Page:Tolstoy - Tales from Tolstoi.djvu/249

Rh chap I am. What do I care? I can get along without a sheep-skin. I shall never want one. There's one thing though—my old woman will fret about it. She'll say: Tis a shame, you work for him and he leads you by the nose.' Wait a bit, that's all! If you don't bring me my money, I'll take the very cap from your head, by God I will! What sort of pay is this? He palms off a couple of griveniki upon me! What's a man to do with a couple of griveniki? Drink it up, and be done with it. 'I'm hard up,' says he. You're hard up, are you, and don't you suppose that I am hard up too? You have a house and cattle and everything else, and all I have is on my back! You make your own bread, I have to buy mine. Get it from whence I can, but three roubles I must find to spend in bread every week. I go home and all the bread has gone. Again I must lay out a rouble-and-a-half. Then why cannot you give me my due?"

Thus the cobbler went on till, he came to the chapel at the corner. He looked, and close up by the chapel something was glistening white. It was just then beginning to be dusky. The cobbler looked at it more narrowly, but could not make out what it was.

"There's no such stone as that here!" thought he. "Cattle, perhaps? But it's not like cattle either. It has got a head like a man. It's something white or other. But what should a man be doing here?"

He drew nearer. It was now quite visible. What marvel was this? It was indeed a man sitting there quite naked. Who shall say whether he was alive or 199