Surely that's not the folk coming back from vespers?

[_Several persons pass in the background_.

KUDRIASH.
Come on, Shapkin, let's get a drink! It's no good stopping here.

[_They bow and exeunt_.

BORIS.
Oh, Kuligin, it's awfully hard here for me who've not been used to it.
Everyone seems to look with unfriendly eyes at me, as though I were not
wanted here, as though I were in their way. I don't understand the ways
here. I know this is truly Russia, my own country, but still I can't get
used to it.

KULIGIN.
And you never will get used to it, sir.

BORIS.
Why?

KULIGIN.
They're a coarse lot, sir, in our town, a coarse lot! Among the working
people, sir, you'll find nothing but brutality and squalid poverty. And
we've no chance, sir, of ever finding our way out of it. For by honest
labour we can never earn more than a crust of bread. And everyone with
money, sir, tries all he can to get a poor man under his thumb, so as to
make more money again out of his working for nothing. Do you know the
answer your uncle, Saviol Prokofitch, made to the provost? The peasants