Part 56 (2/2)
”Tell everything! You are not going to tell me your words, but theirs.
If you tell me the truth, I will reward you; and if you s.h.i.+eld them, look out, I will have you flogged. O Katyusha, give him a gla.s.s of vodka to brace him up!”
The cook went and brought the elder the vodka. The elder saluted, drank the vodka, wiped his mouth, and began to speak. ”I cannot help it,” he thought, ”it is not my fault if they do not praise him; I will tell him the truth, if he wants it.” And the elder took courage and said:
”They murmur, Mikhail s.e.m.e.novich, they murmur.”
”What do they say? Speak!”
”They keep saying that you do not believe in G.o.d.”
The clerk laughed.
”Who said that?”
”All say so. They say that you are submitting to the devil.”
The clerk laughed.
”That is all very well,” he said, ”but tell me in particular what each says. What does Vasili say?”
The elder did not wish to tell on his people, but with Vasili he had long been in a feud.
”Vasili,” he said, ”curses more than the rest.”
”What does he say? Tell me!”
”It is too terrible to tell. He says that you will die an unrepenting death.”
”What a brave fellow!” he said. ”Why, then, is he gaping? Why does he not kill me? Evidently his arms are too short. All right,” he said, ”Vasili, we will square up accounts. And Tishka, that dog, I suppose he says so, too?”
”All speak ill of you.”
”But what do they say?”
”I loathe to tell.”
”Never mind! Take courage and speak!”
”They say: 'May his belly burst, and his guts run out!'”
Mikhail s.e.m.e.novich was delighted, and he even laughed.
”We will see whose will run out first. Who said that? Tishka?”
[Ill.u.s.tration: ”But the candle was still burning”
_Photogravure from Painting by A. Kivshenko_]
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