‘Yes,’ Alexey Sergeitch used to say, ‘my day is over; I was a spirited steed, but I’ve run my last race now. Then, I used to keep poets at my expense, and I used to buy pictures and books of the Jews, geese of the best breeds, and pouter-pigeons of pure blood.... I used to go in for everything! Though dogs I never did care for keeping, because it goes with drinking, foulness, and buffoonery! I was a young man of spirit, not to be outdone. That there should be anything of Teliegin’s and not first-rate ... why, it was not to be thought of! And I had a splendid stud of horses. And my horses came--from what stock do you think, young sir? Why, from none other than the celebrated stables of the Tsar, Ivan Alexeitch, brother of Peter the Great ... it’s the truth I’m telling you! All fawn-coloured stallions, sleek--their manes to their knees, their tails to their hoofs.... Lions! And all that was--and is buried in the past. Vanity of vanities--and every kind of vanity! But still--why regret it? Every man has his limits set him. There’s no flying above the sky, no living in the water, no getting away from the earth.... We’ll live a bit longer, anyway!’ And the old man would smile again and sniff his Spanish snuff. The peasants liked him; he was, in their words, a kind master, not easily angered. Only they, too, repeated that he was a worn-out steed. In former days Alexey Sergeitch used to go into everything himself--he used to drive out to the fields, and to the mill, and to the dairy, and peep into the granaries and the peasants’ huts; every one knew his racing droshky, upholstered in crimson plush, and drawn by a tall mare, with a broad white star all over her forehead, called ‘Beacon,’ of the same famous breed. Alexey Sergeitch used to drive her himself, the ends of the reins crushed up in his fists. But when his seventieth year came, the old man let everything go, and handed over the management of the estate to the bailiff Antip, of whom he was secretly afraid, and whom he called Micromegas (a reminiscence of Voltaire!), or simply, plunderer. ‘Well, plunderer, what have you to say? Have you stacked a great deal in the barn?’ he would ask with a smile, looking straight into the plunderer’s eyes. ‘All, by your good favour, please your honour,’ Antip would respond cheerfully. ‘Favour’s all very well, only you mind what I say, Micromegas! don’t you dare touch the peasants, my subjects, out of my sight! If they come to complain ... I’ve a cane, you see, not far off!’ ‘Your cane, your honour, Alexey Sergeitch, I always keep well in mind,’ Antip Micromegas would respond, stroking his beard. ‘All right, don’t forget it.’ And the master and the bailiff would laugh in each other’s faces. With the servants, and with the serfs in general, his ‘subjects’ (Alexey Sergeitch liked that word) he was gentle in his behaviour. ‘Because, think a little, nephew; nothing of their own, but the cross on their neck--and that copper--and daren’t hanker after other