"What do they say about me? Are they cursing me?" The elder hesitated, but Mikhaíl Seménovich commanded him to tell the whole truth. "Tell everything! You are not going to tell me your words, but theirs. If you tell me the truth, I will reward you; and if you shield them, look out, I will have you flogged. O Kátyusha, give him a glass of vódka to brace him up!" The cook went and brought the elder the vódka. The elder saluted, drank the vódka, wiped his mouth, and began to speak. "I cannot help it," he thought, "it is not my fault if they do not praise him; I will tell him the truth, if he wants it." And the elder took courage and said: "They murmur, Mikhaíl Seménovich, they murmur." "What do they say? Speak!" "They keep saying that you do not believe in God." The clerk laughed. "Who said that?" "All say so. They say that you are submitting to the devil." The clerk laughed. "That is all very well," he said, "but tell me in particular what each says. What does Vasíli say?" The elder did not wish to tell on his people, but with Vasíli he had long been in a feud. "Vasíli," he said, "curses more than the rest." "What does he say? Tell me!" "It is too terrible to tell. He says that you will die an unrepenting death." "What a brave fellow!" he said. "Why, then, is he gaping? Why does he not kill me? Evidently his arms are too short. All right," he said, "Vasíli, we will square up accounts. And Tíshka, that dog, I suppose he says so, too?" "All speak ill of you." "But what do they say?" "I loathe to tell." "Never mind! Take courage and speak!" "They say: 'May his belly burst, and his guts run out!'" Mikhaíl Seménovich was delighted, and he even laughed. "We will see whose will run out first. Who said that? Tíshka?" [Illustration: "But the candle was still burning" _Photogravure from Painting by A. Kivshénko_] "Nobody said a good word. All of them curse you and threaten you." "Well, and Peter Mikhyéev? What does he say? He, too, I suppose, is cursing me?" "No, Mikhaíl Seménovich, Peter is not cursing." "What does he say?" "He is the only one of all the peasants who is not saying anything. He is a wise peasant. I wondered at him, Mikhaíl Seménovich." "How so?" "All the peasants were wondering at what he was doing." "What was he doing?" "It is wonderful. I rode up to him. He is ploughing the slanting desyatína at Túrkin Height. As I rode up to him, I heard some one singing such nice, high tones, and on the plough-staff something was shining." "Well?" "It was shining like a light. I rode up to him, and there I saw a five-kopek wax candle was stuck on the cross-bar and burning, and the wind did not blow it out. He had on a clean shirt, and was ploughing and singing Sunday hymns. And he would turn over and shake off the dirt, but the candle did not go out. He shook the plough in my presence, changed the peg, and started the plough, but the candle was still burning and did not go out." "And what did he say?"