"I said it would be worse," he remarked, getting his breath after the struggle, and adjusting his shirt-band. "Why should he sin? We must all die. Let him have a cloak for a pillow," he added, turning to the dvornik; "the blood will run to his head" and, after girding himself with a rope, he took his lantern, and went out to his horses.
Ilya with dishevelled locks, pale face, and disordered linen, glared about the room as though he were trying to remember where he was. The porter picked up the broken glass, and put a jacket in the window so as to keep out the cold. The elder again sat down with his cup of kvas.
"Ay, Ilyúkha, Ilyúkha, I'm sorry for you, indeed I am. What's to be done? Here's Khoriushkin, he's married too. No way of avoiding it."
"My uncle is my enemy, and he wants to kill me," reiterated Ilya with tearless wrath. "Much he pities his own!... Mátushka said the overseer told him to hire a substitute. He wouldn't do it. He says he wouldn't borrow. Did I and my brother bring nothing into the house?... He is our enemy."
Dutlof came into the house, said a prayer before the holy images, took off his coat and hat, and sat down by the elder. The maid brought him also a cup of kvas and a spoon. Ilya said nothing, shut his eyes, and lay still on the cloak. The stárosta silently pointed to him, and shook his head. Dutlof waved his hand.
"Am I not sorry to have him go? He's my own brother's son. And though I pity him so, they make it out that I'm his enemy. His wife[14] put it into his head; a crafty woman, but quite too young. The idea of her thinking that we had money enough to hire a substitute! And so she blamed me. And yet I'm sorry for him."
"Akh, he's a fine young fellow," said the stárosta.
"With my little means I couldn't do any thing for him. To-morrow I am going to send Ignat in, and his wife will want to go."
"Send her along, first-rate," said the stárosta, and he got up and mounted the stove. "What's money? Money's dust."
"Who would begrudge money if he had it?" asked one of the merchant's people, lifting his head.
"Ekh! money, money! it causes many a sin," replied Dutlof. "Nothing in the world causes so much sin as money, and it says so in the Scriptures."