It happened in the
         'seventies in winter,
               on the day
                  after St. Nicholas's Day.

    There was a fete
           in the parish
               and the innkeeper,
           Vasili Andreevich Brekhunov,
         a Second Guild merchant,
           being a church elder
            had to go to church,
         and had also
              to entertain his relatives
                   and friends at home.

    But when the last
           of them
        had gone
         he at once
            began to prepare
                  to drive over
                to see a neighbouring proprietor
                       about a grove which
         he had been bargaining
               over for a long time.

    He was
          now in a hurry
               to start,
           lest buyers from the town
            might forestall him
                   in making a profitable purchase.

    The youthful landowner
        was asking ten thousand rubles
               for the grove simply
         because Vasili Andreevich
            was offering seven thousand.

    Seven thousand was,
           however,
         only a third
               of its real value.

    Vasili Andreevich
        might perhaps have
             got it
                   down to his own price,
           for the woods
            were in his district and
             he had a long-standing agreement
                   with the other village dealers
             that no one
                should run
                       up the price
                           in another's district,
         but he had now learnt
             that some timber-dealers from town
                  meant to bid
                       for the Goryachkin grove,
           and he resolved
              to go at once
                  and get the matter settled.

    So as
          soon as the feast
        was over,
           he took seven hundred rubles
               from his strong box,
         added to
               them two thousand
                   three hundred rubles
                 of church money
             he had in his keeping,
           so as
              to make
                   up the sum
                       to three thousand;
        carefully counted the notes,
           and having
              put them into his pocket-book
                  made haste to start.

    Nikita,
           the only one of Vasili
             Andreevich's
                labourers
             who was not drunk
                 that day,
         ran to harness the horse.

    Nikita,
           though an habitual drunkard,
         was not drunk that day
             because since the last day
               before the fast,
           when he
            had drunk his coat
                   and leather boots,
         he had sworn off drink
            and had
                  kept his vow
                       for two months,
           and was still
               keeping it despite the temptation
                   of the vodka
             that had been drunk everywhere
                  during the first two days
                       of the feast.

    Nikita was a peasant of
           about fifty
               from a neighbouring village,
         'not a manager'
            as the peasants
              said of him,
           meaning that
             he was
                   not the thrifty head
                       of a household
             but lived
                   most of his time
                  away from home
                       as a labourer.

    He was
          valued everywhere for his industry,
           dexterity,
         and strength at work,
           and still more
               for his kindly
                   and pleasant temper.

    But he never
          settled down anywhere for long
         because about twice a year,
           or even oftener,
         he had a drinking bout,
           and then besides
              spending all his clothes
                   on drink
             he became turbulent and quarrelsome.

    Vasili Andreevich himself
        had turned him
              away several times,
           but had afterwards
              taken him back again
          --valuing his honesty,
           his kindness to animals,
         and especially his cheapness.

    Vasili Andreevich
        did not pay Nikita
               the eighty rubles
             a year
               such a man
            was worth,
           but only about forty,
         which he gave him haphazard,
           in small sums,
         and even
             that mostly not in cash
               but in goods
                   from his own
                 shop and at high prices.

    Nikita's wife Martha,
           who had once
            been a handsome vigorous woman,
         managed the homestead
               with the help
                   of her son
                 and two daughters,
           and did not urge Nikita
              to live at home:
        first because
             she had been living
                   for some twenty years already
                 with a cooper,
           a peasant from another village
             who lodged in their house;
        and secondly
             because though
                 she managed her husband as
                     she pleased
             when he was sober,
           she feared him like fire
             when he was drunk.

    Once when
         he had got