Polikey -familiarmente Polikushka- es un criado borracho y algo ladron pero con mucha mano con los caballos y una familia numerosa. En cierta ocasion llega incluso a vender un reloj de su senora, pero es descubierto y se arrepiente prometiendo no reincidir. Mientras tanto los aldeanos, que deben enviar 3 personas como cupo al servicio militar, proponen que sea el uno de los escogidos.

Purchase one of 1st World Librarys Classic Books and help support our free internet library of downloadable eBooks. Visit us online at www.1stWorldLibrary.ORG - - It happened in the seventies in winter, on the day after St. Nicholass Day. There was a fete in the parish and the innkeeper, Vasili Andreevich Brekhunov, a Second Guild merchant, being a church elder had to go to church, and had also to entertain his relatives and friends at home. But when the last of them had gone he at once began to prepare to drive over to see a neighbouring proprietor about a grove which he had been bargaining...