"All this is true," said Gregory, pouring him out another glass of brandy; "but, after all, you are not free."
"Free to go where you will and when you will."
"Free as air, I tell you; for I have good masters, and above all a good mistress," continued Ivan, with a significant smile, "and I have only to ask and it is done."
"What! if after having got drunk here to-day, you asked to come back to-morrow to get drunk again?" said Gregory, who in his challenge to Ivan did not forget his own interests,--"if you asked that?"
"To-morrow, the day after, every day if I liked...."
"The fact is, Ivan is our young lady's favourite," said another of the count's slaves who was present, profiting by his comrade Ivan's liberality.
"It is all the same," said Gregory; "for supposing such permission were given you, money would soon run short."
"Never!" said Ivan, swallowing another glass of brandy, "never will Ivan want for money as long as there is a kopeck in my lady's purse."
"I did not find her so liberal," said Gregory bitterly.
"Oh, you forget, my friend; you know well she does not reckon with her friends: remember the strokes of the knout."
"I have no wish to speak about that," said Gregory. "I know that she is generous with blows, but her money is another thing. I have never seen the colour of that."
"Well, would you like to see the colour of mine?" said Ivan, getting more and more drunk. "See here, here are kopecks, sorok-kopecks, blue notes worth five roubles, red notes worth twenty five roubles, and to-morrow, if you like, I will show you white notes worth fifty roubles. A health to my lady Vaninka!" And Ivan held out his glass again, and Gregory filled it to the brim.
"But does money," said Gregory, pressing Ivan more and more,--"does money make up for scorn?"
"Scorn!" said Ivan,--"scorn! Who scorns me? Do you, because you are free? Fine freedom! I would rather be a well-fed slave than a free man dying of hunger."
"I mean the scorn of our masters," replied Gregory.
"The scorn of our masters! Ask Alexis, ask Daniel there, if my lady scorns me."
"The fact is," said the two slaves in reply, who both belonged to the general's household, "Ivan must certainly have a charm; for everyone talks to him as if to a master."