Dmitri and the One-Legged Lady by Michael Pearce

Author:Michael Pearce
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2017-06-06T00:00:00+00:00

8

‘I came to see for myself,’ she said.

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘To see for myself. About the estate. You remember?’ She looked at him. ‘You must remember. We talked about it. You gave me advice. In the park.’

‘About your family estate? Yes. I remember. But –’

‘This is it.’

‘Yabloki Sad?’

‘Yes. It belonged to us once. The village and much else beside. All the land round here. Then we had to hand it over to the peasants, under the Tsar’s reforms. And now, as I told you, Marputin wants to buy it back. And give it to me.’

The village?’

‘Yes. It was as you said. Ownership was vested in the community as a whole, which makes it much more difficult than if you were dealing with separate individuals. The whole Mir has to agree.’

‘That’ll take some doing!’ said Dmitri feelingly.

‘You think so? Marputin doesn’t. He says things have changed. He thinks they could be willing to sell. But,’ said Ludmilla passionately. ‘I don’t want them to sell. I want things to stay as they are.’

‘Do you know why things have changed?’ asked Dmitri. ‘Why they might be willing to sell?’

‘No?’

‘Because they’re starving, that’s why.’

Ludmilla stood for a moment, stunned.

‘I don’t believe it! He couldn’t be so –’

‘There’s famine all round here. Ordinary people are desperate.’

‘And that’s why they would be willing to sell?’ she whispered. ‘So that they could buy food?’

‘That’s right.’

‘I came up here,’ she said, ‘to tell them – ask them – beg them not to sell! And now you’re saying –?’

‘I’m not sure I really am saying that.’

‘What else can you be saying?’ she demanded.

‘I don’t know. I really don’t know.’

‘It’s so awful,’ she said, her voice trembling. ‘Whichever way. If they don’t sell, they starve. If they do sell, I –’

She sat there for some time frowning in concentration.

Then, suddenly, she looked up.

‘Dmitri Alexandrovich,’ she said, ‘what are you doing here?’

It was a question he found difficult to answer.

‘I’ve been bringing some things over,’ he prevaricated. ‘A few parcels that friends at Kursk made up.’

‘Food?’

‘No. It would have been better if it had been.’

‘Why don’t I go into Tula tomorrow and get some?’

‘It would cost money.’

‘I’ve got money.’

‘Not enough. You can’t feed the whole village.’

‘No?’ said Ludmilla.

To his surprise, in the monastery yard next morning he saw Bibitkin.

‘It’s my mother-in-law,’ said the disgraced priest shamefacedly. ‘She lives in Tula. The Blagochini says I’ve got to make my peace with her. Otherwise he won’t be able to do anything for me.’

‘What about that icon you sold?’

‘The man’s given it back.’

‘Given it back?’

‘Yes, he came into the church one morning and said that, on reflection, he had decided that he ought not to go ahead with the deal. Mindful of my suffering.’

‘Oh, yes?’

‘Yes. He said it had been no part of his intentions to bring calamity down upon the head of a poor, hard-working priest whose virtue was known to all the neighbourhood.’

‘Oh, yes?’

‘And so he was returning the icon.’

‘He actually returned it?’

‘Certainly.’

Dmitri could hear the edifice of his case cracking.

‘It was the same man?’

‘Yes.

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