"You might come for once," said Pelagea.
"What for?" sighed Yegor, taking off his cap and wiping his
red forehead with his hand. "There is no object in my coming. To
go for an hour or two is only waste of time, it's simply upsetting
you, and to live continually in the village my soul could not en-
dure. . . . You know yourself I am a pampered man. . . . I want a
bed to sleep in, good tea to drink, and refined conversation. . . . I
want all the niceties, while you live in poverty and dirt in the vil-
lage. . . . I couldn't stand it for a day. Suppose there were an edict
that I must live with you, I should either set fire to the hut or lay
hands on myself. From a boy I've had this love for ease; there is
no help for it."
"Where are you living now?"
"With the gentleman here, Dmitry Ivanitch, as a huntsman. I
furnish his table with game, but he keeps me . . . more for his
pleasure than anything."
"That's not proper work you're doing, Yegor Vlassitch. . . .
For other people it's a pastime, but with you it's like a trade . . .
like real work."
"You don't understand, you silly," said Yegor, gazing gloomi-
ly at the sky. "You have never understood, and as long as you
live you will never understand what sort of man I am. . . . You
think of me as a foolish man, gone to the bad, but to anyone who
understands I am the best shot there is in the whole district. The
gentry feel that, and they have even printed things about me in a
magazine. There isn't a man to be compared with me as a sports-
man. . . . And it is not because I am pampered and proud that I
look down upon your village work. From my childhood, you
know, I have never had any calling apart from guns and dogs.
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