"This house belongs to the merchant Sava Petrovitch Ptschelin—a rich man is the merchant Ptschelin ... his house is full of silver and crystal."
"Grandfather, dear," asked Ilya, "tell me, how does a man get rich?"
"He must work for it, toil for it, that's the way. They work day and night and pile gold on gold, and when they have piled up enough, then they build themselves houses and get themselves horses, and all kinds of belongings, and everything the heart can wish, bright, new things. And then they hire clerks, and servants, and people who work for them, and they rest and enjoy the day. When any one has managed like that, men say of him, he has become rich by honest work. Ah! But there are some who grow rich through sin. People say of the merchant Ptschelin, that he destroyed his soul while he was quite young. Perhaps it is only envy that makes them say it, perhaps it is true. He is a wicked man, this Ptschelin, and his eyes look so frightened, they are always wandering here and there as if they wanted to hide. But perhaps it is all lies, as I said, that they tell of Ptschelin. It happens lots of times that a man becomes rich all at once quite easily, if he just is lucky, if fortune smiles on him. Ah! only God lives in the Truth, and we men know nothing! We are only men, and men are the seed God sows—grains of corn, my dear boy! God has sown them on the earth. 'Grow! and I will see what kind of bread you will make!' That's how it is! And that house there belongs to a certain Mitri Pavlovitch Sabaneyev. He is even richer than Ptschelin, and he is really a downright swindler. I know it! I don't judge him, for judgment is for God, but I know it right enough—as a matter of fact, he was overseer in our village, and robbed us all, cheated us!—God had patience with him for a long time, but in time He began to make up His account. First Mitri Pavlov became deaf, then his son was killed by a horse, and just lately I heard that his daughter had run away."
The old man knew everything and everybody in the town and spoke of them all quite simply without malice. Everything he told seemed to have been purified, as if all his histories were cleansed in his never ceasing tears.
Ilya listened attentively while at the same time he looked at the big houses, and said now and then:
"If I could only have half a look inside!"
"You'll soon see inside, wait a bit! Learn diligently and work! Wait till you grow up, then you'll soon see what is inside there. Perhaps some day you'll be rich too. Learn first to live and to see. Yes—yes—I have lived and lived and seen and seen. That's how I have ruined my eyes. Now the tears keep flowing, and so I have grown so thin and feeble. My strength has flowed away, I think, with my tears, my blood is all dried up."
It was pleasant to Ilya to hear the old man speak of God with such conviction and love. Through hearing him speak, there grew up in his heart a strong, invigorating feeling of hope for something good and joyful awaiting him somewhere in the future. He was gayer and more of a child at this time than when first he found a resting-place in the town.
He helped the old man zealously to rummage in the dust heaps. He found it most exciting to burrow into these heaps of every kind of rubbish with a stick, and specially pleasant to see the old man's joy when he made an unusual find among the rubbish. One day, Ilya found a big silver spoon in a drain, and the old man bought him half a pound of ginger bread for it. Then once he dug out a little purse covered with green mould, with more than a rouble in money inside it. More often he found knives, forks, metal rings, broken brasswork, pretty tin boxes—formerly full of blacking or pickled fish—and once, in the valley where the refuse of the whole town was unloaded, he grubbed out a heavy brass candlestick quite uninjured. For every valuable find of this sort Ilya received some dainty or other from the old man as a reward.
Whenever Ilya found anything out of the common, he would cry out gleefully: "Grandfather! Look! See here! this is something like!"