Page:Tolstoy - Tales from Tolstoi.djvu/248

Tales from Tolstoi had made for him not long before, and above that his lined kaftan; put his three-rouble note in his pocket, cut himself a stick, and went after breakfast. He thought to himself: "I shall get my five roubles from the muzhiks, I'll add these three to them, and I'll buy a sheep-skin for a fur pelisse."

The cobbler went into the village and stopped at one of the muzhiks; he was not at home. His old woman promised to send her husband to him with the money in a week. He went on to another. This muzhik took God to witness that he had no money. He only gave him twenty kopecks for the patching of his boots. The cobbler thought of getting the sheep-skin on credit, but the sheepskin-dealer would not let him have it on credit.

"Bring the money," said he, "and then take what you like. We know how debts mount up."

So the cobbler did no business that day. He only got twenty kopecks for botching boots, and a pair of old leather soles to patch up again from the muzhik.

The cobbler was sore distressed. He drank away the whole of the twenty kopecks in brandy, and set off home without his pelisse. The cobbler went on his way, with one hand striking at the frozen snow-clods with his little stick, and swinging the boots by the laces with the other hand. And as he went along, he thus communed with himself:

"I'm warm without a pelisse," said he, "I've drunk a thimbleful and it skips about through all my veins. And a sheep-skin is not necessary after all. Here I go along and forget all my care. That's the sort of 198