“At church? But they say you never look inside a church.”
“I don’t exactly remember where I have seen them, in the village, in the field.”
Raisky concluded his guest was a drunkard, as he drunk down glass after glass of punch. Mark guessed his thoughts.
“You think it extraordinary that I should drink. I do it out of sheer boredom, because I am idle and have no occupation. But don’t be afraid that I shall set the house on fire or murder anybody. To-day I am drinking more than usual because I am tired and cold. But I am not a drunkard.”
“It depends on ourselves whether we are idle or not.”
“When you climbed over Leonti’s fence, I thought you were a sensible individual, but now I see that you belong to the same kind of preaching person as Niel Andreevich....”
“Is it true that you fired on him?” asked Raisky curiously.
“What nonsense! I fired a shot among the pigeons to empty the barrel of my gun, as I was returning from hunting. He came up and shouted that I should stop, because it was sinful. If he had been content with protesting I should merely have called him a fool, and there it would have ended. But he began to stamp and to threaten, ‘I will have you put in prison, you ruffian, and will have you locked up where not even the raven will bring you a bone.’ I allowed him to run through the whole gamut of polite remarks, and listened calmly—and then I ‘took aim at him.’”
“And he?”
“Ducked, lost his stick and goloshes, finally squatted on the ground and whimpered for forgiveness. I shot into the air. That’s all.”