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It may be said that Israelites who cannot follow the trade of their parents need not become a burthen on the congregation; an imperial Ukase having been issued in April 1835 to the effect that the Israelites in Courland should enjoy the right of keeping, either by rent or obrok, farms, inns, or baiting stables; but your Excellency will please to remember that this privilege was soon recalled.
Sometimes the proprietor did not farm at all on his own account, in which case he put all the serfs "on obrok," and generally gave to the Commune in usufruct the whole of the arable land and pasturage. In this way the Mir played the part of a tenant.
The serfs belonged soul and body to the landowner: even when they were allowed to take service or exercise a trade in distant towns, they were obliged to pay a due, "obrok," to their owner, and to return home if required; while the instances of oppression were sometimes frightful, husbands and wives were separated, girls were sold away from their parents, young men were not allowed to marry.
As to being put on obrok, the serfs did not much object, though they preferred to remain as they were; but his proposal to break up the Mir astonished and bewildered them. They regarded it as a sea-captain might regard the proposal of a scientific wiseacre to knock a hole in the ship's bottom in order to make her sail faster.
'To whom do you belong? asks the Captain, probably adding to his question a forcible expletive. 'To such and such a landowner, stoutly you reply. 'And what are you doing here? continues the Captain. 'I have just received permission to go and earn my obrok, is your fluent explanation. 'Then where is your passport? 'At Miestchanin Pimenov's. 'Pimenov's?
The first comprised those working under the old, or corvée, system, giving, generally, three days in the week to the tillage of the owner's domain; the second comprised those working under the new, or obrok, system, receiving a payment fixed by the owner and assessed by the community to which the serfs belonged. The character of the serfs has been moulded by the serf-system.
There had been two ways of holding serfs before the more primitive method of obliging them to work so many days a week for the master before they could provide for their own wants, and the more enlightened manner of exacting only obrók, or yearly tribute.
Tolstoy had already allowed his serf to "go on obrók," but, according to himself, he did nothing very generous when the new act was passed providing for emancipation. He defended the freed men as far as possible, however, from the tyranny of other landowners, who began to dislike him very thoroughly.
In a trice it could be seen that he had played his part in life as all such bailiffs do that, originally a young serf of elementary education, he had married some Agashka of a housekeeper or a mistress's favourite, and then himself become housekeeper, and, subsequently, bailiff; after which he had proceeded according to the rules of his tribe that is to say, he had consorted with and stood in with the more well-to-do serfs on the estate, and added the poorer ones to the list of forced payers of obrok, while himself leaving his bed at nine o'clock in the morning, and, when the samovar had been brought, drinking his tea at leisure.
When, on the contrary, a land-owner had more serf labour at his disposal than he required for the cultivation of his fields, he put the superfluous serfs "on obrok," that is to say, he allowed them to go and work where they pleased on condition of paying him a fixed yearly sum.
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