There were only three neighbours in the immediate vicinity: old Princess Shakova, who did not receive even the Marshal of Nobility, because she regarded him as ill-bred; the retired gendarme Zakrzhevsky, a haemorrhoidally vicious and self-conceitedly stupid man who would not have permitted Kuzma to cross his threshold; and, finally, a member of the gentry, Basoff, a petty landed proprietor who lived in a peasant cottage, had married the dissipated widow of a soldier, and could talk of nothing but horse-collars and cattle. Father Petr, the priest from Kolodeza, of which Durnovka was a parish, called once upon Kuzma. But neither the one nor the other cared to continue the acquaintance. Kuzma entertained the priest with nothing stronger than tea—and the priest laughed harshly and awkwardly when he saw the samovar on the table. “A samovar-man! Capital! You, I see, are no match for your good brother—you’re not lavish in your entertainment!” Kuzma announced frankly that he never went to church, out of conviction. The priest began to shout with laughter in more amazement than ever, and still more harshly and loudly: “A‑ah! Those nice little new ideas! Capital! And it’s cheaper, too!” Laughter was not in the least becoming to him: it was as if someone else were laughing for that tall, lean man with the big cheekbones and coarse black hair, the furtive greedy eyes—anxiously absentminded eyes, forever meditating something offensive and tactlessly free of manner. “But at night, surely, at night you cross yourself, nevertheless—you get scared?” he said, loudly and hurriedly, as he put on his coat and overshoes in the anteroom, amazing Kuzma by his queries concerning the management of the farm, and suddenly beginning to address him as “thou.”
“Yes, I make the sign of the cross,” admitted Kuzma, with a melancholy smile. “But, you know, fear is not faith, and I don’t cross myself to your God.”
Kuzma did not go often to visit his brother. And the latter came to him only when he was perturbed over something. Altogether, the loneliness