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Excuse me, you see. I youve most likely heard from the forester here in the hut. Im Lieutenant Dmitri Karamazov, the son of the old Karamazov whose copse you are buying. Thats lie! said the peasant, calmly and confidently. A lie? You know Fyodor Pavlovitch? I dont know any of your Fyodor Pavlovitches, said the peasant, speaking thickly. Youre bargaining with him for the copse, for the copse. Do wake up, and collect yourself. Father Pavel of Ilyinskoe brought me here. You wrote to Samsonov, and he has sent me to you, Mitya gasped breathlessly. Youre llying! Lyagavy blurted out again. Mityas legs went cold. For mercys sake! It isnt a joke! Youre drunk, perhaps. Yet you can speak and understand or else I understand nothing! Youre a painter! For mercys sake! Im Karamazov, Dmitri Karamazov. I have an offer to make you, an advantageous offer very advantageous offer, concerning the copse! The peasant stroked his beard importantly. No, youve contracted for the job and turned out a scamp. Youre a scoundrel! I assure you youre mistaken, cried Mitya, wringing his hands in despair. The peasant still stroked his beard, and suddenly screwed up his eyes cunningly. No, you show me this: you tell me the law that allows roguery, Dyou hear? Youre a scoundrel! Do you understand that? Mitya stepped back gloomily, and suddenly something seemed to hit him on the head, as he said afterwards. In an instant a light seemed to dawn in his mind, a light was kindled and I grasped it all. He stood, stupefied, wondering how he, after all a man of intelligence, could have yielded to such folly, have been led into such an adventure, and have kept it up for almost twenty-four hours, fussing round this Lyagavy, wetting his head. Why, the mans drunk, dead drunk, and hell go on drinking now for a week; whats the use of waiting here? And what if Samsonov sent me here on purpose? What if she? Oh God, what have I done? The peasant sat watching him and grinning. Another time Mitya might have killed the fool in a fury, but now he felt as weak as a child. He went quietly to the bench, took up his overcoat, put it on without a word, and went out of the hut. He did not find the forester in the next room; there was no one there. He took fifty kopecks in small change out of his pocket and put them on the table for his nights lodging, the candle, and the trouble he had given. Coming out of the hut he saw nothing but forest all round. He walked at hazard, not knowing which way to turn out of the hut, to the right or to the left. Hurrying there the evening before with the priest, he had not noticed the road. He had no revengeful feeling for anybody, even for Samsonov, in his heart. He strode along a narrow forest path, aimless, dazed, without heeding where he was going. A child could have knocked him down, so weak was he in body and soul. He got out of the forest somehow, however, and a vista of fields, bare after the harvest, stretched as far as the eye could see. What despair! What death all round! he repeated striding on and on. |
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