"I obey," replied the old man.

And all three wended their way toward the house.

The speculator knew with whom he had to deal. Mísha made him promise as
a preliminary, it is true, that he would "allow all privileges" to the
peasants;--but an hour later that same Mísha, together with Timoféi,
both drunk, danced a gallopade through those rooms where the pious shade
of Andréi Nikoláitch seemed still to be hovering; and an hour later
still, Mísha, so sound asleep that he could not be waked (liquor was his
great weakness), was placed in a peasant-cart, together with his kazák
cap and his dagger, and sent off to the town, five-and-twenty versts
distant,--and there was found under a fence.... Well, and Timoféi, who
still kept his feet and merely hiccoughed, was "pitched out neck and
crop," as a matter of course. The master had made a failure of his
attempt. So they might as well let the servant pay the penalty!




VI


Again considerable time elapsed and I heard nothing of Mísha.... God
knows where he had vanished.--One day, as I was sitting before the
samovár at a posting-station on the T---- highway, waiting for horses,
I suddenly heard, under the open window of the station-room, a hoarse
voice uttering in French:--"_Monsieur ... monsieur ... prenez pitié d'un
pauvre gentilhomme ruiné!_".... I raised my head and looked.... The kazák