d of it--Tim in the
province of Kursk. My brothers are artisans and work at trades in
the town, but I am a peasant. . . . I have remained a peasant. Seven
years ago I went there--home, I mean. I went to the village and
to the town. . . . To Tim, I mean. Then, thank God, they were all
alive and well; . . . but now I don't know. . . . Maybe some of
them are dead. . . . And it's time they did die, for some of them
are older than I am. Death is all right; it is good so long, of
course, as one does not die without repentance. There is no worse
evil than an impenitent death; an impenitent death is a joy to the
devil. And if you want to die penitent, so that you may not be
forbidden to enter the mansions of the Lord, pray to the holy martyr
Varvara. She is the intercessor. She is, that's the truth. . . .
For God has given her such a place in the heavens that everyone has
the right to pray to her for penitence."

Panteley went on muttering, and apparently did not trouble whether
Yegorushka heard him or not. He talked listlessly, mumbling to
himself, without raising or dropping his voice, but succeeded in
telling him a great deal in a short time. All he said was made up
of fragments that had very little connection with one another, and
quite uninteresting for Yegorushka. Possibly he talked only in order
to reckon over his thoughts aloud after the night spent in silence,
in order to see if they were all there. After talking of repentance,
he spoke about a certain Maxim Nikolaitch from Slavyanoserbsk.

"Yes, he took his little lad; . . . he took him, that's true . . ."

One of the waggoners walking in front darted from his place, ran
to one side and began lashing on the ground with his whip. He was
a stalwart, broad-shouldered man of thirty, with curly flaxen hair
and a look of great health and vigour. Judging from the movements
of his shoulders and the whip, and the eagerness expressed in his
attitude, he was beating something alive. Another waggoner, a short
stubby little man with a bushy black beard, wearing a waistcoat and
a shirt outside his trousers, ran up to him. The latter broke into
a deep guffaw of laughter and coughing and said: "I say, lads, Dymov
has killed a snake!"

There are people whose intelligence can be gauged at once by their
voice and laughter. The man with the black beard belonged to that
class of fortunate individuals; impenetrable stupidity could be
felt in his voice and laugh. The flaxen-headed Dymo