pouring him out another glass of
brandy; "but, after all, you are not free."

"Free to do what?" asked Ivan.

"Free to go where you will and when you will."

"I am as free as the air," replied Ivan.

"Nonsense!" said Gregory.

"Free as air, I tell you; for I have good masters, and above all a good
mistress," continued Ivan, with a significant smile, "and I have only to
ask and it is done."

"What! if after having got drunk here to-day, you asked to come back
to-morrow to get drunk again?" said Gregory, who in his challenge to Ivan
did not forget his own interests,--"if you asked that?"

"I should come back again," said Ivan.

"To-morrow?" said Gregory.

"To-morrow, the day after, every day if I liked...."

"The fact is, Ivan is our young lady's favourite," said another of the
count's slaves who was present, profiting by his comrade Ivan's
liberality.

"It is all the same," said Gregory; "for supposing such permission were
given you, money would soon run short."

"Never!" said Ivan, swallowing another glass of brandy, "never will Ivan
want for money as long as there is a kopeck in my lady's purse."

"I did not find her so liberal," said Gregory bitterly.

"Oh, you forget, my friend; you know well she does not reckon with her
friends: remember the strokes of the knout."

"I have no wish to speak about that," said Gregory. "I know that she is
generous with blows, but her money is another thing. I have never seen
the colour of that."

"Well, would you like to see the colour of mine?" said Ivan, getting more
and more drunk. "See here, here are kopecks, sorok-kopecks, blue notes
worth five roubles, red notes worth twenty five roubles, and to-morrow,
if you like, I will show you white notes worth fifty roubles. A health
to my lady Vaninka!" And Ivan held out his glass again, and Gregory
filled it to the brim.

"But does money," said Gregory, pressing Ivan more and more,--"does money
make up for scorn?"

"Scorn!" said Ivan,--"scorn! Who scorns me? Do you, because you are
free? Fine freedom! I would rather be a well-fed slave than a free man
dying of hunger."

"I mean the scorn of our masters," replied Gregory.

"The scorn of our masters! Ask Alexis, ask Daniel there, if my lady
scorns me."

"The fact is," said the two slaves in reply, who both belonged to the
general's household, "Ivan must certainly have a charm; for everyone
talks to him as if to a master."

"Because he is Annouschka's