"_Panitch!_ Do you want horses? You can buy them very reasonably. Ah,
so reasonably! A horse that cost a hundred rubles, you can buy for
twenty-five. Do you wish to buy?"
"Wait for me, wait for me. I'll take you to the horses."
"Mr. Squire, Mr. Squire, here are horses. Farm horses! And cheap!
Cheap! I'll bring them to you."
There's no getting through the horses in the market--no possibility of
penetrating through. There stands one great solid crowd. Quick people
even slip about under the horses. What the prices are you may judge
from separate exclamations.
"If there's such a bargain anywhere else on God's earth I'd like to
hear of it!" says a fugitive, turning over and turning over again the
dirty notes which he has received.
"Don't get rid of them here. Better sell their skins in Kalutsk."
"Take the twelve rubles now. Take them now. To-morrow you'll be glad to
sell at ten."
"By to-morrow she'll drop down dead if you go on!"
"What! Fifteen rubles not good money? Did you say that? You?"
"Ten rubles as they stand! From hand to hand!" says a tall, dark
peasant with a long beard, standing beside a cart to which are tied six
horses, all skin and bone.
He says in a contemptuous tone:
"You see the horses. A red note for each. Altogether. Take them. It
will mean money. Without money there's no doing anything."