Page:Tolstoy - Tales from Tolstoi.djvu/214

Tales from Tolstoi out at work, and another at home. Elisyei was a good-humoured, cheerful man. He drank vodka and took snuff, and loved to sing songs; but he was a man of peace, and lived amicably with those at home, and with his neighbours. In person Elisyei was a somewhat short muzhik, somewhat dark, with a curly beard and a bald head.

The old men had for a long time decided and agreed to go together, but Tarasuich could never find time, his affairs stood in the way. When one was finished, another turned up; at one time he had to get his grandson married, at another time he had to await the return of his youngest son from the wars, and at another he had undertaken the building of a new hut.

One day the old men met together on a festival, and sat down on a bench.

"Well," said Elisyei, "when, gossip, shall we go and fulfil our vow?"

Efim began wrinkling his brow. "We must wait," said he; "this year has turned out a hard one for me. I shall have to build up this hut of mine. I had thought to have laid by a hundred roubles, and have only a third of that. That is not enough. 'Tis plain we must postpone it till the spring. In a year, if God lets us live to see another, we will go without fail."

"In my opinion," said Elisyei, tis no good putting off, we should go now. It is the very time—spring."

"The time may be the right time, but business is business, one cannot neglect it."

"Hast thou, then, none of thine own people by thee? Cannot thy son see to thy business?" 164