Page:Complete Works of Count Tolstoy - 02.djvu/79

Rh ish conceit prevented him from acknowledging it; he again refused the net, and continued to tell the old man about the construction of beehives, of which he had read in the "Maison Rustique," and in which the bees, according to his opinion, would swarm twice as much; but a bee stung his neck, and he stopped confused in the middle of his argument.

"That is so, Father Dmítri Nikoláevich," said the old man, glancing at the master with fatherly condescension, "they write so in books. But they may write so maliciously. 'Let him do,' they probably say, 'as we write, and we will have the laugh on him.' I believe that is possible! For how are you going to teach the bees where to build their combs? They fix them in the hollow blocks as they please, sometimes crossways, and at others straight. Look here, if you please," he added, uncorking one of the nearest blocks, and looking through the opening, which was covered with buzzing and creeping bees along the crooked combs. "Now here, these young ones, they have their mind on a queen bee, but they build the comb straightways and aslant, just as it fits best into the block," said the old man, obviously carried away by his favourite subject, and not noticing the master's condition. "They are coming heavily laden to-day, it is a warm day, and everything can be seen," he added, corking up the hive, and crushing a creeping bee with a rag, and then brushing off with his coarse hand a few bees from his wrinkled brow. The bees did not sting him. But Nekhlyúdov could no longer repress his desire to run out of the apiary; the bees had stung him in three places, and they were buzzing on all sides about his head and neck.

"Have you many hives?" he asked, retreating to the gate.

"As many as God has given," answered Dutlóv, smiling. "One must not count them, father! the bees do