Page:The Novels of Ivan Turgenev (volume VI).djvu/267

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VIRGIN SOIL

He was triumphant! 'Here we are! Out of the way or I'll kill you! . . . Kapiton Golushkin's coming!' The clerk Vasya at last reached such a point of tipsiness, that he began snorting and talking to his plate, and suddenly shouted like one possessed: 'What the devil's the meaning of a progymnasium?'

Golushkin all at once got up, and throwing back his crimson face, in which an expression of coarse brutality and swagger was curiously mingled with the expression of another feeling, like a secret misgiving, even trepidation, he bawled, 'I will sacrifice another thousand! Vasya, out with it!' to which Vasya responded in an undertone, 'He's going it!'

Paklin, pale and perspiring (for the last quarter of an hour he had vied with the clerk in drinking), Paklin, jumping up from his place, and lifting both hands high above his head, cried brokenly, 'Sacrifice! he said, sacrifice! Oh, degradation of that sacred word! Sacrifice! No one dares to rise to thee, no one has the strength to fulfil the duties thou enjoinest, at least no one of us here present─and this lout, this vile money-bag, gloats over his swollen gains, scatters a handful of roubles, and shouts of sacrifice! And asks for gratitude; expects a wreath of laurel─the mean scoundrel!' Golushkin either did not hear, or did not under-

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