Page:Complete Works of Count Tolstoy - 18.djvu/238

. Very well, very well. If I have time, I will call. (Exit.)

(seeing the peasants). What is this? What is this? What kind of people are these? (Peasants bow.)

. These are peasants from the Kursk estate: they have come to see Leoníd Fédorovich about the purchase of some land.

. I see that they are peasants. But who has admitted them?

. Leoníd Fédorovich has ordered them to come. Leoníd Fédorovich has just been talking with them about the sale of the land.

. What sale? There is no need of selling it. Above everything else, how could you let the people from the street straight into the house? How could you let people in from the street? People that sleep God knows where must not be admitted to the house— (Becoming ever more excited.) The folds of their dresses are full of all kinds of microbes: of scarlet fever microbes, of smallpox microbes, of diphtheria microbes! They are from Kursk, from the Government of Kursk, where there is an epidemic of diphtheria!—Doctor, doctor! Bring back the doctor!

(smoking into the peasants' faces). Never mind, mamma! If you want to, I will fumigate them so that all the microbes will give up their ghost. Ah, what?