A mocking smile arose to Churis's lips, as though it were ridiculous to him for his master to ask such foolish questions; he made no reply. "What do you mean,--dinner, benefactor?" said the old woman, sighing deeply. "We've eaten a little bread; that's our dinner. We couldn't get any vegetables to-day so as to boil some soup,[9] but we had a little kvas,--enough for the children." [Footnote 9: _shchets_ for _shchi_.] "To-day was a fast-day for us, your excellency," remarked Churis sarcastically, taking up his wife's words. "Bread and onions; that's the way we peasants live. Howsomever, praise be to the Lord, I have a little grain yet, thanks to your kindness; it's lasted till now; but there's plenty of our peasants as ain't got any. Everywheres there's scarcity of onions. Only a day or two ago they sent to Mikháïl the gardener, to get a bunch for a farthing: couldn't get any anywheres. Haven't been to God's church scarcely since Easter. Haven't had nothing to buy a taper for Mikóla [St. Nicholas] with." Nekhliudof, not by hearsay nor by trust in the words of others, but by the evidence of his own eyes, had long known the extreme depth of poverty into which his peasantry had sunken: but the entire reality was in such perfect contrast to his own bringing-up, the turn of his mind, and the course of his life, that in spite of himself he kept forgetting the truth of it; and every time when, as now, it was brought vividly, tangibly, before him, his heart was torn with painful, almost unendurable melancholy, as though some absolute and unavoidable punishment were torturing him. "Why are you so poor?" he exclaimed, involuntarily expressing his thought. "How could such as we help being poor, sir,[10] your excellency? Our land is so bad, you yourself may be pleased to know,--clay and sand-heaps; and surely we must have angered God, for this long time, ever since the cholera, the corn won't grow. Our meadows and every thing else have been growing worse and worse. And some of us have to work for the farm, and some detailed for the manor-lands. And here I am with no one to help me, and I'm getting old. I'd be glad enough to work, but I hain't no strength. And my old woman's ailing; and every year there's a new girl born, and I have to feed 'em all. I get tired out all alone, and here's seven dependent on me. I must be a sinner in the eyes of the Lord God, I often think to myself. And when God takes me off sudden-like, I feel it would be easier for me; just as it's better for them than to lead such a dog's life here".... [Footnote 10: _bátiushka._] "Oh, _okh_!" groaned the old woman, as a sort of confirmation of her husband's words.