"Are you any better, pray?"
he thought to himself.
"Just look at yourself, now, look at yourself," Gavrila went on
reproachfully; "now, whatever do you look like?"
Kapiton serenely surveyed his shabby, tattered coat and his patched
trousers, and with special attention stared at his burst boots,
especially the one on the tiptoe of which his right foot so gracefully
poised, and he fixed his eyes again on the steward.
"Well?"
"Well?" repeated Gavrila. "Well? And then you say well? You look like
Old Nick himself, God forgive my saying so, that's what you look like."
Kapiton blinked rapidly.
"Go on abusing me, go on, if you like, Gavrila Andreitch," he thought to
himself again.
"Here you've been drunk again," Gavrila began, "drunk again, haven't
you? Eh? Come, answer me!"
"Owing to the weakness of my health, I have exposed myself to spirituous
beverages, certainly," replied Kapiton.
"Owing to the weakness of your health! . . . They let you off too easy,
that's what it is; and you've been apprenticed in Petersburg. . . Much you
learned in your apprenticeship! You simply eat your bread in idleness."
"In that matter, Gavrila Andreitch, there is One to judge me, the Lord
God Himself, and no one else.
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