Sometimes he was worried.
"The cucumbers failed completely this season. There is not a good one among them—all crooked and spotty. They're just good enough to be sent to the servants' quarters. We shall have to use last year's."
He did not approve of Arina Petrovna's management. "Goodness, what heaps of provisions she allows to rot! Just now she's having cured meat, pickles, fish and what not hauled to the servants' quarters. Is that what you call good business? Is that the right way of doing things, I'd like to know. There are lots of fresh provisions, but she will not touch them until the old rot is eaten up."
The confidence entertained by Arina Petrovna that it would be easy to induce Simple Simon to sign any paper proved wholly justified. Not only did he not object to signing all the papers that his mother sent him, but the same evening he even boasted about it to the village clerk.
"Well, brother, to-day I have been doing nothing but signing papers. I have renounced all my rights of inheritance. I am cleaned out. Not a cent to my name, and none coming. I have set the old woman at ease."
He parted with his brothers peaceably, and was in raptures over his big supply of tobacco. Of course, he couldn't help calling Porfisha Bloodsucker and Yudushka, but the disparaging terms were drowned in a deluge of incoherent, meaningless chatter.
In taking leave the brothers became liberal and even gave him money. Porfiry Vladimirych accompanied his gift with the following speech:
"This money will be handy in case you need oil for the ikon lamp or if you want to set up a candle in the church. That's how it is, brother. Be good and gentle, and our dear mother will be satisfied. You will have your comforts, and all of us will be merry and happy. Our mother is a kindly soul, you know."
"There is no denying that she is kindly," agreed Stepan Vladimirych. "Only she feeds me on rotten pickled meat."
"Whose fault is it? Who treated mother's blessing with disrespect? It is your own fault that you lost your estate. What a nice little estate it was. If you only knew how to behave yourself and live modestly, you would now be eating beef and veal and even ordering sauce with them. You would have plenty of everything, potatoes, cabbage, peas. Am I not right, brother?"