Talon. Besides, you did not scratch the note, but only clean paper.
Fékla. Then where is your guilt? What sin is there in scratching mere paper? None at all.
Casetwister. So much the better.
Talon. There is something else that occurs to me. Do you remember the lawsuit for Simple’s estate? Pettifog, who had really nothing to do with the case and had forgotten the name of Simple in the lawsuit, contrived cunningly to sue Trickster, who had also not the slightest right to the estate. We did not bother about finding out whose the village in question was, and without further investigation, in the absence of Simple, disposed of the lawsuit by adjudging another’s property to the contending parties, which they proceeded at once to divide among themselves. I can’t imagine what Simple is going to say about it.
Casetwister. Let him say whatever he pleases, since he has paid so little attention to it. Why should we worry about him now? We are the judges. ’Tis our duty to know only that which is presented for our consideration on paper. What right have we to know that the estate under contention does not belong to the contending parties, but to someone else? We should have to have some written proof of that; in absence of the same, we simply must decide a lawsuit between two parties strictly according to the laws. We cannot help it if both were contending for something that did not belong to them.
OBÚKHOVKA
At peace with my neighbours and relatives, at peace with my conscience, in love with my beloved family, I here with my joys alone measure the stream of quiet days.
My cosey house with straw-thatched roof is all I want, neither too low, nor too high; there is a nook in it for friendship, and indolence has forgot to put a lock on the door, to notabilities unknown.
By a mount from the north protected, it stands upon a grassy hill, and looks into groves and distant meadows, while Psel, winding like a serpent, babbles as it tends towards the mills.
Nearby, the favourite child of nature, a vast shadowy forest, surrounds it on all sides with its thick tree-tops, without encroachment on the free expanse.