THE HEAD-GARDENER’S STORY

A SALE of flowers was taking place in Count N.’s greenhouses.  The purchasers were few in number—­a landowner who was a neighbor of mine, a young timber-merchant, and myself.  While the workmen were carrying out our magnificent purchases and packing them into the carts, we sat at the entry of the greenhouse and chatted about one thing and another.  It is extremely pleasant to sit in a garden on a still April morning, listening to the birds, and watching the flowers brought out into the open air and basking in the sunshine.

The head-gardener, Mihail Karlovitch, a venerable old man with a full shaven face, wearing a fur waistcoat and no coat, superintended the packing of the plants himself, but at the same time he listened to our conversation in the hope of hearing something new.  He was an intelligent, very good-hearted man, respected by everyone.  He was for some reason looked upon by everyone as a German, though he was in reality on his father’s side Swedish, on his mother’s side Russian, and attended the Orthodox church.  He knew Russian, Swedish, and German.  He had read a good deal in those languages, and nothing one could do gave him greater pleasure than lending him some new book or talking to him, for instance, about Ibsen.

He had his weaknesses, but they were innocent ones:  he called himself the head gardener, though there were no under-gardeners; the expression of his face was unusually dignified and haughty; he could not endure to be contradicted, and liked to be listened to with respect and attention.

“That young fellow there I can recommend to you as an awful rascal,” said my neighbor, pointing to a laborer with a swarthy, gipsy face, who drove by with the water-barrel.  “Last week he was tried in the town for burglary and was acquitted; they pronounced him mentally deranged, and yet look at him, he is the picture of health.  Scoundrels are very often acquitted nowadays in Russia on grounds of abnormality and aberration, yet these acquittals, these unmistakable proofs of an indulgent attitude to crime, lead to no good.  They demoralize the masses, the sense of justice is blunted in all as they become accustomed to seeing vice unpunished, and you know in our age one may boldly say in the words of Shakespeare that in our evil and corrupt age virtue must ask forgiveness of vice.”

“That’s very true,” the merchant assented.  “Owing to these frequent acquittals, murder and arson have become much more common.  Ask the peasants.”

Mihail Karlovitch turned towards us and said: 

“As far as I am concerned, gentlemen, I am always delighted to meet with these verdicts of not guilty.  I am not afraid for morality and justice when they say ‘Not guilty,’ but on the contrary I feel pleased.  Even when my conscience tells me the jury have made a mistake in acquitting the criminal, even then I am triumphant.  Judge for yourselves, gentlemen; if the judges and the jury have more faith in man than in evidence, material proofs, and speeches for the prosecution, is not that faith in man in itself higher than any ordinary considerations?  Such faith is only attainable by those few who understand and feel Christ.”