Page:Tolstoy - Tales from Tolstoi.djvu/131

Rh "Enough, indeed!" retorted the elder; "yes, and you share it with oxen and swine. You've neither elegance nor comfort. Let your husband work as he may, you'll live and die muckworms, and your children after you."

"Yes, so 'tis," returned the younger; "and we know what we have to expect. But set against it that our life is as solid as the rock beneath our feet. We truckle to none. We fear nobody. But all you townsfolk are beset with stumbling-blocks. To-day 'tis well, but to-morrow the unclean spirit pokes his bead in, and tempts your husband with cards, or wine, or theft, and—phew! your wealth is all dust and ashes. You can't deny it."

Pakhom, the younger sister's husband, was lying on the top of the stove, and listening to the women's prattle. "Quite true," said he to himself, "perfectly true. As our brother (i.e., himself) has been turning over his mother earth from his childhood, nonsense has had no time to get into his head. The mischief of it is, there's so little land to be had. Let me only have land enough, and I'll fear nobody: no, not even the Devil himself."

The women finished their tea, gossiped a little longer about their domestic affairs, cleared away the tea-things, and lay down to sleep.

And the Devil, who had all the time been sitting behind the stove, heard everything. He hugged himself with joy that the muzhik's wife should have set her husband off bragging—bragging that if he only had land enough, the Devil himself should not hurt him. "Softly, softly," thought he, "we'll be even with 81