"Off the land."
And they laughed, saying:
"What a funny fellow. He understands everything, but he has ceased to understand what is simplest of all." They laughed, but the nobleman became angry.
"But listen to me," he said. "Why should I go if the land is mine?"
But the peasants did not heed him.
"How can it be yours when you have said yourself that it is the Lord's, and that even before the time of Jesus Christ there were some just men who knew it?" He did not understand them, and they did not understand him. So he went again to Egorka.
"Egorka, look up the ancient histories and find me ..."
But the latter replied in a perfectly independent spirit:
"All the histories were pulled to pieces to prove the contrary."
"You are lying, you plotter."