said a lean old man with a pointed nose.
"You ask, Who let the horse feed in the field? But who did it? Day in
and day out--and every day is as long as a year--I worked with the
scythe, and as I fell asleep the horse went among the oats. And now
you are fleecing me."

"You should keep order."

"It is easy for you to say keep order. But we have no strength,"
retorted a middle-aged peasant, all covered with hair.

"I told you to fence it in."

"You give us the timber," said an unsightly little peasant. "When I
cut a joist last summer, intending to make a fence, you locked me up
for three months in the castle to feed the insects. There was a fence
for you!"

"Is that true?" asked Nekhludoff of the manager.

"Der erste dich im dorfe," said the manager in German. "He was caught
every year in the woods. You must learn to respect other people's
property."

"Do we not respect you?" said an old man. "We cannot help respecting
you, because you have us in your hands, and you are twisting us into
rope."

"If you would only abstain from doing wrong," said the manager. "It is
pretty hard to wrong you."

"And who battered my face last summer? Of course, there is no use
going to law with a rich man."

"You only keep within bounds of the law."

This was evidently a wordy tourney of which the participants hardly
knew the purpose. Nekhludoff tried to get back to business.

"Well, what do you say? Do you wish the land, and what price do you
set on it?"

"It is your goods; you name the price."

Nekhludoff set the price, and though much lower than the prevailing
price, the peasants began to bargain, finding it high. He expected
that his offer would be accepted with pleasure, but there was no sign
of satisfaction. Only when the question was raised whether the whole
community would take the land, or have individual arrangements did he
know that it was profitable for them. For there resulted fierce
quarrels between those who wished to exclude the weak ones and bad
payers from participating in the land, and those whom it was sought to
exclude. But the German finally arranged the price and time of
payment, and the peasants, noisily talking, returned to the village.

The price was about thirty per cent. lower than the one prevailing in
the district, and Nekhludoff's income was reduced to almost one-half,
but, with money realized from the sale of the timber and yet to be
realized from the sale of the stock, it was amply suffici