The peasant cast a sidelong glance at me. I inwardly registered a vow that I would save the poor fellow at any cost. He sat motionless on the wall-bench. By the light of the lantern I was able to scrutinize his dissipated, wrinkled face, his pendant, yellow eyebrows, his thin limbs.... The little girl lay down on the floor, at his very feet, and fell asleep again. The Wolf sat by the table with his head propped on his hands. A grasshopper chirped in one corner..... The rain beat down upon the roof and dripped down the windows; we all maintained silence. "Foma Kuzmitch," began the peasant suddenly, in a dull, cracked voice: "hey there, Foma Kuzmitch!" "What do you want?" "Let me go." The Wolf made no reply. "Let me go ... hunger drove me to it ... let me go." "I know you," retorted the forester, grimly. "You're all alike in your village, a pack of thieves." "Let me go," repeated the peasant. "The head clerk ... we're ruined, that's what it is ... let me go!" "Ruined!... No one ought to steal!" "Let me go, Foma Kuzmitch ... don't destroy me. Thy master, as thou knowest, will devour me, so he will." The Wolf turned aside. The peasant was twitching all over as though racked with fever. He kept shaking his head, and he breathed irregularly. "Let me go," he repeated with melancholy despair. "Let me go, for God's sake, let me go! I will pay, that I will, by God. By God, hunger drove me to it ... the children are squalling, thou knowest thyself how it is. It's hard on a man, that it is." "All the same, don't go a-thieving." "My horse," continued the peasant, "there's my horse, take it if you choose ... it's my only beast ... let me go!" "Impossible, I tell thee. I also am a subordinate, I shall be held responsible. And it isn't right, either, to connive at thy deed." "Let me go! Poverty, Foma Kuzmitch, poverty, that's what it is ... let me go!" "I know thee!" "But let me go!" "Eh, what's the use of arguing with you; sit still or I'll give it to you, don't you know? Don't you see the gentleman?" The poor fellow dropped his eyes.... The Wolf yawned, and laid his head on the table. The rain had not stopped. I waited to see what would happen. The peasant suddenly straightened himself up. His eyes began to blaze, and the color flew to his face. "Well, go ahead, devour! Go ahead, oppress! Go ahead," he began, screwing up his eyes, and dropping the corners of his lips, "go ahead, accursed murderer of the soul, drink Christian blood, drink!" The forester turned round. "I'm talking to thee, to thee, Asiatic blood-drinker, to thee!" "Art thou drunk, that thou hast taken it into thy head to curse!" said the forester with amazement. "Hast thou gone crazy?"