And Tikhon Ilitch dealt with them in the same spirit. When he was in an amiable mood he read them their lesson thus: “It’s all right to live—but not to squander. I shall pluck you if I get the chance! I shall bring you back. But I shall be just. I’m a Russian man, brother.” When in an evil mood, he would say curtly, with eyes blazing: “Pigs! There is not a juster man in the world than I am!” “Pigs, all right—but that’s not me,” the peasant would think, averting his eyes from that gaze. And he would mumble submissively: “Oh, Lord, don’t we know it?” “Yes, you know it, but you have forgotten. I don’t want your property gratis, but bear this in mind: I won’t give you a scrap of what’s mine! There’s that brother of mine: he’s a rascal, a toper, but I would help him if he came and implored me. I call God as my witness that I would help him! But coddle him—! No, take note of that: I do no coddling. I’m no brainless Little Russian, brother!”
And Nastasya Petrovna, who walked like a duck, with her toes turned inward, and waddled, thanks to her incessant pregnancies which always ended up with dead girl-babies—Nastasya Petrovna, a yellow, puffy woman with scanty whitish-blond hair, would groan and back him up: “Okh, you are a simpleton, in my opinion! Why do you bother with him, with that stupid man? Is he a fit associate for you? You just knock some sense into him; ’twill do him no harm. Look at the way he’s straddling with his legs—as if he were a bokhar of emir!” She was “terribly fond” of pigs and fowls, and Tikhon Ilitch began to fatten sucking pigs, turkey chicks, hens, and geese. But his ruling passion was amassing grain. In autumn, alongside his house, which stood with one side turned toward the highway and the other toward the posting-station, the creaking of wheels arose in a groan; the wagon trains turned in from above and below. And in the farmyard horse-traders, peddlers, chicken-vendors, cracknel peddlers, scythe-vendors, and pilgrims passed the night. Every moment a pulley was squeaking—now on the door of the dram-shop, where Nastasya Petrovna bustled about; now on the approach to the shop, a dark, dirty place, reeking of soap, herrings, rank tobacco,