MASTER AND MAN

by Leo Tolstoy


Translated by Louise and Aylmer Maude




I

It happened in the 'seventies in winter, on the day after St. Nicholas's
Day. There was a fete in the parish and the innkeeper, Vasili Andreevich
Brekhunov, a Second Guild merchant, being a church elder had to go to
church, and had also to entertain his relatives and friends at home.

But when the last of them had gone he at once began to prepare to drive
over to see a neighbouring proprietor about a grove which he had been
bargaining over for a long time. He was now in a hurry to start,
lest buyers from the town might forestall him in making a profitable
purchase.

The youthful landowner was asking ten thousand rubles for the grove
simply because Vasili Andreevich was offering seven thousand. Seven
thousand was, however, only a third of its real value. Vasili Andreevich
might perhaps have got it down to his own price, for the woods were in
his district and he had a long-standing agreement with the other village
dealers that no one should run up the price in another's district, but
he had now learnt that some timber-dealers from town meant to bid for