deal with. At the first start Misha, it is true, exacted a promise from him to 'grant all sorts of immunities' to the peasants; but an hour later, this same Misha, together with Timofay, both drunk, were dancing a galop in the big apartments, which still seemed pervaded by the God-fearing shade of Andrei Nikolaevitch; and an hour later still, Misha in a dead sleep (he had a very weak head for spirits), laid in a cart with his high cap and dagger, was being driven off to the town, more than twenty miles away, and there was flung under a hedge. . . . As for Timofay, who could still keep on his legs, and only hiccupped—him, of course, they kicked out of the house; since they couldn't get at the master, they had to be content with the old servant.
VI
Some time passed again, and I heard nothing of Misha. . . . God knows what he was doing. But one day, as I sat over the samovar at a posting-station on the T highroad, waiting for horses, I suddenly heard under the open window of the station room a hoarse voice, uttering in French the words: 'Monsieur . . . monsieur . . . prenez pitié d'un pauvre gentil-homme ruiné.' . . . I lifted my head, glanced. . . . The mangy-looking fur cap, the broken
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