"Not dare to steal? You don't need daring for that, but just meanness. All right, let's steal."
Here he laughed, the scoundrel, and asked:
"What about the sin?"
"I'll take care of my own sins," I answered.
"Good," he said, "and know that from now on each day brings you nearer the wedding."
He enticed me, fool that I was, like a wolf with a lamb in a trap.
And so it commenced. I wasn't stupid in business, and I had always had enough audacity in me. We began to rob the peasants as if we were playing a match. I followed each move he made with a bolder one. We said not a word, only looked at each other. There was mockery in his eyes and wrath burned in mine. He was the victor, and since I lost all to him, I did not want to be outdone in wickedness by him. I falsified the weights in measuring flax, I did not mark the fines when the peasants' cattle strayed on the landlord's pastures, and I cheated the peasants out of every kopeck I could. But I did not count the money nor gather in the rubles myself. I let everything go to Titoff, which, of course, did not make things easier either for me or the peasants.
In a word, I was as if possessed, and my heart was heavy and cold. When I thought of God I burned with shame. Nevertheless, I threw reproaches at Him more than once.
"Why dost Thou not keep me from falling with Thy strong arm? Why dost Thou try me beyond my strength? Dost Thou not see, O Lord, how my soul is being destroyed?"
There were times when Olga seemed strange to me, and when I looked at her and thought, of her hostilely.