Free eBooks at Planet eBook.com 1They threw open the doors, opened a window and the
chimney. Mitya brought a pail of water from the passage.
First he wetted his own head, then, finding a rag of some
sort, dipped it into the water, and put it on Lyagavy’s head.
The forester still treated the matter contemptuously, and
when he opened the window said grumpily:
‘It’ll be all right, now.’
He went back to sleep, leaving Mitya a lighted lantern.
Mitya fussed about the drunken peasant for half an hour,
wetting his head, and gravely resolved not to sleep all night.
But he was so worn out that when he sat down for a moment
to take breath, he closed his eyes, unconsciously stretched
himself full length on the bench and slept like the dead.
It was dreadfully late when he waked. It was somewhere
about nine o’clock. The sun was shining brightly in the two
little windows of the hut. The curly-headed peasant was
sitting on the bench and had his coat on. He had anoth-
er samovar and another bottle in front of him. Yesterday’s
bottle had already been finished, and the new one was more
than half empty. Mitya jumped up and saw at once that the
cursed peasant was drunk again, hopelessly and incurably.
He stared at him for a moment with wide opened eyes. The
peasant was silently and slyly watching him, with insulting
composure, and even a sort of contemptuous condescen-
sion, so Mitya fancied. He rushed up to him.
‘Excuse me, you see... I... you’ve most likely heard from
the forester here in the hut. I’m Lieutenant Dmitri Karam-
azov, the son of the old Karamazov whose copse you are
buying.’