Page:Complete Works of Count Tolstoy - 18.djvu/146

 the accommodation." The noose is around my neck, and I cannot get along without it. "Very well," says I, "I will take the ten roubles." In the fall I sell some things, and I bring you the money, and you skin me in addition for three roubles.

. But this is, so to speak, a wrong done to a peasant. If one forgets God, so to speak, it is not good.

. Wait a minute! She will soon strike the same thing. So remember what you have done: you have fleeced me, so to speak, and Anísya, for example, has some money which is lying idle. She has no place to put it in and, being a woman, does not know what to do with it. So she comes to you: "Can't I," says she, "make some use of my money?" "Yes, you can," you say. And so you wait. Next summer I come to you once more. "Give me another ten roubles," says I, "and I will pay you for the accommodation." So you watch me to see whether my hide has not been turned yet, whether I can be flayed again, and if I can, you give me Anísya's money. But if I have not a blessed thing, and nothing to eat, you make your calculations, seeing that I cannot be skinned, and you say: "God be with you, my brother!" and you look out for another man to whom to give Anísya's money, and whom you can flay. Now this is called a bank. So it keeps going around. It is a very clever thing, my friend.

(excitedly). What is this? This is a nastiness, so to speak. If a peasant, so to speak, were to do it, the peasants would regard it as a sin, so to speak. This is not according to the Law, not according to the Law, so to speak. It is bad. How can the learned men, so to speak—

. This, my friend, is their favourite occupation. You consider this: If there is one who is not very clever, or a woman, who has money and does not know what to do with it, they take it to a bank, and the bank