Page:Tolstoy - Tales from Tolstoi.djvu/195

Rh at the brook were much busier with their tongues than with their bleaching-sticks; and so it got worse and worse.

The two muzhiks began to talk ill of one another, and then they went to law; and if they found anything lying about they filched it. And so the women and children were taught to do the same. And life amongst them grew worse and worse. Ivan Shcherbakov summoned Gabriel Khromoi before the general assembly of peasants, and in the district court, and in the land court of Mir: so that they worried all the courts. And now Ivan had Gabriel punished or put in prison: and now Gabriel, Ivan. And the more they blackguarded each other, the more evil-disposed did they grow. They were fighting like dogs: the more they worried each other the more furious they grew. Strike one such dog from behind, and he'll fancy the other is biting him, and will hang on more savagely than ever. So, too, these muzhiks. They went to law and got each other fined or locked up, and the end of it all was that their hearts were hotter against each other than before.

"You just wait a bit, that's all, and I'll pay you out for this."

And so it went on amongst them for six years. Only the old man on the stove kept on saying the selfsame thing, and began to entreat with them.

"What do ye, children? Away with all your charges and counter-charges. Neglect not your work, and don't take offence at people, and it will be better for you. But the more you are wrath with them the worse it will be!" 145