In the first moment Ivan was conscious of feeling a cruel satisfaction.
"It serves you right, you beast!" he said. "Serves you right! What business had you to ill-use the girl—your promised wife—on the very day that you were called for the third time?"
"Oh, sir," cried the miserable man, his teeth chattering, and beating his head with his hands, "I was drunk! I did not know what I did; and, after all, it was only a few blows with a light strap. What was that? With us common people it is nothing. A woman likes a man the better when he cudgels her. It is true; but to leave me for a gentleman—"
Ivan shrugged his shoulders and went on his way. The miner caught him by the tail of his coat.
"Ah, sir, what shall I do? Tell me, what shall I do?"
Ivan, however, was in no mood for giving advice; he was angry. He pushed Peter away, saying, sternly:
"Go to hell! Run to the tavern, drink brandy, then choose among the girls whose company you frequent another bride, who will be only too glad if you are drunk every day in the year."
Peter took up his hat, put it on his head, looked Ivan in the face, and, in an altered voice, said:
"No, sir, I shall never drink brandy again; only once in my life shall I taste the accursed thing—once. You will remember what I say, and when I smell of it, when I am seen coming out of the public-house, or when you hear that I have been there, then stay at home, for on that day no one will know how or when he will die."
Ivan left the man standing, and going back into his house, shut the door behind him. His first satisfaction at the news was passing away. This miserable peasant, who had dared to be his successful rival, had lost the treasure which he coveted. The fool had the pearl in his keeping, but he didn't know how to value it, and he had let it fall. That was good; but where had it fallen, this pearl so white and lovely in its purity and innocence? His soul was full of sorrow as he thought how in his eyes it had lost all its value. The girl who had seemed to him so virtuous, who kept her troth so faithfully, whose simplicity had been what he really loved—she had fallen at the first word from a villain. She refused her master, who had honorably offered her his name, his house, his all. But he had not the gifts of the other; he was not a dressed-up fellow, with town manners and seductive ways; he had not the tongue of a seducer, and had not promised her jewels and fine clothes, balls and operas. It was the same story with all women, and Mahomet was right when he gave them no souls, and no place either on earth or in heaven.