To pass through a village; The peasant sits still And he dreams not of bowing. One feels in one's breast Not the pride of a noble But wrath and resentment. The axe of the robber Resounds in the forest, 660 It maddens your heart, But you cannot prevent it, For who can you summon To rescue your forest? The fields are half-laboured, The seeds are half-wasted, No trace left of order.... O Mother, my country, We do not complain For ourselves--of our sorrows, 670 Our hearts bleed for thee: Like a widow thou standest In helpless affliction With tresses dishevelled And grief-stricken face.... They have blighted the forest, The noisy low taverns Have risen and flourished. They've picked the most worthless And loose of the people, 680 And given them power In the posts of the Zemstvos; They've seized on the peasant And taught him his letters-- Much good may it do him! Your brow they have branded, As felons are branded, As cattle are branded, With these words they've stamped it: 'To take away with you 690 Or drink on the premises.' Was it worth while, pray, To weary the peasant With learning his letters In order to read them? The land that we keep Is our mother no longer, Our stepmother rather. And then to improve things, These pert good-for-nothings, 700 These impudent writers Must needs shout in chorus: 'But whose fault, then, is it, That you thus exhausted And wasted your country?' But I say--you duffers! Who _could_ foresee this? They babble, 'Enough Of your lordly pretensions! It's time that you learnt something, 710 Lazy Pomyeshchicks! Get up, now, and work!' "Work! To whom, in God's name, Do you think you are speaking? I am not a peasant In 'laputs,' good madman! I am--by God's mercy-- A Noble of Russia. You take us for Germans! We nobles have tender 720 And delicate feelings, Our pride is inborn, And in Russia our classes Are not taught to work. Why, the meanest official Will not raise a finger To clear his own table, Or light his own stove! I can say, without boasting, That though I have lived 730 Forty years in the country, And scarcely have left it, I could not distinguish Between rye and barley. And they sing of 'work' to me! "If we Pomyeshchicks Have really mistaken Our duty and calling, If really our mission Is not, as in old days, 740 To keep up the hunting, To revel in luxury, Live on forced labour, Why did they not tell us Before? Could I learn it? For what do I see? I've worn the Tsar's livery, 'Sullied the Heavens,' And 'squandered the treasury Gained by the people,' 750 And fully imagined To do so for ever, And now ... God in Heaven!"... The Barin is sobbing!...