Page:Complete Works of Count Tolstoy - 02.djvu/68

 50 "What nonsense you are talking, Arína! How can one bewitch?"

"Father, they can bewitch so as to make one a no-man for all his life! There are many evil people in the world! Out of malice they take out a handful of earth in one's track—or something else—and one is a no-man for ever. It is easy to sin! I have been thinking of going to see old man Dundúk, who lives at Vorobévka: he knows all kinds of incantations, and he knows herbs, and he takes away the evil eye, and draws the dropsy out of the spine. Maybe he will help!" said the woman. "Maybe he will cure him!"

"Now that is wretchedness and ignorance!" thought the young master, sorrowfully bending his head, and walking with long strides down the village. "What shall I do with him? It is impossible to leave him in this state, on my account, and as an example for others, and for his own sake," he said to himself, counting out the causes on his fingers. "I cannot see him in this condition, but how am I to take him out of it? He destroys all my best plans for the estate. If such peasants are left in it, my dreams will never be fulfilled," he thought, experiencing mortification and anger against the peasant for destroying his plans. "Shall I send him as a settler to Siberia, as Yákov says, when he does not want to be well off, or into the army? That's it. I shall at least be rid of him, and shall thus save a good peasant," he reflected.

He thought of it with delight; at the same time a certain indistinct consciousness told him that he was thinking with one side of his reason only, and something was wrong. He stopped. "Wait, what am I thinking about? " he said to himself; "yes, into the army, to Siberia. For what? He is a good man, better than many others, and how do I know— Give him his liberty?" he reflected, considering the question not with one side of his reason