"Hush up," said Churis, again addressing her.
"It is impossible for you to live in this hut: it's all rotten," cried Nekhliudof after a brief silence. "Now, this is how we shall manage it, my friend"[6]....
"I am listening."
"Have you seen the improved stone cottages that I have been building at the new farm,—the one with the undressed walls?"
"Indeed I have seen them," replied Churis, with a smile that showed his white teeth still unimpaired. "Everybody's agog at the way they're built. Fine cottages! The boys were laughing and wondering if they wouldn't be turned into granaries; they would be so secure against rats. Fine cottages," he said in conclusion, with an expression of absurd perplexity, shaking his head, "just like a jail!"
"Yes, they're splendid cottages, dry and warm, and no danger of fire," replied the bárin, a frown crossing his youthful face as he perceived the peasant's involuntary sarcasm.
"Without question, your excellency, fine cottages."
"Well, then, one of these cottages is just finished. It is twenty-four feet square, with an entry, and a barn, and it's entirely ready. I will let you have it on credit if you say so, at cost price; you can pay for it at your own convenience," said the bárin with a self-satisfied smile, which he could not control, at the thought of his benevolence. "You can pull down this old one," he went on to say; "it will make you a granary. We will also move the pens. The water there is splendid. I will give you enough land for a vegetable-garden, and I'll let you have a strip of land on all three sides. You can live there in a decent way. Now, does not that please you?" asked Nekhliudof, perceiving that as soon as he spoke of moving, Churis became perfectly motionless, and looked at the ground without even a shadow of a smile.
"It's as your excellency wills," he replied, not raising his eyes.
The old woman came forward as though something had stung her to the quick, and began to speak; but her husband anticipated her.