First of all, he was late, having set out on a back road from Volovya station. Instead of eight miles, it turned out to be twelve. Second, he did not find the Ilyinskoye priest at home; he was away in a neighboring village. It was almost dark by the time Mitya located him, having driven to this neighboring village with the same, already exhausted, horses. The priest, a timid, tender-looking little man, explained to him at once that though this Lyagavy had been staying with him at first, he was now in Sukhoy Possyolok, and would be spending the night in the forester’s hut, because he was buying timber there too. To Mitya’s urgent requests to take him to Lyagavy at once and “thereby save him, so to speak,” the priest, though hesitant at first, finally agreed to go with him to Sukhoy Possyolok, apparently out of curiosity; but, as bad luck would have it, he suggested that they go “afoot,” since it was only “a wee bit more” than half a mile. Mitya naturally agreed and set off with his long strides, so that the poor priest almost had to run to keep up. He was not yet old, and was a very cautious little man. Mitya also began speaking with him at once about his plans, hotly and nervously demanded advice concerning Lyagavy, and talked all the way. The priest listened attentively, but gave little advice. He responded evasively to Mitya’s questions: “I don’t know, oh, I don’t know, how am I to know that,” and so on. When Mitya began speaking about his disputes with his father over the inheritance, the priest was even frightened, because he stood in some sort of dependent relation to Fyodor Pavlovich. However, he did ask in surprise why Mitya called this peasant trader Gorstkin by the name of Lyagavy, and made a point of explaining to him that though the man was indeed Lyagavy, he was also not Lyagavy, because he took bitter offense at the name, and that he must be called Gorstkin, “otherwise you won’t get anywhere with him, and he won’t even listen,” the priest concluded. Mitya was slightly and briefly surprised, and explained that Samsonov himself had referred to the man that way. On hearing of this circumstance, the priest at once changed the subject, though he would have done better to explain then and there to Dmitri Fyodorovich what he suspected: that if Samsonov himself had sent him to this peasant calling him Lyagavy, did he not do it in mockery for some reason, and wasn’t there something wrong here? But Mitya had no time to pause over “such trifles.” He rushed, he strode along, and only when they reached Sukhoy Possyolok did he realize that they had gone not half a mile, not a mile, but a good mile and a half. This annoyed him, but he let it pass. They went into the hut. The forester, an acquaintance of the priest, occupied half of the hut, and in the other, the good half, on the opposite side of the entryway, Gorstkin was staying. They went into this good room and lighted a tallow candle. The room was overheated. The samovar on the pine table had gone out; there were also a tray with cups, an empty bottle of rum, an almost empty quart bottle of vodka, and some crusts of white bread. The visitor himself lay stretched out on a bench, his coat bunched up under his head for a pillow, snoring heavily. Mitya stood perplexed. “Of course I must wake him up; my business is too important, I’ve hurried so, I’m in a hurry to get back today,” Mitya became alarmed; but the priest and the forester stood silently without expressing their opinion. Mitya went over himself and began shaking him, quite energetically, but the sleeping man would not wake up. “He’s drunk,” Mitya de- , cided, “but what am I to do, Lord, what am I to do!” And suddenly, in terrible impatience, he began tugging the sleeping man by the arms and legs, rolling his head back and forth, lifting him up and sitting him on the bench, yet after prolonged exertions, all he accomplished was that the man began mumbling absurdly and uttering strong but inarticulate oaths.
“No, you’d better wait,” the priest finally pronounced, “he’s obviously in no condition.”
“Been drinking all day,” the forester echoed.
“Oh, God!” Mitya kept exclaiming, “if only you knew how necessary it is, and what despair I’m in now!”
“No, you’d better wait till morning,” the priest repeated. “Till morning? But, merciful God, that’s impossible!” And in his despair he was about to rush at the drunk man to wake him, but stopped at once, realizing that all efforts were useless. The priest was silent, the sleepy forester was gloomy.
“What terrible tragedies realism inflicts on people,” Mitya uttered in complete despair. Sweat was streaming down his face. Seizing the moment, the priest quite reasonably explained that even if they succeeded in waking the sleeping man up, still, in his drunken state, he would not be fit for any conversation, “and you have important business, so it would be safer to leave it till morning . . “Mitya spread his arms helplessly and agreed.
