Page:Leo Tolstoi - Life Is Worth Living and Other Stories - tr. Adolphus Norraikow (1892).djvu/86

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TWO OLD MEN.

St. John iv., 19–23.


CHAPTER I.

Two aged men were preparing themselves for a long journey to old Jerusalem, where they intended paying their devotions to God.

One of the devotees was a rich peasant named Euthymus Tarassitch Sheveloff, and his companion's name was Elissey Bodroff.

Euthymus was a man of sedate demeanor and exemplary habits. He never indulged in strong drink, and he neither smoked nor used snuff. Of the use of profane language he was never known to be guilty, for he was a conscientious, serious man. He had served two terms as starosta (elder of a village), and at the expiration of that time his accounts were found correct to a kopeck.