as you are up in the morning, you must go to work. In the spring it is
one thing, in the summer another, in the autumn and winter still
another. From wherever you may be you always return to your home.
There is warmth, rest! . . . You are a king, are you not?"

Tchelkache had waxed enthusiastic over this long enumeration of the
privileges and rights of the peasant, forgetting only to speak of his
duties.

Gavrilo looked at him with curiosity, and was also aroused to
enthusiasm. He had already had time in the course of this conversation
to forget with whom he was dealing; he saw before him only a peasant
like himself, attached to the earth by labor, by several generations of
laborers, by memories of childhood, but who had voluntarily withdrawn
from it and its cares and who was now suffering the punishment of his
ill-advised act.

"Yes, comrade, that's true! Oh! how true that is! See now, take your
case, for instance: what are you now, without land? Ah! friend, the
earth is like a mother: one doesn't forget it long."

Tchelkache came to himself. He felt within him that burning sensation
that always seized upon him when his self-love as a dashing
devil-may-care fellow was wounded, especially when the offender was of
no account in his eyes.

"There he goes again!" he exclaimed fiercely. "You imagine, I suppose
that I'm speaking seriously. I'm worth more than that, let me tell
you!"