Page:Tolstoy - Tales from Tolstoi.djvu/204

Tales from Tolstoi locked up, and put down the podvorotnya. "And now I'll eat a little supper and go to bed," thought Ivan, and taking up the tattered harness, he carried it into the hut. And all this time he had forgotten all about Gabriel, and about what his father had said. Only when he was turning the handle of the door and going into the house, he heard behind the fence his neighbour "rowing" someone with a harsh squeaky voice.

"Devil take him," Gabriel was shrieking, "I'll kill him!"

Ivan stopped, stood still, and listened while Gabriel was scolding, then he shook his head and went into the hut.

He went into the hut, in the hut a fire was burning, his young wife was sitting by the fire at her spinning, the old woman was getting supper ready, his eldest son was knitting socks, the second was at the table reading from a little book, Taraska was getting ready to go away for the night.

In the hut everything was bright and good, but for that chilblain of a fellow, the bad neighbour.

Ivan came in grieved, pitched the cat off the bench, and scolded the old woman because the kettle was not in its right place. And Ivan began to feel wretched. He sat down and frowned, and began to work away at the harness, and he could not get out of his head Gabriel's words when he threatened in the court, or the words he had just heard: "I will kill him!" 154