But Tikhon Ilitch, giving him no time to recover himself, continued wrathfully: “The people! Lewd, lazy, liars, and so shameless that not one of them believes another! Note this,” he roared, not perceiving that the lighted wick was smoking and the soot billowing up almost to the ceiling. “’Tis not us they refuse to trust, but one another! And they are all like that--every one of them!” he shouted in a tearful voice, as he jammed the chimney on the lamp with a crash. The outdoor light was beginning to filter blue through the windows. New, fresh snow was fluttering down on the pools of water and the snowdrifts. Kuzma gazed at it and held his peace. The conversation had taken such an unexpected turn that even Kuzma’s eagerness had vanished. Not knowing what to say, unable to bring himself to look at his brother’s furious eyes, he began to roll himself a cigarette. “He has gone crazy!” he said to himself despairingly. “Well, so be it! It makes no difference! Nothing--nothing makes any difference. Enough!” He began to smoke, and Tikhon Ilitch also began to calm down. He seated himself and, staring at the lamp, muttered softly: “You were talking about ‘Deniska.’ Have you heard what Makar Ivanovitch, that pilgrim fellow, has been up to? He and that friend of his caught a peasant woman on the road and dragged her to the sentry-box at Kliutchiki, and kept her there for four days, visiting her in turn. Well, and now they are in jail--” “Tikhon Ilitch,” said Kuzma amiably, “why do you talk nonsense? What’s the object? You must be feeling ill. You keep jumping from one thing to another; now you assert one thing, a minute later you assert something different. Are you drinking too much, perhaps?” Tikhon Ilitch remained silent for a while. He merely waved his hand, and tears trembled in his eyes, which were riveted on the flame of the lamp. “Are you drinking?” repeated Kuzma quietly. “Yes, I am,” quietly replied Tikhon Ilitch. “And ’tis enough to make any one take to drink! Has it been easy for me to acquire this golden cage, think you? Do you imagine that it has been easy for me to live like a chained hound all my life, and with my old woman into the bargain? I have never shown any pity to any one, brother. Well, and has any one shown the least pity on me? Do you think I don’t know how I am hated? Do you think they wouldn’t have murdered me in some fashion if those peasants had once got the breeching under their tail in proper style? If they had had luck in that revolution? Wait a bit, wait-- There’ll be something doing; it’s coming! We have cut their throats!” “And they are to be hanged--on account of a little ham?” asked Kuzma. “Well, as for the hanging,” replied Tikhon Ilitch in agonized tones, “why, I just said the first thing that came to my tongue--” “But they certainly will hang them!”