regaled with vodka; even young girls drank a glass. We did not keep
up this practice; the mowers and the peasant women stood about in
our yard till late in the evening expecting vodka, and then departed
abusing us. And all the time Masha frowned grimly and said nothing,
or murmured to the doctor with exasperation: "Savages! Petchenyegs!"

In the country newcomers are met ungraciously, almost with hostility,
as they are at school. And we were received in this way. At first
we were looked upon as stupid, silly people, who had bought an
estate simply because we did not know what to do with our money.
We were laughed at. The peasants grazed their cattle in our wood
and even in our garden; they drove away our cows and horses to the
village, and then demanded money for the damage done by them. They
came in whole companies into our yard, and loudly clamoured that
at the mowing we had cut some piece of land that did not belong to
us; and as we did not yet know the boundaries of our estate very
accurately, we took their word for it and paid damages. Afterwards
it turned out that there had been no mistake at the mowing. They
barked the lime-trees in our wood. One of the Dubetchnya peasants,
a regular shark, who did a trade in vodka without a licence, bribed
our labourers, and in collaboration with them cheated us in a most
treacherous way. They took the new wheels off our carts and replaced
them with old ones, stole our ploughing harness and actually sold
them to us, and so on. But what was most mortifying of all was what
happened at the building; the peasant women stole by night boards,
bricks, tiles, pieces of iron. The village elder with witnesses
made a search in their huts; the village meeting fined them two
roubles each, and afterwards this money was spent on drink by the
whole commune.