' worth, I suppose?"

"Five, yes, five, five, five, _un tout petit rien_," Stepan Trofimovitch
assented with a blissful smile.

Ask a peasant to do anything for you, and if he can, and will, he
will serve you with care and friendliness; but ask him to fetch you
vodka--and his habitual serenity and friendliness will pass at once into
a sort of joyful haste and alacrity; he will be as keen in your
interest as though you were one of his family. The peasant who fetches
vodka--even though you are going to drink it and not he and he knows
that beforehand--seems, as it were, to be enjoying part of your future
gratification. Within three minutes (the tavern was only two paces
away), a bottle and a large greenish wineglass were set on the table
before Stepan Trofimovitch.

"Is that all for me!" He was extremely surprised. "I've always had vodka
but I never knew you could get so much for five farthings."

He filled the wineglass, got up and with a certain solemnity crossed the
room to the other corner where his fellow-traveller, the black-browed
peasant woman, who had shared the sack with him and bothered him with
her questions, had ensconced herself. The woman was taken aback, and
began to decline, but after having said all that was prescribed by
politeness, she stood up and drank it decorously in three sips, as women
do, and, with an expression of intense suffering on her face, gave back
the wineglass and bowed to Stepan Trofimovitch. He returned the bow with
dignity and returned to the table with an expression of positive pride
on his countenance.

All this was done on the inspiration of the moment: a second before he
had no idea that he would go and treat the peasant woman.

"I know how to get on with peasants to perfection, to perfection, and
I've always told them so," he thought complacently, pouring out the rest
of the vodka; though there was less than a glass left, it warmed and
revived him, and even went a little to his head.

_"Je suis malade tout a fait, mais ce n'est pas trop mauvais d'etre
malade."_

"Would you care to purchase?" a gentle feminine voice asked close by
him.

He raised his eyes and to his surprise saw a lady--_une dame et elle en
avait l'air,_ somewhat over thirty, very modest in appearance, dressed not
like a peasant, in a dark gown with a grey shawl on her shoulders.
There was something very kindly in her face which attracted Stepan
Trofimovitch immediately. She had only just come back to