Page:Tolstoy - Tales from Tolstoi.djvu/185

Rh "Mishen'ka, my friend, I saw an evil dream concerning thee; listen to me, let the muzhiks go!"

"I tell thee what," said he, tis as I have said, thou hast eaten so much of my fat things, I see, that thou hast no more thought of the flavour of the whip that stings! Look to thyself!"

And in his wrath Semenovich struck his wife in the teeth with his burning pipe-bowl, and drove her out and bade her get dinner ready.

Michal Semenovich ate like a brute; he ate pasties, cabbage soup with swine's flesh, and curd dumplings; he drank cherry brandy, then he ate sweet tarts, and then he sent for the cook and made her sit down and sing songs while he took out his guitar and played to her singing.

There sat Michal Semenovich in a merry mood; ran over the strings of the guitar and made merry with the cook. Then came the starosta, bowed to the ground, and began to report what he had seen in the field.

"Well, are they ploughing? Have they ploughed their allotted task?"

"They have already ploughed more than half of it."

"And there are no plots unploughed?"

"I saw none; they ploughed well; they are afraid."

"And is the quality of the land good?"

"The quality of the land is soft, it crumbles up like poppy seed."

And the starosta was silent.

"Well, and what say they about me; did they revile?" 135