Page:The Novels of Ivan Turgenev (volume VII).djvu/144

Rh hardly necessary. One's only to propose a dram of vodka at the gin-shop, and lie away as one pleases.'

'And you did tell lies?' asked Marianna.

'I lied the best I could. The second point is: all, absolutely all the people I talked to are discontented; and no one even cares to know how to remedy this discontent! But at propaganda I seem to be a very poor hand; two pamphlets I simply left secretly in a room—one I thrust into a cart. What'll come of them the Lord only knows! I offered pamphlets to four men. One asked was it a religious book, and did not take it; another said he could not read, and took it for his children as there was a woodcut on the cover: a third began by agreeing with me. "To be sure, to be sure " then all of a sudden fell to swearing at me in the most unexpected way, and he too did not take one; the fourth at last took one, and thanked me very much for it, but I fancy he couldn't make head or tail of what I said to him. Besides that, a dog bit my leg; a peasant woman brandished a fire-shovel at me from the door of her hut, shouting, "Ugh! you beast! You Moscow loafers! Will nothing drown you?" And a soldier on furlough, too, kept shouting after me, "Wait a minute, we'll