expressive look at his broken-down, ramshackly, and ruined sheds. “Now the girders and the supports and the rafters are nothing but rot; you won’t see a sound timber. But where can we get lumber nowadays, I should like to know?”
“Well, what do you want with the five supports when the one shed has fallen in? the others will be soon falling in too, won’t they? You need to have everything made new—rafters and girders and posts; but you don’t want supports,” said the bárin , evidently priding himself on his comprehension of the case.
Churis made no reply.
“Of course you need lumber, but not supports. You ought to have told me so.”
“Surely I do, but there’s nowhere to get it. Not all of us can come to the manor-house. If we all should get into the habit of coming to the manor-house and asking your excellency for everything we wanted, what kind of serfs should we be? But if your kindness went so far as to let me have some of the oak saplings that are lying idle over by the threshing-floor,” said the peasant, making a low bow and scraping with his foot, “then, maybe, I might exchange some, and piece out others, so that the old would last some time longer.”
“What is the good of the old? Why, you just told me that it was all old and rotten. This part has fallen in today; tomorrow, that one will; the day after, a third. So, if anything is to be done, it must be all made new, so that the work may not be wasted. Now tell me what you think about it. Can your premises last out this winter, or not?”
“Who can tell?”
“No, but what do you think? Will they fall in, or not?”