“Not bad. What is in man’s power is done, and what God gives He gives. Thou art young, my dear, so I give thee a precept, which in future will be of service to thee more than once, ‘Do always that which pertains to thee, and leave the rest to the Lord God.’ He knows best what we need. The harvest will be good this year; I know that beforehand, for when God is going to touch me with anything, He sends a sign.”
“What is it?” asked Pan Stanislav, with astonishment.
“Behind my pipe-table—I do not know whether thou hast noted where it stands—a mouse shows himself to me a number of days in succession when any evil is coming.”
“There must be a hole in the floor.”
“There is no hole,” said Plavitski, closing his eyes, and shaking his head mysteriously.
“One might bring in a cat.”
“I will not bring in a cat, for if it is the will of God that that mouse should be a sign to me, or forewarning, I shall not go against that will. Nothing has appeared to me this year. I mentioned this to Marynia; maybe God desires in some way to show that He is watching over our family. Listen, my dear; people will say, I know, that we are ruined, or at least in a very bad state. Here it is; judge for thyself: Kremen and Skoki, Magyerovka and Suhotsin, contain about two hundred and fifty vlokas of land; on that there is a debt of thirty thousand rubles to the society, not more, and about a hundred thousand mortgage, including thy sum. Therefore we have about a hundred and thirty thousand. Let us estimate only three thousand rubles a vloka; that will make seven hundred and fifty thousand,—altogether eight hundred and eighty thousand—”
“How is that?” asked Pan Stanislav, with astonishment; “uncle is including the debt with the property.”
“If the property were worth nothing, no one would give me a copper for it, so I add the debt to the value of the property.”
Pan Stanislav thought, “He is a lunatic, with whom it is useless to talk;” and he listened further in silence.