boots and keep looking at them—that’s all the pleasure they know. Or they’ll drink themselves foolish, not like men but all wrong. And who was I? I was Eróshka, the thief; they knew me not only in this village but up in the mountains. Tartar princes, my _kunaks_, used to come to see me! I used to be everybody’s _kunak_. If he was a Tartar—with a Tartar; an Armenian—with an Armenian; a soldier—with a soldier; an officer—with an officer! I didn’t care as long as he was a drinker. He says you should cleanse yourself from intercourse with the world, not drink with soldiers, not eat with a Tartar.” “Who says all that?” asked Olénin. “Why, our teacher! But listen to a Mullah or a Tartar Cadi. He says, ‘You unbelieving Giaours, why do you eat pig?’ That shows that everyone has his own law. But I think it’s all one. God has made everything for the joy of man. There is no sin in any of it. Take example from an animal. It lives in the Tartar’s reeds or in ours. Wherever it happens to go, there is its home! Whatever God gives it, that it eats! But our people say we have to lick red-hot plates in hell for that. And I think it’s all a fraud,” he added after a pause. “What is a fraud?” asked Olénin. “Why, what the preachers say. We had an army captain in Chervlëna who was my _kunak:_ a fine fellow just like me. He was killed in Chéchnya. Well, he used to say that the preachers invent all that out of their own heads. ‘When you die the grass will grow on your grave and that’s all!’” The old man laughed. “He was a desperate fellow.” “And how old are you?” asked Olénin. “The Lord only knows! I must be about seventy. When a Tsaritsa reigned in Russia I was no longer very small. So you can reckon it out. I must be seventy.” “Yes you must, but you are still a fine fellow.” “Well, thank Heaven I am healthy, quite healthy, except that a woman, a witch, has harmed me....” “How?” “Oh, just harmed me.” “And so when you die the grass will grow?” repeated Olénin. Eróshka evidently did not wish to express his thought clearly. He was silent for a while. “And what did you think? Drink!” he shouted suddenly, smiling and handing Olénin some wine. Chapter XV “Well, what was I saying?” he continued, trying to remember. “Yes, that’s the sort of man I am. I am a hunter. There is no hunter to equal me in the whole army. I will find and show you any animal and any bird, and what and where. I know it all! I have dogs, and two guns, and nets, and a screen and a hawk. I have everything, thank the Lord! If you are not bragging but are a real sportsman, I’ll show you everything. Do you know what a man I am? When I have found a track—I know the animal. I know where he will lie down and where he’ll drink or wallow. I make myself a perch and sit there all night watching. What’s the good of staying at home? One only gets into mischief, gets drunk. And here women come and chatter, and boys shout at me—enough to drive one mad