"Oh, come now, what do you mean--bast shoes? We are gentlefolk, surely. In any circumstances we can afford decent footwear."
"Do you know why we were born in the gentry, mother dear? All because God's mercy was with us. Were it not for that we would now be in a hut and it would be lighted not by a candle but by a _luchina_ and as to tea or coffee, we wouldn't dare dream about them. I would be patching my miserable little bast shoes, and you would be getting ready to sup off thin cabbage soup, and Yevpraksia would be weaving tick, and on top of it all, maybe the _desyatsky_ would come to press us and the wagon into service."
"Yes, catch the _desyatsky_ coming on a night like this!"
"Who knows, mother dear? And maybe the regiments would come! Maybe there would be war or mutiny. The regiments must be there on the dot. The other day, for instance, the chief of police was telling me Napoleon III. had died. So you may be sure the French will be up to some mischief again. Naturally, our soldiers will have to make for the front at once, and you, friend peasant, will have to get your wagon out, quick! Never mind cold, blizzard, and snowdrifts. You go if the authorities tell you to, and if you know what is good for you. But we, don't you see, will be spared a while. They won't turn us out with the wagon."
"Yes, who dares deny it? The mercy the Lord has shown us is great."
"That's just what I say. God, mother dear, is everything. He gives us wood to burn and food to eat. It's all His doing. We think we buy things ourselves, and pay our own hard cash, but when you look into it more deeply, and reckon it up, and figure it out, it's all He, it's all God. If it be His will, we'll have nothing. Here, for instance, I would like to have some fine little oranges, I would have some myself, would offer one to my mother dear, would give an orange to everyone. I have the money to buy oranges. Suppose I produce some coin and say, 'Here, let me have some oranges,' but God says, 'Halt, man!' Then here I am, a philosopher without cucumbers."
"That's all talk," said Yevpraksia. "My uncle was sexton at the Uspenye Church in Pesochnoye. You may be sure he was as pious a man as ever was. So I think God ought to have done something for him. But he was caught in a snowstorm out in the fields and froze to death all the same."