“Again! You can’t get along without the devil! It’s a sin! by Heaven, it’s a sin, Ivan Nikiforovitch!”
“What do you mean, Ivan Ivanovitch, by offering the deuce knows what kind of a sow for my gun?”
“Why is she ‘the deuce knows what,’ Ivan Nikiforovitch?”
“Why? You can judge for yourself perfectly well; here’s the gun, a known thing; but the deuce knows what that sow is like! If it had not been you who said it, Ivan Ivanovitch, I might have put an insulting construction on it.”
“What defect have you observed in the sow?”
“Sit down, sit down! I won’t--No matter about your gun; let it rot and rust where it stands in the corner of the storeroom. I don’t want to say anything more about it!”
“They say,” began Ivan Ivanovitch, “that three kings have declared war against our Tzar.”
“Yes, Peter Feodorovitch told me so. What sort of war is this, and why is it?”
“I cannot say exactly, Ivan Nikiforovitch, what the cause is. I suppose the kings want us to adopt the Turkish faith.”
“Fools! They would have it,” said Ivan Nikiforovitch, raising his head.
“So, you see, our Tzar has declared war on them in consequence. ‘No,’ says he, ‘do you adopt the faith of Christ!’”
“Oh, our people will beat them, Ivan Ivanovitch!”
“They will. So you won’t exchange the gun, Ivan Nikiforovitch?”
“It’s a strange thing to me, Ivan Ivanovitch, that you, who seem to be a man distinguished for sense, should talk such nonsense. What a fool I should be!”
“Sit down, sit down. God be with it! let it burst! I won’t mention it again.”
Ivan Ivanovitch drank a glass and ate a pie with sour cream. “Listen, Ivan Nikiforovitch: I will give you, besides the sow, two sacks of oats. You did not sow any oats. You’ll have to buy some this year in any case.”
“By Heaven, Ivan Ivanovitch, I must tell you you are very foolish! Who ever heard of swapping a gun for two sacks of oats? Never fear, you don’t offer your coat.”
“But you forget, Ivan Nikiforovitch, that I am to give you the sow too.”
“What! two sacks of oats and a sow for a gun?”
“Two sacks, not empty, but filled with oats; and you’ve forgotten the sow.”
“Kiss your sow; and if you don’t like that, then go to the Evil One!”
“Oh, get angry now, do! See here; they’ll stick your tongue full of red-hot needles in the other world for such godless words. After a conversation with you, one has to wash one’s face and hands and fumigate one’s self.”