rom his breast pocket,
filled it with tobacco, lit it with a faggot taken from the fire, and
said as he set himself to listen to the singing of the Molokans:

"They are filled full, and have started bleating. Always folk like them
seek to be on the right side of the Almighty."

"Does that hurt you in any way?" Vasili asked with a smile.

"No, but I do not respect them--they are less saints than humbugs, than
prevaricators whose first word is God, and second word rouble."

"How do you know that?" cried Vasili amusedly. "And even if their first
word IS God, and their second word rouble, we had best not be too hard
upon them, since if they chose to be hard upon US, where should WE be?
Yes, we have only to open our mouths to speak a word or two for
ourselves, and we should find every fist at our teeth."

"Quite so," the ex-soldier agreed as, taking up a square of scantling,
he examined it attentively.

"Whom DO you respect?" Vasili continued after a pause.

"I respect," the ex-soldier said with some emphasis, "only the Russian
people, the true Russian people, the folk who labour on land whereon
labour is hard. Yet who are the folk whom you find HERE? In this part
of the world the business of living is an easy one. Much of every sort
of natural produce is to be had, and the soil is generous and
light--you need but to scratch it for it to bear, and for yourself to
reap. Yes, it is indulgent to a fault. Rather, it is like a maiden. Do
but touch her, and a child will arrive."

"Agreed," was Vasili's remark as he drank tea from a tin mug. "Yet to
this very part of the world is it that I should like to transport every
soul in Russia."

"And why?"

"Because here they could earn a living."

"Then is not that possible in Russia?"

"Well, why are you yourself here?"

"Because I am a man lacking ties."

"And why are you lacking ties?"

"Because it has been so ordered--it is, so to speak, my lot."

"Then had you not better consider WHY it is your lot?"

The ex-soldier took his pipe from his mouth, let fall the hand which
held it, and smoothed his plain features in silent amazement. Then he
exclaimed in uncouth, querulous tones:

"Had I not better consider WHY it is my lot, and so forth? Why, damn
it, the causes are many. For one thing, if one has neighbours who
neither live nor see things as oneself does, but are uncongenial, what
does one do? One just leaves them, and clears out--more especially if
one be neithe