Page:Tolstoy - Tales from Tolstoi.djvu/189

Rh said she, "and let them go. Perhaps it is nothing. Whatsoever things thou didst heretofore, thou didst them and feared not, and now thou art sorely afraid."

"I have fallen," he said, "he has overcome me. Go away, there is naught amiss with thee; this does not prick thy soul."

So he would not get up.

In the morning he arose and went about his business as before, but it was plain that his heart was pricked. He fell a-fretting, and nothing prospered to his hands. He always sat at home now. He did not reign very long after this. His master came. He sent for his overseer—the overseer was ill, they said; he sent again—ill. Then the master found out that he drank, and dismissed him from his overseership. Michal Semenovich stood there now without a means of livelihood. And now he grieved still more, pawned all he had, and drank it away; then he sank so low that he stole the clothes from his wife's back, and carried them to the pot-house. The very muzhiks had pity on him, and gave him to drink. After that he did not live a year. He died of drink. 139