Page:Tolstoy - Tales from Tolstoi.djvu/228

Tales from Tolstoi with thyself, and thy anchor is drifting, and thou canst find no bottom."

Elisyei arose, took up his kaftan from beneath his head, turned it round, got out his snuff-horn, took a pinch, and tried to think more clearly, but no—he thought and thought, and nothing at all came of it. He had to go, and he was sorry for the people. But what to do he had no idea. He wrapped up his kaftan, put it beneath his head, and lay down again. There he lay and lay. The cocks already began to crow, and he went right off to sleep. Suddenly it was as though someone aroused him. He saw that he was quite dressed, and with his knapsack and his staff, and he had to go out of the door, but the door was so disposed that a single person could scarcely pass through it. He tried to go through, and the door on one side hooked his knapsack. He would have unhooked it, but then it laid hold of his rag buskins on the other side, and the buskins all came undone. He tried to tear himself loose, but then he got entangled in the fence, and yet it was not the fence but the little girl who held on to him and cried, "Grandad, dear grandad, bread!" He looked down at his other foot, and there was the little boy holding on to his other buskin, and the muzhik and his wife were looking out of the window all the time. Elisyei awoke, and found himself saying, "Yes, I'll redeem it all, both field and crop, to-morrow. I'll buy a horse and I'll buy a cow for the children. Thou wouldst seek the Christ across the sea, and yet thou losest sight of the Christ that is within thee all the time. One must put these people right." And Elisyei slept 178