第127章

"Another reason why I started those factories," continued Kostanzhoglo, "is that they might give employment to many peasants who would otherwise have starved. You see, the year happened to have been a lean one--thanks to those same industry-mongering landowners, in that they had neglected to sow their crops; and now my factories keep growing at the rate of a factory a year, owing to the circumstance that such quantities of remnants and cuttings become so accumulated that, if a man looks carefully to his management, he will find every sort of rubbish to be capable of bringing in a return--yes, to the point of his having to reject money on the plea that he has no need of it. Yet I do not find that to do all this I require to build a mansion with facades and pillars!""Marvellous!" exclaimed Chichikov. "Beyond all things does it surprise me that refuse can be so utilised.""Yes, and that is what can be done by SIMPLE methods. But nowadays every one is a mechanic, and wants to open that money chest with an instrument instead of simply. For that purpose he hies him to England.

Yes, THAT is the thing to do. What folly!" Kostanzhoglo spat and added: "Yet when he returns from abroad he is a hundred times more ignorant than when he went.""Ah, Constantine," put in his wife anxiously, "you know how bad for you it is to talk like this.""Yes, but how am I to help losing my temper? The thing touches me too closely, it vexes me too deeply to think that the Russian character should be degenerating. For in that character there has dawned a sort of Quixotism which never used to be there. Yes, no sooner does a man get a little education into his head than he becomes a Don Quixote, and establishes schools on his estate such as even a madman would never have dreamed of. And from that school there issues a workman who is good for nothing, whether in the country or in the town--a fellow who drinks and is for ever standing on his dignity. Yet still our landowners keep taking to philanthropy, to converting themselves into philanthropic knights-errant, and spending millions upon senseless hospitals and institutions, and so ruining themselves and turning their families adrift. Yes, that is all that comes of philanthropy."Chichikov's business had nothing to do with the spread of enlightenment, he was but seeking an opportunity to inquire further concerning the putting of refuse to lucrative uses; but Kostanzhoglo would not let him get a word in edgeways, so irresistibly did the flow of sarcastic comment pour from the speaker's lips.

"Yes," went on Kostanzhoglo, "folk are always scheming to educate the peasant. But first make him well-off and a good farmer. THEN he will educate himself fast enough. As things are now, the world has grown stupid to a degree that passes belief. Look at the stuff our present-day scribblers write! Let any sort of a book be published, and at once you will see every one making a rush for it. Similarly will you find folk saying: 'The peasant leads an over-simple life. He ought to be familiarised with luxuries, and so led to yearn for things above his station.' And the result of such luxuries will be that the peasant will become a rag rather than a man, and suffer from the devil only knows what diseases, until there will remain in the land not a boy of eighteen who will not have experienced the whole gamut of them, and found himself left with not a tooth in his jaws or a hair on his pate.

Yes, that is what will come of infecting the peasant with such rubbish. But, thank God, there is still one healthy class left to us--a class which has never taken up with the 'advantages' of which Ispeak. For that we ought to be grateful. And since, even yet, the Russian agriculturist remains the most respect-worthy man in the land, why should he be touched? Would to God every one were an agriculturist!""Then you believe agriculture to be the most profitable of occupations?" said Chichikov.

"The best, at all events--if not the most profitable. 'In the sweat of thy brow shalt thou till the land.' To quote that requires no great wisdom, for the experience of ages has shown us that, in the agricultural calling, man has ever remained more moral, more pure, more noble than in any other. Of course I do not mean to imply that no other calling ought to be practised: simply that the calling in question lies at the root of all the rest. However much factories may be established privately or by the law, there will still lie ready to man's hand all that he needs--he will still require none of those amenities which are sapping the vitality of our present-day folk, nor any of those industrial establishments which make their profit, and keep themselves going, by causing foolish measures to be adopted which, in the end, are bound to deprave and corrupt our unfortunate masses. I myself am determined never to establish any manufacture, however profitable, which will give rise to a demand for 'higher things,' such as sugar and tobacco--no not if I lose a million by my refusing to do so. If corruption MUST overtake the MIR, it shall not be through my hands. And I think that God will justify me in my resolve. Twenty years have I lived among the common folk, and I know what will inevitably come of such things.""But what surprises me most," persisted Chichikov, "is that from refuse it should be possible, with good management, to make such an immensity of profit.""And as for political economy," continued Kostanzhoglo, without noticing him, and with his face charged with bilious sarcasm, "--as for political economy, it is a fine thing indeed. Just one fool sitting on another fool's back, and flogging him along, even though the rider can see no further than his own nose! Yet into the saddle will that fool climb--spectacles and all! Oh, the folly, the folly of such things!" And the speaker spat derisively.