moonlight.  He saw the servants running about with food and drink, he saw the cooks, the stewards, the laundresses, the gardeners, the coachmen, hard at work to supply their masters with food and drink and constant amusement.  Sometimes the young people from the master’s house came to the shed, and Vassily offered them the choicest apples, juicy and red.  The young ladies used to take large bites out of the apples on the spot, praising their taste, and spoke French to one another—­Vassily quite understood it was all about him—­and asked Vassily to sing for them.

Vassily felt the greatest admiration for his master’s mode of living, which reminded him of what he had seen in Moscow; and he became more and more convinced that the only thing that mattered in life was money.  He thought and thought how to get hold of a large sum of money.  He remembered his former ways of making small profits whenever he could, and came to the conclusion that that was altogether wrong.  Occasional stealing is of no use, he thought.  He must arrange a well-prepared plan, and after getting all the information he wanted, carry out his purpose so as to avoid detection.

After the feast of Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the last crop of autumn apples was gathered; the master was content with the results, paid off Vassily, and gave him an extra sum as reward for his faithful service.

Vassily put on his new jacket, and a new hat—­both were presents from his master’s son—­but did not make his way homewards.  He hated the very thought of the vulgar peasants’ life.  He went back to Moscow in company of some drunken soldiers, who had been watchmen in the orchard together with him.  On his arrival there he at once resolved, under cover of night, to break into the shop where he had been employed, and beaten, and then turned out by the proprietor without being paid.  He knew the place well, and knew where the money was locked up.  So he bade the soldiers, who helped him, keep watch outside, and forcing the courtyard door entered the shop and took all the money he could lay his hands on.  All this was done very cleverly, and no trace was left of the burglary.  The money Vassily had found in the shop amounted to 370 roubles.  He gave a hundred roubles to his assistants, and with the rest left for another town where he gave way to dissipation in company of friends of both sexes.  The police traced his movements, and when at last he was arrested and put into prison he had hardly anything left out of the money which he had stolen.

XIV

Ivan Mironov had become a very clever, fearless and successful horse-thief.  Afimia, his wife, who at first used to abuse him for his evil ways, as she called it, was now quite content and felt proud of her husband, who possessed a new sheepskin coat, while she also had a warm jacket and a new fur cloak.