"I am, sir; but of course it is my duty, there is no getting away from it.In the summer I was taking a convict to the town, and he set upon me and gave me such a drubbing! And all around were fields, forest -- how could I get away from him? It's just the same here.I remember the gentleman, Mr.Lesnitsky, when he was so high, and I knew his father and mother.I am from the village of Nedoshtchotova, and they, the Lesnitsky family, were not more than three-quarters of a mile from us and less than that, their ground next to ours, and Mr.Lesnitsky had a sister, a God-fearing and tender-hearted lady.Lord keep the soul of Thy servant Yulya, eternal memory to her! She was never married, and when she was dying she divided all her property;she left three hundred acres to the monastery, and six hundred to the commune of peasants of Nedoshtchotova to commemorate her soul; but her brother hid the will, they do say burnt it in the stove, and took all this land for himself.He thought, to be sure, it was for his benefit; but -- nay, wait a bit, you won't get on in the world through injustice, brother.The gentleman did not go to confession for twenty years after.He kept away from the church, to be sure, and died impenitent.He burst.He was a very fat man, so he burst lengthways.Then everything was taken from the young master, from Seryozha, to pay the debts -- everything there was.Well, he had not gone very far in his studies, he couldn't do anything, and the president of the Rural Board, his uncle -- 'I'll take him' -- Seryozha, Imean -- thinks he, 'for an agent; let him collect the insurance, that's not a difficult job,' and the gentleman was young and proud, he wanted to be living on a bigger scale and in better style and with more freedom.To be sure it was a come-down for him to be jolting about the district in a wretched cart and talking to the peasants; he would walk and keep looking on the ground, looking on the ground and saying nothing; if you called his name right in his ear, 'Sergey Sergeyitch!' he would look round like this, 'Eh?' and look down on the ground again, and now you see he has laid hands on himself.There's no sense in it, your honor, it's not right, and there's no making out what's the meaning of it, merciful Lord! Say your father was rich and you are poor; it is mortifying, there's no doubt about it, but there, you must make up your mind to it.I used to live in good style, too; I had two horses, your honor, three cows, I used to keep twenty head of sheep; but the time has come, and I am left with nothing but a wretched bag, and even that is not mine but Government property.And now in our Nedoshtchotova, if the truth is to be told, my house is the worst of the lot.Makey had four footmen, and now Makey is a footman himself.Petrak had four laborers, and now Petrak is a laborer himself.""How was it you became poor?" asked the examining magistrate.
"My sons drink terribly.I could not tell you how they drink, you wouldn't believe it."Lyzhin listened and thought how he, Lyzhin, would go back sooner or later to Moscow, while this old man would stay here for ever, and would always be walking and walking.And how many times in his life he would come across such battered, unkempt old men, not "men of any worth," in whose souls fifteen kopecks, glasses of vodka, and a profound belief that you can't get on in this life by dishonesty, were equally firmly rooted.
Then he grew tired of listening, and told the old man to bring him some hay for his bed, There was an iron bedstead with a pillow and a quilt in the traveler's room, and it could be fetched in ; but the dead man had been lying by it for nearly three days (and perhaps sitting on it just before his death), and it would be disagreeable to sleep upon it now....
"It's only half-past seven," thought Lyzhin, glancing at his watch."How awful it is!"He was not sleepy, but having nothing to do to pass away the time, he lay down and covered himself with a rug.Loshadin went in and out several times, clearing away the tea-things; smacking his lips and sighing, he kept tramping round the table; at last he took his little lamp and went out, and, looking at his long, gray-headed, bent figure from behind, Lyzhin thought:
"Just like a magician in an opera."
It was dark.The moon must have been behind the clouds, as the windows and the snow on the window-frames could be seen distinctly.
