"I don't know. Ah, I can't say. How can I tell?" and so on.
When Mitya began to speak of his quarrel with his father over his inheritance, the priest was positively alarmed, as he was in some way dependent on Fyodor Pavlovitch.
He inquired, however, with surprise, why he called the peasant-trader Gorstkin, Lyagavy, and obligingly explained to Mitya that, though the man's name really was Lyagavy, he was never called so, as he would be grievously offended at the name, and that he must be sure to call him Gorstkin, "or you'll do nothing with him; he won't even listen to you," said the priest in conclusion.
Mitya was somewhat surprised for a moment, and explained that that was what Samsonov had called him.
On hearing this fact, the priest dropped the subject, though he would have done well to put into words his doubt whether, if Samsonov had sent him to that peasant, calling him Lyagavy, there was not something wrong about it and he was turning him into ridicule.
But Mitya had no time to pause over such trifles.
He hurried, striding along, and only when he reached Suhoy Possyolok did he realise that they had come not one verst, nor one and a half, but at least three. This annoyed him, but he controlled himself.
They went into the hut.
The forester lived in one half of the hut, and Gorstkin was lodging in the other, the better room the other side of the passage.
They went into that room and lighted a tallow candle.
The hut was extremely overheated.
On the table there was a samovar that had gone out, a tray with cups, an empty rum bottle, a bottle of vodka partly full, and some half-eaten crusts of wheaten bread.
The visitor himself lay stretched at full length on the bench, with his coat crushed up under his head for a pillow, snoring heavily.
Mitya stood in perplexity.
"Of course, I must wake him. My business is too important. I've come in such haste. I'm in a hurry to get back to-day," he said in great agitation. But the priest and the forester stood in silence, not giving their opinion.
Mitya went up and began trying to wake him himself; he tried vigorously, but the sleeper did not wake.
"He's drunk," Mitya decided. "Good Lord! What am I to do? What am I to do?"
And, terribly impatient, he began pulling him by the arms, by the legs, shaking his head, lifting him up and making him sit on the bench. Yet, after prolonged exertions, he could only succeed in getting the drunken man to utter absurd grunts, and violent, but inarticulate oaths.
"No, you'd better wait a little," the priest pronounced at last, "for he's obviously not in a fit state."
"He's been drinking the whole day," the forester chimed in.
"Good heavens!" cried Mitya. "If only you knew how important it is to me and how desperate I am!"
"No, you'd better wait till morning," the priest repeated.
"Till morning?
Mercy! that's impossible!" And in his despair he was on the point of attacking the sleeping man again, but stopped short at once, realising the uselessness of his efforts.
The priest said nothing, the sleepy forester looked gloomy.
"What terrible tragedies real life contrives for people," said Mitya, in complete despair.
The perspiration was streaming down his face.
The priest seized the moment to put before him, very reasonably, that, even if he succeeded in wakening the man, he would still be drunk and incapable of conversation. "And your business is important," he said, "so you'd certainly better put it off till morning."
With a gesture of despair Mitya agreed.
"Father, I will stay here with a light, and seize the favourable moment.
As soon as he wakes I'll begin. I'll pay you for the light," he said to the forester, "for the night's lodging, too; you'll remember Dmitri Karamazov.
Only Father, I don't know what we're to do with you. Where will you sleep?"
"No, I'm going home.
I'll take his horse and get home," he said, indicating the forester. "And now I'll say good-bye. I wish you all success."
So it was settled.
The priest rode off on the forester's horse, delighted to escape, though he shook his head uneasily, wondering whether he ought not next day to inform his benefactor Fyodor Pavlovitch of this curious incident, "or he may in an unlucky hour hear of it, be angry, and withdraw his favour."
The forester, scratching himself, went back to his room without a word, and Mitya sat on the bench to "catch the favourable moment," as he expressed it.
Profound dejection clung about his soul like a heavy mist.
A profound, intense dejection!
He sat thinking, but could reach no conclusion.
The candle burnt dimly, a cricket chirped; it became insufferably close in the overheated room.
He suddenly pictured the garden, the path behind the garden, the door of his father's house mysteriously opening and Grushenka running in. He leapt up from the bench.
"It's a tragedy!" he said, grinding his teeth. Mechanically he went up to the sleeping man and looked in his face.
He was a lean, middle-aged peasant, with a very long face, flaxen curls, and a long, thin, reddish beard, wearing a blue cotton shirt and a black waistcoat, from the pocket of which peeped the chain of a silver watch.
Mitya looked at his face with intense hatred, and for some unknown reason his curly hair particularly irritated him.
What was insufferably humiliating was that, after leaving things of such importance and making such sacrifices, he, Mitya, utterly worn out, should with business of such urgency be standing over this dolt on whom his whole fate depended, while he snored as though there were nothing the matter, as though he'd dropped from another planet.
"Oh, the irony of fate!" cried Mitya, and, quite losing his head, he fell again to rousing the tipsy peasant.
He roused him with a sort of ferocity, pulled at him, pushed him, even beat him; but after five minutes of vain exertions, he returned to his bench in helpless despair, and sat down.
"Stupid! Stupid!" cried Mitya. "And how dishonourable it all is!" something made him add.
His head began to ache horribly.