Still, it is hard, uphill work.

The peasants have not been improved by liberty.

They now work less and drink more than they did in the times of serfage, and if you say a word to them they'll go away, and not work for you at all." Here Karl Karl'itch indemnified himself for his recent self-control in the presence of his workers by using a series of the strongest epithets which the combined languages of his native and of his adopted country could supply.

"But laziness and drunkenness are not their only faults.
They let their cattle wander into our fields, and never lose an opportunity of stealing firewood from the forest." "But you have now for such matters the rural justices of the peace," I ventured to suggest.
"The justices of the peace!".

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