Page:Complete Works of Count Tolstoy - 02.djvu/59

 Rh was so sleepy that he could not open his eyes wide, nor stand still, without tottering and yawning.

"Are you not ashamed," began Nekhlyúdov, "to sleep in bright daylight, when you ought to build a yard, and when you have no grain?"

As soon as Davýdka came to his senses, and began to understand that the master was standing before him, he folded his hands over his abdomen, lowered his head, turning it a little to one side, and did not stir a limb. He was silent; but the expression of his face and the attitude of his whole form said, "I know, I know, it is not the first time I hear that. Beat me if you must,—I will bear it."

It looked as though he wanted the master to stop talking and to start beating him at once; to strike him hard on his cheeks, but to leave him in peace as soon as possible.

When Nekhlyúdov noticed that Davýdka did not understand him, he tried with various questions to rouse the peasant from his servile and patient silence.

"Why did you ask me for timber when you have had some lying here for a month, and that, too, when you have most time your own, eh?"

Davýdka kept stubborn silence, and did not stir.

"Well, answer!"

Davýdka muttered something, and blinked with his white eyelashes.

"But you must work, my dear: what will happen without work? Now, you have no grain, and why? Because your land is badly ploughed, and has not been harrowed, and was sowed in too late,—all on account of laziness. You ask me for grain: suppose I give it to you, because you must not starve! It will not do to act in this way. Whose grain am I giving you? What do you think, whose? Answer me: whose grain am I giving you?" Nekhlyúdov stubbornly repeated his question.