“In that house the ruins of which we passed this afternoon I once lived with my father, Count Alexander Nechaieff. My mother died soon after my birth, and all my earlier days were passed in that great gloomy old place without any companions of my own age. My father, the _barin_ of that wretched little village of Nagorskoie, owned many serfs. He was cruel, harsh, unjust, and hard-hearted, and the peasants regarded him with terror. This part of Vologda is, you see, flat and exposed; the soil is poor, the population sparse, and the long winter is always more severe than away in Petersburg. The consequence of this was that the inhabitants of Nagorskoie had become wild and embittered, for my father’s exactions had reduced his serfs to the direst poverty; the _isbas_ were devoid of all but absolute necessities, the fields neglected, and the wretched _moujiks_ starving. In the majority of the cottages the stove had gone out owing to lack of fuel, and the _samovar_ disused because there was no tea. The poverty was worse than in previous years, and the peasantry were driven to despair. “One day, in the bitterest season of that merciless winter, my father and I were sitting before the stove in the dining-room, smoking our _papiroski_ after our mid-day meal. I was then only twenty, having just returned from my studies at Moscow. The room in which we sat was cosy and well furnished, for my father, arrogant and selfish, denied himself no luxury, and led a life of idleness and ease, spending half his time at Petersburg, and the remainder at Nagorskoie. “Suddenly Artem Makaroff, my father’s secretary, entered. I had always disliked him, for he was an oleaginous, soft-spoken man whose ugly face always wore a sinister expression. Addressing my father, he said— “‘_Barin_, some of the people desire to see you. They are waiting outside.’ “‘To see me!’ asked my father, in surprise. ‘What do they want?’ “‘They refuse to tell me, _barin_. They say they must see you personally.’ “‘Oh! very well!’ cried my father, rising angrily and standing with his back to the stove. ‘If there is any grumbling or sign of disaffection, I’ll teach them a lesson. Let them enter.’ “Artem retired, and a few moments later the _starosta_ came in, accompanied by about a dozen half-starved, shivering _moujiks_ with white, haggard faces and ragged sheepskins. “‘Well!’ exclaimed my father, scanning them with angry eye. ‘What does this mean, pray? What right have you to come here in a body?’ “‘Have pity, _barin_,’ implored the elder, bending himself almost double. ‘We have come to beg mercy of you, to cast ourselves upon your sympathy.’ “‘What for?’ “‘We are starving, our cattle are dying, our homes have been denuded of almost everything, and—and we cannot pay your rent, your High Nobility. We have come to beg you to allow us time.’