Part VII
Pahom lay on the feather-bed, but could not sleep. He kept thinking about the land.
“What a large tract I will mark off!” thought he. “I can easily go thirty-five miles in a day. The days are long now, and within a circuit of thirty-five miles what a lot of land there will be! I will sell the poorer land, or let it to peasants, but I’ll pick out the best and farm it. I will buy two ox-teams, and hire two more laborers. About a hundred and fifty acres shall be plough-land, and I will pasture cattle on the rest.”
Pahom lay awake all night, and dozed off only just before dawn. Hardly were his eyes closed when he had a dream. He thought he was lying in that same tent, and heard somebody chuckling outside. He wondered who it could be, and rose and went out, and he saw the Bashkir Chief sitting in front of the tent holding his side and rolling about with laughter. Going nearer to the Chief, Pahom asked: “What are you laughing at?” But he saw that it was no longer the Chief, but the dealer who had recently stopped at his house and had told him about the land. Just as Pahom was going to ask, “Have you been here long?” he saw that it was not the dealer, but the peasant who had come up from the Volga, long ago, to Pahom’s old home. Then he saw that it was not the peasant either, but the Devil himself with hoofs and horns, sitting there and chuckling, and before him lay a man barefoot, prostrate on the ground, with only trousers and a shirt on. And Pahom dreamt that he looked more attentively to see what sort of a man it was lying there, and he saw that the man was dead, and that it was himself! He awoke horror-struck.
“What things one does dream,” thought he.
Looking round he saw through the open door that the dawn was breaking.
“It’s time to wake them up,” thought he. “We ought to be starting.”
He got up, roused his man (who was sleeping in his cart), bade him harness; and went to call the Bashkirs.
“It’s time to go to the steppe to measure the land,” he said.
The Bashkirs rose and assembled, and the Chief came, too. Then they began drinking kumiss again, and offered Pahom some tea, but he would not wait.
“If we are to go, let us go. It is high time,” said he.
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— Owl Eyes Editors
Pahom foolishly ignores the warning in his dream, attributing it to his having a wild imagination: “‘What things one does dream.’” His desire for land and wealth has thus eroded any sense of insight or self-protection; instead, he is eager to mark off as much land as possible so that he can begin making a profit from it. Pahom’s refusal to consider the meaning behind his dream seems to represent the disconnect between a person and their capacity for reflection and rational thinking when the only priority is to increase one’s wealth.
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— Owl Eyes Editors
Pahom’s dream establishes an unmistakable connection between private property ownership, often associated with greed throughout the story, and evil—in this case, submitting oneself to the devil’s temptation. Such a connection seems to hint at the ethical dilemmas posed by capitalism; specifically, the potentially universal hazards of the unequal distribution of wealth. Pahom seems to benefit from the accumulation of wealth, but his quest for land exacerbates the oppression of the working class—the peasants—and ultimately results in his own death.
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— Owl Eyes Editors
Pahom’s ominous dream is an example of foreshadowing, a device in which a narrator gives direct or indirect hints about what will happen later in the plot. Here, Pahom’s dream directly predicts the way he will die while also reminding readers of the fate promised by the devil at the beginning of the story. Foreshadowing therefore functions alongside dramatic irony to create anticipation before the climax of the plot.
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— Owl Eyes Editors
The adjective “prostrate” means to be lying flat on the ground, either in submission or because one has lost the will to carry on. The translators’ word choice suggests a double-meaning: Pahom lies prostrate in his dream both because he is dead and because he has submitted himself to the devil’s influence and allowed himself to be carried away by greed.
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— Owl Eyes Editors
The noun “plough-land” refers to farmland that is cultivated specifically for the purpose of growing crops. Pahom is so susceptible to temptation by this point in the story that readers, who are aware that he is under the influence of the devil, is encouraged to question his overconfidence. He has become obsessed with making money so that rather than planning a reasonable approach to marking off land before sunset, he fantasizes about how he will monetize the tract he claims for himself.