“… Only theirs is the best homestead in the whole of Pokróvsk. They’re God-fearing, hardworking peasants. The old man has been thirty years churchwarden; he doesn’t drink nor use bad language; he goes to church” (the steward well knew with what to bait the hook). “… But the principal thing that I would like to report to you is that he has only two sons; the others are nephews adopted out of charity, and so they ought to cast lots only with the two-men families. Many families have split up because of their improvidence, and their own sons have separated from them, and so they are safe now⁠—while these will have to suffer just because of their charitableness.”