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I turn out to be an excellent beggar; thanks to my beggarly eloquence, my section has two excellent barracks with all the necessaries, and five barracks that are not excellent, but horrid. I have saved the Zemstvo from expenditure even on disinfectants. Lime, vitriol, and all sorts of stinking stuff I have begged from the manufacturers for all my twenty-five villages.
At the end of March Masha, by her own desire, was appointed trustee of the Kurilovka school, and at the beginning of April we called three parish meetings and persuaded the peasants that the school was old and inadequate, and that it was necessary to build a new one. A member of the Zemstvo Council and the elementary school inspector came down too and addressed them.
There, thanks to the efforts of the housekeeper, the footman, and under-butler the latter had risen at dawn in order to run home to sharpen his son's scythe breakfast was ready. The host, who was an active member of the Zemstvo and a great farmer, had already left the house, having gone at eight o'clock to attend to his work.
"To be precise, you know, it is not we, not the Zemstvo, but the higher ecclesiastical authorities, who have raised the question of the church parish schools. They ought really to apportion the funds. I remember I read that a sum of money had been set aside for the purpose. Do you know nothing about it?" Father Yakov was so absorbed in drinking tea that he did not answer this question at once.
He is a member of the local Zemstvo and manager of his cousin's mill, which is lighted by electric light; he is editor of the Ekaterinburg Week which is under the censorship of the police-master Baron Taube, is married and has two children, is growing rich and getting fat and elderly, and lives in a "substantial way." He says he has no time to be bored.
I do nothing and can do nothing. My precious, why is it? Why is it that the very thought that I may some day fix a cockade on my cap and go into the government service is so hateful to me? Why do I feel so uncomfortable when I see a lawyer or a Latin master or a member of the Zemstvo? O Mother Russia! O Mother Russia! What a burden of idle and useless people you still carry!
Meanwhile the local rates have been rising with alarming rapidity; and many people draw from all this the conclusion that the Zemstvo is a worthless institution which has increased the taxation without conferring any corresponding benefit on the country.
On May 9th a new Zemstvo Congress was held in Moscow, and it at once showed that since their November session in St. Petersburg the delegates had made a decided movement to the Left. Those of them who had then led the movement were now regarded as too Conservative.
"Oh, for the sake of a girl like that one might not only go into the Zemstvo, but even wear out iron shoes, like the girl in the fairy tale. And Misuce? What a sweet creature she is, that Misuce!" Byelokurov, drawling out "Er er," began a long-winded disquisition on the malady of the age pessimism. He talked confidently, in a tone that suggested that I was opposing him.
I was witness to these facts myself. Saratov is a big university and intellectual center, possessing a great number of schools, libraries, and divers associations designed to elevate the intellectual standard of the population. The Zemstvo of Saratov was one of the best in Russia.
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