"Let's figure out, brother. If we sell the whole forest, what will it come to?"
Porfiry Vladimirych again makes a mental calculation of the value of a large beam, a smaller beam, a plank, a lath, the firewood and the branches. He adds up, multiplies, now omitting fractions, now adding them. Columns of numbers fill the sheet.
"Here is the total, brother," says Yudushka, showing Ilya's phantom an altogether fabulous sum. The old servant is dazed.
"Is it not a little too large?" he says, pensively shrugging his shoulders.
But Porfiry Vladimirych has already cast off all doubts and giggles gleefully.
"You are a queer fellow, brother!" he exclaims. "It isn't I who say it, it's the number that says it. There is a science called arithmetic. It never tells a lie, brother! Well, this will do for Ukhovshchina. Now let's have a look at Lisy-Yamy, brother. It's a long time since I have been there. I have a strong suspicion the peasants have become thievish. There's Garanka, the guard--I know, I know. Garanka is a good, faithful guard, that's true enough. Still, you know. It seems to me he is not what he used to be either."
They plough noiselessly and unseen through a birch thicket, and stop suddenly, holding their breath. A peasant's cart lies sprawling across the road on its side, and the peasant is standing by, looking at the broken axle in perplexity. He has been standing there for some time, cursing the axle and himself and whipping the horse now and then. Finally he sees he cannot loaf there all day long. He looks around and pricks up his ears to make sure no one is coming along the road. Then he selects a suitable birch tree, and takes out an axe. Meanwhile Yudushka stands motionless and watches. The young birch shudders, sways and suddenly sinks to the ground like a sheaf of corn, reaped by the sickle. The thief is about to lop off the length of an axle from the trunk, but Yudushka has decided that the moment has come. He steals upon him and in a trice snatches the axe from his hand.
"Ah!" is all the thief, taken red-handed, has time to exclaim.
"Ah!" Yudushka mimics him. "Are you allowed to steal timber? 'Ah!' Is it your birch-tree you have just felled?"
"I forgave everyone long ago, brother. I am myself a sinner before the Lord and I dare not judge another. It is the law, not I, that condemns you. Take the tree you have felled to the manor-house and pay up a fine of one ruble. In the meantime, I shall keep your axe. Don't you worry, it is in good hands, brother."