ch of his Spanish tobacco.

His peasants loved him. Their master was kind, according to them, and
not a heart-breaker.--Only, they also repeated that he was a worn-out
steed. Formerly Alexyei Sergyeitch had gone into everything himself: he
had ridden out into the fields, and to the flour-mill, and to the
oil-mill and the storehouses, and looked in to the peasants' cottages;
every one was familiar with his racing-drozhky,[38] upholstered in
crimson plush and drawn by a well-grown horse with a broad blaze
extending clear across its forehead, named "Lantern"--from that same
famous breeding establishment. Alexyei Sergyeitch drove him himself with
the ends of the reins wound round his fists. But when his seventieth
birthday came the old man gave up everything, and entrusted the
management of his estate to the peasant bailiff Antip, of whom he
secretly stood in awe and called Micromegas (memories of Voltaire!), or
simply "robber."

"Well, robber, hast thou gathered a big lot of stolen goods?" he would
say, looking the robber straight in the eye.

"Everything is according to your grace," Antip would reply merrily.

"Grace is all right, only just look out for thyself, Micromegas! Don't
dare to touch my peasants, my subjects behind my back! They will make
complaint ... my cane is not far off, seest thou?"

"I always keep your little cane well in mind, dear little father Alexyei
Sergyeitch," replied Antip-Micromegas, stroking his beard.

"That's right, keep it in mind!" and master and bailiff laughed in each
other's faces.

With his house-serfs, with his serfs in general, with his "subjects"
(Alexyei Sergyeitch loved that word), he dealt gently.--"Because, judge
for thyself, little nephew, if thou hast nothing of thine own save the
cross on thy neck,[39] and that a brass one, don't hanker after other
folks' things.... What sense is there in that?" There is no denying the
fact that no one even thought of the so-called problem of the serfs at
that epoch; and it could not disturb Alexyei Sergyeitch. He very calmly
ruled his "subjects"; but he condemned bad landed proprietors and called
them the enemies of their class.

He divided the nobles in general into three categories: the judicious,
"of whom there are not many"; the profligate, "of whom there is a goodly
number"; and the licentious, "of whom there are enough to dam a pond."
And if any one of them was harsh and oppressive to his subjects, that
man was guilty in the sig