There was a certain village wherein no one lived but really rich peasants, and just one poor one, whom they called the little peasant.
At home the small peasant gradually launched out; he built a beautiful house, and the peasants said: 'The small peasant has certainly been to the place where golden snow falls, and people carry the gold home in shovels.' Then the small peasant was brought before the mayor, and bidden to say from whence his wealth came.
Until Prince Andrew settled in Bogucharovo its owners had always been absentees, and its peasants were of quite a different character from those of Bald Hills.
Prince Andrew's last stay at Bogucharovo, when he introduced hospitals and schools and reduced the quitrent the peasants had to pay, had not softened their disposition but had on the contrary strengthened in them the traits of character the old prince called boorishness.
Something of the gift of Francois Millet, whose peasants are veritable priests, of those older religious painters who could portray saintly heads so sweetly and their merely human proteges so truly, seems indeed to have descended to M.
In this book it is rather the cheerful aspect of summer, those upland valleys of the Cevennes presenting then a symphony in red, so to call it--as in a land of cherries and goldfinches; and he has a genial power certainly of making you really feel the sun on the backs of the two boys out early for a long ramble, of old peasants resting themselves a little, with spare enjoyment, ere the end:--
What would you have with those peasants!" said the bailiff, with a wave of his hand.
"It's not those peasants but this bailiff!" said Levin, getting angry.
Behold yonder peasant tilling his field in peace and contentment!
Leaning upon his rake, the Peasant returned the salutation with a nod, but said nothing.
As chance would have it, when he had got to this line there happened to come by a
peasant from his own village, a neighbour of his, who had been with a load of wheat to the mill, and he, seeing the man stretched there, came up to him and asked him who he was and what was the matter with him that he complained so dolefully.
A
PEASANT found an Eagle captured in a trap, and much admiring the bird, set him free.