A Sportsman's Sketches / Works of Ivan Turgenev, Volume I

by Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev

'Ah, Vlass!' cried Tuman, staring at him; 'good health to you, friend!
Where has God sent you from?'

'Good health to you, Mihal Savelitch!' said the peasant, coming nearer to us; 'from a long way off.'

'Where have you been?' Tuman asked him.

'I have been to Moscow, to my master.'

'What for?'

'I went to ask him a favour.'

'What about?'

'Oh, to lessen my rent, or to let me work it out in labour, or to put me on another piece of land, or something…. My son is dead—so I can't manage it now alone.'

'Your son is dead?'

'He is dead. My son,' added the peasant, after a pause, 'lived in
Moscow as a cabman; he paid, I must confess, rent for me.'