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THE CANDLE: OR HOW THE GOOD MUZHIK
OVERCAME THE EVIL OVERSEER.^[1]

 

"Ye have heard that it is written: eye for eye and tooth for tooth. But I say unto you resist not evil."—Matt. v. 38–39.

 

This thing happened in the days of the masters.^[2] There were masters of all sorts. There were those who were mindful of God and the hour of death, and dealt mercifully with their people, and there were curs who thought not of these things at all. But there were no worse tyrants than those who had been serfs themselves: from dirt they sprang, like Princes they sang!^[3] And living with them was the worst life of all.

An overseer of this sort was placed over the domain. There were serfs on the property. There was plenty of land there—good land—plenty of water, and of meadows and woods no lack. There was enough for all, enough for the master, and enough for the peasants, and the master set his house-serf from another estate over the whole.

1. Translated from the popular Moscow edition of 1886.
2. i.e. Before the emancipation of the serfs.
3. Russian equivalent of "Put a beggar on horseback," &c.

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