"Ah!" he exclaimed, "it is you, Prince! So you were too wise to stay,
were you? Well, come in."
An immense quantity of straw was spread over the floor. A cricket was
chirruping, and there was a smell of soot and dung.
"Lay yourself down, Barin, and God bless you!"
The peasant climbed on to the stove and sighed. His old wife began to
mutter something, the man grumbled, then said to the Prince:
"Barin, you can have your sleep, only get up in the morning and leave
before daylight, so that none will see you. You know yourself these
are troubled times, there is no gainsaying it. You are a gentleman,
Barin, and gentlemen have got to be done away with. The old woman
will wake you.... Sleep now."
Prozorovsky lay down without undressing, put his cape under his head--
and at once caught a cockroach on his neck! Some young pigs grunted
in a corner. The hut was swarming with vermin, blackened by smoke and
filled with stenches. Here, where men, calves and pigs herded all
together, the Prince lay on his straw, tossing about and scratching.
He thought of how, some centuries hence, people would be writing of
this age with love, compassion, and tenderness. It would be thought
of as an epoch of the most sublime and beautiful manifestation of the
human spirit.
A little pig came up, sniffed all round him, then trotted away again.
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