were always coming to the provost with complaints that your uncle never
paid one of them fairly according to agreement. The provost said to him at
last: "Look here," says he, "Saviol Prokofitch, you must pay the peasants
what's fairly owing to them! Every day they come to me with some
complaint!" Your uncle slapped the provost on the shoulder, and says he:
"It's not worth while, your Worship, for you and me to waste our breath
over such petty details! I have to do with numbers of peasants in the
course of the year; you can understand, if I pay them a paltry farthing
short, every man of them, it mounts up to thousands, and a capital thing
too for me!" Think of that, sir! And the way they treat one another too,
sir! They injure each other's trade all they can, and that not so much
from self-interest, as from envy. They are always at feud with one
another. They entertain in their grand mansions drunken attorneys' clerks,
wretched creatures, sir, that hardly look like human beings. And they, for
a small tip, will cover sheets of stamped paper with malicious quibbling
attacks on their neighbours. And then there's a lawsuit commences between
them, sir, and no end to the worry and fret. They bring it before the
court here, and go off to the chief town, and there everyone in court is
on the look-out for them and they clap their hands with glee when they see
them. Words do not take long, but deeds are not soon done. They are
dragged from court to court, they are worn out with delays; but they are
positively delighted at that; it's just that they want. "I've lost a lot
of money," one will say, "but it's cost him a pretty penny too!" I did try
to put it all into verse....

BORIS.
Why, do you make verse?

KULIGIN.
Yes, sir, in the old-fashioned style. I have read Lomonosov and Derzhavin.