilled by these people, who were on the verge of starvation, so that the corn might be sold abroad and the owners of the land might buy themselves hats and canes, and carriages and bronzes, etc. He understood this as clearly as he understood that horses when they have eaten all the grass in the inclosure where they are kept will have to grow thin and starve unless they are put where they can get food off other land.
This was terrible, and must not go on. Means must be found to alter it, or at least not to take part in it. "And I will find them," he thought, as he walked up and down the path under the birch trees.
In scientific circles, Government institutions, and in the papers we talk about the causes of the poverty among the people and the means of ameliorating their condition; but we do not talk of the only sure means which would certainly lighten their condition, i.e., giving back to them the land they need so much.
Henry George’s fundamental position recurred vividly to his mind and how he had once been carried away by it, and he was surprised that he could have forgotten it. The earth cannot be any one’s property; it cannot be bought or sold any more than water, air, or sunshine. All have an equal right to the advantages it gives to men. And now he knew why he had felt ashamed to remember the transaction at Kousminski.
He had been deceiving himself. He knew that no man could have a right to own land, yet he had accepted this right as his, and had given the peasants something which, in the depth of his heart, he knew he had no right to. Now he would not act in this way, and would alter the arrangement in Kousminski also.
And he formed a project in his mind to let the land to the peasants, and to acknowledge the rent they paid for it to be their property, to be kept to pay the taxes and for communal uses. This was, of course, not the single-tax system, still it was as near an approach to it as could be had under existing circumstances. His chief consideration, however, was that in this way he would no longer profit by the possession of landed property.
When he returned to the house the foreman, with a specially pleasant smile, asked him if he would not have his dinner now, expressing the fear that the feast his wife was preparing, with the help of the girl with the earrings, might be overdone.
The table was covered with a coarse, unbleached cloth and an embroidered towel was laid on it in lieu of a napkin. A vieux-saxe soup tureen with a broken handle stood on the table, full of potato soup, the stock made of the fowl that had put out and drawn in his black leg, and was now cut, or rather chopped, in pieces, which were here and there covered with hairs.
After the soup more of the same fowl with the hairs was served roasted, and then curd pasties, very greasy, and with a great deal of sugar. Little appetising as all this was, Nekhludoff hardly noticed what he was eating; he was occupied with the thought which had in a moment dispersed the sadness with which he had returned from the village.
The foreman’s wife kept looking in at the door, whilst the frightened maid with the earrings brought in the dishes; and the foreman smiled more and more joyfully, priding himself on his wife’s culinary skill.
After dinner, Nekhludoff succeeded, with some trouble, in making the foreman sit down. In order to revise his own thoughts, and to express them to some one, he explained his project of letting the land to the peasants, and asked the foreman for his opinion.