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_p If the reader wishes to acquaint himself better with the aforementioned process, we would invite him Lo recall together with us the content of some of Mr. Karonin’s works. Since the time of their appearance in print is of no importance to us. we need not be concerned about their chronology.

p Let us begin with the story Dyoma’s Last Visit.

p A village meeting is in progress and all the inhabitants of Parashkino in attendance are extremely excited. They are arguing, shouting and abusing one another.

p Listening to their inconsistent, incoherent talk one would never imagine that the views of these people could have impressed Messrs. Narodniks by their “harmony”.

p In fact, the matter is very easily explained. The Parashkino villagers are confused. Strange things are beginning to happen more and more often in their village. Quite unexpectedly first one, then another member of the village commune appears al a village meeting, declares lirmly that he does not want to work the land any longer and asks to he relieved of his “souls”.

_p He is berated, abused and admonished, hut he stubbornly stands his ground and the villagers are finally forced to agree. There have been many such cases now in Parashkino. "Pyotr Bespalov—one? 93 Potapov—two? Klim Dalny—three?" the villagers count up. "Who else? And Iviryushka Savin—four? Then there was Semyon Belv—live? Semyon Chorny—six. There’s too many to count—Oh. you. rascals.... You vagabonds!" How can the villagers help being worried? For them (he question of the vagabonds is assuming the form of a completely insoluble financial problem. "So I leave my plot, then another leaves his. then a third.” the village orators thunder, "and we all go off and yon can whistle for us. Who will be left?... Who will pay, if we all run away? Eh? Who?!" On the day described in the story they tried to make the peasant Dyoma. who had decided to go over to the “vagabond” state, see reason by putting this fatal question to him. Dyoma was a meek man, but he stood firm like his predecessors. The villagers were forced to give way again, whether they liked it or not, and reconcile themselves to the fact that in his person the commune was losing yet another member.

p They went home with heavy hearts.

p “Had such things ever happened before? Had anyone ever heard of Parashkino folk thinking of nothing but how to do one another down and go off to goodness knows where?" the author asks. "No, such things had never happened, and the villagers had never heard the like of it.” he replies.

p “They used to be driven away from their nest, but kept coming back; each time they were knocked off it they would climb back to the place they had been ejected from!

_p “That time is past. Today the Parashkino man goes off without a thought of returning; he is glad to have got out while the going was good. He often leaves simply for the sake of leaving, of getting out. He is sick of staying at home, in the village; he needs a way out, even if it is like the hole they make in the ice to catch suffocating fish in winter.” Dyoma’s story briefly recounted by the author shows perfectly how this desire arises, matures and finally becomes irresistible, the desire of the peasant farmer to escape from the "power of the land" on which his ancestors lived for hundreds of years without oven thinking that a different kind of life was possible for people of their station. At one time Dyoma had lived in the village without ever leaving it and done his utmost to be a “real” peasant. But his efforts were in vain.

p The economic position of the Parashkino villagers was very unstable in general.

p With the abolition of serfdom, or, rather, when the peasants’ dependence on the landowners was replaced by a similar dependence on the state, they were allotted plots of “marshland”. Thus, in relation to the Parashkino peasants one could not speak of the "power of the land”, about which Gl. I. Uspensky writes, but only of the power of the “marshes”, with which the power of the police authorities was indissolubly linked.

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p The power of the “marshes” cannot be lasting. In addition, rewarded with the marshes the Parashkino peasants were burdened with incredibly heavy taxes.

p Given such a state of affairs it needed only a few yews of bad harvests, cattle plague or something of the sort to upset them once and for all.

p Naturally, disasters of this kind, apparently accidental, hut in fact produced by the economic insolvency of the peasants, were not long in descending upon Parashkino. The men began to leave the village. "They ran away in groups and singly.” Dyoma ran away with the others. He occasionally returned home, hut poverty immediately drove him away again, to find seasonal work. In general, his connection with the village had become, as the author puts it. ambiguous. "His first period after leaving flu- village Dyoma spent eating to his heart’s content. He was greedy, because he had grown very thin at home. The money which was left after his expenditure on food he spent on drink....

_p “At first Dyoma was very satisfied with the life he was loading. He breathed more freely. Freedom that consists in being able to move from place to place on an annual passport is amazing, of course, hut at least he had no need to complain from dawn to dusk as he had done in the village. His food also improved, i.e., he was sure that he would have something to eat the next day. whereas at home he could not have predicted this.” Nevertheless there were times when he felt intensely homesick for the village. He experienced a passionate desire to go there. "But as soon as Dyoma arrived in the village, he came over cold. After a while... he saw there was nothing for him to do there and that lie must not stay. So, after hanging about at home for a month or so. lie would set off on his wanderings again. With time his visits to Ike village grew less and less frequent. He was not drawn towards it as strongly as before, at the beginning of his vagabond life—"

p Then the time came when Dyoma grew to hate the village.

p “Arriving there he could not wait to leave again: at home he fretted and worried all the time. He was suddenly confronted by everything that he had run away from; in an instant he was submerged in the world which had formerly stifled him. However wretched the conditions of his factory life were, comparing them with those under which he had been forced to live in the village, he reached the conclusion that it was impossible to live in the mir.... Outside the village at least no one dared to lay hands on Dyoma, and he could leave a place that got him down and that he did not like; but you could not leave the village at any time.... However, the most important point was that outside the Village no one insulted him, whereas the village offered him a series of the most humiliating insults. His human dignity thai had been awakened by the contrast of the two lives suffered, and in Dyoma’s 95 mind the village became a place of torment. He unconsciously began to feel dislike for it. And this feeling grew and became stronger.” Dyoma had only to cut himself off somehow from his plot, of land for his link with the village to be severed forever Although he continued to be counted as a member of the commune, hecould only be called a peasant in the sense of his estate.  It would have been ridiculous to talk about the “harmony” of his agricultural “ideals”. For he no longer had any such ideals at all.

p “The old concepts and desires, with which he had lived in the. village, had been totally destroyed in him."

p Yet so great is the force of habit that when Dyoma came home for the last time he felt a pang of regret for his old. peasant way of life. "Once you’ve gone away and left your land, you’ll never come back again.” he said sadly, sitting in the company of the same “vagabonds” as himself, who were planning to set oft the next day for seasonal work.

_p All those with him felt the same. But they understood that their fate was sealed and therefore felt only anger at Dyoma for his pointless regrets. "And a good thing too,” retorted Potapov in reply to Dyoma’s idea that "there was no coming back for a man".

p ’"Why is it a good thing? It’s home after all!’ Dyoma said in surprise.

p “’It just is a good thing. And that’s that! You wouldn’t drag me back here with a lasso, it don’t suit me.’

p ’"Still, you can’t help feeling sorry for your house, if it’s falling to bits,’ remarked Pyotr Bespalov.

p ’"Let it fall to bits. It’s nothing like sumptuous, because it’s: all rotten!’ joked Klim Dalny, but no one agreed with him.

p ’"That’s what I’m saying: you go away and your farm goes to, rack and ruin,’ insisted Dyoma, who was obviously obsessed by the idea of his eventual ruin.

p ’"Everyone knows that,’ came the displeased retort from Kiryushka Savin, annoyed by the depressing monotony of the conversation. ’Why keep repeating: you went away! As if we don’t know without you telling us. It makes a man sick!’"

p The unexpected death of Dyoma’s wife, who had incidentally been "on her back" for a long time, delayed his departure only by the short time required for the funeral. The very next day after the funeral the “vagabonds” set off early in the morning.

_p ’"Come back and see me, lad.’ said Dyoma’s old mother quietly, trying not to show her emotion.

p ’"We may never meet again,’ he replied pensively."

p Dyoma was followed by others. The disintegration of the Parashkino commune progressed rapidly. The inexorable force of economic necessity drove Ihe peasant from the land, reducing all his attachments as a tiller of the soil to nothing. Here we have the jolly peasant Minai Osipov (Minai’s Fantastic Plans). He is the 96 world’s greatest dreamer, a kind of Don Quixote of farming. To ".stun" him. as the author puts it. i.e.. to show him plainly the hopelessness of his economic position, was very difficult. "It is as if lie has acquired the habit of looking at things superficially in his blood from his forefathers.” His supplies of grain never last until the next harvest because the plot of “marshland” allotted to him refuses to reward his labours. He has little cattle and his house is really falling to pieces. But the Parashkino Don Quixote is not disheartened. He comforts himself with "fantastic plans" for the future. "He would come back from his winter carrier’s job, take off his coat and boots, lie down on the stove sleeping bench ami begin to dream. There he would invent all mauner of things, imagining countless strokes of luck and admiring his own creations__ His imagination knew no bounds—In the end it always turned out that there was enough graiu and the taxes were paid.” The miracles on which Minai counted to put his farm in order were of a double nature. Some belonged to the sphere of phenomena of nature in the narrow sense of the word and amounted mainly to the good harvest with which, to his mind, he should be rewarded for his labours on the “marshes”. The others were closely connected with his views on the tsar as the defender of the peasants’ interests, who was bound to realise eventually that no paying power could be based on the meagre income from the “marshes”. Minai sometimes dreamed of a "Black Bank" that would enable eacli peasant to purchase as much land as he liked, sometimes of an even more joyous event—the famous chorny peredel™, which he called “pridel”.  You see, a peasant he knew called Zakliar had told him at the market that "we’ll soon have the pride I, and that’s for sure, no doubt about it”. And Minai bore the cross of the Russian peasant farmer that had fallen to his lot not only patiently, but even joyfully, with jokes and quips. He loved his house and his commune and was ready to light to the last for any of the mir’s "commoonal causes”. But sad reality nevertheless often gained the upper hand over his fantasies. This happened more often than not when he had a drop to drink. "Listen. Dunka,” he would shout, returning home from the tavern. "Listen, Dunka, we won’t have any bread ... never again, not a scrap ... no more bread! Won’t have any more bread!" Minai would then start crying and his wife, Fedosya, would try and put him to bed as quickly as possible.

p This sombre mood would disappear, it is true, with the wine fumes, but not without trace. From time to time thoughts occurred to Minai that did not Tit in at all well with his role of commune member. He was troubled by the kulak Yepifan Ivanov, or simply Yepishka. This parasite had once been a wretched good-fornothing who sold rotten fish at the town market. Then he managed to get to Parashkino where he opened a drinking house and began to 97 make money. By the time in question in Mr. Karonin’s sketch he had the villagers completely in his hands. It was his example that made Minai start thinking.

p “Minai often forgot about Yepishka for a long time, but when things were very hard, he would remember him. Yepishka used to creep in and suddenly appear before him, smashing all his old ideas and making his dreams take a different turn. The main thing was that Yepishka did well at everything; was this perhaps because he had no ’commoon’?"

_p He found himself dwelling more and more on this explanation, fatal for the “ideals” of the commune. "Yepishka is not tied to anything, Yepishka is not bound to anything; Yepishka can go anywhere he likes.... As long as he’s got the money, nothing else matters.... Minai was inevitably coming to the conclusion that to be successful the following conditions were necessary: to have no relatives, acquaintances or ’commoon’—to live on one’s own. To be cut off from everything and go wherever you liked.... For Minai Yepishka was a fact that shook him to the very core. Having reached his own, primitive conclusion from this he proceeded to meditate further.” "Sometimes he arrived at the idea of breaking all the ’commoonal’ ties that bound him by running away. The ’commoon’ appeared to him as an enemy from whom he must escape as quickly as possible. But escaping was not easy for this poor dreamer, either. For a number of reasons. Firstly, Yepishka was not only a man free of social burdens, but also a man with money, and money was precisely what our hero did not possess. Moreover, Minai knew perfectly well that the ’commoon’ did not let its members go off to the end of earth that easily. And wherever Minai roamed in his imagination, the following scene always flashed through his mind:

_p “’Is Minai Osipov here?’

_p “’I am Minai Osipov.’

p ’"Flog him, lads....’

p “This idea haunted him. No matter where he went on his imaginary wanderings, he eventually agreed that he would be found, brought back and flogged."

p This circumstance alone, which said so much in favour of the indestructibility of the “foundations”, was enough to slow down Minai’s flights of fantasy. Finally, the deeply rooted habit of society also made itself felt. "Minai would only forget it for a moment. But when he dwelt for a long time on a picture of the solitary life, he would suddenly be overcome with anguish."

’"How could I live like that?’ he would ask himself in amazement. ’It would mean I was a wolf, wouldn’t it? And apart from my lair I wouldn’t have anywhere else to go, would I?’ There would be no more sitting outside the peasant huts, where he used to crack jokes and chat with the other villagers on holidays, no village

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98 meetings at which he shouted and raged,—nothing! ’A wolf,’ Minai concluded his reflections. Anguish, which could be understood by him alone, would seize him so violently that he cursed Yepishka and stopped thinking about trying to imitate him."

p When people cling to the given social relations merely through force of habit, whereas in fact reality is going against this habit, one can say confidently that these relations are nearing their end. In one way or other they will be replaced by a new social order, on the basis of which new habits will arise. Although our Don Quixote was horrified by the thought of breaking away from the commune, his link with it had already been undermined once and for all. It had no real basis. "It is only a temporary check,” says Karonin. "The time will come when the Parashkino commune will melt away, because Yepishka’s arrival was no accident—He heralds the coming of another Yepishka, of many Yepishkas, who will befoul the Parashkino commune.” Minai, however, was forced to leave the village without waiting for the coming of the "many Yepishkas”. He "slipped off" to the town when his last, borrowed sack of flour finished and there was no one else to borrow from, because he was already in debt to all and sundry. In order to protect himself against unpleasant action on the part of the Parashkino “commoon”, which could, with the help of the authorities, catch him, bring him back and flog him at the uolost headquarters. Minai had to enter into secret negotiations with the clerk Semyonych, who gave him an annual passport. The commune, now incapable of maintaining the welfare of its members, could still do much to thwart their attempts to settle in a new place.

In his letters to his wife Minai indulged in fantasies as before. He assured her that he would soon earn lots of money and that they would buy a new house and begin "to live like a proper family with the children”. But the author does not say whether his hero’s new "fantastic plans" came true.