“The barine is dead,” they told him.
The peasant burst into tears. “God rest his soul!” he thought; “he was a kind barine.”
He asked for the barinya to take her the kopeck, but she could not see him. She was broken-hearted about the barine, and a young officer was consoling her in her grief. So she would let no one in. The peasant went home, dug a pit in the cellar, and put his kopeck into it, just so that it should not get lost.
Some days afterwards, as he was going home, he heard some one sobbing. He looked round and saw a little girl sitting by the road and crying bitterly.
“What are you crying for, my lass?” he asked.
The child told him that her brother was very ill, so that a priest had to be called, to dip his finger in oil and rub it on the sick man’s lips. The priest would not come for nothing, and they could not pay him.
The peasant laid his great rough hand on the child’s head, ruffled her hair and said—
“Don’t cry, silly child! I’ll pay the priest.”
The little girl thanked him and ran to the priest; and the peasant went down into the cellar, dug out his kopeck, and brought it to the light. He looked at it and clasped his hands: he had recognised his kopeck—the same that with such toil he had won from the bosom of Mother Earth. Lying in the earth again, it had become just as green and rough as it was then.... And the peasant wept bitter tears of anger and grief, for he understood that all his labour had been in vain: he had gained nothing but this same kopeck, which had been his already. Now it must go to the priest again, and wander about the world once more, and every one into whose hands it fell would ride upon his neck. And if by chance it should come into his cottage again, he must only give it away once more, either to the barine or to the priest.