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278 Tolstoy
undermine whatever good is latent in him.
Money, the destroyer of souls, together with the
consciousness that he has been indirectly a party
to Anisya s crime, turn Nikita s love for the
woman into bitter hatred. He takes for his mis
tress Akulina, Peter s oldest daughter, a girl of six
teen, deaf and silly, and forces Anisya to serve
them. She had strength to resist her old husband,
but her love for Nikita has made her weak.
The moment I see him my heart softens. I have
no courage against him."
Old Akim comes to ask for a little money from
his newly rich son. He quickly senses the swamp
of corruption and vice into which Nikita has sunk.
He tries to save him, to bring him back to himself,
to arouse the better side of his nature. But he
fails.
The ways of life are too evil for Akim. He
leaves, refusing even the money he needs so badly
to purchase a horse.
Akim. One sin holds on to another and pulls you
along. Nikita, you are stuck in sins. You are stuck, I
see, in sins. You are stuck fast, so to speak. I have
heard that nowadays they pull fathers beards, so to speak,
but this leads only to ruin, to ruin, so to speak. . . .
There is your money. I will go and beg, so to speak,
but I will not, so to speak, take the money. . . . Let me
go! I will not stay! I would rather sleep near the
fence than in your nastiness.
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