“I have long wanted to have a talk with you, friends,” he went on.  “This is what it is.  Ever since the early spring your cattle have been in my copse and garden every day.  Everything is trampled down; the pigs have rooted up the meadow, are ruining everything in the kitchen garden, and all the undergrowth in the copse is destroyed.  There is no getting on with your herdsmen; one asks them civilly, and they are rude.  Damage is done on my estate every day and I do nothing—­I don’t fine you or make a complaint; meanwhile you impounded my horses and my bull calf and exacted five roubles.  Was that right?  Is that neighbourly?” he went on, and his face was so soft and persuasive, and his expression was not forbidding.  “Is that the way decent people behave?  A week ago one of your people cut down two oak saplings in my copse.  You have dug up the road to Eresnevo, and now I have to go two miles round.  Why do you injure me at every step?  What harm have I done you?  For God’s sake, tell me!  My wife and I do our utmost to live with you in peace and harmony; we help the peasants as we can.  My wife is a kind, warm-hearted woman; she never refuses you help.  That is her dream—­to be of use to you and your children.  You reward us with evil for our good.  You are unjust, my friends.  Think of that.  I ask you earnestly to think it over.  We treat you humanely; repay us in the same coin.”

He turned and went away.  The peasants stood a little longer, put on their caps and walked away.  Rodion, who always understood everything that was said to him in some peculiar way of his own, heaved a sigh and said: 

“We must pay.  ’Repay in coin, my friends’... he said.”

They walked to the village in silence.  On reaching home Rodion said his prayer, took off his boots, and sat down on the bench beside his wife.  Stepanida and he always sat side by side when they were at home, and always walked side by side in the street; they ate and they drank and they slept always together, and the older they grew the more they loved one another.  It was hot and crowded in their hut, and there were children everywhere—­on the floors, in the windows, on the stove....  In spite of her advanced years Stepanida was still bearing children, and now, looking at the crowd of children, it was hard to distinguish which were Rodion’s and which were Volodka’s.  Volodka’s wife, Lukerya, a plain young woman with prominent eyes and a nose like the beak of a bird, was kneading dough in a tub; Volodka was sitting on the stove with his legs hanging.

“On the road near Nikita’s buckwheat... the engineer with his dog...”  Rodion began, after a rest, scratching his ribs and his elbow. “’You must pay,’ says he... ‘coin,’ says he....  Coin or no coin, we shall have to collect ten kopecks from every hut.  We’ve offended the gentleman very much.  I am sorry for him....”

“We’ve lived without a bridge,” said Volodka, not looking at anyone, “and we don’t want one.”