A peasant stood alongside Tikhon Ilitch’s shop; the man had bought vodka at the railway station, dried salt fish and cracknels at the shop, and had doffed his cap; but he prolonged his enjoyment, and said:
“No, Tikhon Ilitch, ’tis no use your explaining. It can be taken, at a just price. But not the way you say—that’s no good.”
An odour arose from the pine boards piled up near the granary, opposite the yard. The dried fish and the linden bast on which the cracknels were strung had an irritating smell. The hot locomotive of the freight-train could be heard hissing and getting up steam beyond the trees, behind the buildings of the railway station. Tikhon Ilitch stood bareheaded beside his shop, screwing up his eyes and smiling slyly. Smilingly he made reply:
“Bosh! But what if he is not a master, but a tramp?”
“Who? The noble owner, you mean?”
“No—a lowborn man.”
“Well, that’s a different matter. ’Tis no sin to take it from such a man, with all his innards to boot!”
“Well now, that’s exactly the point!”
But another rumour reached them: the land would be taken from those who owned less than five hundred desyatini ! And immediately his soul was assailed by preoccupation, suspicion, irritability. Everything that was done in the house began to seem abhorrent.
Egorka, the assistant, brought flour-sacks out of the shop and began to shake them. And the man’s head reminded him of the head of the town fool, “Duck-Headed Matty.” The crown of his head ran up to a point, his hair was harsh and thick—“Now, why is it that fools have such thick hair?”—his forehead was sunken, his face resembled an oblique egg, he