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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 13419 ***
+
+THE TALES OF CHEKHOV
+
+VOLUME 7
+
+THE BISHOP AND OTHER STORIES
+
+BY
+
+ANTON TCHEKHOV
+
+Translated by CONSTANCE GARNETT
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+THE BISHOP
+THE LETTER
+EASTER EVE
+A NIGHTMARE
+THE MURDER
+UPROOTED
+THE STEPPE
+
+
+
+
+THE BISHOP
+
+I
+
+THE evening service was being celebrated on the eve of Palm Sunday
+in the Old Petrovsky Convent. When they began distributing the palm
+it was close upon ten o'clock, the candles were burning dimly, the
+wicks wanted snuffing; it was all in a sort of mist. In the twilight
+of the church the crowd seemed heaving like the sea, and to Bishop
+Pyotr, who had been unwell for the last three days, it seemed that
+all the faces--old and young, men's and women's--were alike,
+that everyone who came up for the palm had the same expression in
+his eyes. In the mist he could not see the doors; the crowd kept
+moving and looked as though there were no end to it. The female
+choir was singing, a nun was reading the prayers for the day.
+
+How stifling, how hot it was! How long the service went on! Bishop
+Pyotr was tired. His breathing was laboured and rapid, his throat
+was parched, his shoulders ached with weariness, his legs were
+trembling. And it disturbed him unpleasantly when a religious maniac
+uttered occasional shrieks in the gallery. And then all of a sudden,
+as though in a dream or delirium, it seemed to the bishop as though
+his own mother Marya Timofyevna, whom he had not seen for nine
+years, or some old woman just like his mother, came up to him out
+of the crowd, and, after taking a palm branch from him, walked away
+looking at him all the while good-humouredly with a kind, joyful
+smile until she was lost in the crowd. And for some reason tears
+flowed down his face. There was peace in his heart, everything was
+well, yet he kept gazing fixedly towards the left choir, where the
+prayers were being read, where in the dusk of evening you could not
+recognize anyone, and--wept. Tears glistened on his face and on
+his beard. Here someone close at hand was weeping, then someone
+else farther away, then others and still others, and little by
+little the church was filled with soft weeping. And a little later,
+within five minutes, the nuns' choir was singing; no one was weeping
+and everything was as before.
+
+Soon the service was over. When the bishop got into his carriage
+to drive home, the gay, melodious chime of the heavy, costly bells
+was filling the whole garden in the moonlight. The white walls, the
+white crosses on the tombs, the white birch-trees and black shadows,
+and the far-away moon in the sky exactly over the convent, seemed
+now living their own life, apart and incomprehensible, yet very
+near to man. It was the beginning of April, and after the warm
+spring day it turned cool; there was a faint touch of frost, and
+the breath of spring could be felt in the soft, chilly air. The
+road from the convent to the town was sandy, the horses had to go
+at a walking pace, and on both sides of the carriage in the brilliant,
+peaceful moonlight there were people trudging along home from church
+through the sand. And all was silent, sunk in thought; everything
+around seemed kindly, youthful, akin, everything--trees and sky
+and even the moon, and one longed to think that so it would be
+always.
+
+At last the carriage drove into the town and rumbled along the
+principal street. The shops were already shut, but at Erakin's, the
+millionaire shopkeeper's, they were trying the new electric lights,
+which flickered brightly, and a crowd of people were gathered round.
+Then came wide, dark, deserted streets, one after another; then the
+highroad, the open country, the fragrance of pines. And suddenly
+there rose up before the bishop's eyes a white turreted wall, and
+behind it a tall belfry in the full moonlight, and beside it five
+shining, golden cupolas: this was the Pankratievsky Monastery, in
+which Bishop Pyotr lived. And here, too, high above the monastery,
+was the silent, dreamy moon. The carriage drove in at the gate,
+crunching over the sand; here and there in the moonlight there were
+glimpses of dark monastic figures, and there was the sound of
+footsteps on the flag-stones. . . .
+
+"You know, your holiness, your mamma arrived while you were away,"
+the lay brother informed the bishop as he went into his cell.
+
+"My mother? When did she come?"
+
+"Before the evening service. She asked first where you were and
+then she went to the convent."
+
+"Then it was her I saw in the church, just now! Oh, Lord!"
+
+And the bishop laughed with joy.
+
+"She bade me tell your holiness," the lay brother went on, "that
+she would come to-morrow. She had a little girl with her--her
+grandchild, I suppose. They are staying at Ovsyannikov's inn."
+
+"What time is it now?"
+
+"A little after eleven."
+
+"Oh, how vexing!"
+
+The bishop sat for a little while in the parlour, hesitating, and
+as it were refusing to believe it was so late. His arms and legs
+were stiff, his head ached. He was hot and uncomfortable. After
+resting a little he went into his bedroom, and there, too, he sat
+a little, still thinking of his mother; he could hear the lay brother
+going away, and Father Sisoy coughing the other side of the wall.
+The monastery clock struck a quarter.
+
+The bishop changed his clothes and began reading the prayers before
+sleep. He read attentively those old, long familiar prayers, and
+at the same time thought about his mother. She had nine children
+and about forty grandchildren. At one time, she had lived with her
+husband, the deacon, in a poor village; she had lived there a very
+long time from the age of seventeen to sixty. The bishop remembered
+her from early childhood, almost from the age of three, and--how
+he had loved her! Sweet, precious childhood, always fondly remembered!
+Why did it, that long-past time that could never return, why did
+it seem brighter, fuller, and more festive than it had really been?
+When in his childhood or youth he had been ill, how tender and
+sympathetic his mother had been! And now his prayers mingled with
+the memories, which gleamed more and more brightly like a flame,
+and the prayers did not hinder his thinking of his mother.
+
+When he had finished his prayers he undressed and lay down, and at
+once, as soon as it was dark, there rose before his mind his dead
+father, his mother, his native village Lesopolye . . . the creak
+of wheels, the bleat of sheep, the church bells on bright summer
+mornings, the gypsies under the window--oh, how sweet to think
+of it! He remembered the priest of Lesopolye, Father Simeon--mild,
+gentle, kindly; he was a lean little man, while his son, a divinity
+student, was a huge fellow and talked in a roaring bass voice. The
+priest's son had flown into a rage with the cook and abused her:
+"Ah, you Jehud's ass!" and Father Simeon overhearing it, said not
+a word, and was only ashamed because he could not remember where
+such an ass was mentioned in the Bible. After him the priest at
+Lesopolye had been Father Demyan, who used to drink heavily, and
+at times drank till he saw green snakes, and was even nicknamed
+Demyan Snakeseer. The schoolmaster at Lesopolye was Matvey Nikolaitch,
+who had been a divinity student, a kind and intelligent man, but
+he, too, was a drunkard; he never beat the schoolchildren, but for
+some reason he always had hanging on his wall a bunch of birch-twigs,
+and below it an utterly meaningless inscription in Latin: "Betula
+kinderbalsamica secuta." He had a shaggy black dog whom he called
+Syntax.
+
+And his holiness laughed. Six miles from Lesopolye was the village
+Obnino with a wonder-working ikon. In the summer they used to carry
+the ikon in procession about the neighbouring villages and ring the
+bells the whole day long; first in one village and then in another,
+and it used to seem to the bishop then that joy was quivering in
+the air, and he (in those days his name was Pavlusha) used to follow
+the ikon, bareheaded and barefoot, with naïve faith, with a naïve
+smile, infinitely happy. In Obnino, he remembered now, there were
+always a lot of people, and the priest there, Father Alexey, to
+save time during mass, used to make his deaf nephew Ilarion read
+the names of those for whose health or whose souls' peace prayers
+were asked. Ilarion used to read them, now and then getting a five
+or ten kopeck piece for the service, and only when he was grey and
+bald, when life was nearly over, he suddenly saw written on one of
+the pieces of paper: "What a fool you are, Ilarion." Up to fifteen
+at least Pavlusha was undeveloped and idle at his lessons, so much
+so that they thought of taking him away from the clerical school
+and putting him into a shop; one day, going to the post at Obnino
+for letters, he had stared a long time at the post-office clerks
+and asked: "Allow me to ask, how do you get your salary, every month
+or every day?"
+
+His holiness crossed himself and turned over on the other side,
+trying to stop thinking and go to sleep.
+
+"My mother has come," he remembered and laughed.
+
+The moon peeped in at the window, the floor was lighted up, and
+there were shadows on it. A cricket was chirping. Through the wall
+Father Sisoy was snoring in the next room, and his aged snore had
+a sound that suggested loneliness, forlornness, even vagrancy. Sisoy
+had once been housekeeper to the bishop of the diocese, and was
+called now "the former Father Housekeeper"; he was seventy years
+old, he lived in a monastery twelve miles from the town and stayed
+sometimes in the town, too. He had come to the Pankratievsky Monastery
+three days before, and the bishop had kept him that he might talk
+to him at his leisure about matters of business, about the arrangements
+here. . . .
+
+At half-past one they began ringing for matins. Father Sisoy could
+be heard coughing, muttering something in a discontented voice,
+then he got up and walked barefoot about the rooms.
+
+"Father Sisoy," the bishop called.
+
+Sisoy went back to his room and a little later made his appearance
+in his boots, with a candle; he had on his cassock over his
+underclothes and on his head was an old faded skull-cap.
+
+"I can't sleep," said the bishop, sitting up. "I must be unwell.
+And what it is I don't know. Fever!"
+
+"You must have caught cold, your holiness. You must be rubbed with
+tallow." Sisoy stood a little and yawned. "O Lord, forgive me, a
+sinner."
+
+"They had the electric lights on at Erakin's today," he said; "I
+don't like it!"
+
+Father Sisoy was old, lean, bent, always dissatisfied with something,
+and his eyes were angry-looking and prominent as a crab's.
+
+"I don't like it," he said, going away. "I don't like it. Bother
+it!"
+
+II
+
+Next day, Palm Sunday, the bishop took the service in the cathedral
+in the town, then he visited the bishop of the diocese, then visited
+a very sick old lady, the widow of a general, and at last drove
+home. Between one and two o'clock he had welcome visitors dining
+with him--his mother and his niece Katya, a child of eight years
+old. All dinner-time the spring sunshine was streaming in at the
+windows, throwing bright light on the white tablecloth and on Katya's
+red hair. Through the double windows they could hear the noise of
+the rooks and the notes of the starlings in the garden.
+
+"It is nine years since we have met," said the old lady. "And when
+I looked at you in the monastery yesterday, good Lord! you've not
+changed a bit, except maybe you are thinner and your beard is a
+little longer. Holy Mother, Queen of Heaven! Yesterday at the evening
+service no one could help crying. I, too, as I looked at you,
+suddenly began crying, though I couldn't say why. His Holy Will!"
+
+And in spite of the affectionate tone in which she said this, he
+could see she was constrained as though she were uncertain whether
+to address him formally or familiarly, to laugh or not, and that
+she felt herself more a deacon's widow than his mother. And Katya
+gazed without blinking at her uncle, his holiness, as though trying
+to discover what sort of a person he was. Her hair sprang up from
+under the comb and the velvet ribbon and stood out like a halo; she
+had a turned-up nose and sly eyes. The child had broken a glass
+before sitting down to dinner, and now her grandmother, as she
+talked, moved away from Katya first a wineglass and then a tumbler.
+The bishop listened to his mother and remembered how many, many
+years ago she used to take him and his brothers and sisters to
+relations whom she considered rich; in those days she was taken up
+with the care of her children, now with her grandchildren, and she
+had brought Katya. . . .
+
+"Your sister, Varenka, has four children," she told him; "Katya,
+here, is the eldest. And your brother-in-law Father Ivan fell sick,
+God knows of what, and died three days before the Assumption; and
+my poor Varenka is left a beggar."
+
+"And how is Nikanor getting on?" the bishop asked about his eldest
+brother.
+
+"He is all right, thank God. Though he has nothing much, yet he can
+live. Only there is one thing: his son, my grandson Nikolasha, did
+not want to go into the Church; he has gone to the university to
+be a doctor. He thinks it is better; but who knows! His Holy Will!"
+
+"Nikolasha cuts up dead people," said Katya, spilling water over
+her knees.
+
+"Sit still, child," her grandmother observed calmly, and took the
+glass out of her hand. "Say a prayer, and go on eating."
+
+"How long it is since we have seen each other!" said the bishop,
+and he tenderly stroked his mother's hand and shoulder; "and I
+missed you abroad, mother, I missed you dreadfully."
+
+"Thank you."
+
+"I used to sit in the evenings at the open window, lonely and alone;
+often there was music playing, and all at once I used to be overcome
+with homesickness and felt as though I would give everything only
+to be at home and see you."
+
+His mother smiled, beamed, but at once she made a grave face and
+said:
+
+"Thank you."
+
+His mood suddenly changed. He looked at his mother and could not
+understand how she had come by that respectfulness, that timid
+expression of face: what was it for? And he did not recognize her.
+He felt sad and vexed. And then his head ached just as it had the
+day before; his legs felt fearfully tired, and the fish seemed to
+him stale and tasteless; he felt thirsty all the time. . . .
+
+After dinner two rich ladies, landowners, arrived and sat for an
+hour and a half in silence with rigid countenances; the archimandrite,
+a silent, rather deaf man, came to see him about business. Then
+they began ringing for vespers; the sun was setting behind the wood
+and the day was over. When he returned from church, he hurriedly
+said his prayers, got into bed, and wrapped himself up as warm as
+possible.
+
+It was disagreeable to remember the fish he had eaten at dinner.
+The moonlight worried him, and then he heard talking. In an adjoining
+room, probably in the parlour, Father Sisoy was talking politics:
+
+"There's war among the Japanese now. They are fighting. The Japanese,
+my good soul, are the same as the Montenegrins; they are the same
+race. They were under the Turkish yoke together."
+
+And then he heard the voice of Marya Timofyevna:
+
+"So, having said our prayers and drunk tea, we went, you know, to
+Father Yegor at Novokatnoye, so. . ."
+
+And she kept on saying, "having had tea" or "having drunk tea," and
+it seemed as though the only thing she had done in her life was to
+drink tea.
+
+The bishop slowly, languidly, recalled the seminary, the academy.
+For three years he had been Greek teacher in the seminary: by that
+time he could not read without spectacles. Then he had become a
+monk; he had been made a school inspector. Then he had defended his
+thesis for his degree. When he was thirty-two he had been made
+rector of the seminary, and consecrated archimandrite: and then his
+life had been so easy, so pleasant; it seemed so long, so long, no
+end was in sight. Then he had begun to be ill, had grown very thin
+and almost blind, and by the advice of the doctors had to give up
+everything and go abroad.
+
+"And what then?" asked Sisoy in the next room.
+
+"Then we drank tea . . ." answered Marya Timofyevna.
+
+"Good gracious, you've got a green beard," said Katya suddenly in
+surprise, and she laughed.
+
+The bishop remembered that the grey-headed Father Sisoy's beard
+really had a shade of green in it, and he laughed.
+
+"God have mercy upon us, what we have to put up with with this
+girl!" said Sisoy, aloud, getting angry. "Spoilt child! Sit quiet!"
+
+The bishop remembered the perfectly new white church in which he
+had conducted the services while living abroad, he remembered the
+sound of the warm sea. In his flat he had five lofty light rooms;
+in his study he had a new writing-table, lots of books. He had read
+a great deal and often written. And he remembered how he had pined
+for his native land, how a blind beggar woman had played the guitar
+under his window every day and sung of love, and how, as he listened,
+he had always for some reason thought of the past. But eight years
+had passed and he had been called back to Russia, and now he was a
+suffragan bishop, and all the past had retreated far away into the
+mist as though it were a dream. . . .
+
+Father Sisoy came into the bedroom with a candle.
+
+"I say!" he said, wondering, "are you asleep already, your holiness?"
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"Why, it's still early, ten o'clock or less. I bought a candle
+to-day; I wanted to rub you with tallow."
+
+"I am in a fever . . ." said the bishop, and he sat up. "I really
+ought to have something. My head is bad. . . ."
+
+Sisoy took off the bishop's shirt and began rubbing his chest and
+back with tallow.
+
+"That's the way . . . that's the way . . ." he said. "Lord Jesus
+Christ . . . that's the way. I walked to the town to-day; I was at
+what's-his-name's--the chief priest Sidonsky's. . . . I had tea
+with him. I don't like him. Lord Jesus Christ. . . . That's the
+way. I don't like him."
+
+III
+
+The bishop of the diocese, a very fat old man, was ill with rheumatism
+or gout, and had been in bed for over a month. Bishop Pyotr went
+to see him almost every day, and saw all who came to ask his help.
+And now that he was unwell he was struck by the emptiness, the
+triviality of everything which they asked and for which they wept;
+he was vexed at their ignorance, their timidity; and all this
+useless, petty business oppressed him by the mass of it, and it
+seemed to him that now he understood the diocesan bishop, who had
+once in his young days written on "The Doctrines of the Freedom of
+the Will," and now seemed to be all lost in trivialities, to have
+forgotten everything, and to have no thoughts of religion. The
+bishop must have lost touch with Russian life while he was abroad;
+he did not find it easy; the peasants seemed to him coarse, the
+women who sought his help dull and stupid, the seminarists and their
+teachers uncultivated and at times savage. And the documents coming
+in and going out were reckoned by tens of thousands; and what
+documents they were! The higher clergy in the whole diocese gave
+the priests, young and old, and even their wives and children, marks
+for their behaviour--a five, a four, and sometimes even a three;
+and about this he had to talk and to read and write serious reports.
+And there was positively not one minute to spare; his soul was
+troubled all day long, and the bishop was only at peace when he was
+in church.
+
+He could not get used, either, to the awe which, through no wish
+of his own, he inspired in people in spite of his quiet, modest
+disposition. All the people in the province seemed to him little,
+scared, and guilty when he looked at them. Everyone was timid in
+his presence, even the old chief priests; everyone "flopped" at his
+feet, and not long previously an old lady, a village priest's wife
+who had come to consult him, was so overcome by awe that she could
+not utter a single word, and went empty away. And he, who could
+never in his sermons bring himself to speak ill of people, never
+reproached anyone because he was so sorry for them, was moved to
+fury with the people who came to consult him, lost his temper and
+flung their petitions on the floor. The whole time he had been here,
+not one person had spoken to him genuinely, simply, as to a human
+being; even his old mother seemed now not the same! And why, he
+wondered, did she chatter away to Sisoy and laugh so much; while
+with him, her son, she was grave and usually silent and constrained,
+which did not suit her at all. The only person who behaved freely
+with him and said what he meant was old Sisoy, who had spent his
+whole life in the presence of bishops and had outlived eleven of
+them. And so the bishop was at ease with him, although, of course,
+he was a tedious and nonsensical man.
+
+After the service on Tuesday, his holiness Pyotr was in the diocesan
+bishop's house receiving petitions there; he got excited and angry,
+and then drove home. He was as unwell as before; he longed to be
+in bed, but he had hardly reached home when he was informed that a
+young merchant called Erakin, who subscribed liberally to charities,
+had come to see him about a very important matter. The bishop had
+to see him. Erakin stayed about an hour, talked very loud, almost
+shouted, and it was difficult to understand what he said.
+
+"God grant it may," he said as he went away. "Most essential!
+According to circumstances, your holiness! I trust it may!"
+
+After him came the Mother Superior from a distant convent. And when
+she had gone they began ringing for vespers. He had to go to church.
+
+In the evening the monks sang harmoniously, with inspiration. A
+young priest with a black beard conducted the service; and the
+bishop, hearing of the Bridegroom who comes at midnight and of the
+Heavenly Mansion adorned for the festival, felt no repentance for
+his sins, no tribulation, but peace at heart and tranquillity. And
+he was carried back in thought to the distant past, to his childhood
+and youth, when, too, they used to sing of the Bridegroom and of
+the Heavenly Mansion; and now that past rose up before him--living,
+fair, and joyful as in all likelihood it never had been. And perhaps
+in the other world, in the life to come, we shall think of the
+distant past, of our life here, with the same feeling. Who knows?
+The bishop was sitting near the altar. It was dark; tears flowed
+down his face. He thought that here he had attained everything a
+man in his position could attain; he had faith and yet everything
+was not clear, something was lacking still. He did not want to die;
+and he still felt that he had missed what was most important,
+something of which he had dimly dreamed in the past; and he was
+troubled by the same hopes for the future as he had felt in childhood,
+at the academy and abroad.
+
+"How well they sing to-day!" he thought, listening to the singing.
+"How nice it is!"
+
+IV
+
+On Thursday he celebrated mass in the cathedral; it was the Washing
+of Feet. When the service was over and the people were going home,
+it was sunny, warm; the water gurgled in the gutters, and the
+unceasing trilling of the larks, tender, telling of peace, rose
+from the fields outside the town. The trees were already awakening
+and smiling a welcome, while above them the infinite, fathomless
+blue sky stretched into the distance, God knows whither.
+
+On reaching home his holiness drank some tea, then changed his
+clothes, lay down on his bed, and told the lay brother to close the
+shutters on the windows. The bedroom was darkened. But what weariness,
+what pain in his legs and his back, a chill heavy pain, what a noise
+in his ears! He had not slept for a long time--for a very long
+time, as it seemed to him now, and some trifling detail which haunted
+his brain as soon as his eyes were closed prevented him from sleeping.
+As on the day before, sounds reached him from the adjoining rooms
+through the walls, voices, the jingle of glasses and teaspoons. . . .
+Marya Timofyevna was gaily telling Father Sisoy some story with
+quaint turns of speech, while the latter answered in a grumpy,
+ill-humoured voice: "Bother them! Not likely! What next!" And the
+bishop again felt vexed and then hurt that with other people his
+old mother behaved in a simple, ordinary way, while with him, her
+son, she was shy, spoke little, and did not say what she meant, and
+even, as he fancied, had during all those three days kept trying
+in his presence to find an excuse for standing up, because she was
+embarrassed at sitting before him. And his father? He, too, probably,
+if he had been living, would not have been able to utter a word in
+the bishop's presence. . . .
+
+Something fell down on the floor in the adjoining room and was
+broken; Katya must have dropped a cup or a saucer, for Father Sisoy
+suddenly spat and said angrily:
+
+"What a regular nuisance the child is! Lord forgive my transgressions!
+One can't provide enough for her."
+
+Then all was quiet, the only sounds came from outside. And when the
+bishop opened his eyes he saw Katya in his room, standing motionless,
+staring at him. Her red hair, as usual, stood up from under the
+comb like a halo.
+
+"Is that you, Katya?" he asked. "Who is it downstairs who keeps
+opening and shutting a door?"
+
+"I don't hear it," answered Katya; and she listened.
+
+"There, someone has just passed by."
+
+"But that was a noise in your stomach, uncle."
+
+He laughed and stroked her on the head.
+
+"So you say Cousin Nikolasha cuts up dead people?" he asked after
+a pause.
+
+"Yes, he is studying."
+
+"And is he kind?"
+
+"Oh, yes, he's kind. But he drinks vodka awfully."
+
+"And what was it your father died of?"
+
+"Papa was weak and very, very thin, and all at once his throat was
+bad. I was ill then, too, and brother Fedya; we all had bad throats.
+Papa died, uncle, and we got well."
+
+Her chin began quivering, and tears gleamed in her eyes and trickled
+down her cheeks.
+
+"Your holiness," she said in a shrill voice, by now weeping bitterly,
+"uncle, mother and all of us are left very wretched. . . . Give us
+a little money . . . do be kind . . . uncle darling. . . ."
+
+He, too, was moved to tears, and for a long time was too much touched
+to speak. Then he stroked her on the head, patted her on the shoulder
+and said:
+
+"Very good, very good, my child. When the holy Easter comes, we
+will talk it over. . . . I will help you. . . . I will help you. . . ."
+
+His mother came in quietly, timidly, and prayed before the ikon.
+Noticing that he was not sleeping, she said:
+
+"Won't you have a drop of soup?"
+
+"No, thank you," he answered, "I am not hungry."
+
+"You seem to be unwell, now I look at you. I should think so; you
+may well be ill! The whole day on your legs, the whole day. . . .
+And, my goodness, it makes one's heart ache even to look at you!
+Well, Easter is not far off; you will rest then, please God. Then
+we will have a talk, too, but now I'm not going to disturb you with
+my chatter. Come along, Katya; let his holiness sleep a little."
+
+And he remembered how once very long ago, when he was a boy, she
+had spoken exactly like that, in the same jestingly respectful tone,
+with a Church dignitary. . . . Only from her extraordinarily kind
+eyes and the timid, anxious glance she stole at him as she went out
+of the room could one have guessed that this was his mother. He
+shut his eyes and seemed to sleep, but twice heard the clock strike
+and Father Sisoy coughing the other side of the wall. And once more
+his mother came in and looked timidly at him for a minute. Someone
+drove up to the steps, as he could hear, in a coach or in a chaise.
+Suddenly a knock, the door slammed, the lay brother came into the
+bedroom.
+
+"Your holiness," he called.
+
+"Well?"
+
+"The horses are here; it's time for the evening service."
+
+"What o'clock is it?"
+
+"A quarter past seven."
+
+He dressed and drove to the cathedral. During all the "Twelve
+Gospels" he had to stand in the middle of the church without moving,
+and the first gospel, the longest and the most beautiful, he read
+himself. A mood of confidence and courage came over him. That first
+gospel, "Now is the Son of Man glorified," he knew by heart; and
+as he read he raised his eyes from time to time, and saw on both
+sides a perfect sea of lights and heard the splutter of candles,
+but, as in past years, he could not see the people, and it seemed
+as though these were all the same people as had been round him in
+those days, in his childhood and his youth; that they would always
+be the same every year and till such time as God only knew.
+
+His father had been a deacon, his grandfather a priest, his
+great-grandfather a deacon, and his whole family, perhaps from the
+days when Christianity had been accepted in Russia, had belonged
+to the priesthood; and his love for the Church services, for the
+priesthood, for the peal of the bells, was deep in him, ineradicable,
+innate. In church, particularly when he took part in the service,
+he felt vigorous, of good cheer, happy. So it was now. Only when
+the eighth gospel had been read, he felt that his voice had grown
+weak, even his cough was inaudible. His head had begun to ache
+intensely, and he was troubled by a fear that he might fall down.
+And his legs were indeed quite numb, so that by degrees he ceased
+to feel them and could not understand how or on what he was standing,
+and why he did not fall. . . .
+
+It was a quarter to twelve when the service was over. When he reached
+home, the bishop undressed and went to bed at once without even
+saying his prayers. He could not speak and felt that he could not
+have stood up. When he had covered his head with the quilt he felt
+a sudden longing to be abroad, an insufferable longing! He felt
+that he would give his life not to see those pitiful cheap shutters,
+those low ceilings, not to smell that heavy monastery smell. If
+only there were one person to whom he could have talked, have opened
+his heart!
+
+For a long while he heard footsteps in the next room and could not
+tell whose they were. At last the door opened, and Sisoy came in
+with a candle and a tea-cup in his hand.
+
+"You are in bed already, your holiness?" he asked. "Here I have
+come to rub you with spirit and vinegar. A thorough rubbing does a
+great deal of good. Lord Jesus Christ! . . . That's the way . . .
+that's the way. . . . I've just been in our monastery. . . . I don't
+like it. I'm going away from here to-morrow, your holiness; I don't
+want to stay longer. Lord Jesus Christ. . . . That's the way. . . ."
+
+Sisoy could never stay long in the same place, and he felt as though
+he had been a whole year in the Pankratievsky Monastery. Above all,
+listening to him it was difficult to understand where his home was,
+whether he cared for anyone or anything, whether he believed in
+God. . . . He did not know himself why he was a monk, and, indeed,
+he did not think about it, and the time when he had become a monk
+had long passed out of his memory; it seemed as though he had been
+born a monk.
+
+"I'm going away to-morrow; God be with them all."
+
+"I should like to talk to you. . . . I can't find the time," said
+the bishop softly with an effort. "I don't know anything or anybody
+here. . . ."
+
+"I'll stay till Sunday if you like; so be it, but I don't want to
+stay longer. I am sick of them!"
+
+"I ought not to be a bishop," said the bishop softly. "I ought to
+have been a village priest, a deacon . . . or simply a monk. . . .
+All this oppresses me . . . oppresses me."
+
+"What? Lord Jesus Christ. . . . That's the way. Come, sleep well,
+your holiness! . . . What's the good of talking? It's no use.
+Good-night!"
+
+The bishop did not sleep all night. And at eight o'clock in the
+morning he began to have hemorrhage from the bowels. The lay brother
+was alarmed, and ran first to the archimandrite, then for the
+monastery doctor, Ivan Andreyitch, who lived in the town. The doctor,
+a stout old man with a long grey beard, made a prolonged examination
+of the bishop, and kept shaking his head and frowning, then said:
+
+"Do you know, your holiness, you have got typhoid?"
+
+After an hour or so of hemorrhage the bishop looked much thinner,
+paler, and wasted; his face looked wrinkled, his eyes looked bigger,
+and he seemed older, shorter, and it seemed to him that he was
+thinner, weaker, more insignificant than any one, that everything
+that had been had retreated far, far away and would never go on
+again or be repeated.
+
+"How good," he thought, "how good!"
+
+His old mother came. Seeing his wrinkled face and his big eyes, she
+was frightened, she fell on her knees by the bed and began kissing
+his face, his shoulders, his hands. And to her, too, it seemed that
+he was thinner, weaker, and more insignificant than anyone, and now
+she forgot that he was a bishop, and kissed him as though he were
+a child very near and very dear to her.
+
+"Pavlusha, darling," she said; "my own, my darling son! . . . Why
+are you like this? Pavlusha, answer me!"
+
+Katya, pale and severe, stood beside her, unable to understand what
+was the matter with her uncle, why there was such a look of suffering
+on her grandmother's face, why she was saying such sad and touching
+things. By now he could not utter a word, he could understand
+nothing, and he imagined he was a simple ordinary man, that he was
+walking quickly, cheerfully through the fields, tapping with his
+stick, while above him was the open sky bathed in sunshine, and
+that he was free now as a bird and could go where he liked!
+
+"Pavlusha, my darling son, answer me," the old woman was saying.
+"What is it? My own!"
+
+"Don't disturb his holiness," Sisoy said angrily, walking about the
+room. "Let him sleep . . . what's the use . . . it's no good. . . ."
+
+Three doctors arrived, consulted together, and went away again. The
+day was long, incredibly long, then the night came on and passed
+slowly, slowly, and towards morning on Saturday the lay brother
+went in to the old mother who was lying on the sofa in the parlour,
+and asked her to go into the bedroom: the bishop had just breathed
+his last.
+
+Next day was Easter Sunday. There were forty-two churches and six
+monasteries in the town; the sonorous, joyful clang of the bells
+hung over the town from morning till night unceasingly, setting the
+spring air aquiver; the birds were singing, the sun was shining
+brightly. The big market square was noisy, swings were going, barrel
+organs were playing, accordions were squeaking, drunken voices were
+shouting. After midday people began driving up and down the principal
+street.
+
+In short, all was merriment, everything was satisfactory, just as
+it had been the year before, and as it will be in all likelihood
+next year.
+
+A month later a new suffragan bishop was appointed, and no one
+thought anything more of Bishop Pyotr, and afterwards he was
+completely forgotten. And only the dead man's old mother, who is
+living to-day with her son-in-law the deacon in a remote little
+district town, when she goes out at night to bring her cow in and
+meets other women at the pasture, begins talking of her children
+and her grandchildren, and says that she had a son a bishop, and
+this she says timidly, afraid that she may not be believed. . . .
+
+And, indeed, there are some who do not believe her.
+
+
+THE LETTER
+
+The clerical superintendent of the district, his Reverence Father
+Fyodor Orlov, a handsome, well-nourished man of fifty, grave and
+important as he always was, with an habitual expression of dignity
+that never left his face, was walking to and fro in his little
+drawing-room, extremely exhausted, and thinking intensely about the
+same thing: "When would his visitor go?" The thought worried him
+and did not leave him for a minute. The visitor, Father Anastasy,
+the priest of one of the villages near the town, had come to him
+three hours before on some very unpleasant and dreary business of
+his own, had stayed on and on, was now sitting in the corner at a
+little round table with his elbow on a thick account book, and
+apparently had no thought of going, though it was getting on for
+nine o'clock in the evening.
+
+Not everyone knows when to be silent and when to go. It not
+infrequently happens that even diplomatic persons of good worldly
+breeding fail to observe that their presence is arousing a feeling
+akin to hatred in their exhausted or busy host, and that this feeling
+is being concealed with an effort and disguised with a lie. But
+Father Anastasy perceived it clearly, and realized that his presence
+was burdensome and inappropriate, that his Reverence, who had taken
+an early morning service in the night and a long mass at midday,
+was exhausted and longing for repose; every minute he was meaning
+to get up and go, but he did not get up, he sat on as though he
+were waiting for something. He was an old man of sixty-five,
+prematurely aged, with a bent and bony figure, with a sunken face
+and the dark skin of old age, with red eyelids and a long narrow
+back like a fish's; he was dressed in a smart cassock of a light
+lilac colour, but too big for him (presented to him by the widow
+of a young priest lately deceased), a full cloth coat with a broad
+leather belt, and clumsy high boots the size and hue of which showed
+clearly that Father Anastasy dispensed with goloshes. In spite of
+his position and his venerable age, there was something pitiful,
+crushed and humiliated in his lustreless red eyes, in the strands
+of grey hair with a shade of green in it on the nape of his neck,
+and in the big shoulder-blades on his lean back. . . . He sat without
+speaking or moving, and coughed with circumspection, as though
+afraid that the sound of his coughing might make his presence more
+noticeable.
+
+The old man had come to see his Reverence on business. Two months
+before he had been prohibited from officiating till further notice,
+and his case was being inquired into. His shortcomings were numerous.
+He was intemperate in his habits, fell out with the other clergy
+and the commune, kept the church records and accounts carelessly
+--these were the formal charges against him; but besides all that,
+there had been rumours for a long time past that he celebrated
+unlawful marriages for money and sold certificates of having fasted
+and taken the sacrament to officials and officers who came to him
+from the town. These rumours were maintained the more persistently
+that he was poor and had nine children to keep, who were as incompetent
+and unsuccessful as himself. The sons were spoilt and uneducated,
+and stayed at home doing nothing, while the daughters were ugly and
+did not get married.
+
+Not having the moral force to be open, his Reverence walked up and
+down the room and said nothing or spoke in hints.
+
+"So you are not going home to-night?" he asked, stopping near the
+dark window and poking with his little finger into the cage where
+a canary was asleep with its feathers puffed out.
+
+Father Anastasy started, coughed cautiously and said rapidly:
+
+"Home? I don't care to, Fyodor Ilyitch. I cannot officiate, as you
+know, so what am I to do there? I came away on purpose that I might
+not have to look the people in the face. One is ashamed not to
+officiate, as you know. Besides, I have business here, Fyodor
+Ilyitch. To-morrow after breaking the fast I want to talk things
+over thoroughly with the Father charged with the inquiry."
+
+"Ah! . . ." yawned his Reverence, "and where are you staying?"
+
+"At Zyavkin's."
+
+Father Anastasy suddenly remembered that within two hours his
+Reverence had to take the Easter-night service, and he felt so
+ashamed of his unwelcome burdensome presence that he made up his
+mind to go away at once and let the exhausted man rest. And the old
+man got up to go. But before he began saying good-bye he stood
+clearing his throat for a minute and looking searchingly at his
+Reverence's back, still with the same expression of vague expectation
+in his whole figure; his face was working with shame, timidity, and
+a pitiful forced laugh such as one sees in people who do not respect
+themselves. Waving his hand as it were resolutely, he said with a
+husky quavering laugh:
+
+"Father Fyodor, do me one more kindness: bid them give me at
+leave-taking . . . one little glass of vodka."
+
+"It's not the time to drink vodka now," said his Reverence sternly.
+"One must have some regard for decency."
+
+Father Anastasy was still more overwhelmed by confusion; he laughed,
+and, forgetting his resolution to go away, he dropped back on his
+chair. His Reverence looked at his helpless, embarrassed face and
+his bent figure and he felt sorry for the old man.
+
+"Please God, we will have a drink to-morrow," he said, wishing to
+soften his stem refusal. "Everything is good in due season."
+
+His Reverence believed in people's reforming, but now when a feeling
+of pity had been kindled in him it seemed to him that this disgraced,
+worn-out old man, entangled in a network of sins and weaknesses,
+was hopelessly wrecked, that there was no power on earth that could
+straighten out his spine, give brightness to his eyes and restrain
+the unpleasant timid laugh which he laughed on purpose to smoothe
+over to some slight extent the repulsive impression he made on
+people.
+
+The old man seemed now to Father Fyodor not guilty and not vicious,
+but humiliated, insulted, unfortunate; his Reverence thought of his
+wife, his nine children, the dirty beggarly shelter at Zyavkin's;
+he thought for some reason of the people who are glad to see priests
+drunk and persons in authority detected in crimes; and thought that
+the very best thing Father Anastasy could do now would be to die
+as soon as possible and to depart from this world for ever.
+
+There were a sound of footsteps.
+
+"Father Fyodor, you are not resting?" a bass voice asked from the
+passage.
+
+"No, deacon; come in."
+
+Orlov's colleague, the deacon Liubimov, an elderly man with a big
+bald patch on the top of his head, though his hair was still black
+and he was still vigorous-looking, with thick black eyebrows like
+a Georgian's, walked in. He bowed to Father Anastasy and sat down.
+
+"What good news have you?" asked his Reverence.
+
+"What good news?" answered the deacon, and after a pause he went
+on with a smile: "When your children are little, your trouble is
+small; when your children are big, your trouble is great. Such
+goings on, Father Fyodor, that I don't know what to think of it.
+It's a regular farce, that's what it is."
+
+He paused again for a little, smiled still more broadly and said:
+
+"Nikolay Matveyitch came back from Harkov to-day. He has been telling
+me about my Pyotr. He has been to see him twice, he tells me."
+
+"What has he been telling you, then?"
+
+"He has upset me, God bless him. He meant to please me but when I
+came to think it over, it seems there is not much to be pleased at.
+I ought to grieve rather than be pleased. . . 'Your Petrushka,'
+said he, 'lives in fine style. He is far above us now,' said he.
+'Well thank God for that,' said I. 'I dined with him,' said he,
+'and saw his whole manner of life. He lives like a gentleman,' he
+said; 'you couldn't wish to live better.' I was naturally interested
+and I asked, 'And what did you have for dinner?' 'First,' he said,
+'a fish course something like fish soup, then tongue and peas,' and
+then he said, 'roast turkey.' 'Turkey in Lent? that is something
+to please me,' said I. 'Turkey in Lent? Eh?'"
+
+"Nothing marvellous in that," said his Reverence, screwing up his
+eyes ironically. And sticking both thumbs in his belt, he drew
+himself up and said in the tone in which he usually delivered
+discourses or gave his Scripture lessons to the pupils in the
+district school: "People who do not keep the fasts are divided into
+two different categories: some do not keep them through laxity,
+others through infidelity. Your Pyotr does not keep them through
+infidelity. Yes."
+
+The deacon looked timidly at Father Fyodor's stern face and said:
+
+"There is worse to follow. . . . We talked and discussed one thing
+and another, and it turned out that my infidel of a son is living
+with some madame, another man's wife. She takes the place of wife
+and hostess in his flat, pours out the tea, receives visitors and
+all the rest of it, as though she were his lawful wife. For over
+two years he has been keeping up this dance with this viper. It's
+a regular farce. They have been living together for three years and
+no children."
+
+"I suppose they have been living in chastity!" chuckled Father
+Anastasy, coughing huskily. "There are children, Father Deacon--
+there are, but they don't keep them at home! They send them to the
+Foundling! He-he-he! . . ." Anastasy went on coughing till he choked.
+
+"Don't interfere, Father Anastasy," said his Reverence sternly.
+
+"Nikolay Matveyitch asked him, 'What madame is this helping the
+soup at your table?'" the deacon went on, gloomily scanning
+Anastasy's bent figure. "'That is my wife,' said he. 'When was
+your wedding?' Nikolay Matveyitch asked him, and Pyotr answered,
+'We were married at Kulikov's restaurant.'"
+
+His Reverence's eyes flashed wrathfully and the colour came into
+his temples. Apart from his sinfulness, Pyotr was not a person he
+liked. Father Fyodor had, as they say, a grudge against him. He
+remembered him a boy at school--he remembered him distinctly,
+because even then the boy had seemed to him not normal. As a
+schoolboy, Petrushka had been ashamed to serve at the altar, had
+been offended at being addressed without ceremony, had not crossed
+himself on entering the room, and what was still more noteworthy,
+was fond of talking a great deal and with heat--and, in Father
+Fyodor's opinion, much talking was unseemly in children and pernicious
+to them; moreover Petrushka had taken up a contemptuous and critical
+attitude to fishing, a pursuit to which both his Reverence and the
+deacon were greatly addicted. As a student Pyotr had not gone to
+church at all, had slept till midday, had looked down on people,
+and had been given to raising delicate and insoluble questions with
+a peculiarly provoking zest.
+
+"What would you have?" his Reverence asked, going up to the deacon
+and looking at him angrily. "What would you have? This was to be
+expected! I always knew and was convinced that nothing good would
+come of your Pyotr! I told you so, and I tell you so now. What you
+have sown, that now you must reap! Reap it!"
+
+"But what have I sown, Father Fyodor?" the deacon asked softly,
+looking up at his Reverence.
+
+"Why, who is to blame if not you? You're his father, he is your
+offspring! You ought to have admonished him, have instilled the
+fear of God into him. A child must be taught! You have brought him
+into the world, but you haven't trained him up in the right way.
+It's a sin! It's wrong! It's a shame!"
+
+His Reverence forgot his exhaustion, paced to and fro and went on
+talking. Drops of perspiration came out on the deacon's bald head
+and forehead. He raised his eyes to his Reverence with a look of
+guilt, and said:
+
+"But didn't I train him, Father Fyodor? Lord have mercy on us,
+haven't I been a father to my children? You know yourself I spared
+nothing for his good; I have prayed and done my best all my life
+to give him a thorough education. He went to the high school and I
+got him tutors, and he took his degree at the University. And as
+to my not being able to influence his mind, Father Fyodor, why, you
+can judge for yourself that I am not qualified to do so! Sometimes
+when he used to come here as a student, I would begin admonishing
+him in my way, and he wouldn't heed me. I'd say to him, 'Go to
+church,' and he would answer, 'What for?' I would begin explaining,
+and he would say, 'Why? what for?' Or he would slap me on the
+shoulder and say, 'Everything in this world is relative, approximate
+and conditional. I don't know anything, and you don't know anything
+either, dad.'"
+
+Father Anastasy laughed huskily, cleared his throat and waved his
+fingers in the air as though preparing to say something. His Reverence
+glanced at him and said sternly:
+
+"Don't interfere, Father Anastasy."
+
+The old man laughed, beamed, and evidently listened with pleasure
+to the deacon as though he were glad there were other sinful persons
+in this world besides himself. The deacon spoke sincerely, with an
+aching heart, and tears actually came into his eyes. Father Fyodor
+felt sorry for him.
+
+"You are to blame, deacon, you are to blame," he said, but not so
+sternly and heatedly as before. "If you could beget him, you ought
+to know how to instruct him. You ought to have trained him in his
+childhood; it's no good trying to correct a student."
+
+A silence followed; the deacon clasped his hands and said with a
+sigh:
+
+"But you know I shall have to answer for him!"
+
+"To be sure you will!"
+
+After a brief silence his Reverence yawned and sighed at the same
+moment and asked:
+
+"Who is reading the 'Acts'?"
+
+"Yevstrat. Yevstrat always reads them."
+
+The deacon got up and, looking imploringly at his Reverence, asked:
+
+"Father Fyodor, what am I to do now?"
+
+"Do as you please; you are his father, not I. You ought to know
+best."
+
+"I don't know anything, Father Fyodor! Tell me what to do, for
+goodness' sake! Would you believe it, I am sick at heart! I can't
+sleep now, nor keep quiet, and the holiday will be no holiday to
+me. Tell me what to do, Father Fyodor!"
+
+"Write him a letter."
+
+"What am I to write to him?"
+
+"Write that he mustn't go on like that. Write shortly, but sternly
+and circumstantially, without softening or smoothing away his guilt.
+It is your parental duty; if you write, you will have done your
+duty and will be at peace."
+
+"That's true. But what am I to write to him, to what effect? If I
+write to him, he will answer, 'Why? what for? Why is it a sin?'"
+
+Father Anastasy laughed hoarsely again, and brandished his fingers.
+
+"Why? what for? why is it a sin?" he began shrilly. "I was once
+confessing a gentleman, and I told him that excessive confidence
+in the Divine Mercy is a sin; and he asked, 'Why?' I tried to answer
+him, but----" Anastasy slapped himself on the forehead. "I had
+nothing here. He-he-he-he! . . ."
+
+Anastasy's words, his hoarse jangling laugh at what was not laughable,
+had an unpleasant effect on his Reverence and on the deacon. The
+former was on the point of saying, "Don't interfere" again, but he
+did not say it, he only frowned.
+
+"I can't write to him," sighed the deacon.
+
+"If you can't, who can?"
+
+"Father Fyodor!" said the deacon, putting his head on one side and
+pressing his hand to his heart. "I am an uneducated slow-witted
+man, while the Lord has vouchsafed you judgment and wisdom. You
+know everything and understand everything. You can master anything,
+while I don't know how to put my words together sensibly. Be generous.
+Instruct me how to write the letter. Teach me what to say and how
+to say it. . . ."
+
+"What is there to teach? There is nothing to teach. Sit down and
+write."
+
+"Oh, do me the favour, Father Fyodor! I beseech you! I know he will
+be frightened and will attend to your letter, because, you see, you
+are a cultivated man too. Do be so good! I'll sit down, and you'll
+dictate to me. It will be a sin to write to-morrow, but now would
+be the very time; my mind would be set at rest."
+
+His Reverence looked at the deacon's imploring face, thought of the
+disagreeable Pyotr, and consented to dictate. He made the deacon
+sit down to his table and began.
+
+"Well, write . . . 'Christ is risen, dear son . . .' exclamation
+mark. 'Rumours have reached me, your father,' then in parenthesis,
+'from what source is no concern of yours . . .' close the parenthesis.
+. . . Have you written it? 'That you are leading a life inconsistent
+with the laws both of God and of man. Neither the luxurious comfort,
+nor the worldly splendour, nor the culture with which you seek
+outwardly to disguise it, can hide your heathen manner of life. In
+name you are a Christian, but in your real nature a heathen as
+pitiful and wretched as all other heathens--more wretched, indeed,
+seeing that those heathens who know not Christ are lost from
+ignorance, while you are lost in that, possessing a treasure, you
+neglect it. I will not enumerate here your vices, which you know
+well enough; I will say that I see the cause of your ruin in your
+infidelity. You imagine yourself to be wise, boast of your knowledge
+of science, but refuse to see that science without faith, far from
+elevating a man, actually degrades him to the level of a lower
+animal, inasmuch as. . .'" The whole letter was in this strain.
+
+When he had finished writing it the deacon read it aloud, beamed
+all over and jumped up.
+
+"It's a gift, it's really a gift!" he said, clasping his hands and
+looking enthusiastically at his Reverence. "To think of the Lord's
+bestowing a gift like that! Eh? Holy Mother! I do believe I couldn't
+write a letter like that in a hundred years. Lord save you!"
+
+Father Anastasy was enthusiastic too.
+
+"One couldn't write like that without a gift," he said, getting up
+and wagging his fingers--"that one couldn't! His rhetoric would
+trip any philosopher and shut him up. Intellect. Brilliant intellect!
+If you weren't married, Father Fyodor, you would have been a bishop
+long ago, you would really!"
+
+Having vented his wrath in a letter, his Reverence felt relieved;
+his fatigue and exhaustion came back to him. The deacon was an old
+friend, and his Reverence did not hesitate to say to him:
+
+"Well deacon, go, and God bless you. I'll have half an hour's nap
+on the sofa; I must rest."
+
+The deacon went away and took Anastasy with him. As is always the
+case on Easter Eve, it was dark in the street, but the whole sky
+was sparkling with bright luminous stars. There was a scent of
+spring and holiday in the soft still air.
+
+"How long was he dictating?" the deacon said admiringly. "Ten
+minutes, not more! It would have taken someone else a month to
+compose such a letter. Eh! What a mind! Such a mind that I don't
+know what to call it! It's a marvel! It's really a marvel!"
+
+"Education!" sighed Anastasy as he crossed the muddy street; holding
+up his cassock to his waist. "It's not for us to compare ourselves
+with him. We come of the sacristan class, while he has had a learned
+education. Yes, he's a real man, there is no denying that."
+
+"And you listen how he'll read the Gospel in Latin at mass to-day!
+He knows Latin and he knows Greek. . . . Ah Petrushka, Petrushka!"
+the deacon said, suddenly remembering. "Now that will make him
+scratch his head! That will shut his mouth, that will bring it home
+to him! Now he won't ask 'Why.' It is a case of one wit to outwit
+another! Haha-ha!"
+
+The deacon laughed gaily and loudly. Since the letter had been
+written to Pyotr he had become serene and more cheerful. The
+consciousness of having performed his duty as a father and his faith
+in the power of the letter had brought back his mirthfulness and
+good-humour.
+
+"Pyotr means a stone," said he, as he went into his house. "My Pyotr
+is not a stone, but a rag. A viper has fastened upon him and he
+pampers her, and hasn't the pluck to kick her out. Tfoo! To think
+there should be women like that, God forgive me! Eh? Has she no
+shame? She has fastened upon the lad, sticking to him, and keeps
+him tied to her apron strings. . . . Fie upon her!"
+
+"Perhaps it's not she keeps hold of him, but he of her?"
+
+"She is a shameless one anyway! Not that I am defending Pyotr. . . .
+He'll catch it. He'll read the letter and scratch his head! He'll
+burn with shame!"
+
+"It's a splendid letter, only you know I wouldn't send it, Father
+Deacon. Let him alone."
+
+"What?" said the deacon, disconcerted.
+
+"Why. . . . Don't send it, deacon! What's the sense of it? Suppose
+you send it; he reads it, and . . . and what then? You'll only upset
+him. Forgive him. Let him alone!"
+
+The deacon looked in surprise at Anastasy's dark face, at his
+unbuttoned cassock, which looked in the dusk like wings, and shrugged
+his shoulders.
+
+"How can I forgive him like that?" he asked. "Why I shall have to
+answer for him to God!"
+
+"Even so, forgive him all the same. Really! And God will forgive
+you for your kindness to him."
+
+"But he is my son, isn't he? Ought I not to teach him?"
+
+"Teach him? Of course--why not? You can teach him, but why call
+him a heathen? It will hurt his feelings, you know, deacon. . . ."
+
+The deacon was a widower, and lived in a little house with three
+windows. His elder sister, an old maid, looked after his house for
+him, though she had three years before lost the use of her legs and
+was confined to her bed; he was afraid of her, obeyed her, and did
+nothing without her advice. Father Anastasy went in with him. Seeing
+his table already laid with Easter cakes and red eggs, he began
+weeping for some reason, probably thinking of his own home, and to
+turn these tears into a jest, he at once laughed huskily.
+
+"Yes, we shall soon be breaking the fast," he said. "Yes . . . it
+wouldn't come amiss, deacon, to have a little glass now. Can we?
+I'll drink it so that the old lady does not hear," he whispered,
+glancing sideways towards the door.
+
+Without a word the deacon moved a decanter and wineglass towards
+him. He unfolded the letter and began reading it aloud. And now the
+letter pleased him just as much as when his Reverence had dictated
+it to him. He beamed with pleasure and wagged his head, as though
+he had been tasting something very sweet.
+
+"A-ah, what a letter!" he said. "Petrushka has never dreamt of such
+a letter. It's just what he wants, something to throw him into a
+fever. . ."
+
+"Do you know, deacon, don't send it!" said Anastasy, pouring himself
+out a second glass of vodka as though unconsciously. "Forgive him,
+let him alone! I am telling you . . . what I really think. If his
+own father can't forgive him, who will forgive him? And so he'll
+live without forgiveness. Think, deacon: there will be plenty to
+chastise him without you, but you should look out for some who will
+show mercy to your son! I'll . . . I'll . . . have just one more.
+The last, old man. . . . Just sit down and write straight off to
+him, 'I forgive you Pyotr!' He will under-sta-and! He will fe-el
+it! I understand it from myself, you see old man . . . deacon, I
+mean. When I lived like other people, I hadn't much to trouble
+about, but now since I lost the image and semblance, there is only
+one thing I care about, that good people should forgive me. And
+remember, too, it's not the righteous but sinners we must forgive.
+Why should you forgive your old woman if she is not sinful? No, you
+must forgive a man when he is a sad sight to look at . . . yes!"
+
+Anastasy leaned his head on his fist and sank into thought.
+
+"It's a terrible thing, deacon," he sighed, evidently struggling
+with the desire to take another glass--"a terrible thing! In sin
+my mother bore me, in sin I have lived, in sin I shall die. . . .
+God forgive me, a sinner! I have gone astray, deacon! There is no
+salvation for me! And it's not as though I had gone astray in my
+life, but in old age--at death's door . . . I . . ."
+
+The old man, with a hopeless gesture, drank off another glass, then
+got up and moved to another seat. The deacon, still keeping the
+letter in his hand, was walking up and down the room. He was thinking
+of his son. Displeasure, distress and anxiety no longer troubled
+him; all that had gone into the letter. Now he was simply picturing
+Pyotr; he imagined his face, he thought of the past years when his
+son used to come to stay with him for the holidays. His thoughts
+were only of what was good, warm, touching, of which one might think
+for a whole lifetime without wearying. Longing for his son, he read
+the letter through once more and looked questioningly at Anastasy.
+
+"Don't send it," said the latter, with a wave of his hand.
+
+"No, I must send it anyway; I must . . . bring him to his senses a
+little, all the same. It's just as well. . . ."
+
+The deacon took an envelope from the table, but before putting the
+letter into it he sat down to the table, smiled and added on his
+own account at the bottom of the letter:
+
+"They have sent us a new inspector. He's much friskier than the old
+one. He's a great one for dancing and talking, and there's nothing
+he can't do, so that all the Govorovsky girls are crazy over him.
+Our military chief, Kostyrev, will soon get the sack too, they say.
+High time he did!" And very well pleased, without the faintest idea
+that with this postscript he had completely spoiled the stern letter,
+the deacon addressed the envelope and laid it in the most conspicuous
+place on the table.
+
+
+EASTER EVE
+
+I was standing on the bank of the River Goltva, waiting for the
+ferry-boat from the other side. At ordinary times the Goltva is a
+humble stream of moderate size, silent and pensive, gently glimmering
+from behind thick reeds; but now a regular lake lay stretched out
+before me. The waters of spring, running riot, had overflowed both
+banks and flooded both sides of the river for a long distance,
+submerging vegetable gardens, hayfields and marshes, so that it was
+no unusual thing to meet poplars and bushes sticking out above the
+surface of the water and looking in the darkness like grim solitary
+crags.
+
+The weather seemed to me magnificent. It was dark, yet I could see
+the trees, the water and the people. . . . The world was lighted
+by the stars, which were scattered thickly all over the sky. I don't
+remember ever seeing so many stars. Literally one could not have
+put a finger in between them. There were some as big as a goose's
+egg, others tiny as hempseed. . . . They had come out for the
+festival procession, every one of them, little and big, washed,
+renewed and joyful, and everyone of them was softly twinkling its
+beams. The sky was reflected in the water; the stars were bathing
+in its dark depths and trembling with the quivering eddies. The air
+was warm and still. . . . Here and there, far away on the further
+bank in the impenetrable darkness, several bright red lights were
+gleaming. . . .
+
+A couple of paces from me I saw the dark silhouette of a peasant
+in a high hat, with a thick knotted stick in his hand.
+
+"How long the ferry-boat is in coming!" I said.
+
+"It is time it was here," the silhouette answered.
+
+"You are waiting for the ferry-boat, too?"
+
+"No I am not," yawned the peasant--"I am waiting for the illumination.
+I should have gone, but to tell you the truth, I haven't the five
+kopecks for the ferry."
+
+"I'll give you the five kopecks."
+
+"No; I humbly thank you. . . . With that five kopecks put up a
+candle for me over there in the monastery. . . . That will be more
+interesting, and I will stand here. What can it mean, no ferry-boat,
+as though it had sunk in the water!"
+
+The peasant went up to the water's edge, took the rope in his hands,
+and shouted; "Ieronim! Ieron--im!"
+
+As though in answer to his shout, the slow peal of a great bell
+floated across from the further bank. The note was deep and low,
+as from the thickest string of a double bass; it seemed as though
+the darkness itself had hoarsely uttered it. At once there was the
+sound of a cannon shot. It rolled away in the darkness and ended
+somewhere in the far distance behind me. The peasant took off his
+hat and crossed himself.
+
+'"Christ is risen," he said.
+
+Before the vibrations of the first peal of the bell had time to die
+away in the air a second sounded, after it at once a third, and the
+darkness was filled with an unbroken quivering clamour. Near the
+red lights fresh lights flashed, and all began moving together and
+twinkling restlessly.
+
+"Ieron--im!" we heard a hollow prolonged shout.
+
+"They are shouting from the other bank," said the peasant, "so there
+is no ferry there either. Our Ieronim has gone to sleep."
+
+The lights and the velvety chimes of the bell drew one towards them.
+. . . I was already beginning to lose patience and grow anxious,
+but behold at last, staring into the dark distance, I saw the outline
+of something very much like a gibbet. It was the long-expected
+ferry. It moved towards us with such deliberation that if it had
+not been that its lines grew gradually more definite, one might
+have supposed that it was standing still or moving to the other
+bank.
+
+"Make haste! Ieronim!" shouted my peasant. "The gentleman's tired
+of waiting!"
+
+The ferry crawled to the bank, gave a lurch and stopped with a
+creak. A tall man in a monk's cassock and a conical cap stood on
+it, holding the rope.
+
+"Why have you been so long?" I asked jumping upon the ferry.
+
+"Forgive me, for Christ's sake," Ieronim answered gently. "Is there
+no one else?"
+
+"No one. . . ."
+
+Ieronim took hold of the rope in both hands, bent himself to the
+figure of a mark of interrogation, and gasped. The ferry-boat creaked
+and gave a lurch. The outline of the peasant in the high hat began
+slowly retreating from me--so the ferry was moving off. Ieronim
+soon drew himself up and began working with one hand only. We were
+silent, gazing towards the bank to which we were floating. There
+the illumination for which the peasant was waiting had begun. At
+the water's edge barrels of tar were flaring like huge camp fires.
+Their reflections, crimson as the rising moon, crept to meet us in
+long broad streaks. The burning barrels lighted up their own smoke
+and the long shadows of men flitting about the fire; but further
+to one side and behind them from where the velvety chime floated
+there was still the same unbroken black gloom. All at once, cleaving
+the darkness, a rocket zigzagged in a golden ribbon up the sky; it
+described an arc and, as though broken to pieces against the sky,
+was scattered crackling into sparks. There was a roar from the bank
+like a far-away hurrah.
+
+"How beautiful!" I said.
+
+"Beautiful beyond words!" sighed Ieronim. "Such a night, sir! Another
+time one would pay no attention to the fireworks, but to-day one
+rejoices in every vanity. Where do you come from?"
+
+I told him where I came from.
+
+"To be sure . . . a joyful day to-day. . . ." Ieronim went on in a
+weak sighing tenor like the voice of a convalescent. "The sky is
+rejoicing and the earth and what is under the earth. All the creatures
+are keeping holiday. Only tell me kind sir, why, even in the time
+of great rejoicing, a man cannot forget his sorrows?"
+
+I fancied that this unexpected question was to draw me into one of
+those endless religious conversations which bored and idle monks
+are so fond of. I was not disposed to talk much, and so I only
+asked:
+
+"What sorrows have you, father?"
+
+"As a rule only the same as all men, kind sir, but to-day a special
+sorrow has happened in the monastery: at mass, during the reading
+of the Bible, the monk and deacon Nikolay died."
+
+"Well, it's God's will!" I said, falling into the monastic tone.
+"We must all die. To my mind, you ought to rejoice indeed. . . .
+They say if anyone dies at Easter he goes straight to the kingdom
+of heaven."
+
+"That's true."
+
+We sank into silence. The figure of the peasant in the high hat
+melted into the lines of the bank. The tar barrels were flaring up
+more and more.
+
+"The Holy Scripture points clearly to the vanity of sorrow and so
+does reflection," said Ieronim, breaking the silence, "but why does
+the heart grieve and refuse to listen to reason? Why does one want
+to weep bitterly?"
+
+Ieronim shrugged his shoulders, turned to me and said quickly:
+
+"If I died, or anyone else, it would not be worth notice perhaps;
+but, you see, Nikolay is dead! No one else but Nikolay! Indeed,
+it's hard to believe that he is no more! I stand here on my ferry-boat
+and every minute I keep fancying that he will lift up his voice
+from the bank. He always used to come to the bank and call to me
+that I might not be afraid on the ferry. He used to get up from his
+bed at night on purpose for that. He was a kind soul. My God! how
+kindly and gracious! Many a mother is not so good to her child as
+Nikolay was to me! Lord, save his soul!"
+
+Ieronim took hold of the rope, but turned to me again at once.
+
+"And such a lofty intelligence, your honour," he said in a vibrating
+voice. "Such a sweet and harmonious tongue! Just as they will sing
+immediately at early matins: 'Oh lovely! oh sweet is Thy Voice!'
+Besides all other human qualities, he had, too, an extraordinary
+gift!"
+
+"What gift?" I asked.
+
+The monk scrutinized me, and as though he had convinced himself
+that he could trust me with a secret, he laughed good-humouredly.
+
+"He had a gift for writing hymns of praise," he said. "It was a
+marvel, sir; you couldn't call it anything else! You would be amazed
+if I tell you about it. Our Father Archimandrite comes from Moscow,
+the Father Sub-Prior studied at the Kazan academy, we have wise
+monks and elders, but, would you believe it, no one could write
+them; while Nikolay, a simple monk, a deacon, had not studied
+anywhere, and had not even any outer appearance of it, but he wrote
+them! A marvel! A real marvel!" Ieronim clasped his hands and,
+completely forgetting the rope, went on eagerly:
+
+"The Father Sub-Prior has great difficulty in composing sermons;
+when he wrote the history of the monastery he worried all the
+brotherhood and drove a dozen times to town, while Nikolay wrote
+canticles! Hymns of praise! That's a very different thing from a
+sermon or a history!"
+
+"Is it difficult to write them?" I asked.
+
+"There's great difficulty!" Ieronim wagged his head. "You can do
+nothing by wisdom and holiness if God has not given you the gift.
+The monks who don't understand argue that you only need to know the
+life of the saint for whom you are writing the hymn, and to make
+it harmonize with the other hymns of praise. But that's a mistake,
+sir. Of course, anyone who writes canticles must know the life of
+the saint to perfection, to the least trivial detail. To be sure,
+one must make them harmonize with the other canticles and know where
+to begin and what to write about. To give you an instance, the first
+response begins everywhere with 'the chosen' or 'the elect.' . . .
+The first line must always begin with the 'angel.' In the canticle
+of praise to Jesus the Most Sweet, if you are interested in the
+subject, it begins like this: 'Of angels Creator and Lord of all
+powers!' In the canticle to the Holy Mother of God: 'Of angels the
+foremost sent down from on high,' to Nikolay, the Wonder-worker--
+'An angel in semblance, though in substance a man,' and so on.
+Everywhere you begin with the angel. Of course, it would be impossible
+without making them harmonize, but the lives of the saints and
+conformity with the others is not what matters; what matters is the
+beauty and sweetness of it. Everything must be harmonious, brief
+and complete. There must be in every line softness, graciousness
+and tenderness; not one word should be harsh or rough or unsuitable.
+It must be written so that the worshipper may rejoice at heart and
+weep, while his mind is stirred and he is thrown into a tremor. In
+the canticle to the Holy Mother are the words: 'Rejoice, O Thou too
+high for human thought to reach! Rejoice, O Thou too deep for angels'
+eyes to fathom!' In another place in the same canticle: 'Rejoice,
+O tree that bearest the fair fruit of light that is the food of the
+faithful! Rejoice, O tree of gracious spreading shade, under which
+there is shelter for multitudes!'"
+
+Ieronim hid his face in his hands, as though frightened at something
+or overcome with shame, and shook his head.
+
+"Tree that bearest the fair fruit of light . . . tree of gracious
+spreading shade. . . ." he muttered. "To think that a man should
+find words like those! Such a power is a gift from God! For brevity
+he packs many thoughts into one phrase, and how smooth and complete
+it all is! 'Light-radiating torch to all that be . . .' comes in
+the canticle to Jesus the Most Sweet. 'Light-radiating!' There is
+no such word in conversation or in books, but you see he invented
+it, he found it in his mind! Apart from the smoothness and grandeur
+of language, sir, every line must be beautified in every way, there
+must be flowers and lightning and wind and sun and all the objects
+of the visible world. And every exclamation ought to be put so as
+to be smooth and easy for the ear. 'Rejoice, thou flower of heavenly
+growth!' comes in the hymn to Nikolay the Wonder-worker. It's not
+simply 'heavenly flower,' but 'flower of heavenly growth.' It's
+smoother so and sweet to the ear. That was just as Nikolay wrote
+it! Exactly like that! I can't tell you how he used to write!"
+
+"Well, in that case it is a pity he is dead," I said; "but let us
+get on, father, or we shall be late."
+
+Ieronim started and ran to the rope; they were beginning to peal
+all the bells. Probably the procession was already going on near
+the monastery, for all the dark space behind the tar barrels was
+now dotted with moving lights.
+
+"Did Nikolay print his hymns?" I asked Ieronim.
+
+"How could he print them?" he sighed. "And indeed, it would be
+strange to print them. What would be the object? No one in the
+monastery takes any interest in them. They don't like them. They
+knew Nikolay wrote them, but they let it pass unnoticed. No one
+esteems new writings nowadays, sir!"
+
+"Were they prejudiced against him?"
+
+"Yes, indeed. If Nikolay had been an elder perhaps the brethren
+would have been interested, but he wasn't forty, you know. There
+were some who laughed and even thought his writing a sin."
+
+"What did he write them for?"
+
+"Chiefly for his own comfort. Of all the brotherhood, I was the
+only one who read his hymns. I used to go to him in secret, that
+no one else might know of it, and he was glad that I took an interest
+in them. He would embrace me, stroke my head, speak to me in caressing
+words as to a little child. He would shut his cell, make me sit
+down beside him, and begin to read. . . ."
+
+Ieronim left the rope and came up to me.
+
+"We were dear friends in a way," he whispered, looking at me with
+shining eyes. "Where he went I would go. If I were not there he
+would miss me. And he cared more for me than for anyone, and all
+because I used to weep over his hymns. It makes me sad to remember.
+Now I feel just like an orphan or a widow. You know, in our monastery
+they are all good people, kind and pious, but . . . there is no one
+with softness and refinement, they are just like peasants. They all
+speak loudly, and tramp heavily when they walk; they are noisy,
+they clear their throats, but Nikolay always talked softly,
+caressingly, and if he noticed that anyone was asleep or praying
+he would slip by like a fly or a gnat. His face was tender,
+compassionate. . . ."
+
+Ieronim heaved a deep sigh and took hold of the rope again. We were
+by now approaching the bank. We floated straight out of the darkness
+and stillness of the river into an enchanted realm, full of stifling
+smoke, crackling lights and uproar. By now one could distinctly see
+people moving near the tar barrels. The flickering of the lights
+gave a strange, almost fantastic, expression to their figures and
+red faces. From time to time one caught among the heads and faces
+a glimpse of a horse's head motionless as though cast in copper.
+
+"They'll begin singing the Easter hymn directly, . . ." said Ieronim,
+"and Nikolay is gone; there is no one to appreciate it. . . . There
+was nothing written dearer to him than that hymn. He used to take
+in every word! You'll be there, sir, so notice what is sung; it
+takes your breath away!"
+
+"Won't you be in church, then?"
+
+"I can't; . . . I have to work the ferry. . . ."
+
+"But won't they relieve you?"
+
+"I don't know. . . . I ought to have been relieved at eight; but,
+as you see, they don't come! . . . And I must own I should have liked
+to be in the church. . . ."
+
+"Are you a monk?"
+
+"Yes . . . that is, I am a lay-brother."
+
+The ferry ran into the bank and stopped. I thrust a five-kopeck
+piece into Ieronim's hand for taking me across and jumped on land.
+Immediately a cart with a boy and a sleeping woman in it drove
+creaking onto the ferry. Ieronim, with a faint glow from the lights
+on his figure, pressed on the rope, bent down to it, and started
+the ferry back. . . .
+
+I took a few steps through mud, but a little farther walked on a
+soft freshly trodden path. This path led to the dark monastery
+gates, that looked like a cavern through a cloud of smoke, through
+a disorderly crowd of people, unharnessed horses, carts and chaises.
+All this crowd was rattling, snorting, laughing, and the crimson
+light and wavering shadows from the smoke flickered over it all
+. . . . A perfect chaos! And in this hubbub the people yet found room
+to load a little cannon and to sell cakes. There was no less commotion
+on the other side of the wall in the monastery precincts, but there
+was more regard for decorum and order. Here there was a smell of
+juniper and incense. They talked loudly, but there was no sound of
+laughter or snorting. Near the tombstones and crosses people pressed
+close to one another with Easter cakes and bundles in their arms.
+Apparently many had come from a long distance for their cakes to
+be blessed and now were exhausted. Young lay brothers, making a
+metallic sound with their boots, ran busily along the iron slabs
+that paved the way from the monastery gates to the church door.
+They were busy and shouting on the belfry, too.
+
+"What a restless night!" I thought. "How nice!"
+
+One was tempted to see the same unrest and sleeplessness in all
+nature, from the night darkness to the iron slabs, the crosses on
+the tombs and the trees under which the people were moving to and
+fro. But nowhere was the excitement and restlessness so marked as
+in the church. An unceasing struggle was going on in the entrance
+between the inflowing stream and the outflowing stream. Some were
+going in, others going out and soon coming back again to stand still
+for a little and begin moving again. People were scurrying from
+place to place, lounging about as though they were looking for
+something. The stream flowed from the entrance all round the church,
+disturbing even the front rows, where persons of weight and dignity
+were standing. There could be no thought of concentrated prayer.
+There were no prayers at all, but a sort of continuous, childishly
+irresponsible joy, seeking a pretext to break out and vent itself
+in some movement, even in senseless jostling and shoving.
+
+The same unaccustomed movement is striking in the Easter service
+itself. The altar gates are flung wide open, thick clouds of incense
+float in the air near the candelabra; wherever one looks there are
+lights, the gleam and splutter of candles. . . . There is no reading;
+restless and lighthearted singing goes on to the end without ceasing.
+After each hymn the clergy change their vestments and come out to
+burn the incense, which is repeated every ten minutes.
+
+I had no sooner taken a place, when a wave rushed from in front and
+forced me back. A tall thick-set deacon walked before me with a
+long red candle; the grey-headed archimandrite in his golden mitre
+hurried after him with the censer. When they had vanished from sight
+the crowd squeezed me back to my former position. But ten minutes
+had not passed before a new wave burst on me, and again the deacon
+appeared. This time he was followed by the Father Sub-Prior, the
+man who, as Ieronim had told me, was writing the history of the
+monastery.
+
+As I mingled with the crowd and caught the infection of the universal
+joyful excitement, I felt unbearably sore on Ieronim's account. Why
+did they not send someone to relieve him? Why could not someone of
+less feeling and less susceptibility go on the ferry? 'Lift up thine
+eyes, O Sion, and look around,' they sang in the choir, 'for thy
+children have come to thee as to a beacon of divine light from north
+and south, and from east and from the sea. . . .'
+
+I looked at the faces; they all had a lively expression of triumph,
+but not one was listening to what was being sung and taking it in,
+and not one was 'holding his breath.' Why was not Ieronim released?
+I could fancy Ieronim standing meekly somewhere by the wall, bending
+forward and hungrily drinking in the beauty of the holy phrase. All
+this that glided by the ears of the people standing by me he would
+have eagerly drunk in with his delicately sensitive soul, and would
+have been spell-bound to ecstasy, to holding his breath, and there
+would not have been a man happier than he in all the church. Now
+he was plying to and fro over the dark river and grieving for his
+dead friend and brother.
+
+The wave surged back. A stout smiling monk, playing with his rosary
+and looking round behind him, squeezed sideways by me, making way
+for a lady in a hat and velvet cloak. A monastery servant hurried
+after the lady, holding a chair over our heads.
+
+I came out of the church. I wanted to have a look at the dead
+Nikolay, the unknown canticle writer. I walked about the monastery
+wall, where there was a row of cells, peeped into several windows,
+and, seeing nothing, came back again. I do not regret now that I
+did not see Nikolay; God knows, perhaps if I had seen him I should
+have lost the picture my imagination paints for me now. I imagine
+the lovable poetical figure solitary and not understood, who went
+out at nights to call to Ieronim over the water, and filled his
+hymns with flowers, stars and sunbeams, as a pale timid man with
+soft mild melancholy features. His eyes must have shone, not only
+with intelligence, but with kindly tenderness and that hardly
+restrained childlike enthusiasm which I could hear in Ieronim's
+voice when he quoted to me passages from the hymns.
+
+When we came out of church after mass it was no longer night. The
+morning was beginning. The stars had gone out and the sky was a
+morose greyish blue. The iron slabs, the tombstones and the buds
+on the trees were covered with dew There was a sharp freshness in
+the air. Outside the precincts I did not find the same animated
+scene as I had beheld in the night. Horses and men looked exhausted,
+drowsy, scarcely moved, while nothing was left of the tar barrels
+but heaps of black ash. When anyone is exhausted and sleepy he
+fancies that nature, too, is in the same condition. It seemed to
+me that the trees and the young grass were asleep. It seemed as
+though even the bells were not pealing so loudly and gaily as at
+night. The restlessness was over, and of the excitement nothing was
+left but a pleasant weariness, a longing for sleep and warmth.
+
+Now I could see both banks of the river; a faint mist hovered over
+it in shifting masses. There was a harsh cold breath from the water.
+When I jumped on to the ferry, a chaise and some two dozen men and
+women were standing on it already. The rope, wet and as I fancied
+drowsy, stretched far away across the broad river and in places
+disappeared in the white mist.
+
+"Christ is risen! Is there no one else?" asked a soft voice.
+
+I recognized the voice of Ieronim. There was no darkness now to
+hinder me from seeing the monk. He was a tall narrow-shouldered man
+of five-and-thirty, with large rounded features, with half-closed
+listless-looking eyes and an unkempt wedge-shaped beard. He had an
+extraordinarily sad and exhausted look.
+
+"They have not relieved you yet?" I asked in surprise.
+
+"Me?" he answered, turning to me his chilled and dewy face with a
+smile. "There is no one to take my place now till morning. They'll
+all be going to the Father Archimandrite's to break the fast
+directly."
+
+With the help of a little peasant in a hat of reddish fur that
+looked like the little wooden tubs in which honey is sold, he threw
+his weight on the rope; they gasped simultaneously, and the ferry
+started.
+
+We floated across, disturbing on the way the lazily rising mist.
+Everyone was silent. Ieronim worked mechanically with one hand. He
+slowly passed his mild lustreless eyes over us; then his glance
+rested on the rosy face of a young merchant's wife with black
+eyebrows, who was standing on the ferry beside me silently shrinking
+from the mist that wrapped her about. He did not take his eyes off
+her face all the way.
+
+There was little that was masculine in that prolonged gaze. It
+seemed to me that Ieronim was looking in the woman's face for the
+soft and tender features of his dead friend.
+
+
+A NIGHTMARE
+
+Kunin, a young man of thirty, who was a permanent member of the
+Rural Board, on returning from Petersburg to his district, Borisovo,
+immediately sent a mounted messenger to Sinkino, for the priest
+there, Father Yakov Smirnov.
+
+Five hours later Father Yakov appeared.
+
+"Very glad to make your acquaintance," said Kunin, meeting him in
+the entry. "I've been living and serving here for a year; it seems
+as though we ought to have been acquainted before. You are very
+welcome! But . . . how young you are!" Kunin added in surprise.
+"What is your age?"
+
+"Twenty-eight, . . ." said Father Yakov, faintly pressing Kunin's
+outstretched hand, and for some reason turning crimson.
+
+Kunin led his visitor into his study and began looking at him more
+attentively.
+
+"What an uncouth womanish face!" he thought.
+
+There certainly was a good deal that was womanish in Father Yakov's
+face: the turned-up nose, the bright red cheeks, and the large
+grey-blue eyes with scanty, scarcely perceptible eyebrows. His long
+reddish hair, smooth and dry, hung down in straight tails on to his
+shoulders. The hair on his upper lip was only just beginning to
+form into a real masculine moustache, while his little beard belonged
+to that class of good-for-nothing beards which among divinity
+students are for some reason called "ticklers." It was scanty and
+extremely transparent; it could not have been stroked or combed,
+it could only have been pinched. . . . All these scanty decorations
+were put on unevenly in tufts, as though Father Yakov, thinking to
+dress up as a priest and beginning to gum on the beard, had been
+interrupted halfway through. He had on a cassock, the colour of
+weak coffee with chicory in it, with big patches on both elbows.
+
+"A queer type," thought Kunin, looking at his muddy skirts. "Comes
+to the house for the first time and can't dress decently.
+
+"Sit down, Father," he began more carelessly than cordially, as he
+moved an easy-chair to the table. "Sit down, I beg you."
+
+Father Yakov coughed into his fist, sank awkwardly on to the edge
+of the chair, and laid his open hands on his knees. With his short
+figure, his narrow chest, his red and perspiring face, he made from
+the first moment a most unpleasant impression on Kunin. The latter
+could never have imagined that there were such undignified and
+pitiful-looking priests in Russia; and in Father Yakov's attitude,
+in the way he held his hands on his knees and sat on the very edge
+of his chair, he saw a lack of dignity and even a shade of servility.
+
+"I have invited you on business, Father. . . ." Kunin began, sinking
+back in his low chair. "It has fallen to my lot to perform the
+agreeable duty of helping you in one of your useful undertakings.
+. . . On coming back from Petersburg, I found on my table a letter
+from the Marshal of Nobility. Yegor Dmitrevitch suggests that I
+should take under my supervision the church parish school which is
+being opened in Sinkino. I shall be very glad to, Father, with all
+my heart. . . . More than that, I accept the proposition with
+enthusiasm."
+
+Kunin got up and walked about the study.
+
+"Of course, both Yegor Dmitrevitch and probably you, too, are aware
+that I have not great funds at my disposal. My estate is mortgaged,
+and I live exclusively on my salary as the permanent member. So
+that you cannot reckon on very much assistance, but I will do all
+that is in my power. . . . And when are you thinking of opening the
+school Father?"
+
+"When we have the money, . . ." answered Father Yakov.
+
+"You have some funds at your disposal already?"
+
+"Scarcely any. . . . The peasants settled at their meeting that
+they would pay, every man of them, thirty kopecks a year; but that's
+only a promise, you know! And for the first beginning we should
+need at least two hundred roubles. . . ."
+
+"M'yes. . . . Unhappily, I have not that sum now," said Kunin with
+a sigh. "I spent all I had on my tour and got into debt, too. Let
+us try and think of some plan together."
+
+Kunin began planning aloud. He explained his views and watched
+Father Yakov's face, seeking signs of agreement or approval in it.
+But the face was apathetic and immobile, and expressed nothing but
+constrained shyness and uneasiness. Looking at it, one might have
+supposed that Kunin was talking of matters so abstruse that Father
+Yakov did not understand and only listened from good manners, and
+was at the same time afraid of being detected in his failure to
+understand.
+
+"The fellow is not one of the brightest, that's evident . . ."
+thought Kunin. "He's rather shy and much too stupid."
+
+Father Yakov revived somewhat and even smiled only when the footman
+came into the study bringing in two glasses of tea on a tray and a
+cake-basket full of biscuits. He took his glass and began drinking
+at once.
+
+"Shouldn't we write at once to the bishop?" Kunin went on, meditating
+aloud. "To be precise, you know, it is not we, not the Zemstvo, but
+the higher ecclesiastical authorities, who have raised the question
+of the church parish schools. They ought really to apportion the
+funds. I remember I read that a sum of money had been set aside for
+the purpose. Do you know nothing about it?"
+
+Father Yakov was so absorbed in drinking tea that he did not answer
+this question at once. He lifted his grey-blue eyes to Kunin, thought
+a moment, and as though recalling his question, he shook his head
+in the negative. An expression of pleasure and of the most ordinary
+prosaic appetite overspread his face from ear to ear. He drank and
+smacked his lips over every gulp. When he had drunk it to the very
+last drop, he put his glass on the table, then took his glass back
+again, looked at the bottom of it, then put it back again. The
+expression of pleasure faded from his face. . . . Then Kunin saw
+his visitor take a biscuit from the cake-basket, nibble a little
+bit off it, then turn it over in his hand and hurriedly stick it
+in his pocket.
+
+"Well, that's not at all clerical!" thought Kunin, shrugging his
+shoulders contemptuously. "What is it, priestly greed or childishness?"
+
+After giving his visitor another glass of tea and seeing him to the
+entry, Kunin lay down on the sofa and abandoned himself to the
+unpleasant feeling induced in him by the visit of Father Yakov.
+
+"What a strange wild creature!" he thought. "Dirty, untidy, coarse,
+stupid, and probably he drinks. . . . My God, and that's a priest,
+a spiritual father! That's a teacher of the people! I can fancy the
+irony there must be in the deacon's face when before every mass he
+booms out: 'Thy blessing, Reverend Father!' A fine reverend Father!
+A reverend Father without a grain of dignity or breeding, hiding
+biscuits in his pocket like a schoolboy. . . . Fie! Good Lord, where
+were the bishop's eyes when he ordained a man like that? What can
+he think of the people if he gives them a teacher like that? One
+wants people here who . . ."
+
+And Kunin thought what Russian priests ought to be like.
+
+"If I were a priest, for instance. . . . An educated priest fond
+of his work might do a great deal. . . . I should have had the
+school opened long ago. And the sermons? If the priest is sincere
+and is inspired by love for his work, what wonderful rousing sermons
+he might give!"
+
+Kunin shut his eyes and began mentally composing a sermon. A little
+later he sat down to the table and rapidly began writing.
+
+"I'll give it to that red-haired fellow, let him read it in church,
+. . ." he thought.
+
+The following Sunday Kunin drove over to Sinkino in the morning to
+settle the question of the school, and while he was there to make
+acquaintance with the church of which he was a parishioner. In spite
+of the awful state of the roads, it was a glorious morning. The sun
+was shining brightly and cleaving with its rays the layers of white
+snow still lingering here and there. The snow as it took leave of
+the earth glittered with such diamonds that it hurt the eyes to
+look, while the young winter corn was hastily thrusting up its green
+beside it. The rooks floated with dignity over the fields. A rook
+would fly, drop to earth, and give several hops before standing
+firmly on its feet. . . .
+
+The wooden church up to which Kunin drove was old and grey; the
+columns of the porch had once been painted white, but the colour
+had now completely peeled off, and they looked like two ungainly
+shafts. The ikon over the door looked like a dark smudged blur. But
+its poverty touched and softened Kunin. Modestly dropping his eyes,
+he went into the church and stood by the door. The service had only
+just begun. An old sacristan, bent into a bow, was reading the
+"Hours" in a hollow indistinct tenor. Father Yakov, who conducted
+the service without a deacon, was walking about the church, burning
+incense. Had it not been for the softened mood in which Kunin found
+himself on entering the poverty-stricken church, he certainly would
+have smiled at the sight of Father Yakov. The short priest was
+wearing a crumpled and extremely long robe of some shabby yellow
+material; the hem of the robe trailed on the ground.
+
+The church was not full. Looking at the parishioners, Kunin was
+struck at the first glance by one strange circumstance: he saw
+nothing but old people and children. . . . Where were the men of
+working age? Where was the youth and manhood? But after he had stood
+there a little and looked more attentively at the aged-looking
+faces, Kunin saw that he had mistaken young people for old. He did
+not, however, attach any significance to this little optical illusion.
+
+The church was as cold and grey inside as outside. There was not
+one spot on the ikons nor on the dark brown walls which was not
+begrimed and defaced by time. There were many windows, but the
+general effect of colour was grey, and so it was twilight in the
+church.
+
+"Anyone pure in soul can pray here very well," thought Kunin. "Just
+as in St. Peter's in Rome one is impressed by grandeur, here one
+is touched by the lowliness and simplicity."
+
+But his devout mood vanished like smoke as soon as Father Yakov
+went up to the altar and began mass. Being still young and having
+come straight from the seminary bench to the priesthood, Father
+Yakov had not yet formed a set manner of celebrating the service.
+As he read he seemed to be vacillating between a high tenor and a
+thin bass; he bowed clumsily, walked quickly, and opened and shut
+the gates abruptly. . . . The old sacristan, evidently deaf and
+ailing, did not hear the prayers very distinctly, and this very
+often led to slight misunderstandings. Before Father Yakov had time
+to finish what he had to say, the sacristan began chanting his
+response, or else long after Father Yakov had finished the old man
+would be straining his ears, listening in the direction of the altar
+and saying nothing till his skirt was pulled. The old man had a
+sickly hollow voice and an asthmatic quavering lisp. . . . The
+complete lack of dignity and decorum was emphasized by a very small
+boy who seconded the sacristan and whose head was hardly visible
+over the railing of the choir. The boy sang in a shrill falsetto
+and seemed to be trying to avoid singing in tune. Kunin stayed a
+little while, listened and went out for a smoke. He was disappointed,
+and looked at the grey church almost with dislike.
+
+"They complain of the decline of religious feeling among the people
+. . ." he sighed. "I should rather think so! They'd better foist a
+few more priests like this one on them!"
+
+Kunin went back into the church three times, and each time he felt
+a great temptation to get out into the open air again. Waiting till
+the end of the mass, he went to Father Yakov's. The priest's house
+did not differ outwardly from the peasants' huts, but the thatch
+lay more smoothly on the roof and there were little white curtains
+in the windows. Father Yakov led Kunin into a light little room
+with a clay floor and walls covered with cheap paper; in spite of
+some painful efforts towards luxury in the way of photographs in
+frames and a clock with a pair of scissors hanging on the weight
+the furnishing of the room impressed him by its scantiness. Looking
+at the furniture, one might have supposed that Father Yakov had
+gone from house to house and collected it in bits; in one place
+they had given him a round three-legged table, in another a stool,
+in a third a chair with a back bent violently backwards; in a fourth
+a chair with an upright back, but the seat smashed in; while in a
+fifth they had been liberal and given him a semblance of a sofa
+with a flat back and a lattice-work seat. This semblance had been
+painted dark red and smelt strongly of paint. Kunin meant at first
+to sit down on one of the chairs, but on second thoughts he sat
+down on the stool.
+
+"This is the first time you have been to our church?" asked Father
+Yakov, hanging his hat on a huge misshapen nail.
+
+"Yes it is. I tell you what, Father, before we begin on business,
+will you give me some tea? My soul is parched."
+
+Father Yakov blinked, gasped, and went behind the partition wall.
+There was a sound of whispering.
+
+"With his wife, I suppose," thought Kunin; "it would be interesting
+to see what the red-headed fellow's wife is like."
+
+A little later Father Yakov came back, red and perspiring and with
+an effort to smile, sat down on the edge of the sofa.
+
+"They will heat the samovar directly," he said, without looking at
+his visitor.
+
+"My goodness, they have not heated the samovar yet!" Kunin thought
+with horror. "A nice time we shall have to wait."
+
+"I have brought you," he said, "the rough draft of the letter I
+have written to the bishop. I'll read it after tea; perhaps you may
+find something to add. . . ."
+
+"Very well."
+
+A silence followed. Father Yakov threw furtive glances at the
+partition wall, smoothed his hair, and blew his nose.
+
+"It's wonderful weather, . . ." he said.
+
+"Yes. I read an interesting thing yesterday. . . . the Volsky Zemstvo
+have decided to give their schools to the clergy, that's typical."
+
+Kunin got up, and pacing up and down the clay floor, began to give
+expression to his reflections.
+
+"That would be all right," he said, "if only the clergy were equal
+to their high calling and recognized their tasks. I am so unfortunate
+as to know priests whose standard of culture and whose moral qualities
+make them hardly fit to be army secretaries, much less priests. You
+will agree that a bad teacher does far less harm than a bad priest."
+
+Kunin glanced at Father Yakov; he was sitting bent up, thinking
+intently about something and apparently not listening to his visitor.
+
+"Yasha, come here!" a woman's voice called from behind the partition.
+Father Yakov started and went out. Again a whispering began.
+
+Kunin felt a pang of longing for tea.
+
+"No; it's no use my waiting for tea here," he thought, looking at
+his watch. "Besides I fancy I am not altogether a welcome visitor.
+My host has not deigned to say one word to me; he simply sits and
+blinks."
+
+Kunin took up his hat, waited for Father Yakov to return, and said
+good-bye to him.
+
+"I have simply wasted the morning," he thought wrathfully on the
+way home. "The blockhead! The dummy! He cares no more about the
+school than I about last year's snow. . . . No, I shall never get
+anything done with him! We are bound to fail! If the Marshal knew
+what the priest here was like, he wouldn't be in such a hurry to
+talk about a school. We ought first to try and get a decent priest,
+and then think about the school."
+
+By now Kunin almost hated Father Yakov. The man, his pitiful,
+grotesque figure in the long crumpled robe, his womanish face, his
+manner of officiating, his way of life and his formal restrained
+respectfulness, wounded the tiny relic of religious feeling which
+was stored away in a warm corner of Kunin's heart together with his
+nurse's other fairy tales. The coldness and lack of attention with
+which Father Yakov had met Kunin's warm and sincere interest in
+what was the priest's own work was hard for the former's vanity to
+endure. . . .
+
+On the evening of the same day Kunin spent a long time walking about
+his rooms and thinking. Then he sat down to the table resolutely
+and wrote a letter to the bishop. After asking for money and a
+blessing for the school, he set forth genuinely, like a son, his
+opinion of the priest at Sinkino.
+
+"He is young," he wrote, "insufficiently educated, leads, I fancy,
+an intemperate life, and altogether fails to satisfy the ideals
+which the Russian people have in the course of centuries formed of
+what a pastor should be."
+
+After writing this letter Kunin heaved a deep sigh, and went to bed
+with the consciousness that he had done a good deed.
+
+On Monday morning, while he was still in bed, he was informed that
+Father Yakov had arrived. He did not want to get up, and instructed
+the servant to say he was not at home. On Tuesday he went away to
+a sitting of the Board, and when he returned on Saturday he was
+told by the servants that Father Yakov had called every day in his
+absence.
+
+"He liked my biscuits, it seems," he thought.
+
+Towards evening on Sunday Father Yakov arrived. This time not only
+his skirts, but even his hat, was bespattered with mud. Just as on
+his first visit, he was hot and perspiring, and sat down on the
+edge of his chair as he had done then. Kunin determined not to talk
+about the school--not to cast pearls.
+
+"I have brought you a list of books for the school, Pavel Mihailovitch,
+. . ." Father Yakov began.
+
+"Thank you."
+
+But everything showed that Father Yakov had come for something else
+besides the list. Has whole figure was expressive of extreme
+embarrassment, and at the same time there was a look of determination
+upon his face, as on the face of a man suddenly inspired by an idea.
+He struggled to say something important, absolutely necessary, and
+strove to overcome his timidity.
+
+"Why is he dumb?" Kunin thought wrathfully. "He's settled himself
+comfortably! I haven't time to be bothered with him."
+
+To smoothe over the awkwardness of his silence and to conceal the
+struggle going on within him, the priest began to smile constrainedly,
+and this slow smile, wrung out on his red perspiring face, and out
+of keeping with the fixed look in his grey-blue eyes, made Kunin
+turn away. He felt moved to repulsion.
+
+"Excuse me, Father, I have to go out," he said.
+
+Father Yakov started like a man asleep who has been struck a blow,
+and, still smiling, began in his confusion wrapping round him the
+skirts of his cassock. In spite of his repulsion for the man, Kunin
+felt suddenly sorry for him, and he wanted to soften his cruelty.
+
+"Please come another time, Father," he said, "and before we part I
+want to ask you a favour. I was somehow inspired to write two sermons
+the other day. . . . I will give them to you to look at. If they
+are suitable, use them."
+
+"Very good," said Father Yakov, laying his open hand on Kunin's
+sermons which were lying on the table. "I will take them."
+
+After standing a little, hesitating and still wrapping his cassock
+round him, he suddenly gave up the effort to smile and lifted his
+head resolutely.
+
+"Pavel Mihailovitch," he said, evidently trying to speak loudly and
+distinctly.
+
+"What can I do for you?"
+
+"I have heard that you . . . er . . . have dismissed your secretary,
+and . . . and are looking for a new one. . . ."
+
+"Yes, I am. . . . Why, have you someone to recommend?"
+
+"I. . . er . . . you see . . . I . . . Could you not give the post
+to me?"
+
+"Why, are you giving up the Church?" said Kunin in amazement.
+
+"No, no," Father Yakov brought out quickly, for some reason turning
+pale and trembling all over. "God forbid! If you feel doubtful,
+then never mind, never mind. You see, I could do the work between
+whiles, . . so as to increase my income. . . . Never mind, don't
+disturb yourself!"
+
+"H'm! . . . your income. . . . But you know, I only pay my secretary
+twenty roubles a month."
+
+"Good heavens! I would take ten," whispered Father Yakov, looking
+about him. "Ten would be enough! You . . . you are astonished, and
+everyone is astonished. The greedy priest, the grasping priest,
+what does he do with his money? I feel myself I am greedy, . . .
+and I blame myself, I condemn myself. . . . I am ashamed to look
+people in the face. . . . I tell you on my conscience, Pavel
+Mihailovitch. . . . I call the God of truth to witness. . . ."
+
+Father Yakov took breath and went on:
+
+"On the way here I prepared a regular confession to make you, but
+. . . I've forgotten it all; I cannot find a word now. I get a
+hundred and fifty roubles a year from my parish, and everyone wonders
+what I do with the money. . . . But I'll explain it all truly. . . .
+I pay forty roubles a year to the clerical school for my brother
+Pyotr. He has everything found there, except that I have to provide
+pens and paper."
+
+"Oh, I believe you; I believe you! But what's the object of all
+this?" said Kunin, with a wave of the hand, feeling terribly oppressed
+by this outburst of confidence on the part of his visitor, and not
+knowing how to get away from the tearful gleam in his eyes.
+
+"Then I have not yet paid up all that I owe to the consistory for
+my place here. They charged me two hundred roubles for the living,
+and I was to pay ten roubles a month. . . . You can judge what is
+left! And, besides, I must allow Father Avraamy at least three
+roubles a month."
+
+"What Father Avraamy?"
+
+"Father Avraamy who was priest at Sinkino before I came. He was
+deprived of the living on account of . . . his failing, but you
+know, he is still living at Sinkino! He has nowhere to go. There
+is no one to keep him. Though he is old, he must have a corner, and
+food and clothing--I can't let him go begging on the roads in his
+position! It would be on my conscience if anything happened! It
+would be my fault! He is. . . in debt all round; but, you see, I
+am to blame for not paying for him."
+
+Father Yakov started up from his seat and, looking frantically at
+the floor, strode up and down the room.
+
+"My God, my God!" he muttered, raising his hands and dropping them
+again. "Lord, save us and have mercy upon us! Why did you take such
+a calling on yourself if you have so little faith and no strength?
+There is no end to my despair! Save me, Queen of Heaven!"
+
+"Calm yourself, Father," said Kunin.
+
+"I am worn out with hunger, Pavel Mihailovitch," Father Yakov went
+on. "Generously forgive me, but I am at the end of my strength
+. . . . I know if I were to beg and to bow down, everyone would help,
+but . . . I cannot! I am ashamed. How can I beg of the peasants?
+You are on the Board here, so you know. . . . How can one beg of a
+beggar? And to beg of richer people, of landowners, I cannot! I
+have pride! I am ashamed!"
+
+Father Yakov waved his hand, and nervously scratched his head with
+both hands.
+
+"I am ashamed! My God, I am ashamed! I am proud and can't bear
+people to see my poverty! When you visited me, Pavel Mihailovitch,
+I had no tea in the house! There wasn't a pinch of it, and you know
+it was pride prevented me from telling you! I am ashamed of my
+clothes, of these patches here. . . . I am ashamed of my vestments,
+of being hungry. . . . And is it seemly for a priest to be proud?"
+
+Father Yakov stood still in the middle of the study, and, as though
+he did not notice Kunin's presence, began reasoning with himself.
+
+"Well, supposing I endure hunger and disgrace--but, my God, I
+have a wife! I took her from a good home! She is not used to hard
+work; she is soft; she is used to tea and white bread and sheets
+on her bed. . . . At home she used to play the piano. . . . She is
+young, not twenty yet. . . . She would like, to be sure, to be
+smart, to have fun, go out to see people. . . . And she is worse
+off with me than any cook; she is ashamed to show herself in the
+street. My God, my God! Her only treat is when I bring an apple or
+some biscuit from a visit. . . ."
+
+Father Yakov scratched his head again with both hands.
+
+"And it makes us feel not love but pity for each other. . . . I
+cannot look at her without compassion! And the things that happen
+in this life, O Lord! Such things that people would not believe
+them if they saw them in the newspaper. . . . And when will there
+be an end to it all!"
+
+"Hush, Father!" Kunin almost shouted, frightened at his tone. "Why
+take such a gloomy view of life?"
+
+"Generously forgive me, Pavel Mihailovitch . . ." muttered Father
+Yakov as though he were drunk, "Forgive me, all this . . . doesn't
+matter, and don't take any notice of it. . . . Only I do blame
+myself, and always shall blame myself . . . always."
+
+Father Yakov looked about him and began whispering:
+
+"One morning early I was going from Sinkino to Lutchkovo; I saw a
+woman standing on the river bank, doing something. . . . I went up
+close and could not believe my eyes. . . . It was horrible! The
+wife of the doctor, Ivan Sergeitch, was sitting there washing her
+linen. . . . A doctor's wife, brought up at a select boarding-school!
+She had got up you see, early and gone half a mile from the village
+that people should not see her. . . . She couldn't get over her
+pride! When she saw that I was near her and noticed her poverty,
+she turned red all over. . . . I was flustered--I was frightened,
+and ran up to help her, but she hid her linen from me; she was
+afraid I should see her ragged chemises. . . ."
+
+"All this is positively incredible," said Kunin, sitting down and
+looking almost with horror at Father Yakov's pale face.
+
+"Incredible it is! It's a thing that has never been! Pavel Mihailovitch,
+that a doctor's wife should be rinsing the linen in the river! Such
+a thing does not happen in any country! As her pastor and spiritual
+father, I ought not to allow it, but what can I do? What? Why, I
+am always trying to get treated by her husband for nothing myself!
+It is true that, as you say, it is all incredible! One can hardly
+believe one's eyes. During Mass, you know, when I look out from the
+altar and see my congregation, Avraamy starving, and my wife, and
+think of the doctor's wife--how blue her hands were from the cold
+water--would you believe it, I forget myself and stand senseless
+like a fool, until the sacristan calls to me. . . . It's awful!"
+
+Father Yakov began walking about again.
+
+"Lord Jesus!" he said, waving his hands, "holy Saints! I can't
+officiate properly. . . . Here you talk to me about the school, and
+I sit like a dummy and don't understand a word, and think of nothing
+but food. . . . Even before the altar. . . . But . . . what am I
+doing?" Father Yakov pulled himself up suddenly. "You want to go
+out. Forgive me, I meant nothing. . . . Excuse . . ."
+
+Kunin shook hands with Father Yakov without speaking, saw him into
+the hall, and going back into his study, stood at the window. He
+saw Father Yakov go out of the house, pull his wide-brimmed
+rusty-looking hat over his eyes, and slowly, bowing his head, as
+though ashamed of his outburst, walk along the road.
+
+"I don't see his horse," thought Kunin.
+
+Kunin did not dare to think that the priest had come on foot every
+day to see him; it was five or six miles to Sinkino, and the mud
+on the road was impassable. Further on he saw the coachman Andrey
+and the boy Paramon, jumping over the puddles and splashing Father
+Yakov with mud, run up to him for his blessing. Father Yakov took
+off his hat and slowly blessed Andrey, then blessed the boy and
+stroked his head.
+
+Kunin passed his hand over his eyes, and it seemed to him that his
+hand was moist. He walked away from the window and with dim eyes
+looked round the room in which he still seemed to hear the timid
+droning voice. He glanced at the table. Luckily, Father Yakov, in
+his haste, had forgotten to take the sermons. Kunin rushed up to
+them, tore them into pieces, and with loathing thrust them under
+the table.
+
+"And I did not know!" he moaned, sinking on to the sofa. "After
+being here over a year as member of the Rural Board, Honorary Justice
+of the Peace, member of the School Committee! Blind puppet, egregious
+idiot! I must make haste and help them, I must make haste!"
+
+He turned from side to side uneasily, pressed his temples and racked
+his brains.
+
+"On the twentieth I shall get my salary, two hundred roubles. . . .
+On some good pretext I will give him some, and some to the doctor's
+wife. . . . I will ask them to perform a special service here, and
+will get up an illness for the doctor. . . . In that way I shan't
+wound their pride. And I'll help Father Avraamy too. . . ."
+
+He reckoned his money on his fingers, and was afraid to own to
+himself that those two hundred roubles would hardly be enough for
+him to pay his steward, his servants, the peasant who brought the
+meat. . . . He could not help remembering the recent past when he
+was senselessly squandering his father's fortune, when as a puppy
+of twenty he had given expensive fans to prostitutes, had paid ten
+roubles a day to Kuzma, his cab-driver, and in his vanity had made
+presents to actresses. Oh, how useful those wasted rouble, three-rouble,
+ten-rouble notes would have been now!
+
+"Father Avraamy lives on three roubles a month!" thought Kunin.
+"For a rouble the priest's wife could get herself a chemise, and
+the doctor's wife could hire a washerwoman. But I'll help them,
+anyway! I must help them."
+
+Here Kunin suddenly recalled the private information he had sent
+to the bishop, and he writhed as from a sudden draught of cold air.
+This remembrance filled him with overwhelming shame before his inner
+self and before the unseen truth.
+
+So had begun and had ended a sincere effort to be of public service
+on the part of a well-intentioned but unreflecting and over-comfortable
+person.
+
+
+THE MURDER
+
+I
+
+The evening service was being celebrated at Progonnaya Station.
+Before the great ikon, painted in glaring colours on a background
+of gold, stood the crowd of railway servants with their wives and
+children, and also of the timbermen and sawyers who worked close
+to the railway line. All stood in silence, fascinated by the glare
+of the lights and the howling of the snow-storm which was aimlessly
+disporting itself outside, regardless of the fact that it was the
+Eve of the Annunciation. The old priest from Vedenyapino conducted
+the service; the sacristan and Matvey Terehov were singing.
+
+Matvey's face was beaming with delight; he sang stretching out his
+neck as though he wanted to soar upwards. He sang tenor and chanted
+the "Praises" too in a tenor voice with honied sweetness and
+persuasiveness. When he sang "Archangel Voices" he waved his arms
+like a conductor, and trying to second the sacristan's hollow bass
+with his tenor, achieved something extremely complex, and from his
+face it could be seen that he was experiencing great pleasure.
+
+At last the service was over, and they all quietly dispersed, and
+it was dark and empty again, and there followed that hush which is
+only known in stations that stand solitary in the open country or
+in the forest when the wind howls and nothing else is heard and
+when all the emptiness around, all the dreariness of life slowly
+ebbing away is felt.
+
+Matvey lived not far from the station at his cousin's tavern. But
+he did not want to go home. He sat down at the refreshment bar and
+began talking to the waiter in a low voice.
+
+"We had our own choir in the tile factory. And I must tell you that
+though we were only workmen, our singing was first-rate, splendid.
+We were often invited to the town, and when the Deputy Bishop,
+Father Ivan, took the service at Trinity Church, the bishop's singers
+sang in the right choir and we in the left. Only they complained
+in the town that we kept the singing on too long: 'the factory choir
+drag it out,' they used to say. It is true we began St. Andrey's
+prayers and the Praises between six and seven, and it was past
+eleven when we finished, so that it was sometimes after midnight
+when we got home to the factory. It was good," sighed Matvey. "Very
+good it was, indeed, Sergey Nikanoritch! But here in my father's
+house it is anything but joyful. The nearest church is four miles
+away; with my weak health I can't get so far; there are no singers
+there. And there is no peace or quiet in our family; day in day
+out, there is an uproar, scolding, uncleanliness; we all eat out
+of one bowl like peasants; and there are beetles in the cabbage
+soup. . . . God has not given me health, else I would have gone
+away long ago, Sergey Nikanoritch."
+
+Matvey Terehov was a middle-aged man about forty-five, but he had
+a look of ill-health; his face was wrinkled and his lank, scanty
+beard was quite grey, and that made him seem many years older. He
+spoke in a weak voice, circumspectly, and held his chest when he
+coughed, while his eyes assumed the uneasy and anxious look one
+sees in very apprehensive people. He never said definitely what was
+wrong with him, but he was fond of describing at length how once
+at the factory he had lifted a heavy box and had ruptured himself,
+and how this had led to "the gripes," and had forced him to give
+up his work in the tile factory and come back to his native place;
+but he could not explain what he meant by "the gripes."
+
+"I must own I am not fond of my cousin," he went on, pouring himself
+out some tea. "He is my elder; it is a sin to censure him, and I
+fear the Lord, but I cannot bear it in patience. He is a haughty,
+surly, abusive man; he is the torment of his relations and workmen,
+and constantly out of humour. Last Sunday I asked him in an amiable
+way, 'Brother, let us go to Pahomovo for the Mass!' but he said 'I
+am not going; the priest there is a gambler;' and he would not come
+here to-day because, he said, the priest from Vedenyapino smokes
+and drinks vodka. He doesn't like the clergy! He reads Mass himself
+and the Hours and the Vespers, while his sister acts as sacristan;
+he says, 'Let us pray unto the Lord'! and she, in a thin little
+voice like a turkey-hen, 'Lord, have mercy upon us! . . .' It's a
+sin, that's what it is. Every day I say to him, 'Think what you are
+doing, brother! Repent, brother!' and he takes no notice."
+
+Sergey Nikanoritch, the waiter, poured out five glasses of tea and
+carried them on a tray to the waiting-room. He had scarcely gone
+in when there was a shout:
+
+"Is that the way to serve it, pig's face? You don't know how to
+wait!"
+
+It was the voice of the station-master. There was a timid mutter,
+then again a harsh and angry shout:
+
+"Get along!"
+
+The waiter came back greatly crestfallen.
+
+"There was a time when I gave satisfaction to counts and princes,"
+he said in a low voice; "but now I don't know how to serve tea. . . .
+He called me names before the priest and the ladies!"
+
+The waiter, Sergey Nikanoritch, had once had money of his own, and
+had kept a buffet at a first-class station, which was a junction,
+in the principal town of a province. There he had worn a swallow-tail
+coat and a gold chain. But things had gone ill with him; he had
+squandered all his own money over expensive fittings and service;
+he had been robbed by his staff, and getting gradually into
+difficulties, had moved to another station less bustling. Here his
+wife had left him, taking with her all the silver, and he moved to
+a third station of a still lower class, where no hot dishes were
+served. Then to a fourth. Frequently changing his situation and
+sinking lower and lower, he had at last come to Progonnaya, and
+here he used to sell nothing but tea and cheap vodka, and for lunch
+hard-boiled eggs and dry sausages, which smelt of tar, and which
+he himself sarcastically said were only fit for the orchestra. He
+was bald all over the top of his head, and had prominent blue eyes
+and thick bushy whiskers, which he often combed out, looking into
+the little looking-glass. Memories of the past haunted him continually;
+he could never get used to sausage "only fit for the orchestra,"
+to the rudeness of the station-master, and to the peasants who used
+to haggle over the prices, and in his opinion it was as unseemly
+to haggle over prices in a refreshment room as in a chemist's shop.
+He was ashamed of his poverty and degradation, and that shame was
+now the leading interest of his life.
+
+"Spring is late this year," said Matvey, listening. "It's a good
+job; I don't like spring. In spring it is very muddy, Sergey
+Nikanoritch. In books they write: Spring, the birds sing, the sun
+is setting, but what is there pleasant in that? A bird is a bird,
+and nothing more. I am fond of good company, of listening to folks,
+of talking of religion or singing something agreeable in chorus;
+but as for nightingales and flowers--bless them, I say!"
+
+He began again about the tile factory, about the choir, but Sergey
+Nikanoritch could not get over his mortification, and kept shrugging
+his shoulders and muttering. Matvey said good-bye and went home.
+
+There was no frost, and the snow was already melting on the roofs,
+though it was still falling in big flakes; they were whirling rapidly
+round and round in the air and chasing one another in white clouds
+along the railway line. And the oak forest on both sides of the
+line, in the dim light of the moon which was hidden somewhere high
+up in the clouds, resounded with a prolonged sullen murmur. When a
+violent storm shakes the trees, how terrible they are! Matvey walked
+along the causeway beside the line, covering his face and his hands,
+while the wind beat on his back. All at once a little nag, plastered
+all over with snow, came into sight; a sledge scraped along the
+bare stones of the causeway, and a peasant, white all over, too,
+with his head muffled up, cracked his whip. Matvey looked round
+after him, but at once, as though it had been a vision, there was
+neither sledge nor peasant to be seen, and he hastened his steps,
+suddenly scared, though he did not know why.
+
+Here was the crossing and the dark little house where the signalman
+lived. The barrier was raised, and by it perfect mountains had
+drifted and clouds of snow were whirling round like witches on
+broomsticks. At that point the line was crossed by an old highroad,
+which was still called "the track." On the right, not far from the
+crossing, by the roadside stood Terehov's tavern, which had been a
+posting inn. Here there was always a light twinkling at night.
+
+When Matvey reached home there was a strong smell of incense in all
+the rooms and even in the entry. His cousin Yakov Ivanitch was still
+reading the evening service. In the prayer-room where this was going
+on, in the corner opposite the door, there stood a shrine of
+old-fashioned ancestral ikons in gilt settings, and both walls to
+right and to left were decorated with ikons of ancient and modern
+fashion, in shrines and without them. On the table, which was draped
+to the floor, stood an ikon of the Annunciation, and close by a
+cyprus-wood cross and the censer; wax candles were burning. Beside
+the table was a reading desk. As he passed by the prayer-room,
+Matvey stopped and glanced in at the door. Yakov Ivanitch was reading
+at the desk at that moment, his sister Aglaia, a tall lean old woman
+in a dark-blue dress and white kerchief, was praying with him. Yakov
+Ivanitch's daughter Dashutka, an ugly freckled girl of eighteen,
+was there, too, barefoot as usual, and wearing the dress in which
+she had at nightfall taken water to the cattle.
+
+"Glory to Thee Who hast shown us the light!" Yakov Ivanitch boomed
+out in a chant, bowing low.
+
+Aglaia propped her chin on her hand and chanted in a thin, shrill,
+drawling voice. And upstairs, above the ceiling, there was the sound
+of vague voices which seemed menacing or ominous of evil. No one
+had lived on the storey above since a fire there a long time ago.
+The windows were boarded up, and empty bottles lay about on the
+floor between the beams. Now the wind was banging and droning, and
+it seemed as though someone were running and stumbling over the
+beams.
+
+Half of the lower storey was used as a tavern, while Terehov's
+family lived in the other half, so that when drunken visitors were
+noisy in the tavern every word they said could be heard in the
+rooms. Matvey lived in a room next to the kitchen, with a big stove,
+in which, in old days, when this had been a posting inn, bread had
+been baked every day. Dashutka, who had no room of her own, lived
+in the same room behind the stove. A cricket chirped there always
+at night and mice ran in and out.
+
+Matvey lighted a candle and began reading a book which he had
+borrowed from the station policeman. While he was sitting over it
+the service ended, and they all went to bed. Dashutka lay down,
+too. She began snoring at once, but soon woke up and said, yawning:
+
+"You shouldn't burn a candle for nothing, Uncle Matvey."
+
+"It's my candle," answered Matvey; "I bought it with my own money."
+
+Dashutka turned over a little and fell asleep again. Matvey sat up
+a good time longer--he was not sleepy--and when he had finished
+the last page he took a pencil out of a box and wrote on the book:
+
+"I, Matvey Terehov, have read this book, and think it the very best
+of all the books I have read, for which I express my gratitude to
+the non-commissioned officer of the Police Department of Railways,
+Kuzma Nikolaev Zhukov, as the possessor of this priceless book."
+
+He considered it an obligation of politeness to make such inscriptions
+in other people's books.
+
+II
+
+On Annunciation Day, after the mail train had been sent off, Matvey
+was sitting in the refreshment bar, talking and drinking tea with
+lemon in it.
+
+The waiter and Zhukov the policeman were listening to him.
+
+"I was, I must tell you," Matvey was saying, "inclined to religion
+from my earliest childhood. I was only twelve years old when I used
+to read the epistle in church, and my parents were greatly delighted,
+and every summer I used to go on a pilgrimage with my dear mother.
+Sometimes other lads would be singing songs and catching crayfish,
+while I would be all the time with my mother. My elders commended
+me, and, indeed, I was pleased myself that I was of such good
+behaviour. And when my mother sent me with her blessing to the
+factory, I used between working hours to sing tenor there in our
+choir, and nothing gave me greater pleasure. I needn't say, I drank
+no vodka, I smoked no tobacco, and lived in chastity; but we all
+know such a mode of life is displeasing to the enemy of mankind,
+and he, the unclean spirit, once tried to ruin me and began to
+darken my mind, just as now with my cousin. First of all, I took a
+vow to fast every Monday and not to eat meat any day, and as time
+went on all sorts of fancies came over me. For the first week of
+Lent down to Saturday the holy fathers have ordained a diet of dry
+food, but it is no sin for the weak or those who work hard even to
+drink tea, yet not a crumb passed into my mouth till the Sunday,
+and afterwards all through Lent I did not allow myself a drop of
+oil, and on Wednesdays and Fridays I did not touch a morsel at all.
+It was the same in the lesser fasts. Sometimes in St. Peter's fast
+our factory lads would have fish soup, while I would sit a little
+apart from them and suck a dry crust. Different people have different
+powers, of course, but I can say of myself I did not find fast days
+hard, and, indeed, the greater the zeal the easier it seems. You
+are only hungry on the first days of the fast, and then you get
+used to it; it goes on getting easier, and by the end of a week you
+don't mind it at all, and there is a numb feeling in your legs as
+though you were not on earth, but in the clouds. And, besides that,
+I laid all sorts of penances on myself; I used to get up in the
+night and pray, bowing down to the ground, used to drag heavy stones
+from place to place, used to go out barefoot in the snow, and I
+even wore chains, too. Only, as time went on, you know, I was
+confessing one day to the priest and suddenly this reflection
+occurred to me: why, this priest, I thought, is married, he eats
+meat and smokes tobacco--how can he confess me, and what power
+has he to absolve my sins if he is more sinful that I? I even scruple
+to eat Lenten oil, while he eats sturgeon, I dare say. I went to
+another priest, and he, as ill luck would have it, was a fat fleshy
+man, in a silk cassock; he rustled like a lady, and he smelt of
+tobacco too. I went to fast and confess in the monastery, and my
+heart was not at ease even there; I kept fancying the monks were
+not living according to their rules. And after that I could not
+find a service to my mind: in one place they read the service too
+fast, in another they sang the wrong prayer, in a third the sacristan
+stammered. Sometimes, the Lord forgive me a sinner, I would stand
+in church and my heart would throb with anger. How could one pray,
+feeling like that? And I fancied that the people in the church did
+not cross themselves properly, did not listen properly; wherever I
+looked it seemed to me that they were all drunkards, that they broke
+the fast, smoked, lived loose lives and played cards. I was the
+only one who lived according to the commandments. The wily spirit
+did not slumber; it got worse as it went on. I gave up singing in
+the choir and I did not go to church at all; since my notion was
+that I was a righteous man and that the church did not suit me owing
+to its imperfections--that is, indeed, like a fallen angel, I was
+puffed up in my pride beyond all belief. After this I began attempting
+to make a church for myself. I hired from a deaf woman a tiny little
+room, a long way out of town near the cemetery, and made a prayer-room
+like my cousin's, only I had big church candlesticks, too, and a
+real censer. In this prayer-room of mine I kept the rules of holy
+Mount Athos--that is, every day my matins began at midnight without
+fail, and on the eve of the chief of the twelve great holy days my
+midnight service lasted ten hours and sometimes even twelve. Monks
+are allowed by rule to sit during the singing of the Psalter and
+the reading of the Bible, but I wanted to be better than the monks,
+and so I used to stand all through. I used to read and sing slowly,
+with tears and sighing, lifting up my hands, and I used to go
+straight from prayer to work without sleeping; and, indeed, I was
+always praying at my work, too. Well, it got all over the town
+'Matvey is a saint; Matvey heals the sick and senseless.' I never
+had healed anyone, of course, but we all know wherever any heresy
+or false doctrine springs up there's no keeping the female sex away.
+They are just like flies on the honey. Old maids and females of all
+sorts came trailing to me, bowing down to my feet, kissing my hands
+and crying out I was a saint and all the rest of it, and one even
+saw a halo round my head. It was too crowded in the prayer-room. I
+took a bigger room, and then we had a regular tower of Babel. The
+devil got hold of me completely and screened the light from my eyes
+with his unclean hoofs. We all behaved as though we were frantic.
+I read, while the old maids and other females sang, and then after
+standing on their legs for twenty-four hours or longer without
+eating or drinking, suddenly a trembling would come over them as
+though they were in a fever; after that, one would begin screaming
+and then another--it was horrible! I, too, would shiver all over
+like a Jew in a frying-pan, I don't know myself why, and our legs
+began to prance about. It's a strange thing, indeed: you don't want
+to, but you prance about and waggle your arms; and after that,
+screaming and shrieking, we all danced and ran after one another
+--ran till we dropped; and in that way, in wild frenzy, I fell
+into fornication."
+
+The policeman laughed, but, noticing that no one else was laughing,
+became serious and said:
+
+"That's Molokanism. I have heard they are all like that in the
+Caucasus."
+
+"But I was not killed by a thunderbolt," Matvey went on, crossing
+himself before the ikon and moving his lips. "My dead mother must
+have been praying for me in the other world. When everyone in the
+town looked upon me as a saint, and even the ladies and gentlemen
+of good family used to come to me in secret for consolation, I
+happened to go into our landlord, Osip Varlamitch, to ask forgiveness
+--it was the Day of Forgiveness--and he fastened the door with
+the hook, and we were left alone face to face. And he began to
+reprove me, and I must tell you Osip Varlamitch was a man of brains,
+though without education, and everyone respected and feared him,
+for he was a man of stern, God-fearing life and worked hard. He had
+been the mayor of the town, and a warden of the church for twenty
+years maybe, and had done a great deal of good; he had covered all
+the New Moscow Road with gravel, had painted the church, and had
+decorated the columns to look like malachite. Well, he fastened the
+door, and--'I have been wanting to get at you for a long time,
+you rascal, . . .' he said. 'You think you are a saint,' he said.
+'No you are not a saint, but a backslider from God, a heretic and
+an evildoer! . . .' And he went on and on. . . . I can't tell you
+how he said it, so eloquently and cleverly, as though it were all
+written down, and so touchingly. He talked for two hours. His words
+penetrated my soul; my eyes were opened. I listened, listened and
+--burst into sobs! 'Be an ordinary man,' he said, 'eat and drink,
+dress and pray like everyone else. All that is above the ordinary
+is of the devil. Your chains,' he said, 'are of the devil; your
+fasting is of the devil; your prayer-room is of the devil. It is
+all pride,' he said. Next day, on Monday in Holy Week, it pleased
+God I should fall ill. I ruptured myself and was taken to the
+hospital. I was terribly worried, and wept bitterly and trembled.
+I thought there was a straight road before me from the hospital to
+hell, and I almost died. I was in misery on a bed of sickness for
+six months, and when I was discharged the first thing I did I
+confessed, and took the sacrament in the regular way and became a
+man again. Osip Varlamitch saw me off home and exhorted me: 'Remember,
+Matvey, that anything above the ordinary is of the devil.' And now
+I eat and drink like everyone else and pray like everyone else
+. . . . If it happens now that the priest smells of tobacco or vodka I
+don't venture to blame him, because the priest, too, of course, is
+an ordinary man. But as soon as I am told that in the town or in
+the village a saint has set up who does not eat for weeks, and makes
+rules of his own, I know whose work it is. So that is how I carried
+on in the past, gentlemen. Now, like Osip Varlamitch, I am continually
+exhorting my cousins and reproaching them, but I am a voice crying
+in the wilderness. God has not vouchsafed me the gift."
+
+Matvey's story evidently made no impression whatever. Sergey
+Nikanoritch said nothing, but began clearing the refreshments off
+the counter, while the policeman began talking of how rich Matvey's
+cousin was.
+
+"He must have thirty thousand at least," he said.
+
+Zhukov the policeman, a sturdy, well-fed, red-haired man with a
+full face (his cheeks quivered when he walked), usually sat lolling
+and crossing his legs when not in the presence of his superiors.
+As he talked he swayed to and fro and whistled carelessly, while
+his face had a self-satisfied replete air, as though he had just
+had dinner. He was making money, and he always talked of it with
+the air of a connoisseur. He undertook jobs as an agent, and when
+anyone wanted to sell an estate, a horse or a carriage, they applied
+to him.
+
+"Yes, it will be thirty thousand, I dare say," Sergey Nikanoritch
+assented. "Your grandfather had an immense fortune," he said,
+addressing Matvey. "Immense it was; all left to your father and
+your uncle. Your father died as a young man and your uncle got hold
+of it all, and afterwards, of course, Yakov Ivanitch. While you
+were going pilgrimages with your mama and singing tenor in the
+factory, they didn't let the grass grow under their feet."
+
+"Fifteen thousand comes to your share," said the policeman swaying
+from side to side. "The tavern belongs to you in common, so the
+capital is in common. Yes. If I were in your place I should have
+taken it into court long ago. I would have taken it into court for
+one thing, and while the case was going on I'd have knocked his
+face to a jelly."
+
+Yakov Ivanitch was disliked because, when anyone believes differently
+from others, it upsets even people who are indifferent to religion.
+The policeman disliked him also because he, too, sold horses and
+carriages.
+
+"You don't care about going to law with your cousin because you
+have plenty of money of your own," said the waiter to Matvey, looking
+at him with envy. "It is all very well for anyone who has means,
+but here I shall die in this position, I suppose. . . ."
+
+Matvey began declaring that he hadn't any money at all, but Sergey
+Nikanoritch was not listening. Memories of the past and of the
+insults which he endured every day came showering upon him. His
+bald head began to perspire; he flushed and blinked.
+
+"A cursed life!" he said with vexation, and he banged the sausage
+on the floor.
+
+III
+
+The story ran that the tavern had been built in the time of Alexander
+I, by a widow who had settled here with her son; her name was Avdotya
+Terehov. The dark roofed-in courtyard and the gates always kept
+locked excited, especially on moonlight nights, a feeling of
+depression and unaccountable uneasiness in people who drove by with
+posting-horses, as though sorcerers or robbers were living in it;
+and the driver always looked back after he passed, and whipped up
+his horses. Travellers did not care to put up here, as the people
+of the house were always unfriendly and charged heavily. The yard
+was muddy even in summer; huge fat pigs used to lie there in the
+mud, and the horses in which the Terehovs dealt wandered about
+untethered, and often it happened that they ran out of the yard and
+dashed along the road like mad creatures, terrifying the pilgrim
+women. At that time there was a great deal of traffic on the road;
+long trains of loaded waggons trailed by, and all sorts of adventures
+happened, such as, for instance, that thirty years ago some waggoners
+got up a quarrel with a passing merchant and killed him, and a
+slanting cross is standing to this day half a mile from the tavern;
+posting-chaises with bells and the heavy _dormeuses_ of country
+gentlemen drove by; and herds of horned cattle passed bellowing and
+stirring up clouds of dust.
+
+When the railway came there was at first at this place only a
+platform, which was called simply a halt; ten years afterwards the
+present station, Progonnaya, was built. The traffic on the old
+posting-road almost ceased, and only local landowners and peasants
+drove along it now, but the working people walked there in crowds
+in spring and autumn. The posting-inn was transformed into a
+restaurant; the upper storey was destroyed by fire, the roof had
+grown yellow with rust, the roof over the yard had fallen by degrees,
+but huge fat pigs, pink and revolting, still wallowed in the mud
+in the yard. As before, the horses sometimes ran away and, lashing
+their tails dashed madly along the road. In the tavern they sold
+tea, hay oats and flour, as well as vodka and beer, to be drunk on
+the premises and also to be taken away; they sold spirituous liquors
+warily, for they had never taken out a licence.
+
+The Terehovs had always been distinguished by their piety, so much
+so that they had even been given the nickname of the "Godlies." But
+perhaps because they lived apart like bears, avoided people and
+thought out all their ideas for themselves, they were given to
+dreams and to doubts and to changes of faith and almost each
+generation had a peculiar faith of its own. The grandmother Avdotya,
+who had built the inn, was an Old Believer; her son and both her
+grandsons (the fathers of Matvey and Yakov) went to the Orthodox
+church, entertained the clergy, and worshipped before the new ikons
+as devoutly as they had done before the old. The son in old age
+refused to eat meat and imposed upon himself the rule of silence,
+considering all conversation as sin; it was the peculiarity of the
+grandsons that they interpreted the Scripture not simply, but sought
+in it a hidden meaning, declaring that every sacred word must contain
+a mystery.
+
+Avdotya's great-grandson Matvey had struggled from early childhood
+with all sorts of dreams and fancies and had been almost ruined by
+it; the other great-grandson, Yakov Ivanitch, was orthodox, but
+after his wife's death he gave up going to church and prayed at
+home. Following his example, his sister Aglaia had turned, too; she
+did not go to church herself, and did not let Dashutka go. Of Aglaia
+it was told that in her youth she used to attend the Flagellant
+meetings in Vedenyapino, and that she was still a Flagellant in
+secret, and that was why she wore a white kerchief.
+
+Yakov Ivanitch was ten years older than Matvey--he was a very
+handsome tall old man with a big grey beard almost to his waist,
+and bushy eyebrows which gave his face a stern, even ill-natured
+expression. He wore a long jerkin of good cloth or a black sheepskin
+coat, and altogether tried to be clean and neat in dress; he wore
+goloshes even in dry weather. He did not go to church, because, to
+his thinking, the services were not properly celebrated and because
+the priests drank wine at unlawful times and smoked tobacco. Every
+day he read and sang the service at home with Aglaia. At Vedenyapino
+they left out the "Praises" at early matins, and had no evening
+service even on great holidays, but he used to read through at home
+everything that was laid down for every day, without hurrying or
+leaving out a single line, and even in his spare time read aloud
+the Lives of the Saints. And in everyday life he adhered strictly
+to the rules of the church; thus, if wine were allowed on some day
+in Lent "for the sake of the vigil," then he never failed to drink
+wine, even if he were not inclined.
+
+He read, sang, burned incense and fasted, not for the sake of
+receiving blessings of some sort from God, but for the sake of good
+order. Man cannot live without religion, and religion ought to be
+expressed from year to year and from day to day in a certain order,
+so that every morning and every evening a man might turn to God
+with exactly those words and thoughts that were befitting that
+special day and hour. One must live, and, therefore, also pray as
+is pleasing to God, and so every day one must read and sing what
+is pleasing to God--that is, what is laid down in the rule of the
+church. Thus the first chapter of St. John must only be read on
+Easter Day, and "It is most meet" must not be sung from Easter to
+Ascension, and so on. The consciousness of this order and its
+importance afforded Yakov Ivanitch great gratification during his
+religious exercises. When he was forced to break this order by some
+necessity--to drive to town or to the bank, for instance his
+conscience was uneasy and he felt miserable.
+
+When his cousin Matvey had returned unexpectedly from the factory
+and settled in the tavern as though it were his home, he had from
+the very first day disturbed his settled order. He refused to pray
+with them, had meals and drank tea at wrong times, got up late,
+drank milk on Wednesdays and Fridays on the pretext of weak health;
+almost every day he went into the prayer-room while they were at
+prayers and cried: "Think what you are doing, brother! Repent,
+brother!" These words threw Yakov into a fury, while Aglaia could
+not refrain from beginning to scold; or at night Matvey would steal
+into the prayer-room and say softly: "Cousin, your prayer is not
+pleasing to God. For it is written, First be reconciled with thy
+brother and then offer thy gift. You lend money at usury, you deal
+in vodka--repent!"
+
+In Matvey's words Yakov saw nothing but the usual evasions of
+empty-headed and careless people who talk of loving your neighbour,
+of being reconciled with your brother, and so on, simply to avoid
+praying, fasting and reading holy books, and who talk contemptuously
+of profit and interest simply because they don't like working. Of
+course, to be poor, save nothing, and put by nothing was a great
+deal easier than being rich.
+
+But yet he was troubled and could not pray as before. As soon as
+he went into the prayer-room and opened the book he began to be
+afraid his cousin would come in and hinder him; and, in fact, Matvey
+did soon appear and cry in a trembling voice: "Think what you are
+doing, brother! Repent, brother!" Aglaia stormed and Yakov, too,
+flew into a passion and shouted: "Go out of my house!" while Matvey
+answered him: "The house belongs to both of us."
+
+Yakov would begin singing and reading again, but he could not regain
+his calm, and unconsciously fell to dreaming over his book. Though
+he regarded his cousin's words as nonsense, yet for some reason it
+had of late haunted his memory that it is hard for a rich man to
+enter the kingdom of heaven, that the year before last he had made
+a very good bargain over buying a stolen horse, that one day when
+his wife was alive a drunkard had died of vodka in his tavern. . . .
+
+He slept badly at nights now and woke easily, and he could hear
+that Matvey, too, was awake, and continually sighing and pining for
+his tile factory. And while Yakov turned over from one side to
+another at night he thought of the stolen horse and the drunken
+man, and what was said in the gospels about the camel.
+
+It looked as though his dreaminess were coming over him again. And
+as ill-luck would have it, although it was the end of March, every
+day it kept snowing, and the forest roared as though it were winter,
+and there was no believing that spring would ever come. The weather
+disposed one to depression, and to quarrelling and to hatred and
+in the night, when the wind droned over the ceiling, it seemed as
+though someone were living overhead in the empty storey; little by
+little the broodings settled like a burden on his mind, his head
+burned and he could not sleep.
+
+IV
+
+On the morning of the Monday before Good Friday, Matvey heard from
+his room Dashutka say to Aglaia:
+
+"Uncle Matvey said, the other day, that there is no need to fast."
+
+Matvey remembered the whole conversation he had had the evening
+before with Dashutka, and he felt hurt all at once.
+
+"Girl, don't do wrong!" he said in a moaning voice, like a sick
+man. "You can't do without fasting; our Lord Himself fasted forty
+days. I only explained that fasting does a bad man no good."
+
+"You should just listen to the factory hands; they can teach you
+goodness," Aglaia said sarcastically as she washed the floor (she
+usually washed the floors on working days and was always angry with
+everyone when she did it). "We know how they keep the fasts in the
+factory. You had better ask that uncle of yours--ask him about
+his 'Darling,' how he used to guzzle milk on fast days with her,
+the viper. He teaches others; he forgets about his viper. But ask
+him who was it he left his money with--who was it?"
+
+Matvey had carefully concealed from everyone, as though it were a
+foul sore, that during that period of his life when old women and
+unmarried girls had danced and run about with him at their prayers
+he had formed a connection with a working woman and had had a child
+by her. When he went home he had given this woman all he had saved
+at the factory, and had borrowed from his landlord for his journey,
+and now he had only a few roubles which he spent on tea and candles.
+The "Darling" had informed him later on that the child was dead,
+and asked him in a letter what she should do with the money. This
+letter was brought from the station by the labourer. Aglaia intercepted
+it and read it, and had reproached Matvey with his "Darling" every
+day since.
+
+"Just fancy, nine hundred roubles," Aglaia went on. "You gave nine
+hundred roubles to a viper, no relation, a factory jade, blast you!"
+She had flown into a passion by now and was shouting shrilly: "Can't
+you speak? I could tear you to pieces, wretched creature! Nine
+hundred roubles as though it were a farthing. You might have left
+it to Dashutka--she is a relation, not a stranger--or else have
+it sent to Byelev for Marya's poor orphans. And your viper did not
+choke, may she be thrice accursed, the she-devil! May she never
+look upon the light of day!"
+
+Yakov Ivanitch called to her: it was time to begin the "Hours." She
+washed, put on a white kerchief, and by now quiet and meek, went
+into the prayer-room to the brother she loved. When she spoke to
+Matvey or served peasants in the tavern with tea she was a gaunt,
+keen-eyed, ill-humoured old woman; in the prayer-room her face was
+serene and softened, she looked younger altogether, she curtsied
+affectedly, and even pursed up her lips.
+
+Yakov Ivanitch began reading the service softly and dolefully, as
+he always did in Lent. After he had read a little he stopped to
+listen to the stillness that reigned through the house, and then
+went on reading again, with a feeling of gratification; he folded
+his hands in supplication, rolled his eyes, shook his head, sighed.
+But all at once there was the sound of voices. The policeman and
+Sergey Nikanoritch had come to see Matvey. Yakov Ivanitch was
+embarrassed at reading aloud and singing when there were strangers
+in the house, and now, hearing voices, he began reading in a whisper
+and slowly. He could hear in the prayer-room the waiter say:
+
+"The Tatar at Shtchepovo is selling his business for fifteen hundred.
+He'll take five hundred down and an I.O.U. for the rest. And so,
+Matvey Vassilitch, be so kind as to lend me that five hundred
+roubles. I will pay you two per cent a month."
+
+"What money have I got?" cried Matvey, amazed. "I have no money!"
+
+"Two per cent a month will be a godsend to you," the policeman
+explained. "While lying by, your money is simply eaten by the moth,
+and that's all that you get from it."
+
+Afterwards the visitors went out and a silence followed. But Yakov
+Ivanitch had hardly begun reading and singing again when a voice
+was heard outside the door:
+
+"Brother, let me have a horse to drive to Vedenyapino."
+
+It was Matvey. And Yakov was troubled again. "Which can you go
+with?" he asked after a moment's thought. "The man has gone with
+the sorrel to take the pig, and I am going with the little stallion
+to Shuteykino as soon as I have finished."
+
+"Brother, why is it you can dispose of the horses and not I?" Matvey
+asked with irritation.
+
+"Because I am not taking them for pleasure, but for work."
+
+"Our property is in common, so the horses are in common, too, and
+you ought to understand that, brother."
+
+A silence followed. Yakov did not go on praying, but waited for
+Matvey to go away from the door.
+
+"Brother," said Matvey, "I am a sick man. I don't want possession
+--let them go; you have them, but give me a small share to keep
+me in my illness. Give it me and I'll go away."
+
+Yakov did not speak. He longed to be rid of Matvey, but he could
+not give him money, since all the money was in the business; besides,
+there had never been a case of the family dividing in the whole
+history of the Terehovs. Division means ruin.
+
+Yakov said nothing, but still waited for Matvey to go away, and
+kept looking at his sister, afraid that she would interfere, and
+that there would be a storm of abuse again, as there had been in
+the morning. When at last Matvey did go Yakov went on reading, but
+now he had no pleasure in it. There was a heaviness in his head and
+a darkness before his eyes from continually bowing down to the
+ground, and he was weary of the sound of his soft dejected voice.
+When such a depression of spirit came over him at night, he put it
+down to not being able to sleep; by day it frightened him, and he
+began to feel as though devils were sitting on his head and shoulders.
+
+Finishing the service after a fashion, dissatisfied and ill-humoured,
+he set off for Shuteykino. In the previous autumn a gang of navvies
+had dug a boundary ditch near Progonnaya, and had run up a bill at
+the tavern for eighteen roubles, and now he had to find their foreman
+in Shuteykino and get the money from him. The road had been spoilt
+by the thaw and the snowstorm; it was of a dark colour and full of
+holes, and in parts it had given way altogether. The snow had sunk
+away at the sides below the road, so that he had to drive, as it
+were, upon a narrow causeway, and it was very difficult to turn off
+it when he met anything. The sky had been overcast ever since the
+morning and a damp wind was blowing. . . .
+
+A long train of sledges met him; peasant women were carting bricks.
+Yakov had to turn off the road. His horse sank into the snow up to
+its belly; the sledge lurched over to the right, and to avoid falling
+out he bent over to the left, and sat so all the time the sledges
+moved slowly by him. Through the wind he heard the creaking of the
+sledge poles and the breathing of the gaunt horses, and the women
+saying about him, "There's Godly coming," while one, gazing with
+compassion at his horse, said quickly:
+
+"It looks as though the snow will be lying till Yegory's Day! They
+are worn out with it!"
+
+Yakov sat uncomfortably huddled up, screwing up his eyes on account
+of the wind, while horses and red bricks kept passing before him.
+And perhaps because he was uncomfortable and his side ached, he
+felt all at once annoyed, and the business he was going about seemed
+to him unimportant, and he reflected that he might send the labourer
+next day to Shuteykino. Again, as in the previous sleepless night,
+he thought of the saying about the camel, and then memories of all
+sorts crept into his mind; of the peasant who had sold him the
+stolen horse, of the drunken man, of the peasant women who had
+brought their samovars to him to pawn. Of course, every merchant
+tries to get as much as he can, but Yakov felt depressed that he
+was in trade; he longed to get somewhere far away from this routine,
+and he felt dreary at the thought that he would have to read the
+evening service that day. The wind blew straight into his face and
+soughed in his collar; and it seemed as though it were whispering
+to him all these thoughts, bringing them from the broad white plain
+. . . . Looking at that plain, familiar to him from childhood, Yakov
+remembered that he had had just this same trouble and these same
+thoughts in his young days when dreams and imaginings had come upon
+him and his faith had wavered.
+
+He felt miserable at being alone in the open country; he turned
+back and drove slowly after the sledges, and the women laughed and
+said:
+
+"Godly has turned back."
+
+At home nothing had been cooked and the samovar was not heated on
+account of the fast, and this made the day seem very long. Yakov
+Ivanitch had long ago taken the horse to the stable, dispatched the
+flour to the station, and twice taken up the Psalms to read, and
+yet the evening was still far off. Aglaia has already washed all
+the floors, and, having nothing to do, was tidying up her chest,
+the lid of which was pasted over on the inside with labels off
+bottles. Matvey, hungry and melancholy, sat reading, or went up to
+the Dutch stove and slowly scrutinized the tiles which reminded him
+of the factory. Dashutka was asleep; then, waking up, she went to
+take water to the cattle. When she was getting water from the well
+the cord broke and the pail fell in. The labourer began looking for
+a boathook to get the pail out, and Dashutka, barefooted, with legs
+as red as a goose's, followed him about in the muddy snow, repeating:
+"It's too far!" She meant to say that the well was too deep for the
+hook to reach the bottom, but the labourer did not understand her,
+and evidently she bothered him, so that he suddenly turned around
+and abused her in unseemly language. Yakov Ivanitch, coming out
+that moment into the yard, heard Dashutka answer the labourer in a
+long rapid stream of choice abuse, which she could only have learned
+from drunken peasants in the tavern.
+
+"What are you saying, shameless girl!" he cried to her, and he was
+positively aghast. "What language!"
+
+And she looked at her father in perplexity, dully, not understanding
+why she should not use those words. He would have admonished her,
+but she struck him as so savage and benighted; and for the first
+time he realized that she had no religion. And all this life in the
+forest, in the snow, with drunken peasants, with coarse oaths,
+seemed to him as savage and benighted as this girl, and instead of
+giving her a lecture he only waved his hand and went back into the
+room.
+
+At that moment the policeman and Sergey Nikanoritch came in again
+to see Matvey. Yakov Ivanitch thought that these people, too, had
+no religion, and that that did not trouble them in the least; and
+human life began to seem to him as strange, senseless and unenlightened
+as a dog's. Bareheaded he walked about the yard, then he went out
+on to the road, clenching his fists. Snow was falling in big flakes
+at the time. His beard was blown about in the wind. He kept shaking
+his head, as though there were something weighing upon his head and
+shoulders, as though devils were sitting on them; and it seemed to
+him that it was not himself walking about, but some wild beast, a
+huge terrible beast, and that if he were to cry out his voice would
+be a roar that would sound all over the forest and the plain, and
+would frighten everyone. . . .
+
+V
+
+When he went back into the house the policeman was no longer there,
+but the waiter was sitting with Matvey, counting something on the
+reckoning beads. He was in the habit of coming often, almost every
+day, to the tavern; in old days he had come to see Yakov Ivanitch,
+now he came to see Matvey. He was continually reckoning on the
+beads, while his face perspired and looked strained, or he would
+ask for money or, stroking his whiskers, would describe how he had
+once been in a first-class station and used to prepare champagne-punch
+for officers, and at grand dinners served the sturgeon-soup with
+his own hands. Nothing in this world interested him but refreshment
+bars, and he could only talk about things to eat, about wines and
+the paraphernalia of the dinner-table. On one occasion, handing a
+cup of tea to a young woman who was nursing her baby and wishing
+to say something agreeable to her, he expressed himself in this
+way:
+
+"The mother's breast is the baby's refreshment bar."
+
+Reckoning with the beads in Matvey's room, he asked for money; said
+he could not go on living at Progonnaya, and several times repeated
+in a tone of voice that sounded as though he were just going to
+cry:
+
+"Where am I to go? Where am I to go now? Tell me that, please."
+
+Then Matvey went into the kitchen and began peeling some boiled
+potatoes which he had probably put away from the day before. It was
+quiet, and it seemed to Yakov Ivanitch that the waiter was gone.
+It was past the time for evening service; he called Aglaia, and,
+thinking there was no one else in the house sang out aloud without
+embarrassment. He sang and read, but was inwardly pronouncing other
+words, "Lord, forgive me! Lord, save me!" and, one after another,
+without ceasing, he made low bows to the ground as though he wanted
+to exhaust himself, and he kept shaking his head, so that Aglaia
+looked at him with wonder. He was afraid Matvey would come in, and
+was certain that he would come in, and felt an anger against him
+which he could overcome neither by prayer nor by continually bowing
+down to the ground.
+
+Matvey opened the door very softly and went into the prayer-room.
+
+"It's a sin, such a sin!" he said reproachfully, and heaved a sigh.
+"Repent! Think what you are doing, brother!"
+
+Yakov Ivanitch, clenching his fists and not looking at him for fear
+of striking him, went quickly out of the room. Feeling himself a
+huge terrible wild beast, just as he had done before on the road,
+he crossed the passage into the grey, dirty room, reeking with smoke
+and fog, in which the peasants usually drank tea, and there he spent
+a long time walking from one corner to the other, treading heavily,
+so that the crockery jingled on the shelves and the tables shook.
+It was clear to him now that he was himself dissatisfied with his
+religion, and could not pray as he used to do. He must repent, he
+must think things over, reconsider, live and pray in some other
+way. But how pray? And perhaps all this was a temptation of the
+devil, and nothing of this was necessary? . . . How was it to be?
+What was he to do? Who could guide him? What helplessness! He stopped
+and, clutching at his head, began to think, but Matvey's being near
+him prevented him from reflecting calmly. And he went rapidly into
+the room.
+
+Matvey was sitting in the kitchen before a bowl of potato, eating.
+Close by, near the stove, Aglaia and Dashutka were sitting facing
+one another, spinning yarn. Between the stove and the table at which
+Matvey was sitting was stretched an ironing-board; on it stood a
+cold iron.
+
+"Sister," Matvey asked, "let me have a little oil!"
+
+"Who eats oil on a day like this?" asked Aglaia.
+
+"I am not a monk, sister, but a layman. And in my weak health I may
+take not only oil but milk."
+
+"Yes, at the factory you may have anything."
+
+Aglaia took a bottle of Lenten oil from the shelf and banged it
+angrily down before Matvey, with a malignant smile evidently pleased
+that he was such a sinner.
+
+"But I tell you, you can't eat oil!" shouted Yakov.
+
+Aglaia and Dashutka started, but Matvey poured the oil into the
+bowl and went on eating as though he had not heard.
+
+"I tell you, you can't eat oil!" Yakov shouted still more loudly;
+he turned red all over, snatched up the bowl, lifted it higher than
+his head, and dashed it with all his force to the ground, so that
+it flew into fragments. "Don't dare to speak!" he cried in a furious
+voice, though Matvey had not said a word. "Don't dare!" he repeated,
+and struck his fist on the table.
+
+Matvey turned pale and got up.
+
+"Brother!" he said, still munching--"brother, think what you are
+about!"
+
+"Out of my house this minute!" shouted Yakov; he loathed Matvey's
+wrinkled face, and his voice, and the crumbs on his moustache, and
+the fact that he was munching. "Out, I tell you!"
+
+"Brother, calm yourself! The pride of hell has confounded you!"
+
+"Hold your tongue!" (Yakov stamped.) "Go away, you devil!"
+
+"If you care to know," Matvey went on in a loud voice, as he, too,
+began to get angry, "you are a backslider from God and a heretic.
+The accursed spirits have hidden the true light from you; your
+prayer is not acceptable to God. Repent before it is too late! The
+deathbed of the sinner is terrible! Repent, brother!"
+
+Yakov seized him by the shoulders and dragged him away from the
+table, while he turned whiter than ever, and frightened and bewildered,
+began muttering, "What is it? What's the matter?" and, struggling
+and making efforts to free himself from Yakov's hands, he accidentally
+caught hold of his shirt near the neck and tore the collar; and it
+seemed to Aglaia that he was trying to beat Yakov. She uttered a
+shriek, snatched up the bottle of Lenten oil and with all her force
+brought it down straight on the skull of the cousin she hated.
+Matvey reeled, and in one instant his face became calm and indifferent.
+Yakov, breathing heavily, excited, and feeling pleasure at the
+gurgle the bottle had made, like a living thing, when it had struck
+the head, kept him from falling and several times (he remembered
+this very distinctly) motioned Aglaia towards the iron with his
+finger; and only when the blood began trickling through his hands
+and he heard Dashutka's loud wail, and when the ironing-board fell
+with a crash, and Matvey rolled heavily on it, Yakov left off feeling
+anger and understood what had happened.
+
+"Let him rot, the factory buck!" Aglaia brought out with repulsion,
+still keeping the iron in her hand. The white bloodstained kerchief
+slipped on to her shoulders and her grey hair fell in disorder.
+"He's got what he deserved!"
+
+Everything was terrible. Dashutka sat on the floor near the stove
+with the yarn in her hands, sobbing, and continually bowing down,
+uttering at each bow a gasping sound. But nothing was so terrible
+to Yakov as the potato in the blood, on which he was afraid of
+stepping, and there was something else terrible which weighed upon
+him like a bad dream and seemed the worst danger, though he could
+not take it in for the first minute. This was the waiter, Sergey
+Nikanoritch, who was standing in the doorway with the reckoning
+beads in his hands, very pale, looking with horror at what was
+happening in the kitchen. Only when he turned and went quickly into
+the passage and from there outside, Yakov grasped who it was and
+followed him.
+
+Wiping his hands on the snow as he went, he reflected. The idea
+flashed through his mind that their labourer had gone away long
+before and had asked leave to stay the night at home in the village;
+the day before they had killed a pig, and there were huge bloodstains
+in the snow and on the sledge, and even one side of the top of the
+well was splattered with blood, so that it could not have seemed
+suspicious even if the whole of Yakov's family had been stained
+with blood. To conceal the murder would be agonizing, but for the
+policeman, who would whistle and smile ironically, to come from the
+station, for the peasants to arrive and bind Yakov's and Aglaia's
+hands, and take them solemnly to the district courthouse and from
+there to the town, while everyone on the way would point at them
+and say mirthfully, "They are taking the Godlies!"--this seemed
+to Yakov more agonizing than anything, and he longed to lengthen
+out the time somehow, so as to endure this shame not now, but later,
+in the future.
+
+"I can lend you a thousand roubles, . . ." he said, overtaking
+Sergey Nikanoritch. "If you tell anyone, it will do no good. . . .
+There's no bringing the man back, anyway;" and with difficulty
+keeping up with the waiter, who did not look round, but tried to
+walk away faster than ever, he went on: "I can give you fifteen
+hundred. . . ."
+
+He stopped because he was out of breath, while Sergey Nikanoritch
+walked on as quickly as ever, probably afraid that he would be
+killed, too. Only after passing the railway crossing and going half
+the way from the crossing to the station, he furtively looked round
+and walked more slowly. Lights, red and green, were already gleaming
+in the station and along the line; the wind had fallen, but flakes
+of snow were still coming down and the road had turned white again.
+But just at the station Sergey Nikanoritch stopped, thought a minute,
+and turned resolutely back. It was growing dark.
+
+"Oblige me with the fifteen hundred, Yakov Ivanitch," he said,
+trembling all over. "I agree."
+
+VI
+
+Yakov Ivanitch's money was in the bank of the town and was invested
+in second mortgages; he only kept a little at home, Just what was
+wanted for necessary expenses. Going into the kitchen he felt for
+the matchbox, and while the sulphur was burning with a blue light
+he had time to make out the figure of Matvey, which was still lying
+on the floor near the table, but now it was covered with a white
+sheet, and nothing could be seen but his boots. A cricket was
+chirruping. Aglaia and Dashutka were not in the room, they were
+both sitting behind the counter in the tea-room, spinning yarn in
+silence. Yakov Ivanitch crossed to his own room with a little lamp
+in his hand, and pulled from under the bed a little box in which
+he kept his money. This time there were in it four hundred and
+twenty one-rouble notes and silver to the amount of thirty-five
+roubles; the notes had an unpleasant heavy smell. Putting the money
+together in his cap, Yakov Ivanitch went out into the yard and then
+out of the gate. He walked, looking from side to side, but there
+was no sign of the waiter.
+
+"Hi!" cried Yakov.
+
+A dark figure stepped out from the barrier at the railway crossing
+and came irresolutely towards him.
+
+"Why do you keep walking about?" said Yakov with vexation, as he
+recognized the waiter. "Here you are; there is a little less than
+five hundred. . . . I've no more in the house."
+
+"Very well; . . . very grateful to you," muttered Sergey Nikanoritch,
+taking the money greedily and stuffing it into his pockets. He was
+trembling all over, and that was perceptible in spite of the darkness.
+"Don't worry yourself, Yakov Ivanitch. . . . What should I chatter
+for: I came and went away, that's all I've had to do with it. As
+the saying is, I know nothing and I can tell nothing . . ." And at
+once he added with a sigh "Cursed life!"
+
+For a minute they stood in silence, without looking at each other.
+
+"So it all came from a trifle, goodness knows how, . . ." said the
+waiter, trembling. "I was sitting counting to myself when all at
+once a noise. . . . I looked through the door, and just on account
+of Lenten oil you. . . . Where is he now?"
+
+"Lying there in the kitchen."
+
+"You ought to take him somewhere. . . . Why put it off?"
+
+Yakov accompanied him to the station without a word, then went home
+again and harnessed the horse to take Matvey to Limarovo. He had
+decided to take him to the forest of Limarovo, and to leave him
+there on the road, and then he would tell everyone that Matvey had
+gone off to Vedenyapino and had not come back, and then everyone
+would think that he had been killed by someone on the road. He knew
+there was no deceiving anyone by this, but to move, to do something,
+to be active, was not as agonizing as to sit still and wait. He
+called Dashutka, and with her carried Matvey out. Aglaia stayed
+behind to clean up the kitchen.
+
+When Yakov and Dashutka turned back they were detained at the railway
+crossing by the barrier being let down. A long goods train was
+passing, dragged by two engines, breathing heavily, and flinging
+puffs of crimson fire out of their funnels.
+
+The foremost engine uttered a piercing whistle at the crossing in
+sight of the station.
+
+"It's whistling, . . ." said Dashutka.
+
+The train had passed at last, and the signalman lifted the barrier
+without haste.
+
+"Is that you, Yakov Ivanitch? I didn't know you, so you'll be rich."
+
+And then when they had reached home they had to go to bed.
+
+Aglaia and Dashutka made themselves a bed in the tea-room and lay
+down side by side, while Yakov stretched himself on the counter.
+They neither said their prayers nor lighted the ikon lamp before
+lying down to sleep. All three lay awake till morning, but did not
+utter a single word, and it seemed to them that all night someone
+was walking about in the empty storey overhead.
+
+Two days later a police inspector and the examining magistrate came
+from the town and made a search, first in Matvey's room and then
+in the whole tavern. They questioned Yakov first of all, and he
+testified that on the Monday Matvey had gone to Vedenyapino to
+confess, and that he must have been killed by the sawyers who were
+working on the line.
+
+And when the examining magistrate had asked him how it had happened
+that Matvey was found on the road, while his cap had turned up at
+home--surely he had not gone to Vedenyapino without his cap?--
+and why they had not found a single drop of blood beside him in the
+snow on the road, though his head was smashed in and his face and
+chest were black with blood, Yakov was confused, lost his head and
+answered:
+
+"I cannot tell."
+
+And just what Yakov had so feared happened: the policeman came, the
+district police officer smoked in the prayer-room and Aglaia fell
+upon him with abuse and was rude to the police inspector; and
+afterwards when Yakov and Aglaia were led out to the yard, the
+peasants crowded at the gates and said, "They are taking the Godlies!"
+and it seemed that they were all glad.
+
+At the inquiry the policeman stated positively that Yakov and Aglaia
+had killed Matvey in order not to share with him, and that Matvey
+had money of his own, and that if it was not found at the search
+evidently Yakov and Aglaia had got hold of it. And Dashutka was
+questioned. She said that Uncle Matvey and Aunt Aglaia quarrelled
+and almost fought every day over money, and that Uncle Matvey was
+rich, so much so that he had given someone--"his Darling"--nine
+hundred roubles.
+
+Dashutka was left alone in the tavern. No one came now to drink tea
+or vodka, and she divided her time between cleaning up the rooms,
+drinking mead and eating rolls; but a few days later they questioned
+the signalman at the railway crossing, and he said that late on
+Monday evening he had seen Yakov and Dashutka driving from Limarovo.
+Dashutka, too, was arrested, taken to the town and put in prison.
+It soon became known, from what Aglaia said, that Sergey Nikanoritch
+had been present at the murder. A search was made in his room, and
+money was found in an unusual place, in his snowboots under the
+stove, and the money was all in small change, three hundred one-rouble
+notes. He swore he had made this money himself, and that he hadn't
+been in the tavern for a year, but witnesses testified that he was
+poor and had been in great want of money of late, and that he used
+to go every day to the tavern to borrow from Matvey; and the policeman
+described how on the day of the murder he had himself gone twice
+to the tavern with the waiter to help him to borrow. It was recalled
+at this juncture that on Monday evening Sergey Nikanoritch had not
+been there to meet the passenger train, but had gone off somewhere.
+And he, too, was arrested and taken to the town.
+
+The trial took place eleven months later.
+
+Yakov Ivanitch looked much older and much thinner, and spoke in a
+low voice like a sick man. He felt weak, pitiful, lower in stature
+that anyone else, and it seemed as though his soul, too, like his
+body, had grown older and wasted, from the pangs of his conscience
+and from the dreams and imaginings which never left him all the
+while he was in prison. When it came out that he did not go to
+church the president of the court asked him:
+
+"Are you a dissenter?"
+
+"I can't tell," he answered.
+
+He had no religion at all now; he knew nothing and understood
+nothing; and his old belief was hateful to him now, and seemed to
+him darkness and folly. Aglaia was not in the least subdued, and
+she still went on abusing the dead man, blaming him for all their
+misfortunes. Sergey Nikanoritch had grown a beard instead of whiskers.
+At the trial he was red and perspiring, and was evidently ashamed
+of his grey prison coat and of sitting on the same bench with humble
+peasants. He defended himself awkwardly, and, trying to prove that
+he had not been to the tavern for a whole year, got into an altercation
+with every witness, and the spectators laughed at him. Dashutka had
+grown fat in prison. At the trial she did not understand the questions
+put to her, and only said that when they killed Uncle Matvey she
+was dreadfully frightened, but afterwards she did not mind.
+
+All four were found guilty of murder with mercenary motives. Yakov
+Ivanitch was sentenced to penal servitude for twenty years; Aglaia
+for thirteen and a half; Sergey Nikanoritch to ten; Dashutka to
+six.
+
+VII
+
+Late one evening a foreign steamer stopped in the roads of Dué in
+Sahalin and asked for coal. The captain was asked to wait till
+morning, but he did not want to wait over an hour, saying that if
+the weather changed for the worse in the night there would be a
+risk of his having to go off without coal. In the Gulf of Tartary
+the weather is liable to violent changes in the course of half an
+hour, and then the shores of Sahalin are dangerous. And already it
+had turned fresh, and there was a considerable sea running.
+
+A gang of convicts were sent to the mine from the Voevodsky prison,
+the grimmest and most forbidding of all the prisons in Sahalin. The
+coal had to be loaded upon barges, and then they had to be towed
+by a steam-cutter alongside the steamer which was anchored more
+than a quarter of a mile from the coast, and then the unloading and
+reloading had to begin--an exhausting task when the barge kept
+rocking against the steamer and the men could scarcely keep on their
+legs for sea-sickness. The convicts, only just roused from their
+sleep, still drowsy, went along the shore, stumbling in the darkness
+and clanking their fetters. On the left, scarcely visible, was a
+tall, steep, extremely gloomy-looking cliff, while on the right
+there was a thick impenetrable mist, in which the sea moaned with
+a prolonged monotonous sound, "Ah! . . . ah! . . . ah! . . . ah!
+. . ." And it was only when the overseer was lighting his pipe,
+casting as he did so a passing ray of light on the escort with a
+gun and on the coarse faces of two or three of the nearest convicts,
+or when he went with his lantern close to the water that the white
+crests of the foremost waves could be discerned.
+
+One of this gang was Yakov Ivanitch, nicknamed among the convicts
+the "Brush," on account of his long beard. No one had addressed him
+by his name or his father's name for a long time now; they called
+him simply Yashka.
+
+He was here in disgrace, as, three months after coming to Siberia,
+feeling an intense irresistible longing for home, he had succumbed
+to temptation and run away; he had soon been caught, had been
+sentenced to penal servitude for life and given forty lashes. Then
+he was punished by flogging twice again for losing his prison
+clothes, though on each occasion they were stolen from him. The
+longing for home had begun from the very time he had been brought
+to Odessa, and the convict train had stopped in the night at
+Progonnaya; and Yakov, pressing to the window, had tried to see his
+own home, and could see nothing in the darkness. He had no one with
+whom to talk of home. His sister Aglaia had been sent right across
+Siberia, and he did not know where she was now. Dashutka was in
+Sahalin, but she had been sent to live with some ex-convict in a
+far away settlement; there was no news of her except that once a
+settler who had come to the Voevodsky Prison told Yakov that Dashutka
+had three children. Sergey Nikanoritch was serving as a footman at
+a government official's at Dué, but he could not reckon on ever
+seeing him, as he was ashamed of being acquainted with convicts of
+the peasant class.
+
+The gang reached the mine, and the men took their places on the
+quay. It was said there would not be any loading, as the weather
+kept getting worse and the steamer was meaning to set off. They
+could see three lights. One of them was moving: that was the
+steam-cutter going to the steamer, and it seemed to be coming back
+to tell them whether the work was to be done or not. Shivering with
+the autumn cold and the damp sea mist, wrapping himself in his short
+torn coat, Yakov Ivanitch looked intently without blinking in the
+direction in which lay his home. Ever since he had lived in prison
+together with men banished here from all ends of the earth--with
+Russians, Ukrainians, Tatars, Georgians, Chinese, Gypsies, Jews--
+and ever since he had listened to their talk and watched their
+sufferings, he had begun to turn again to God, and it seemed to him
+at last that he had learned the true faith for which all his family,
+from his grandmother Avdotya down, had so thirsted, which they had
+sought so long and which they had never found. He knew it all now
+and understood where God was, and how He was to be served, and the
+only thing he could not understand was why men's destinies were so
+diverse, why this simple faith which other men receive from God for
+nothing and together with their lives, had cost him such a price
+that his arms and legs trembled like a drunken man's from all the
+horrors and agonies which as far as he could see would go on without
+a break to the day of his death. He looked with strained eyes into
+the darkness, and it seemed to him that through the thousand miles
+of that mist he could see home, could see his native province, his
+district, Progonnaya, could see the darkness, the savagery, the
+heartlessness, and the dull, sullen, animal indifference of the men
+he had left there. His eyes were dimmed with tears; but still he
+gazed into the distance where the pale lights of the steamer faintly
+gleamed, and his heart ached with yearning for home, and he longed
+to live, to go back home to tell them there of his new faith and
+to save from ruin if only one man, and to live without suffering
+if only for one day.
+
+The cutter arrived, and the overseer announced in a loud voice that
+there would be no loading.
+
+"Back!" he commanded. "Steady!"
+
+They could hear the hoisting of the anchor chain on the steamer. A
+strong piercing wind was blowing by now; somewhere on the steep
+cliff overhead the trees were creaking. Most likely a storm was
+coming.
+
+
+UPROOTED
+
+_An Incident of My Travels_
+
+I WAS on my way back from evening service. The clock in the belfry
+of the Svyatogorsky Monastery pealed out its soft melodious chimes
+by way of prelude and then struck twelve. The great courtyard of
+the monastery stretched out at the foot of the Holy Mountains on
+the banks of the Donets, and, enclosed by the high hostel buildings
+as by a wall, seemed now in the night, when it was lighted up only
+by dim lanterns, lights in the windows, and the stars, a living
+hotch-potch full of movement, sound, and the most original confusion.
+From end to end, so far as the eye could see, it was all choked up
+with carts, old-fashioned coaches and chaises, vans, tilt-carts,
+about which stood crowds of horses, dark and white, and horned oxen,
+while people bustled about, and black long-skirted lay brothers
+threaded their way in and out in all directions. Shadows and streaks
+of light cast from the windows moved over the carts and the heads
+of men and horses, and in the dense twilight this all assumed the
+most monstrous capricious shapes: here the tilted shafts stretched
+upwards to the sky, here eyes of fire appeared in the face of a
+horse, there a lay brother grew a pair of black wings. . . . There
+was the noise of talk, the snorting and munching of horses, the
+creaking of carts, the whimpering of children. Fresh crowds kept
+walking in at the gate and belated carts drove up.
+
+The pines which were piled up on the overhanging mountain, one above
+another, and leaned towards the roof of the hostel, gazed into the
+courtyard as into a deep pit, and listened in wonder; in their dark
+thicket the cuckoos and nightingales never ceased calling. . . .
+Looking at the confusion, listening to the uproar, one fancied that
+in this living hotch-potch no one understood anyone, that everyone
+was looking for something and would not find it, and that this
+multitude of carts, chaises and human beings could not ever succeed
+in getting off.
+
+More than ten thousand people flocked to the Holy Mountains for the
+festivals of St. John the Divine and St. Nikolay the wonder-worker.
+Not only the hostel buildings, but even the bakehouse, the tailoring
+room, the carpenter's shop, the carriage house, were filled to
+overflowing. . . . Those who had arrived towards night clustered
+like flies in autumn, by the walls, round the wells in the yard,
+or in the narrow passages of the hostel, waiting to be shown a
+resting-place for the night. The lay brothers, young and old, were
+in an incessant movement, with no rest or hope of being relieved.
+By day or late at night they produced the same impression of men
+hastening somewhere and agitated by something, yet, in spite of
+their extreme exhaustion, their faces remained full of courage and
+kindly welcome, their voices friendly, their movements rapid. . . .
+For everyone who came they had to find a place to sleep, and to
+provide food and drink; to those who were deaf, slow to understand,
+or profuse in questions, they had to give long and wearisome
+explanations, to tell them why there were no empty rooms, at what
+o'clock the service was to be where holy bread was sold, and so on.
+They had to run, to carry, to talk incessantly, but more than that,
+they had to be polite, too, to be tactful, to try to arrange that
+the Greeks from Mariupol, accustomed to live more comfortably than
+the Little Russians, should be put with other Greeks, that some
+shopkeeper from Bahmut or Lisitchansk, dressed like a lady, should
+not be offended by being put with peasants. There were continual
+cries of: "Father, kindly give us some kvass! Kindly give us some
+hay!" or "Father, may I drink water after confession?" And the lay
+brother would have to give out kvass or hay or to answer: "Address
+yourself to the priest, my good woman, we have not the authority
+to give permission." Another question would follow, "Where is the
+priest then?" and the lay brother would have to explain where was
+the priest's cell. With all this bustling activity, he yet had to
+make time to go to service in the church, to serve in the part
+devoted to the gentry, and to give full answers to the mass of
+necessary and unnecessary questions which pilgrims of the educated
+class are fond of showering about them. Watching them during the
+course of twenty-four hours, I found it hard to imagine when these
+black moving figures sat down and when they slept.
+
+When, coming back from the evening service, I went to the hostel
+in which a place had been assigned me, the monk in charge of the
+sleeping quarters was standing in the doorway, and beside him, on
+the steps, was a group of several men and women dressed like
+townsfolk.
+
+"Sir," said the monk, stopping me, "will you be so good as to allow
+this young man to pass the night in your room? If you would do us
+the favour! There are so many people and no place left--it is
+really dreadful!"
+
+And he indicated a short figure in a light overcoat and a straw
+hat. I consented, and my chance companion followed me. Unlocking
+the little padlock on my door, I was always, whether I wanted to
+or not, obliged to look at the picture that hung on the doorpost
+on a level with my face. This picture with the title, "A Meditation
+on Death," depicted a monk on his knees, gazing at a coffin and at
+a skeleton laying in it. Behind the man's back stood another skeleton,
+somewhat more solid and carrying a scythe.
+
+"There are no bones like that," said my companion, pointing to the
+place in the skeleton where there ought to have been a pelvis.
+"Speaking generally, you know, the spiritual fare provided for the
+people is not of the first quality," he added, and heaved through
+his nose a long and very melancholy sigh, meant to show me that I
+had to do with a man who really knew something about spiritual fare.
+
+While I was looking for the matches to light a candle he sighed
+once more and said:
+
+"When I was in Harkov I went several times to the anatomy theatre
+and saw the bones there; I have even been in the mortuary. Am I not
+in your way?"
+
+My room was small and poky, with neither table nor chairs in it,
+but quite filled up with a chest of drawers by the window, the stove
+and two little wooden sofas which stood against the walls, facing
+one another, leaving a narrow space to walk between them. Thin
+rusty-looking little mattresses lay on the little sofas, as well
+as my belongings. There were two sofas, so this room was evidently
+intended for two, and I pointed out the fact to my companion.
+
+"They will soon be ringing for mass, though," he said, "and I shan't
+have to be in your way very long."
+
+Still under the impression that he was in my way and feeling awkward,
+he moved with a guilty step to his little sofa, sighed guiltily and
+sat down. When the tallow candle with its dim, dilatory flame had
+left off flickering and burned up sufficiently to make us both
+visible, I could make out what he was like. He was a young man of
+two-and-twenty, with a round and pleasing face, dark childlike eyes,
+dressed like a townsman in grey cheap clothes, and as one could
+judge from his complexion and narrow shoulders, not used to manual
+labour. He was of a very indefinite type; one could take him neither
+for a student nor for a man in trade, still less for a workman. But
+looking at his attractive face and childlike friendly eyes, I was
+unwilling to believe he was one of those vagabond impostors with
+whom every conventual establishment where they give food and lodging
+is flooded, and who give themselves out as divinity students,
+expelled for standing up for justice, or for church singers who
+have lost their voice. . . . There was something characteristic,
+typical, very familiar in his face, but what exactly, I could not
+remember nor make out.
+
+For a long time he sat silent, pondering. Probably because I had
+not shown appreciation of his remarks about bones and the mortuary,
+he thought that I was ill-humoured and displeased at his presence.
+Pulling a sausage out of his pocket, he turned it about before his
+eyes and said irresolutely:
+
+"Excuse my troubling you, . . . have you a knife?"
+
+I gave him a knife.
+
+"The sausage is disgusting," he said, frowning and cutting himself
+off a little bit. "In the shop here they sell you rubbish and fleece
+you horribly. . . . I would offer you a piece, but you would scarcely
+care to consume it. Will you have some?"
+
+In his language, too, there was something typical that had a very
+great deal in common with what was characteristic in his face, but
+what it was exactly I still could not decide. To inspire confidence
+and to show that I was not ill-humoured, I took some of the proffered
+sausage. It certainly was horrible; one needed the teeth of a good
+house-dog to deal with it. As we worked our jaws we got into
+conversation; we began complaining to each other of the lengthiness
+of the service.
+
+"The rule here approaches that of Mount Athos," I said; "but at
+Athos the night services last ten hours, and on great feast-days
+--fourteen! You should go there for prayers!"
+
+"Yes," answered my companion, and he wagged his head, "I have been
+here for three weeks. And you know, every day services, every day
+services. On ordinary days at midnight they ring for matins, at
+five o'clock for early mass, at nine o'clock for late mass. Sleep
+is utterly out of the question. In the daytime there are hymns of
+praise, special prayers, vespers. . . . And when I was preparing
+for the sacrament I was simply dropping from exhaustion." He sighed
+and went on: "And it's awkward not to go to church. . . . The monks
+give one a room, feed one, and, you know, one is ashamed not to go.
+One wouldn't mind standing it for a day or two, perhaps, but three
+weeks is too much--much too much! Are you here for long?"
+
+"I am going to-morrow evening."
+
+"But I am staying another fortnight."
+
+"But I thought it was not the rule to stay for so long here?" I
+said.
+
+"Yes, that's true: if anyone stays too long, sponging on the monks,
+he is asked to go. Judge for yourself, if the proletariat were
+allowed to stay on here as long as they liked there would never be
+a room vacant, and they would eat up the whole monastery. That's
+true. But the monks make an exception for me, and I hope they won't
+turn me out for some time. You know I am a convert."
+
+"You mean?"
+
+"I am a Jew baptized. . . . Only lately I have embraced orthodoxy."
+
+Now I understood what I had before been utterly unable to understand
+from his face: his thick lips, and his way of twitching up the right
+corner of his mouth and his right eyebrow, when he was talking, and
+that peculiar oily brilliance of his eyes which is only found in
+Jews. I understood, too, his phraseology. . . . From further
+conversation I learned that his name was Alexandr Ivanitch, and had
+in the past been Isaac, that he was a native of the Mogilev province,
+and that he had come to the Holy Mountains from Novotcherkassk,
+where he had adopted the orthodox faith.
+
+Having finished his sausage, Alexandr Ivanitch got up, and, raising
+his right eyebrow, said his prayer before the ikon. The eyebrow
+remained up when he sat down again on the little sofa and began
+giving me a brief account of his long biography.
+
+"From early childhood I cherished a love for learning," he began
+in a tone which suggested he was not speaking of himself, but of
+some great man of the past. "My parents were poor Hebrews; they
+exist by buying and selling in a small way; they live like beggars,
+you know, in filth. In fact, all the people there are poor and
+superstitious; they don't like education, because education, very
+naturally, turns a man away from religion. . . . They are fearful
+fanatics. . . . Nothing would induce my parents to let me be educated,
+and they wanted me to take to trade, too, and to know nothing but
+the Talmud. . . . But you will agree, it is not everyone who can
+spend his whole life struggling for a crust of bread, wallowing in
+filth, and mumbling the Talmud. At times officers and country
+gentlemen would put up at papa's inn, and they used to talk a great
+deal of things which in those days I had never dreamed of; and, of
+course, it was alluring and moved me to envy. I used to cry and
+entreat them to send me to school, but they taught me to read Hebrew
+and nothing more. Once I found a Russian newspaper, and took it
+home with me to make a kite of it. I was beaten for it, though I
+couldn't read Russian. Of course, fanaticism is inevitable, for
+every people instinctively strives to preserve its nationality, but
+I did not know that then and was very indignant. . . ."
+
+Having made such an intellectual observation, Isaac, as he had been,
+raised his right eyebrow higher than ever in his satisfaction and
+looked at me, as it were, sideways, like a cock at a grain of corn,
+with an air as though he would say: "Now at last you see for certain
+that I am an intellectual man, don't you?" After saying something
+more about fanaticism and his irresistible yearning for enlightenment,
+he went on:
+
+"What could I do? I ran away to Smolensk. And there I had a cousin
+who relined saucepans and made tins. Of course, I was glad to work
+under him, as I had nothing to live upon; I was barefoot and in
+rags. . . . I thought I could work by day and study at night and
+on Saturdays. And so I did, but the police found out I had no
+passport and sent me back by stages to my father. . . ."
+
+Alexandr Ivanitch shrugged one shoulder and sighed.
+
+"What was one to do?" he went on, and the more vividly the past
+rose up before his mind, the more marked his Jewish accent became.
+"My parents punished me and handed me over to my grandfather, a
+fanatical old Jew, to be reformed. But I went off at night to Shklov.
+And when my uncle tried to catch me in Shklov, I went off to Mogilev;
+there I stayed two days and then I went off to Starodub with a
+comrade."
+
+Later on he mentioned in his story Gonel, Kiev, Byelaya, Tserkov,
+Uman, Balt, Bendery and at last reached Odessa.
+
+"In Odessa I wandered about for a whole week, out of work and hungry,
+till I was taken in by some Jews who went about the town buying
+second-hand clothes. I knew how to read and write by then, and had
+done arithmetic up to fractions, and I wanted to go to study
+somewhere, but I had not the means. What was I to do? For six months
+I went about Odessa buying old clothes, but the Jews paid me no
+wages, the rascals. I resented it and left them. Then I went by
+steamer to Perekop."
+
+"What for?"
+
+"Oh, nothing. A Greek promised me a job there. In short, till I was
+sixteen I wandered about like that with no definite work and no
+roots till I got to Poltava. There a student, a Jew, found out that
+I wanted to study, and gave me a letter to the Harkov students. Of
+course, I went to Harkov. The students consulted together and began
+to prepare me for the technical school. And, you know, I must say
+the students that I met there were such that I shall never forget
+them to the day of my death. To say nothing of their giving me food
+and lodging, they set me on the right path, they made me think,
+showed me the object of life. Among them were intellectual remarkable
+people who by now are celebrated. For instance, you have heard of
+Grumaher, haven't you?"
+
+"No, I haven't."
+
+"You haven't! He wrote very clever articles in the _Harkov Gazette_,
+and was preparing to be a professor. Well, I read a great deal and
+attended the student's societies, where you hear nothing that is
+commonplace. I was working up for six months, but as one has to
+have been through the whole high-school course of mathematics to
+enter the technical school, Grumaher advised me to try for the
+veterinary institute, where they admit high-school boys from the
+sixth form. Of course, I began working for it. I did not want to
+be a veterinary surgeon but they told me that after finishing the
+course at the veterinary institute I should be admitted to the
+faculty of medicine without examination. I learnt all Kühner; I
+could read Cornelius Nepos, _à livre ouvert_; and in Greek I read
+through almost all Curtius. But, you know, one thing and another,
+. . . the students leaving and the uncertainty of my position, and
+then I heard that my mamma had come and was looking for me all over
+Harkov. Then I went away. What was I to do? But luckily I learned
+that there was a school of mines here on the Donets line. Why should
+I not enter that? You know the school of mines qualifies one as a
+mining foreman--a splendid berth. I know of mines where the foremen
+get a salary of fifteen hundred a year. Capital. . . . I entered
+it. . . ."
+
+With an expression of reverent awe on his face Alexandr Ivanitch
+enumerated some two dozen abstruse sciences in which instruction
+was given at the school of mines; he described the school itself,
+the construction of the shafts, and the condition of the miners. . . .
+Then he told me a terrible story which sounded like an invention,
+though I could not help believing it, for his tone in telling it
+was too genuine and the expression of horror on his Semitic face
+was too evidently sincere.
+
+"While I was doing the practical work, I had such an accident one
+day!" he said, raising both eyebrows. "I was at a mine here in the
+Donets district. You have seen, I dare say, how people are let down
+into the mine. You remember when they start the horse and set the
+gates moving one bucket on the pulley goes down into the mine, while
+the other comes up; when the first begins to come up, then the
+second goes down--exactly like a well with two pails. Well, one
+day I got into the bucket, began going down, and can you fancy, all
+at once I heard, Trrr! The chain had broken and I flew to the devil
+together with the bucket and the broken bit of chain. . . . I fell
+from a height of twenty feet, flat on my chest and stomach, while
+the bucket, being heavier, reached the bottom before me, and I hit
+this shoulder here against its edge. I lay, you know, stunned. I
+thought I was killed, and all at once I saw a fresh calamity: the
+other bucket, which was going up, having lost the counter-balancing
+weight, was coming down with a crash straight upon me. . . . What
+was I to do? Seeing the position, I squeezed closer to the wall,
+crouching and waiting for the bucket to come full crush next minute
+on my head. I thought of papa and mamma and Mogilev and Grumaher.
+. . . I prayed. . . . But happily . . . it frightens me even to
+think of it. . . ."
+
+Alexandr Ivanitch gave a constrained smile and rubbed his forehead
+with his hand.
+
+"But happily it fell beside me and only caught this side a little.
+. . . It tore off coat, shirt and skin, you know, from this side.
+. . . The force of it was terrific. I was unconscious after it.
+They got me out and sent me to the hospital. I was there four months,
+and the doctors there said I should go into consumption. I always
+have a cough now and a pain in my chest. And my psychic condition
+is terrible. . . . When I am alone in a room I feel overcome with
+terror. Of course, with my health in that state, to be a mining
+foreman is out of the question. I had to give up the school of
+mines. . . ."
+
+"And what are you doing now?" I asked.
+
+"I have passed my examination as a village schoolmaster. Now I
+belong to the orthodox church, and I have a right to be a teacher.
+In Novotcherkassk, where I was baptized, they took a great interest
+in me and promised me a place in a church parish school. I am going
+there in a fortnight, and shall ask again."
+
+Alexandr Ivanitch took off his overcoat and remained in a shirt
+with an embroidered Russian collar and a worsted belt.
+
+"It is time for bed," he said, folding his overcoat for a pillow,
+and yawning. "Till lately, you know, I had no knowledge of God at
+all. I was an atheist. When I was lying in the hospital I thought
+of religion, and began reflecting on that subject. In my opinion,
+there is only one religion possible for a thinking man, and that
+is the Christian religion. If you don't believe in Christ, then
+there is nothing else to believe in, . . . is there? Judaism has
+outlived its day, and is preserved only owing to the peculiarities
+of the Jewish race. When civilization reaches the Jews there will
+not be a trace of Judaism left. All young Jews are atheists now,
+observe. The New Testament is the natural continuation of the Old,
+isn't it?"
+
+I began trying to find out the reasons which had led him to take
+so grave and bold a step as the change of religion, but he kept
+repeating the same, "The New Testament is the natural continuation
+of the Old"--a formula obviously not his own, but acquired--
+which did not explain the question in the least. In spite of my
+efforts and artifices, the reasons remained obscure. If one could
+believe that he had embraced Orthodoxy from conviction, as he said
+he had done, what was the nature and foundation of this conviction
+it was impossible to grasp from his words. It was equally impossible
+to assume that he had changed his religion from interested motives:
+his cheap shabby clothes, his going on living at the expense of the
+convent, and the uncertainty of his future, did not look like
+interested motives. There was nothing for it but to accept the idea
+that my companion had been impelled to change his religion by the
+same restless spirit which had flung him like a chip of wood from
+town to town, and which he, using the generally accepted formula,
+called the craving for enlightenment.
+
+Before going to bed I went into the corridor to get a drink of
+water. When I came back my companion was standing in the middle of
+the room, and he looked at me with a scared expression. His face
+looked a greyish white, and there were drops of perspiration on his
+forehead.
+
+"My nerves are in an awful state," he muttered with a sickly smile,"
+awful! It's acute psychological disturbance. But that's of no
+consequence."
+
+And he began reasoning again that the New Testament was a natural
+continuation of the Old, that Judaism has outlived its day. . . .
+Picking out his phrases, he seemed to be trying to put together the
+forces of his conviction and to smother with them the uneasiness
+of his soul, and to prove to himself that in giving up the religion
+of his fathers he had done nothing dreadful or peculiar, but had
+acted as a thinking man free from prejudice, and that therefore he
+could boldly remain in a room all alone with his conscience. He was
+trying to convince himself, and with his eyes besought my assistance.
+
+Meanwhile a big clumsy wick had burned up on our tallow candle. It
+was by now getting light. At the gloomy little window, which was
+turning blue, we could distinctly see both banks of the Donets River
+and the oak copse beyond the river. It was time to sleep.
+
+"It will be very interesting here to-morrow," said my companion
+when I put out the candle and went to bed. "After early mass, the
+procession will go in boats from the Monastery to the Hermitage."
+
+Raising his right eyebrow and putting his head on one side, he
+prayed before the ikons, and, without undressing, lay down on his
+little sofa.
+
+"Yes," he said, turning over on the other side.
+
+"Why yes?" I asked.
+
+"When I accepted orthodoxy in Novotcherkassk my mother was looking
+for me in Rostov. She felt that I meant to change my religion," he
+sighed, and went on: "It is six years since I was there in the
+province of Mogilev. My sister must be married by now."
+
+After a short silence, seeing that I was still awake, he began
+talking quietly of how they soon, thank God, would give him a job,
+and that at last he would have a home of his own, a settled position,
+his daily bread secure. . . . And I was thinking that this man would
+never have a home of his own, nor a settled position, nor his daily
+bread secure. He dreamed aloud of a village school as of the Promised
+Land; like the majority of people, he had a prejudice against a
+wandering life, and regarded it as something exceptional, abnormal
+and accidental, like an illness, and was looking for salvation in
+ordinary workaday life. The tone of his voice betrayed that he was
+conscious of his abnormal position and regretted it. He seemed as
+it were apologizing and justifying himself.
+
+Not more than a yard from me lay a homeless wanderer; in the rooms
+of the hostels and by the carts in the courtyard among the pilgrims
+some hundreds of such homeless wanderers were waiting for the
+morning, and further away, if one could picture to oneself the whole
+of Russia, a vast multitude of such uprooted creatures was pacing
+at that moment along highroads and side-tracks, seeking something
+better, or were waiting for the dawn, asleep in wayside inns and
+little taverns, or on the grass under the open sky. . . . As I fell
+asleep I imagined how amazed and perhaps even overjoyed all these
+people would have been if reasoning and words could be found to
+prove to them that their life was as little in need of justification
+as any other. In my sleep I heard a bell ring outside as plaintively
+as though shedding bitter tears, and the lay brother calling out
+several times:
+
+"Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy upon us! Come to mass!"
+
+When I woke up my companion was not in the room. It was sunny and
+there was a murmur of the crowds through the window. Going out, I
+learned that mass was over and that the procession had set off for
+the Hermitage some time before. The people were wandering in crowds
+upon the river bank and, feeling at liberty, did not know what to
+do with themselves: they could not eat or drink, as the late mass
+was not yet over at the Hermitage; the Monastery shops where pilgrims
+are so fond of crowding and asking prices were still shut. In spite
+of their exhaustion, many of them from sheer boredom were trudging
+to the Hermitage. The path from the Monastery to the Hermitage,
+towards which I directed my steps, twined like a snake along the
+high steep bank, going up and down and threading in and out among
+the oaks and pines. Below, the Donets gleamed, reflecting the sun;
+above, the rugged chalk cliff stood up white with bright green on
+the top from the young foliage of oaks and pines, which, hanging
+one above another, managed somehow to grow on the vertical cliff
+without falling. The pilgrims trailed along the path in single file,
+one behind another. The majority of them were Little Russians from
+the neighbouring districts, but there were many from a distance,
+too, who had come on foot from the provinces of Kursk and Orel; in
+the long string of varied colours there were Greek settlers, too,
+from Mariupol, strongly built, sedate and friendly people, utterly
+unlike their weakly and degenerate compatriots who fill our southern
+seaside towns. There were men from the Donets, too, with red stripes
+on their breeches, and emigrants from the Tavritchesky province.
+There were a good many pilgrims of a nondescript class, like my
+Alexandr Ivanitch; what sort of people they were and where they
+came from it was impossible to tell from their faces, from their
+clothes, or from their speech. The path ended at the little
+landing-stage, from which a narrow road went to the left to the
+Hermitage, cutting its way through the mountain. At the landing-stage
+stood two heavy big boats of a forbidding aspect, like the New
+Zealand pirogues which one may see in the works of Jules Verne. One
+boat with rugs on the seats was destined for the clergy and the
+singers, the other without rugs for the public. When the procession
+was returning I found myself among the elect who had succeeded in
+squeezing themselves into the second. There were so many of the
+elect that the boat scarcely moved, and one had to stand all the
+way without stirring and to be careful that one's hat was not
+crushed. The route was lovely. Both banks--one high, steep and
+white, with overhanging pines and oaks, with the crowds hurrying
+back along the path, and the other shelving, with green meadows and
+an oak copse bathed in sunshine--looked as happy and rapturous
+as though the May morning owed its charm only to them. The reflection
+of the sun in the rapidly flowing Donets quivered and raced away
+in all directions, and its long rays played on the chasubles, on
+the banners and on the drops splashed up by the oars. The singing
+of the Easter hymns, the ringing of the bells, the splash of the
+oars in the water, the calls of the birds, all mingled in the air
+into something tender and harmonious. The boat with the priests and
+the banners led the way; at its helm the black figure of a lay
+brother stood motionless as a statue.
+
+When the procession was getting near the Monastery, I noticed
+Alexandr Ivanitch among the elect. He was standing in front of them
+all, and, his mouth wide open with pleasure and his right eyebrow
+cocked up, was gazing at the procession. His face was beaming;
+probably at such moments, when there were so many people round him
+and it was so bright, he was satisfied with himself, his new religion,
+and his conscience.
+
+When a little later we were sitting in our room, drinking tea, he
+still beamed with satisfaction; his face showed that he was satisfied
+both with the tea and with me, that he fully appreciated my being
+an intellectual, but that he would know how to play his part with
+credit if any intellectual topic turned up. . . .
+
+"Tell me, what psychology ought I to read?" he began an intellectual
+conversation, wrinkling up his nose.
+
+"Why, what do you want it for?"
+
+"One cannot be a teacher without a knowledge of psychology. Before
+teaching a boy I ought to understand his soul."
+
+I told him that psychology alone would not be enough to make one
+understand a boy's soul, and moreover psychology for a teacher who
+had not yet mastered the technical methods of instruction in reading,
+writing, and arithmetic would be a luxury as superfluous as the
+higher mathematics. He readily agreed with me, and began describing
+how hard and responsible was the task of a teacher, how hard it was
+to eradicate in the boy the habitual tendency to evil and superstition,
+to make him think honestly and independently, to instil into him
+true religion, the ideas of personal dignity, of freedom, and so
+on. In answer to this I said something to him. He agreed again. He
+agreed very readily, in fact. Obviously his brain had not a very
+firm grasp of all these "intellectual subjects."
+
+Up to the time of my departure we strolled together about the
+Monastery, whiling away the long hot day. He never left my side a
+minute; whether he had taken a fancy to me or was afraid of solitude,
+God only knows! I remember we sat together under a clump of yellow
+acacia in one of the little gardens that are scattered on the
+mountain side.
+
+"I am leaving here in a fortnight," he said; "it is high time."
+
+"Are you going on foot?"
+
+"From here to Slavyansk I shall walk, then by railway to Nikitovka;
+from Nikitovka the Donets line branches off, and along that branch
+line I shall walk as far as Hatsepetovka, and there a railway guard,
+I know, will help me on my way."
+
+I thought of the bare, deserted steppe between Nikitovka and
+Hatsepetovka, and pictured to myself Alexandr Ivanitch striding
+along it, with his doubts, his homesickness, and his fear of solitude
+. . . . He read boredom in my face, and sighed.
+
+"And my sister must be married by now," he said, thinking aloud,
+and at once, to shake off melancholy thoughts, pointed to the top
+of the rock and said:
+
+"From that mountain one can see Izyum."
+
+As we were walking up the mountain he had a little misfortune. I
+suppose he stumbled, for he slit his cotton trousers and tore the
+sole of his shoe.
+
+"Tss!" he said, frowning as he took off a shoe and exposed a bare
+foot without a stocking. "How unpleasant! . . . That's a complication,
+you know, which . . . Yes!"
+
+Turning the shoe over and over before his eyes, as though unable
+to believe that the sole was ruined for ever, he spent a long time
+frowning, sighing, and clicking with his tongue.
+
+I had in my trunk a pair of boots, old but fashionable, with pointed
+toes and laces. I had brought them with me in case of need, and
+only wore them in wet weather. When we got back to our room I made
+up a phrase as diplomatic as I could and offered him these boots.
+He accepted them and said with dignity:
+
+"I should thank you, but I know that you consider thanks a convention."
+
+He was pleased as a child with the pointed toes and the laces, and
+even changed his plans.
+
+"Now I shall go to Novotcherkassk in a week, and not in a fortnight,"
+he said, thinking aloud. "In shoes like these I shall not be ashamed
+to show myself to my godfather. I was not going away from here just
+because I hadn't any decent clothes. . . ."
+
+When the coachman was carrying out my trunk, a lay brother with a
+good ironical face came in to sweep out the room. Alexandr Ivanitch
+seemed flustered and embarrassed and asked him timidly:
+
+"Am I to stay here or go somewhere else?"
+
+He could not make up his mind to occupy a whole room to himself,
+and evidently by now was feeling ashamed of living at the expense
+of the Monastery. He was very reluctant to part from me; to put off
+being lonely as long as possible, he asked leave to see me on my
+way.
+
+The road from the Monastery, which had been excavated at the cost
+of no little labour in the chalk mountain, moved upwards, going
+almost like a spiral round the mountain, over roots and under sullen
+overhanging pines. . . .
+
+The Donets was the first to vanish from our sight, after it the
+Monastery yard with its thousands of people, and then the green
+roofs. . . . Since I was mounting upwards everything seemed vanishing
+into a pit. The cross on the church, burnished by the rays of the
+setting sun, gleamed brightly in the abyss and vanished. Nothing
+was left but the oaks, the pines, and the white road. But then our
+carriage came out on a level country, and that was all left below
+and behind us. Alexandr Ivanitch jumped out and, smiling mournfully,
+glanced at me for the last time with his childish eyes, and vanished
+from me for ever. . . .
+
+The impressions of the Holy Mountains had already become memories,
+and I saw something new: the level plain, the whitish-brown distance,
+the way side copse, and beyond it a windmill which stood with out
+moving, and seemed bored at not being allowed to wave its sails
+because it was a holiday.
+
+
+THE STEPPE
+
+_The Story of a Journey_
+
+I
+
+EARLY one morning in July a shabby covered chaise, one of those
+antediluvian chaises without springs in which no one travels in
+Russia nowadays, except merchant's clerks, dealers and the less
+well-to-do among priests, drove out of N., the principal town of
+the province of Z., and rumbled noisily along the posting-track.
+It rattled and creaked at every movement; the pail, hanging on
+behind, chimed in gruffly, and from these sounds alone and from the
+wretched rags of leather hanging loose about its peeling body one
+could judge of its decrepit age and readiness to drop to pieces.
+
+Two of the inhabitants of N. were sitting in the chaise; they were
+a merchant of N. called Ivan Ivanitch Kuzmitchov, a man with a
+shaven face wearing glasses and a straw hat, more like a government
+clerk than a merchant, and Father Christopher Sireysky, the priest
+of the Church of St. Nikolay at N., a little old man with long hair,
+in a grey canvas cassock, a wide-brimmed top-hat and a coloured
+embroidered girdle. The former was absorbed in thought, and kept
+tossing his head to shake off drowsiness; in his countenance an
+habitual business-like reserve was struggling with the genial
+expression of a man who has just said good-bye to his relatives and
+has had a good drink at parting. The latter gazed with moist eyes
+wonderingly at God's world, and his smile was so broad that it
+seemed to embrace even the brim of his hat; his face was red and
+looked frozen. Both of them, Father Christopher as well as Kuzmitchov,
+were going to sell wool. At parting with their families they had
+just eaten heartily of pastry puffs and cream, and although it was
+so early in the morning had had a glass or two. . . . Both were in
+the best of humours.
+
+Apart from the two persons described above and the coachman Deniska,
+who lashed the pair of frisky bay horses, there was another figure
+in the chaise--a boy of nine with a sunburnt face, wet with tears.
+This was Yegorushka, Kuzmitchov's nephew. With the sanction of his
+uncle and the blessing of Father Christopher, he was now on his way
+to go to school. His mother, Olga Ivanovna, the widow of a collegiate
+secretary, and Kuzmitchov's sister, who was fond of educated people
+and refined society, had entreated her brother to take Yegorushka
+with him when he went to sell wool and to put him to school; and
+now the boy was sitting on the box beside the coachman Deniska,
+holding on to his elbow to keep from falling off, and dancing up
+and down like a kettle on the hob, with no notion where he was going
+or what he was going for. The rapid motion through the air blew out
+his red shirt like a balloon on his back and made his new hat with
+a peacock's feather in it, like a coachman's, keep slipping on to
+the back of his head. He felt himself an intensely unfortunate
+person, and had an inclination to cry.
+
+When the chaise drove past the prison, Yegorushka glanced at the
+sentinels pacing slowly by the high white walls, at the little
+barred windows, at the cross shining on the roof, and remembered
+how the week before, on the day of the Holy Mother of Kazan, he had
+been with his mother to the prison church for the Dedication Feast,
+and how before that, at Easter, he had gone to the prison with
+Deniska and Ludmila the cook, and had taken the prisoners Easter
+bread, eggs, cakes and roast beef. The prisoners had thanked them
+and made the sign of the cross, and one of them had given Yegorushka
+a pewter buckle of his own making.
+
+The boy gazed at the familiar places, while the hateful chaise flew
+by and left them all behind. After the prison he caught glimpses
+of black grimy foundries, followed by the snug green cemetery
+surrounded by a wall of cobblestones; white crosses and tombstones,
+nestling among green cherry-trees and looking in the distance like
+patches of white, peeped out gaily from behind the wall. Yegorushka
+remembered that when the cherries were in blossom those white patches
+melted with the flowers into a sea of white; and that when the
+cherries were ripe the white tombstones and crosses were dotted
+with splashes of red like bloodstains. Under the cherry trees in
+the cemetery Yegorushka's father and granny, Zinaida Danilovna, lay
+sleeping day and night. When Granny had died she had been put in a
+long narrow coffin and two pennies had been put upon her eyes, which
+would not keep shut. Up to the time of her death she had been brisk,
+and used to bring soft rolls covered with poppy seeds from the
+market. Now she did nothing but sleep and sleep. . . .
+
+Beyond the cemetery came the smoking brickyards. From under the
+long roofs of reeds that looked as though pressed flat to the ground,
+a thick black smoke rose in great clouds and floated lazily upwards.
+The sky was murky above the brickyards and the cemetery, and great
+shadows from the clouds of smoke crept over the fields and across
+the roads. Men and horses covered with red dust were moving about
+in the smoke near the roofs.
+
+The town ended with the brickyards and the open country began.
+Yegorushka looked at the town for the last time, pressed his face
+against Deniska's elbow, and wept bitterly.
+
+"Come, not done howling yet, cry-baby!" cried Kuzmitchov. "You are
+blubbering again, little milksop! If you don't want to go, stay
+behind; no one is taking you by force!
+
+"Never mind, never mind, Yegor boy, never mind," Father Christopher
+muttered rapidly--"never mind, my boy. . . . Call upon God. . . .
+You are not going for your harm, but for your good. Learning is
+light, as the saying is, and ignorance is darkness. . . . That is
+so, truly."
+
+"Do you want to go back?" asked Kuzmitchov.
+
+"Yes, . . . yes, . . ." answered Yegorushka, sobbing.
+
+"Well, you'd better go back then. Anyway, you are going for nothing;
+it's a day's journey for a spoonful of porridge."
+
+"Never mind, never mind, my boy," Father Christopher went on. "Call
+upon God. . . . Lomonosov set off with the fishermen in the same
+way, and he became a man famous all over Europe. Learning in
+conjunction with faith brings forth fruit pleasing to God. What are
+the words of the prayer? For the glory of our Maker, for the comfort
+of our parents, for the benefit of our Church and our country. . . .
+Yes, indeed!"
+
+"The benefit is not the same in all cases," said Kuzmitchov, lighting
+a cheap cigar; "some will study twenty years and get no sense from
+it."
+
+"That does happen."
+
+"Learning is a benefit to some, but others only muddle their brains.
+My sister is a woman who does not understand; she is set upon
+refinement, and wants to turn Yegorka into a learned man, and she
+does not understand that with my business I could settle Yegorka
+happily for the rest of his life. I tell you this, that if everyone
+were to go in for being learned and refined there would be no one
+to sow the corn and do the trading; they would all die of hunger."
+
+"And if all go in for trading and sowing corn there will be no one
+to acquire learning."
+
+And considering that each of them had said something weighty and
+convincing, Kuzmitchov and Father Christopher both looked serious
+and cleared their throats simultaneously.
+
+Deniska, who had been listening to their conversation without
+understanding a word of it, shook his head and, rising in his seat,
+lashed at both the bays. A silence followed.
+
+Meanwhile a wide boundless plain encircled by a chain of low hills
+lay stretched before the travellers' eyes. Huddling together and
+peeping out from behind one another, these hills melted together
+into rising ground, which stretched right to the very horizon and
+disappeared into the lilac distance; one drives on and on and cannot
+discern where it begins or where it ends. . . . The sun had already
+peeped out from beyond the town behind them, and quietly, without
+fuss, set to its accustomed task. At first in the distance before
+them a broad, bright, yellow streak of light crept over the ground
+where the earth met the sky, near the little barrows and the
+windmills, which in the distance looked like tiny men waving their
+arms. A minute later a similar streak gleamed a little nearer, crept
+to the right and embraced the hills. Something warm touched
+Yegorushka's spine; the streak of light, stealing up from behind,
+darted between the chaise and the horses, moved to meet the other
+streak, and soon the whole wide steppe flung off the twilight of
+early morning, and was smiling and sparkling with dew.
+
+The cut rye, the coarse steppe grass, the milkwort, the wild hemp,
+all withered from the sultry heat, turned brown and half dead, now
+washed by the dew and caressed by the sun, revived, to fade again.
+Arctic petrels flew across the road with joyful cries; marmots
+called to one another in the grass. Somewhere, far away to the left,
+lapwings uttered their plaintive notes. A covey of partridges,
+scared by the chaise, fluttered up and with their soft "trrrr!"
+flew off to the hills. In the grass crickets, locusts and grasshoppers
+kept up their churring, monotonous music.
+
+But a little time passed, the dew evaporated, the air grew stagnant,
+and the disillusioned steppe began to wear its jaded July aspect.
+The grass drooped, everything living was hushed. The sun-baked
+hills, brownish-green and lilac in the distance, with their quiet
+shadowy tones, the plain with the misty distance and, arched above
+them, the sky, which seems terribly deep and transparent in the
+steppes, where there are no woods or high hills, seemed now endless,
+petrified with dreariness. . . .
+
+How stifling and oppressive it was! The chaise raced along, while
+Yegorushka saw always the same--the sky, the plain, the low hills
+. . . . The music in the grass was hushed, the petrels had flown away,
+the partridges were out of sight, rooks hovered idly over the
+withered grass; they were all alike and made the steppe even more
+monotonous.
+
+A hawk flew just above the ground, with an even sweep of its wings,
+suddenly halted in the air as though pondering on the dreariness
+of life, then fluttered its wings and flew like an arrow over the
+steppe, and there was no telling why it flew off and what it wanted.
+In the distance a windmill waved its sails. . . .
+
+Now and then a glimpse of a white potsherd or a heap of stones broke
+the monotony; a grey stone stood out for an instant or a parched
+willow with a blue crow on its top branch; a marmot would run across
+the road and--again there flitted before the eyes only the high
+grass, the low hills, the rooks. . . .
+
+But at last, thank God, a waggon loaded with sheaves came to meet
+them; a peasant wench was lying on the very top. Sleepy, exhausted
+by the heat, she lifted her head and looked at the travellers.
+Deniska gaped, looking at her; the horses stretched out their noses
+towards the sheaves; the chaise, squeaking, kissed the waggon, and
+the pointed ears passed over Father Christopher's hat like a brush.
+
+"You are driving over folks, fatty!" cried Deniska. "What a swollen
+lump of a face, as though a bumble-bee had stung it!"
+
+The girl smiled drowsily, and moving her lips lay down again; then
+a solitary poplar came into sight on the low hill. Someone had
+planted it, and God only knows why it was there. It was hard to
+tear the eyes away from its graceful figure and green drapery. Was
+that lovely creature happy? Sultry heat in summer, in winter frost
+and snowstorms, terrible nights in autumn when nothing is to be
+seen but darkness and nothing is to be heard but the senseless angry
+howling wind, and, worst of all, alone, alone for the whole of life
+. . . . Beyond the poplar stretches of wheat extended like a bright
+yellow carpet from the road to the top of the hills. On the hills
+the corn was already cut and laid up in sheaves, while at the bottom
+they were still cutting. . . . Six mowers were standing in a row
+swinging their scythes, and the scythes gleamed gaily and uttered
+in unison together "Vzhee, vzhee!" From the movements of the peasant
+women binding the sheaves, from the faces of the mowers, from the
+glitter of the scythes, it could be seen that the sultry heat was
+baking and stifling. A black dog with its tongue hanging out ran
+from the mowers to meet the chaise, probably with the intention of
+barking, but stopped halfway and stared indifferently at Deniska,
+who shook his whip at him; it was too hot to bark! One peasant woman
+got up and, putting both hands to her aching back, followed
+Yegorushka's red shirt with her eyes. Whether it was that the colour
+pleased her or that he reminded her of her children, she stood a
+long time motionless staring after him.
+
+But now the wheat, too, had flashed by; again the parched plain,
+the sunburnt hills, the sultry sky stretched before them; again a
+hawk hovered over the earth. In the distance, as before, a windmill
+whirled its sails, and still it looked like a little man waving his
+arms. It was wearisome to watch, and it seemed as though one would
+never reach it, as though it were running away from the chaise.
+
+Father Christopher and Kuzmitchov were silent. Deniska lashed the
+horses and kept shouting to them, while Yegorushka had left off
+crying, and gazed about him listlessly. The heat and the tedium of
+the steppes overpowered him. He felt as though he had been travelling
+and jolting up and down for a very long time, that the sun had been
+baking his back a long time. Before they had gone eight miles he
+began to feel "It must be time to rest." The geniality gradually
+faded out of his uncle's face and nothing else was left but the air
+of business reserve; and to a gaunt shaven face, especially when
+it is adorned with spectacles and the nose and temples are covered
+with dust, this reserve gives a relentless, inquisitorial appearance.
+Father Christopher never left off gazing with wonder at God's world,
+and smiling. Without speaking, he brooded over something pleasant
+and nice, and a kindly, genial smile remained imprinted on his face.
+It seemed as though some nice and pleasant thought were imprinted
+on his brain by the heat.
+
+"Well, Deniska, shall we overtake the waggons to-day?" asked
+Kuzmitchov.
+
+Deniska looked at the sky, rose in his seat, lashed at his horses
+and then answered:
+
+"By nightfall, please God, we shall overtake them."
+
+There was a sound of dogs barking. Half a dozen steppe sheep-dogs,
+suddenly leaping out as though from ambush, with ferocious howling
+barks, flew to meet the chaise. All of them, extraordinarily furious,
+surrounded the chaise, with their shaggy spider-like muzzles and
+their eyes red with anger, and jostling against one another in their
+anger, raised a hoarse howl. They were filled with passionate hatred
+of the horses, of the chaise, and of the human beings, and seemed
+ready to tear them into pieces. Deniska, who was fond of teasing
+and beating, was delighted at the chance of it, and with a malignant
+expression bent over and lashed at the sheep-dogs with his whip.
+The brutes growled more than ever, the horses flew on; and Yegorushka,
+who had difficulty in keeping his seat on the box, realized, looking
+at the dogs' eyes and teeth, that if he fell down they would instantly
+tear him to bits; but he felt no fear and looked at them as malignantly
+as Deniska, and regretted that he had no whip in his hand.
+
+The chaise came upon a flock of sheep.
+
+"Stop!" cried Kuzmitchov. "Pull up! Woa!"
+
+Deniska threw his whole body backwards and pulled up the horses.
+
+"Come here!" Kuzmitchov shouted to the shepherd. "Call off the dogs,
+curse them!"
+
+The old shepherd, tattered and barefoot, wearing a fur cap, with a
+dirty sack round his loins and a long crook in his hand--a regular
+figure from the Old Testament--called off the dogs, and taking
+off his cap, went up to the chaise. Another similar Old Testament
+figure was standing motionless at the other end of the flock, staring
+without interest at the travellers.
+
+"Whose sheep are these?" asked Kuzmitchov.
+
+"Varlamov's," the old man answered in a loud voice.
+
+"Varlamov's," repeated the shepherd standing at the other end of
+the flock.
+
+"Did Varlamov come this way yesterday or not?"
+
+"He did not; his clerk came. . . ."
+
+"Drive on!"
+
+The chaise rolled on and the shepherds, with their angry dogs, were
+left behind. Yegorushka gazed listlessly at the lilac distance in
+front, and it began to seem as though the windmill, waving its
+sails, were getting nearer. It became bigger and bigger, grew quite
+large, and now he could distinguish clearly its two sails. One sail
+was old and patched, the other had only lately been made of new
+wood and glistened in the sun. The chaise drove straight on, while
+the windmill, for some reason, began retreating to the left. They
+drove on and on, and the windmill kept moving away to the left, and
+still did not disappear.
+
+"A fine windmill Boltva has put up for his son," observed Deniska.
+
+"And how is it we don't see his farm?"
+
+"It is that way, beyond the creek."
+
+Boltva's farm, too, soon came into sight, but yet the windmill did
+not retreat, did not drop behind; it still watched Yegorushka with
+its shining sail and waved. What a sorcerer!
+
+II
+
+Towards midday the chaise turned off the road to the right; it went
+on a little way at walking pace and then stopped. Yegorushka heard
+a soft, very caressing gurgle, and felt a different air breathe on
+his face with a cool velvety touch. Through a little pipe of hemlock
+stuck there by some unknown benefactor, water was running in a thin
+trickle from a low hill, put together by nature of huge monstrous
+stones. It fell to the ground, and limpid, sparkling gaily in the
+sun, and softly murmuring as though fancying itself a great tempestuous
+torrent, flowed swiftly away to the left. Not far from its source
+the little stream spread itself out into a pool; the burning sunbeams
+and the parched soil greedily drank it up and sucked away its
+strength; but a little further on it must have mingled with another
+rivulet, for a hundred paces away thick reeds showed green and
+luxuriant along its course, and three snipe flew up from them with
+a loud cry as the chaise drove by.
+
+The travellers got out to rest by the stream and feed the horses.
+Kuzmitchov, Father Christopher and Yegorushka sat down on a mat in
+the narrow strip of shade cast by the chaise and the unharnessed
+horses. The nice pleasant thought that the heat had imprinted in
+Father Christopher's brain craved expression after he had had a
+drink of water and eaten a hard-boiled egg. He bent a friendly look
+upon Yegorushka, munched, and began:
+
+"I studied too, my boy; from the earliest age God instilled into
+me good sense and understanding, so that while I was just such a
+lad as you I was beyond others, a comfort to my parents and preceptors
+by my good sense. Before I was fifteen I could speak and make verses
+in Latin, just as in Russian. I was the crosier-bearer to his
+Holiness Bishop Christopher. After mass one day, as I remember it
+was the patron saint's day of His Majesty Tsar Alexandr Pavlovitch
+of blessed memory, he unrobed at the altar, looked kindly at me and
+asked, 'Puer bone, quam appelaris?' And I answered, 'Christopherus
+sum;' and he said, 'Ergo connominati sumus'--that is, that we
+were namesakes. . . Then he asked in Latin, 'Whose son are you?'
+To which I answered, also in Latin, that I was the son of deacon
+Sireysky of the village of Lebedinskoe. Seeing my readiness and the
+clearness of my answers, his Holiness blessed me and said, 'Write
+to your father that I will not forget him, and that I will keep you
+in view.' The holy priests and fathers who were standing round the
+altar, hearing our discussion in Latin, were not a little surprised,
+and everyone expressed his pleasure in praise of me. Before I had
+moustaches, my boy, I could read Latin, Greek, and French; I knew
+philosophy, mathematics, secular history, and all the sciences. The
+Lord gave me a marvellous memory. Sometimes, if I read a thing once
+or twice, I knew it by heart. My preceptors and patrons were amazed,
+and so they expected I should make a learned man, a luminary of the
+Church. I did think of going to Kiev to continue my studies, but
+my parents did not approve. 'You'll be studying all your life,'
+said my father; 'when shall we see you finished?' Hearing such
+words, I gave up study and took a post. . . . Of course, I did not
+become a learned man, but then I did not disobey my parents; I was
+a comfort to them in their old age and gave them a creditable
+funeral. Obedience is more than fasting and prayer.
+
+"I suppose you have forgotten all your learning?" observed Kuzmitchov.
+
+"I should think so! Thank God, I have reached my eightieth year!
+Something of philosophy and rhetoric I do remember, but languages
+and mathematics I have quite forgotten."
+
+Father Christopher screwed up his eyes, thought a minute and said
+in an undertone:
+
+"What is a substance? A creature is a self-existing object, not
+requiring anything else for its completion."
+
+He shook his head and laughed with feeling.
+
+"Spiritual nourishment!" he said. "Of a truth matter nourishes the
+flesh and spiritual nourishment the soul!"
+
+"Learning is all very well," sighed Kuzmitchov, "but if we don't
+overtake Varlamov, learning won't do much for us."
+
+"A man isn't a needle--we shall find him. He must be going his
+rounds in these parts."
+
+Among the sedge were flying the three snipe they had seen before,
+and in their plaintive cries there was a note of alarm and vexation
+at having been driven away from the stream. The horses were steadily
+munching and snorting. Deniska walked about by them and, trying to
+appear indifferent to the cucumbers, pies, and eggs that the gentry
+were eating, he concentrated himself on the gadflies and horseflies
+that were fastening upon the horses' backs and bellies; he squashed
+his victims apathetically, emitting a peculiar, fiendishly triumphant,
+guttural sound, and when he missed them cleared his throat with an
+air of vexation and looked after every lucky one that escaped death.
+
+"Deniska, where are you? Come and eat," said Kuzmitchov, heaving a
+deep sigh, a sign that he had had enough.
+
+Deniska diffidently approached the mat and picked out five thick
+and yellow cucumbers (he did not venture to take the smaller and
+fresher ones), took two hard-boiled eggs that looked dark and were
+cracked, then irresolutely, as though afraid he might get a blow
+on his outstretched hand, touched a pie with his finger.
+
+"Take them, take them," Kuzmitchov urged him on.
+
+Deniska took the pies resolutely, and, moving some distance away,
+sat down on the grass with his back to the chaise. At once there
+was such a sound of loud munching that even the horses turned round
+to look suspiciously at Deniska.
+
+After his meal Kuzmitchov took a sack containing something out of
+the chaise and said to Yegorushka:
+
+"I am going to sleep, and you mind that no one takes the sack from
+under my head."
+
+Father Christopher took off his cassock, his girdle, and his full
+coat, and Yegorushka, looking at him, was dumb with astonishment.
+He had never imagined that priests wore trousers, and Father
+Christopher had on real canvas trousers thrust into high boots, and
+a short striped jacket. Looking at him, Yegorushka thought that in
+this costume, so unsuitable to his dignified position, he looked
+with his long hair and beard very much like Robinson Crusoe. After
+taking off their outer garments Kuzmitchov and Father Christopher
+lay down in the shade under the chaise, facing one another, and
+closed their eyes. Deniska, who had finished munching, stretched
+himself out on his back and also closed his eyes.
+
+"You look out that no one takes away the horses!" he said to
+Yegorushka, and at once fell asleep.
+
+Stillness reigned. There was no sound except the munching and
+snorting of the horses and the snoring of the sleepers; somewhere
+far away a lapwing wailed, and from time to time there sounded the
+shrill cries of the three snipe who had flown up to see whether
+their uninvited visitors had gone away; the rivulet babbled, lisping
+softly, but all these sounds did not break the stillness, did not
+stir the stagnation, but, on the contrary, lulled all nature to
+slumber.
+
+Yegorushka, gasping with the heat, which was particularly oppressive
+after a meal, ran to the sedge and from there surveyed the country.
+He saw exactly the same as he had in the morning: the plain, the
+low hills, the sky, the lilac distance; only the hills stood nearer;
+and he could not see the windmill, which had been left far behind.
+From behind the rocky hill from which the stream flowed rose another,
+smoother and broader; a little hamlet of five or six homesteads
+clung to it. No people, no trees, no shade were to be seen about
+the huts; it looked as though the hamlet had expired in the burning
+air and was dried up. To while away the time Yegorushka caught a
+grasshopper in the grass, held it in his closed hand to his ear,
+and spent a long time listening to the creature playing on its
+instrument. When he was weary of its music he ran after a flock of
+yellow butterflies who were flying towards the sedge on the
+watercourse, and found himself again beside the chaise, without
+noticing how he came there. His uncle and Father Christopher were
+sound asleep; their sleep would be sure to last two or three hours
+till the horses had rested. . . . How was he to get through that
+long time, and where was he to get away from the heat? A hard
+problem. . . . Mechanically Yegorushka put his lips to the trickle
+that ran from the waterpipe; there was a chilliness in his mouth
+and there was the smell of hemlock. He drank at first eagerly, then
+went on with effort till the sharp cold had run from his mouth all
+over his body and the water was spilt on his shirt. Then he went
+up to the chaise and began looking at the sleeping figures. His
+uncle's face wore, as before, an expression of business-like reserve.
+Fanatically devoted to his work, Kuzmitchov always, even in his
+sleep and at church when they were singing, "Like the cherubim,"
+thought about his business and could never forget it for a moment;
+and now he was probably dreaming about bales of wool, waggons,
+prices, Varlamov. . . . Father Christopher, now, a soft, frivolous
+and absurd person, had never all his life been conscious of anything
+which could, like a boa-constrictor, coil about his soul and hold
+it tight. In all the numerous enterprises he had undertaken in his
+day what attracted him was not so much the business itself, but the
+bustle and the contact with other people involved in every undertaking.
+Thus, in the present expedition, he was not so much interested in
+wool, in Varlamov, and in prices, as in the long journey, the
+conversations on the way, the sleeping under a chaise, and the meals
+at odd times. . . . And now, judging from his face, he must have
+been dreaming of Bishop Christopher, of the Latin discussion, of
+his wife, of puffs and cream and all sorts of things that Kuzmitchov
+could not possibly dream of.
+
+While Yegorushka was watching their sleeping faces he suddenly heard
+a soft singing; somewhere at a distance a woman was singing, and
+it was difficult to tell where and in what direction. The song was
+subdued, dreary and melancholy, like a dirge, and hardly audible,
+and seemed to come first from the right, then from the left, then
+from above, and then from underground, as though an unseen spirit
+were hovering over the steppe and singing. Yegorushka looked about
+him, and could not make out where the strange song came from. Then
+as he listened he began to fancy that the grass was singing; in its
+song, withered and half-dead, it was without words, but plaintively
+and passionately, urging that it was not to blame, that the sun was
+burning it for no fault of its own; it urged that it ardently longed
+to live, that it was young and might have been beautiful but for
+the heat and the drought; it was guiltless, but yet it prayed
+forgiveness and protested that it was in anguish, sad and sorry for
+itself. . . .
+
+Yegorushka listened for a little, and it began to seem as though
+this dreary, mournful song made the air hotter, more suffocating
+and more stagnant. . . . To drown the singing he ran to the sedge,
+humming to himself and trying to make a noise with his feet. From
+there he looked about in all directions and found out who was
+singing. Near the furthest hut in the hamlet stood a peasant woman
+in a short petticoat, with long thin legs like a heron. She was
+sowing something. A white dust floated languidly from her sieve
+down the hillock. Now it was evident that she was singing. A couple
+of yards from her a little bare-headed boy in nothing but a smock
+was standing motionless. As though fascinated by the song, he stood
+stock-still, staring away into the distance, probably at Yegorushka's
+crimson shirt.
+
+The song ceased. Yegorushka sauntered back to the chaise, and to
+while away the time went again to the trickle of water.
+
+And again there was the sound of the dreary song. It was the same
+long-legged peasant woman in the hamlet over the hill. Yegorushka's
+boredom came back again. He left the pipe and looked upwards. What
+he saw was so unexpected that he was a little frightened. Just above
+his head on one of the big clumsy stones stood a chubby little boy,
+wearing nothing but a shirt, with a prominent stomach and thin legs,
+the same boy who had been standing before by the peasant woman. He
+was gazing with open mouth and unblinking eyes at Yegorushka's
+crimson shirt and at the chaise, with a look of blank astonishment
+and even fear, as though he saw before him creatures of another
+world. The red colour of the shirt charmed and allured him. But the
+chaise and the men sleeping under it excited his curiosity; perhaps
+he had not noticed how the agreeable red colour and curiosity had
+attracted him down from the hamlet, and now probably he was surprised
+at his own boldness. For a long while Yegorushka stared at him, and
+he at Yegorushka. Both were silent and conscious of some awkwardness.
+After a long silence Yegorushka asked:
+
+"What's your name?"
+
+The stranger's cheeks puffed out more than ever; he pressed his
+back against the rock, opened his eyes wide, moved his lips, and
+answered in a husky bass: "Tit!"
+
+The boys said not another word to each other; after a brief silence,
+still keeping his eyes fixed on Yegorushka, the mysterious Tit
+kicked up one leg, felt with his heel for a niche and clambered up
+the rock; from that point he ascended to the next rock, staggering
+backwards and looking intently at Yegorushka, as though afraid he
+might hit him from behind, and so made his way upwards till he
+disappeared altogether behind the crest of the hill.
+
+After watching him out of sight, Yegorushka put his arms round his
+knees and leaned his head on them. . . . The burning sun scorched
+the back of his head, his neck, and his spine. The melancholy song
+died away, then floated again on the stagnant stifling air. The
+rivulet gurgled monotonously, the horses munched, and time dragged
+on endlessly, as though it, too, were stagnant and had come to a
+standstill. It seemed as though a hundred years had passed since
+the morning. Could it be that God's world, the chaise and the horses
+would come to a standstill in that air, and, like the hills, turn
+to stone and remain for ever in one spot? Yegorushka raised his
+head, and with smarting eyes looked before him; the lilac distance,
+which till then had been motionless, began heaving, and with the
+sky floated away into the distance. . . . It drew after it the brown
+grass, the sedge, and with extraordinary swiftness Yegorushka floated
+after the flying distance. Some force noiselessly drew him onwards,
+and the heat and the wearisome song flew after in pursuit. Yegorushka
+bent his head and shut his eyes. . . .
+
+Deniska was the first to wake up. Something must have bitten him,
+for he jumped up, quickly scratched his shoulder and said:
+
+"Plague take you, cursed idolater!"
+
+Then he went to the brook, had a drink and slowly washed. His
+splashing and puffing roused Yegorushka from his lethargy. The boy
+looked at his wet face with drops of water and big freckles which
+made it look like marble, and asked:
+
+"Shall we soon be going?"
+
+Deniska looked at the height of the sun and answered:
+
+"I expect so."
+
+He dried himself with the tail of his shirt and, making a very
+serious face, hopped on one leg.
+
+"I say, which of us will get to the sedge first?" he said.
+
+Yegorushka was exhausted by the heat and drowsiness, but he raced
+off after him all the same. Deniska was in his twentieth year, was
+a coachman and going to be married, but he had not left off being
+a boy. He was very fond of flying kites, chasing pigeons, playing
+knuckle-bones, running races, and always took part in children's
+games and disputes. No sooner had his master turned his back or
+gone to sleep than Deniska would begin doing something such as
+hopping on one leg or throwing stones. It was hard for any grown-up
+person, seeing the genuine enthusiasm with which he frolicked about
+in the society of children, to resist saying, "What a baby!" Children,
+on the other hand, saw nothing strange in the invasion of their
+domain by the big coachman. "Let him play," they thought, "as long
+as he doesn't fight!" In the same way little dogs see nothing strange
+in it when a simple-hearted big dog joins their company uninvited
+and begins playing with them.
+
+Deniska outstripped Yegorushka, and was evidently very much pleased
+at having done so. He winked at him, and to show that he could hop
+on one leg any distance, suggested to Yegorushka that he should hop
+with him along the road and from there, without resting, back to
+the chaise. Yegorushka declined this suggestion, for he was very
+much out of breath and exhausted.
+
+All at once Deniska looked very grave, as he did not look even when
+Kuzmitchov gave him a scolding or threatened him with a stick;
+listening intently, he dropped quietly on one knee and an expression
+of sternness and alarm came into his face, such as one sees in
+people who hear heretical talk. He fixed his eyes on one spot,
+raised his hand curved into a hollow, and suddenly fell on his
+stomach on the ground and slapped the hollow of his hand down upon
+the grass.
+
+"Caught!" he wheezed triumphantly, and, getting up, lifted a big
+grasshopper to Yegorushka's eyes.
+
+The two boys stroked the grasshopper's broad green back with their
+fingers and touched his antenna, supposing that this would please
+the creature. Then Deniska caught a fat fly that had been sucking
+blood and offered it to the grasshopper. The latter moved his huge
+jaws, that were like the visor of a helmet, with the utmost unconcern,
+as though he had been long acquainted with Deniska, and bit off the
+fly's stomach. They let him go. With a flash of the pink lining of
+his wings, he flew down into the grass and at once began his churring
+notes again. They let the fly go, too. It preened its wings, and
+without its stomach flew off to the horses.
+
+A loud sigh was heard from under the chaise. It was Kuzmitchov
+waking up. He quickly raised his head, looked uneasily into the
+distance, and from that look, which passed by Yegorushka and Deniska
+without sympathy or interest, it could be seen that his thought on
+awaking was of the wool and of Varlamov.
+
+"Father Christopher, get up; it is time to start," he said anxiously.
+"Wake up; we've slept too long as it is! Deniska, put the horses
+in."
+
+Father Christopher woke up with the same smile with which he had
+fallen asleep; his face looked creased and wrinkled from sleep, and
+seemed only half the size. After washing and dressing, he proceeded
+without haste to take out of his pocket a little greasy psalter;
+and standing with his face towards the east, began in a whisper
+repeating the psalms of the day and crossing himself.
+
+"Father Christopher," said Kuzmitchov reproachfully, "it's time to
+start; the horses are ready, and here are you, . . . upon my word."
+
+"In a minute, in a minute," muttered Father Christopher. "I must
+read the psalms. . . . I haven't read them to-day."
+
+"The psalms can wait."
+
+"Ivan Ivanitch, that is my rule every day. . . . I can't . . ."
+
+"God will overlook it."
+
+For a full quarter of an hour Father Christopher stood facing the
+east and moving his lips, while Kuzmitchov looked at him almost
+with hatred and impatiently shrugged his shoulders. He was particularly
+irritated when, after every "Hallelujah," Father Christopher drew
+a long breath, rapidly crossed himself and repeated three times,
+intentionally raising his voice so that the others might cross
+themselves, "Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah! Glory be to Thee,
+O Lord!" At last he smiled, looked upwards at the sky, and, putting
+the psalter in his pocket, said:
+
+"Finis!"
+
+A minute later the chaise had started on the road. As though it
+were going backwards and not forwards, the travellers saw the same
+scene as they had before midday.
+
+The low hills were still plunged in the lilac distance, and no end
+could be seen to them. There were glimpses of high grass and heaps
+of stones; strips of stubble land passed by them and still the same
+rooks, the same hawk, moving its wings with slow dignity, moved
+over the steppe. The air was more sultry than ever; from the sultry
+heat and the stillness submissive nature was spellbound into silence
+. . . . No wind, no fresh cheering sound, no cloud.
+
+But at last, when the sun was beginning to sink into the west, the
+steppe, the hills and the air could bear the oppression no longer,
+and, driven out of all patience, exhausted, tried to fling off the
+yoke. A fleecy ashen-grey cloud unexpectedly appeared behind the
+hills. It exchanged glances with the steppe, as though to say, "Here
+I am," and frowned. Suddenly something burst in the stagnant air;
+there was a violent squall of wind which whirled round and round,
+roaring and whistling over the steppe. At once a murmur rose from
+the grass and last year's dry herbage, the dust curled in spiral
+eddies over the road, raced over the steppe, and carrying with it
+straws, dragon flies and feathers, rose up in a whirling black
+column towards the sky and darkened the sun. Prickly uprooted plants
+ran stumbling and leaping in all directions over the steppe, and
+one of them got caught in the whirlwind, turned round and round
+like a bird, flew towards the sky, and turning into a little black
+speck, vanished from sight. After it flew another, and then a third,
+and Yegorushka saw two of them meet in the blue height and clutch
+at one another as though they were wrestling.
+
+A bustard flew up by the very road. Fluttering his wings and his
+tail, he looked, bathed in the sunshine, like an angler's glittering
+tin fish or a waterfly flashing so swiftly over the water that its
+wings cannot be told from its antenna, which seem to be growing
+before, behind and on all sides. . . . Quivering in the air like
+an insect with a shimmer of bright colours, the bustard flew high
+up in a straight line, then, probably frightened by a cloud of dust,
+swerved to one side, and for a long time the gleam of his wings
+could be seen. . . .
+
+Then a corncrake flew up from the grass, alarmed by the hurricane
+and not knowing what was the matter. It flew with the wind and not
+against it, like all the other birds, so that all its feathers were
+ruffled up and it was puffed out to the size of a hen and looked
+very angry and impressive. Only the rooks who had grown old on the
+steppe and were accustomed to its vagaries hovered calmly over the
+grass, or taking no notice of anything, went on unconcernedly pecking
+with their stout beaks at the hard earth.
+
+There was a dull roll of thunder beyond the hills; there came a
+whiff of fresh air. Deniska gave a cheerful whistle and lashed his
+horses. Father Christopher and Kuzmitchov held their hats and looked
+intently towards the hills. . . . How pleasant a shower of rain
+would have been!
+
+One effort, one struggle more, and it seemed the steppe would have
+got the upper hand. But the unseen oppressive force gradually riveted
+its fetters on the wind and the air, laid the dust, and the stillness
+came back again as though nothing had happened, the cloud hid, the
+sun-baked hills frowned submissively, the air grew calm, and only
+somewhere the troubled lapwings wailed and lamented their destiny. . . .
+
+Soon after that the evening came on.
+
+III
+
+In the dusk of evening a big house of one storey, with a rusty iron
+roof and with dark windows, came into sight. This house was called
+a posting-inn, though it had nothing like a stableyard, and it stood
+in the middle of the steppe, with no kind of enclosure round it. A
+little to one side of it a wretched little cherry orchard shut in
+by a hurdle fence made a dark patch, and under the windows stood
+sleepy sunflowers drooping their heavy heads. From the orchard came
+the clatter of a little toy windmill, set there to frighten away
+hares by the rattle. Nothing more could be seen near the house, and
+nothing could be heard but the steppe. The chaise had scarcely
+stopped at the porch with an awning over it, when from the house
+there came the sound of cheerful voices, one a man's, another a
+woman's; there was the creak of a swing-door, and in a flash a tall
+gaunt figure, swinging its arms and fluttering its coat, was standing
+by the chaise. This was the innkeeper, Moisey Moisevitch, a man no
+longer young, with a very pale face and a handsome beard as black
+as charcoal. He was wearing a threadbare black coat, which hung
+flapping on his narrow shoulders as though on a hatstand, and
+fluttered its skirts like wings every time Moisey Moisevitch flung
+up his hands in delight or horror. Besides his coat the innkeeper
+was wearing full white trousers, not stuck into his boots, and a
+velvet waistcoat with brown flowers on it that looked like gigantic
+bugs.
+
+Moisey Moisevitch was at first dumb with excess of feeling on
+recognizing the travellers, then he clasped his hands and uttered
+a moan. His coat swung its skirts, his back bent into a bow, and
+his pale face twisted into a smile that suggested that to see the
+chaise was not merely a pleasure to him, but actually a joy so sweet
+as to be painful.
+
+"Oh dear! oh dear!" he began in a thin sing-song voice, breathless,
+fussing about and preventing the travellers from getting out of the
+chaise by his antics. "What a happy day for me! Oh, what am I to
+do now? Ivan Ivanitch! Father Christopher! What a pretty little
+gentleman sitting on the box, God strike me dead! Oh, my goodness!
+why am I standing here instead of asking the visitors indoors?
+Please walk in, I humbly beg you. . . . You are kindly welcome!
+Give me all your things. . . . Oh, my goodness me!"
+
+Moisey Moisevitch, who was rummaging in the chaise and assisting
+the travellers to alight, suddenly turned back and shouted in a
+voice as frantic and choking as though he were drowning and calling
+for help:
+
+"Solomon! Solomon!"
+
+"Solomon! Solomon!" a woman's voice repeated indoors.
+
+The swing-door creaked, and in the doorway appeared a rather short
+young Jew with a big beak-like nose, with a bald patch surrounded
+by rough red curly hair; he was dressed in a short and very shabby
+reefer jacket, with rounded lappets and short sleeves, and in short
+serge trousers, so that he looked skimpy and short-tailed like an
+unfledged bird. This was Solomon, the brother of Moisey Moisevitch.
+He went up to the chaise, smiling rather queerly, and did not speak
+or greet the travellers.
+
+"Ivan Ivanitch and Father Christopher have come," said Moisey
+Moisevitch in a tone as though he were afraid his brother would not
+believe him. "Dear, dear! What a surprise! Such honoured guests to
+have come us so suddenly! Come, take their things, Solomon. Walk
+in, honoured guests."
+
+A little later Kuzmitchov, Father Christopher, and Yegorushka were
+sitting in a big gloomy empty room at an old oak table. The table
+was almost in solitude, for, except a wide sofa covered with torn
+American leather and three chairs, there was no other furniture in
+the room. And, indeed, not everybody would have given the chairs
+that name. They were a pitiful semblance of furniture, covered with
+American leather that had seen its best days, and with backs bent
+backwards at an unnaturally acute angle, so that they looked like
+children's sledges. It was hard to imagine what had been the unknown
+carpenter's object in bending the chairbacks so mercilessly, and
+one was tempted to imagine that it was not the carpenter's fault,
+but that some athletic visitor had bent the chairs like this as a
+feat, then had tried to bend them back again and had made them
+worse. The room looked gloomy, the walls were grey, the ceilings
+and the cornices were grimy; on the floor were chinks and yawning
+holes that were hard to account for (one might have fancied they
+were made by the heel of the same athlete), and it seemed as though
+the room would still have been dark if a dozen lamps had hung in
+it. There was nothing approaching an ornament on the walls or the
+windows. On one wall, however, there hung a list of regulations of
+some sort under a two-headed eagle in a grey wooden frame, and on
+another wall in the same sort of frame an engraving with the
+inscription, "The Indifference of Man." What it was to which men
+were indifferent it was impossible to make out, as the engraving
+was very dingy with age and was extensively flyblown. There was a
+smell of something decayed and sour in the room.
+
+As he led the visitors into the room, Moisey Moisevitch went on
+wriggling, gesticulating, shrugging and uttering joyful exclamations;
+he considered these antics necessary in order to seem polite and
+agreeable.
+
+"When did our waggons go by?" Kuzmitchov asked.
+
+"One party went by early this morning, and the other, Ivan Ivanitch,
+put up here for dinner and went on towards evening."
+
+"Ah! . . . Has Varlamov been by or not?"
+
+"No, Ivan Ivanitch. His clerk, Grigory Yegoritch, went by yesterday
+morning and said that he had to be to-day at the Molokans' farm."
+
+"Good! so we will go after the waggons directly and then on to the
+Molokans'."
+
+"Mercy on us, Ivan Ivanitch!" Moisey Moisevitch cried in horror,
+flinging up his hands. "Where are you going for the night? You will
+have a nice little supper and stay the night, and to-morrow morning,
+please God, you can go on and overtake anyone you like."
+
+"There is no time for that. . . . Excuse me, Moisey Moisevitch,
+another time; but now I must make haste. We'll stay a quarter of
+an hour and then go on; we can stay the night at the Molokans'."
+
+"A quarter of an hour!" squealed Moisey Moisevitch. "Have you no
+fear of God, Ivan Ivanitch? You will compel me to hide your caps
+and lock the door! You must have a cup of tea and a snack of
+something, anyway."
+
+"We have no time for tea," said Kuzmitchov.
+
+Moisey Moisevitch bent his head on one side, crooked his knees, and
+put his open hands before him as though warding off a blow, while
+with a smile of agonized sweetness he began imploring:
+
+"Ivan Ivanitch! Father Christopher! Do be so good as to take a cup
+of tea with me. Surely I am not such a bad man that you can't even
+drink tea in my house? Ivan Ivanitch!"
+
+"Well, we may just as well have a cup of tea," said Father Christopher,
+with a sympathetic smile; "that won't keep us long."
+
+"Very well," Kuzmitchov assented.
+
+Moisey Moisevitch, in a fluster uttered an exclamation of joy, and
+shrugging as though he had just stepped out of cold weather into
+warm, ran to the door and cried in the same frantic voice in which
+he had called Solomon:
+
+"Rosa! Rosa! Bring the samovar!"
+
+A minute later the door opened, and Solomon came into the room
+carrying a large tray in his hands. Setting the tray on the table,
+he looked away sarcastically with the same queer smile as before.
+Now, by the light of the lamp, it was possible to see his smile
+distinctly; it was very complex, and expressed a variety of emotions,
+but the predominant element in it was undisguised contempt. He
+seemed to be thinking of something ludicrous and silly, to be feeling
+contempt and dislike, to be pleased at something and waiting for
+the favourable moment to turn something into ridicule and to burst
+into laughter. His long nose, his thick lips, and his sly prominent
+eyes seemed tense with the desire to laugh. Looking at his face,
+Kuzmitchov smiled ironically and asked:
+
+"Solomon, why did you not come to our fair at N. this summer, and
+act some Jewish scenes?"
+
+Two years before, as Yegorushka remembered very well, at one of the
+booths at the fair at N., Solomon had performed some scenes of
+Jewish life, and his acting had been a great success. The allusion
+to this made no impression whatever upon Solomon. Making no answer,
+he went out and returned a little later with the samovar.
+
+When he had done what he had to do at the table he moved a little
+aside, and, folding his arms over his chest and thrusting out one
+leg, fixed his sarcastic eyes on Father Christopher. There was
+something defiant, haughty, and contemptuous in his attitude, and
+at the same time it was comic and pitiful in the extreme, because
+the more impressive his attitude the more vividly it showed up his
+short trousers, his bobtail coat, his caricature of a nose, and his
+bird-like plucked-looking little figure.
+
+Moisey Moisevitch brought a footstool from the other room and sat
+down a little way from the table.
+
+"I wish you a good appetite! Tea and sugar!" he began, trying to
+entertain his visitors. "I hope you will enjoy it. Such rare guests,
+such rare ones; it is years since I last saw Father Christopher.
+And will no one tell me who is this nice little gentleman?" he
+asked, looking tenderly at Yegorushka.
+
+"He is the son of my sister, Olga Ivanovna," answered Kuzmitchov.
+
+"And where is he going?"
+
+"To school. We are taking him to a high school."
+
+In his politeness, Moisey Moisevitch put on a look of wonder and
+wagged his head expressively.
+
+"Ah, that is a fine thing," he said, shaking his finger at the
+samovar. "That's a fine thing. You will come back from the high
+school such a gentleman that we shall all take off our hats to you.
+You will be wealthy and wise and so grand that your mamma will be
+delighted. Oh, that's a fine thing!"
+
+He paused a little, stroked his knees, and began again in a jocose
+and deferential tone.
+
+"You must excuse me, Father Christopher, but I am thinking of writing
+to the bishop to tell him you are robbing the merchants of their
+living. I shall take a sheet of stamped paper and write that I
+suppose Father Christopher is short of pence, as he has taken up
+with trade and begun selling wool."
+
+"H'm, yes . . . it's a queer notion in my old age," said Father
+Christopher, and he laughed. "I have turned from priest to merchant,
+brother. I ought to be at home now saying my prayers, instead of
+galloping about the country like a Pharaoh in his chariot. . . .
+Vanity!"
+
+"But it will mean a lot of pence!"
+
+"Oh, I dare say! More kicks than halfpence, and serve me right. The
+wool's not mine, but my son-in-law Mikhail's!"
+
+"Why doesn't he go himself?"
+
+"Why, because . . . His mother's milk is scarcely dry upon his lips.
+He can buy wool all right, but when it comes to selling, he has no
+sense; he is young yet. He has wasted all his money; he wanted to
+grow rich and cut a dash, but he tried here and there, and no one
+would give him his price. And so the lad went on like that for a
+year, and then he came to me and said, 'Daddy, you sell the wool
+for me; be kind and do it! I am no good at the business!' And that
+is true enough. As soon as there is anything wrong then it's 'Daddy,'
+but till then they could get on without their dad. When he was
+buying he did not consult me, but now when he is in difficulties
+it's Daddy's turn. And what does his dad know about it? If it were
+not for Ivan Ivanitch, his dad could do nothing. I have a lot of
+worry with them."
+
+"Yes; one has a lot of worry with one's children, I can tell you
+that," sighed Moisey Moisevitch. "I have six of my own. One needs
+schooling, another needs doctoring, and a third needs nursing, and
+when they grow up they are more trouble still. It is not only
+nowadays, it was the same in Holy Scripture. When Jacob had little
+children he wept, and when they grew up he wept still more bitterly."
+
+"H'm, yes . . ." Father Christopher assented pensively, looking at
+his glass. "I have no cause myself to rail against the Lord. I have
+lived to the end of my days as any man might be thankful to live.
+. . . I have married my daughters to good men, my sons I have set
+up in life, and now I am free; I have done my work and can go where
+I like. I live in peace with my wife. I eat and drink and sleep and
+rejoice in my grandchildren, and say my prayers and want nothing
+more. I live on the fat of the land, and don't need to curry favour
+with anyone. I have never had any trouble from childhood, and now
+suppose the Tsar were to ask me, 'What do you need? What would you
+like?' why, I don't need anything. I have everything I want and
+everything to be thankful for. In the whole town there is no happier
+man than I am. My only trouble is I have so many sins, but there
+--only God is without sin. That's right, isn't it?"
+
+"No doubt it is."
+
+"I have no teeth, of course; my poor old back aches; there is one
+thing and another, . . . asthma and that sort of thing. . . . I
+ache. . . . The flesh is weak, but then think of my age! I am in
+the eighties! One can't go on for ever; one mustn't outstay one's
+welcome."
+
+Father Christopher suddenly thought of something, spluttered into
+his glass and choked with laughter. Moisey Moisevitch laughed, too,
+from politeness, and he, too, cleared his throat.
+
+"So funny!" said Father Christopher, and he waved his hand. "My
+eldest son Gavrila came to pay me a visit. He is in the medical
+line, and is a district doctor in the province of Tchernigov. . . .
+'Very well . . .' I said to him, 'here I have asthma and one thing
+and another. . . . You are a doctor; cure your father!' He undressed
+me on the spot, tapped me, listened, and all sorts of tricks, . . .
+kneaded my stomach, and then he said, 'Dad, you ought to be treated
+with compressed air.'" Father Christopher laughed convulsively,
+till the tears came into his eyes, and got up.
+
+"And I said to him, 'God bless your compressed air!'" he brought
+out through his laughter, waving both hands. "God bless your
+compressed air!"
+
+Moisey Moisevitch got up, too, and with his hands on his stomach,
+went off into shrill laughter like the yap of a lap-dog.
+
+"God bless the compressed air!" repeated Father Christopher, laughing.
+
+Moisey Moisevitch laughed two notes higher and so violently that
+he could hardly stand on his feet.
+
+"Oh dear!" he moaned through his laughter. "Let me get my breath
+. . . . You'll be the death of me."
+
+He laughed and talked, though at the same time he was casting
+timorous and suspicious looks at Solomon. The latter was standing
+in the same attitude and still smiling. To judge from his eyes and
+his smile, his contempt and hatred were genuine, but that was so
+out of keeping with his plucked-looking figure that it seemed to
+Yegorushka as though he were putting on his defiant attitude and
+biting sarcastic smile to play the fool for the entertainment of
+their honoured guests.
+
+After drinking six glasses of tea in silence, Kuzmitchov cleared a
+space before him on the table, took his bag, the one which he kept
+under his head when he slept under the chaise, untied the string
+and shook it. Rolls of paper notes were scattered out of the bag
+on the table.
+
+"While we have the time, Father Christopher, let us reckon up,"
+said Kuzmitchov.
+
+Moisey Moisevitch was embarrassed at the sight of the money. He got
+up, and, as a man of delicate feeling unwilling to pry into other
+people's secrets, he went out of the room on tiptoe, swaying his
+arms. Solomon remained where he was.
+
+"How many are there in the rolls of roubles?" Father Christopher
+began.
+
+"The rouble notes are done up in fifties, . . . the three-rouble
+notes in nineties, the twenty-five and hundred roubles in thousands.
+You count out seven thousand eight hundred for Varlamov, and I will
+count out for Gusevitch. And mind you don't make a mistake. . ."
+
+Yegorushka had never in his life seen so much money as was lying
+on the table before him. There must have been a great deal of money,
+for the roll of seven thousand eight hundred, which Father Christopher
+put aside for Varlamov, seemed very small compared with the whole
+heap. At any other time such a mass of money would have impressed
+Yegorushka, and would have moved him to reflect how many cracknels,
+buns and poppy-cakes could be bought for that money. Now he looked
+at it listlessly, only conscious of the disgusting smell of kerosene
+and rotten apples that came from the heap of notes. He was exhausted
+by the jolting ride in the chaise, tired out and sleepy. His head
+was heavy, his eyes would hardly keep open and his thoughts were
+tangled like threads. If it had been possible he would have been
+relieved to lay his head on the table, so as not to see the lamp
+and the fingers moving over the heaps of notes, and to have let his
+tired sleepy thoughts go still more at random. When he tried to
+keep awake, the light of the lamp, the cups and the fingers grew
+double, the samovar heaved and the smell of rotten apples seemed
+even more acrid and disgusting.
+
+"Ah, money, money!" sighed Father Christopher, smiling. "You bring
+trouble! Now I expect my Mihailo is asleep and dreaming that I am
+going to bring him a heap of money like this."
+
+"Your Mihailo Timofevitch is a man who doesn't understand business,"
+said Kuzmitchov in an undertone; "he undertakes what isn't his work,
+but you understand and can judge. You had better hand over your
+wool to me, as I have said already, and I would give you half a
+rouble above my own price--yes, I would, simply out of regard for
+you. . . ."
+
+"No, Ivan Ivanitch." Father Christopher sighed. "I thank you for
+your kindness. . . . Of course, if it were for me to decide, I
+shouldn't think twice about it; but as it is, the wool is not mine,
+as you know. . . ."
+
+Moisey Moisevitch came in on tiptoe. Trying from delicacy not to
+look at the heaps of money, he stole up to Yegorushka and pulled
+at his shirt from behind.
+
+"Come along, little gentleman," he said in an undertone, "come and
+see the little bear I can show you! Such a queer, cross little bear.
+Oo-oo!"
+
+The sleepy boy got up and listlessly dragged himself after Moisey
+Moisevitch to see the bear. He went into a little room, where,
+before he saw anything, he felt he could not breathe from the smell
+of something sour and decaying, which was much stronger here than
+in the big room and probably spread from this room all over the
+house. One part of the room was occupied by a big bed, covered with
+a greasy quilt and another by a chest of drawers and heaps of rags
+of all kinds from a woman's stiff petticoat to children's little
+breeches and braces. A tallow candle stood on the chest of drawers.
+
+Instead of the promised bear, Yegorushka saw a big fat Jewess with
+her hair hanging loose, in a red flannel skirt with black sprigs
+on it; she turned with difficulty in the narrow space between the
+bed and the chest of drawers and uttered drawn-out moaning as though
+she had toothache. On seeing Yegorushka, she made a doleful,
+woe-begone face, heaved a long drawn-out sigh, and before he had
+time to look round, put to his lips a slice of bread smeared with
+honey.
+
+"Eat it, dearie, eat it!" she said. "You are here without your
+mamma, and no one to look after you. Eat it up."
+
+Yegorushka did eat it, though after the goodies and poppy-cakes he
+had every day at home, he did not think very much of the honey,
+which was mixed with wax and bees' wings. He ate while Moisey
+Moisevitch and the Jewess looked at him and sighed.
+
+"Where are you going, dearie?" asked the Jewess.
+
+"To school," answered Yegorushka.
+
+"And how many brothers and sisters have you got?"
+
+"I am the only one; there are no others."
+
+"O-oh!" sighed the Jewess, and turned her eyes upward. "Poor mamma,
+poor mamma! How she will weep and miss you! We are going to send
+our Nahum to school in a year. O-oh!"
+
+"Ah, Nahum, Nahum!" sighed Moisey Moisevitch, and the skin of his
+pale face twitched nervously. "And he is so delicate."
+
+The greasy quilt quivered, and from beneath it appeared a child's
+curly head on a very thin neck; two black eyes gleamed and stared
+with curiosity at Yegorushka. Still sighing, Moisey Moisevitch and
+the Jewess went to the chest of drawers and began talking in Yiddish.
+Moisey Moisevitch spoke in a low bass undertone, and altogether his
+talk in Yiddish was like a continual "ghaal-ghaal-ghaal-ghaal, . . ."
+while his wife answered him in a shrill voice like a turkeycock's,
+and the whole effect of her talk was something like "Too-too-too-too!"
+While they were consulting, another little curly head on a thin
+neck peeped out of the greasy quilt, then a third, then a fourth.
+. . . If Yegorushka had had a fertile imagination he might have
+imagined that the hundred-headed hydra was hiding under the quilt.
+
+"Ghaal-ghaal-ghaal-ghaal!" said Moisey Moisevitch.
+
+"Too-too-too-too!" answered the Jewess.
+
+The consultation ended in the Jewess's diving with a deep sigh into
+the chest of drawers, and, unwrapping some sort of green rag there,
+she took out a big rye cake made in the shape of a heart.
+
+"Take it, dearie," she said, giving Yegorushka the cake; "you have
+no mamma now--no one to give you nice things."
+
+Yegorushka stuck the cake in his pocket and staggered to the door,
+as he could not go on breathing the foul, sour air in which the
+innkeeper and his wife lived. Going back to the big room, he settled
+himself more comfortably on the sofa and gave up trying to check
+his straying thoughts.
+
+As soon as Kuzmitchov had finished counting out the notes he put
+them back into the bag. He did not treat them very respectfully and
+stuffed them into the dirty sack without ceremony, as indifferently
+as though they had not been money but waste paper.
+
+Father Christopher was talking to Solomon.
+
+"Well, Solomon the Wise!" he said, yawning and making the sign of
+the cross over his mouth. "How is business?"
+
+"What sort of business are you talking about?" asked Solomon, and
+he looked as fiendish, as though it were a hint of some crime on
+his part.
+
+"Oh, things in general. What are you doing?"
+
+"What am I doing?" Solomon repeated, and he shrugged his shoulders.
+"The same as everyone else. . . . You see, I am a menial, I am my
+brother's servant; my brother's the servant of the visitors; the
+visitors are Varlamov's servants; and if I had ten millions, Varlamov
+would be my servant."
+
+"Why would he be your servant?"
+
+"Why, because there isn't a gentleman or millionaire who isn't ready
+to lick the hand of a scabby Jew for the sake of making a kopeck.
+Now, I am a scabby Jew and a beggar. Everybody looks at me as though
+I were a dog, but if I had money Varlamov would play the fool before
+me just as Moisey does before you."
+
+Father Christopher and Kuzmitchov looked at each other. Neither of
+them understood Solomon. Kuzmitchov looked at him sternly and dryly,
+and asked:
+
+"How can you compare yourself with Varlamov, you blockhead?"
+
+"I am not such a fool as to put myself on a level with Varlamov,"
+answered Solomon, looking sarcastically at the speaker. "Though
+Varlamov is a Russian, he is at heart a scabby Jew; money and gain
+are all he lives for, but I threw my money in the stove! I don't
+want money, or land, or sheep, and there is no need for people to
+be afraid of me and to take off their hats when I pass. So I am
+wiser than your Varlamov and more like a man!"
+
+A little later Yegorushka, half asleep, heard Solomon in a hoarse
+hollow voice choked with hatred, in hurried stuttering phrases,
+talking about the Jews. At first he talked correctly in Russian,
+then he fell into the tone of a Jewish recitation, and began speaking
+as he had done at the fair with an exaggerated Jewish accent.
+
+"Stop! . . ." Father Christopher said to him. "If you don't like
+your religion you had better change it, but to laugh at it is a
+sin; it is only the lowest of the low who will make fun of his
+religion."
+
+"You don't understand," Solomon cut him short rudely. "I am talking
+of one thing and you are talking of something else. . . ."
+
+"One can see you are a foolish fellow," sighed Father Christopher.
+"I admonish you to the best of my ability, and you are angry. I
+speak to you like an old man quietly, and you answer like a turkeycock:
+'Bla---bla---bla!' You really are a queer fellow. . . ."
+
+Moisey Moisevitch came in. He looked anxiously at Solomon and at
+his visitors, and again the skin on his face quivered nervously.
+Yegorushka shook his head and looked about him; he caught a passing
+glimpse of Solomon's face at the very moment when it was turned
+three-quarters towards him and when the shadow of his long nose
+divided his left cheek in half; the contemptuous smile mingled with
+that shadow; the gleaming sarcastic eyes, the haughty expression,
+and the whole plucked-looking little figure, dancing and doubling
+itself before Yegorushka's eyes, made him now not like a buffoon,
+but like something one sometimes dreams of, like an evil spirit.
+
+"What a ferocious fellow you've got here, Moisey Moisevitch! God
+bless him!" said Father Christopher with a smile. "You ought to
+find him a place or a wife or something. . . . There's no knowing
+what to make of him. . . ."
+
+Kuzmitchov frowned angrily. Moisey Moisevitch looked uneasily and
+inquiringly at his brother and the visitors again.
+
+"Solomon, go away!" he said shortly. "Go away!" and he added something
+in Yiddish. Solomon gave an abrupt laugh and went out.
+
+"What was it?" Moisey Moisevitch asked Father Christopher anxiously.
+
+"He forgets himself," answered Kuzmitchov. "He's rude and thinks
+too much of himself."
+
+"I knew it!" Moisey Moisevitch cried in horror, clasping his hands.
+"Oh dear, oh dear!" he muttered in a low voice. "Be so kind as to
+excuse it, and don't be angry. He is such a queer fellow, such a
+queer fellow! Oh dear, oh dear! He is my own brother, but I have
+never had anything but trouble from him. You know he's. . ."
+
+Moisey Moisevitch crooked his finger by his forehead and went on:
+
+"He is not in his right mind; . . . he's hopeless. And I don't know
+what I am to do with him! He cares for nobody, he respects nobody,
+and is afraid of nobody. . . . You know he laughs at everybody, he
+says silly things, speaks familiarly to anyone. You wouldn't believe
+it, Varlamov came here one day and Solomon said such things to him
+that he gave us both a taste of his whip. . . . But why whip me?
+Was it my fault? God has robbed him of his wits, so it is God's
+will, and how am I to blame?"
+
+Ten minutes passed and Moisey Moisevitch was still muttering in an
+undertone and sighing:
+
+"He does not sleep at night, and is always thinking and thinking
+and thinking, and what he is thinking about God only knows. If you
+go to him at night he is angry and laughs. He doesn't like me either
+. . . . And there is nothing he wants! When our father died he left
+us each six thousand roubles. I bought myself an inn, married, and
+now I have children; and he burnt all his money in the stove. Such
+a pity, such a pity! Why burn it? If he didn't want it he could
+give it to me, but why burn it?"
+
+Suddenly the swing-door creaked and the floor shook under footsteps.
+Yegorushka felt a draught of cold air, and it seemed to him as
+though some big black bird had passed by him and had fluttered its
+wings close in his face. He opened his eyes. . . . His uncle was
+standing by the sofa with his sack in his hands ready for departure;
+Father Christopher, holding his broad-brimmed top-hat, was bowing
+to someone and smiling--not his usual soft kindly smile, but a
+respectful forced smile which did not suit his face at all--while
+Moisey Moisevitch looked as though his body had been broken into
+three parts, and he were balancing and doing his utmost not to drop
+to pieces. Only Solomon stood in the corner with his arms folded,
+as though nothing had happened, and smiled contemptuously as before.
+
+"Your Excellency must excuse us for not being tidy," moaned Moisey
+Moisevitch with the agonizingly sweet smile, taking no more notice
+of Kuzmitchov or Father Christopher, but swaying his whole person
+so as to avoid dropping to pieces. "We are plain folks, your
+Excellency."
+
+Yegorushka rubbed his eyes. In the middle of the room there really
+was standing an Excellency, in the form of a young plump and very
+beautiful woman in a black dress and a straw hat. Before Yegorushka
+had time to examine her features the image of the solitary graceful
+poplar he had seen that day on the hill for some reason came into
+his mind.
+
+"Has Varlamov been here to-day?" a woman's voice inquired.
+
+"No, your Excellency," said Moisey Moisevitch.
+
+"If you see him to-morrow, ask him to come and see me for a minute."
+
+All at once, quite unexpectedly, Yegorushka saw half an inch from
+his eyes velvety black eyebrows, big brown eyes, delicate feminine
+cheeks with dimples, from which smiles seemed radiating all over
+the face like sunbeams. There was a glorious scent.
+
+"What a pretty boy!" said the lady. "Whose boy is it? Kazimir
+Mihalovitch, look what a charming fellow! Good heavens, he is
+asleep!"
+
+And the lady kissed Yegorushka warmly on both cheeks, and he smiled
+and, thinking he was asleep, shut his eyes. The swing-door squeaked,
+and there was the sound of hurried footsteps, coming in and going
+out.
+
+"Yegorushka, Yegorushka!" he heard two bass voices whisper. "Get
+up; it is time to start."
+
+Somebody, it seemed to be Deniska, set him on his feet and led him
+by the arm. On the way he half-opened his eyes and once more saw
+the beautiful lady in the black dress who had kissed him. She was
+standing in the middle of the room and watched him go out, smiling
+at him and nodding her head in a friendly way. As he got near the
+door he saw a handsome, stoutly built, dark man in a bowler hat and
+in leather gaiters. This must have been the lady's escort.
+
+"Woa!" he heard from the yard.
+
+At the front door Yegorushka saw a splendid new carriage and a pair
+of black horses. On the box sat a groom in livery, with a long whip
+in his hands. No one but Solomon came to see the travellers off.
+His face was tense with a desire to laugh; he looked as though he
+were waiting impatiently for the visitors to be gone, so that he
+might laugh at them without restraint.
+
+"The Countess Dranitsky," whispered Father Christopher, clambering
+into the chaise.
+
+"Yes, Countess Dranitsky," repeated Kuzmitchov, also in a whisper.
+
+The impression made by the arrival of the countess was probably
+very great, for even Deniska spoke in a whisper, and only ventured
+to lash his bays and shout when the chaise had driven a quarter of
+a mile away and nothing could be seen of the inn but a dim light.
+
+IV
+
+Who was this elusive, mysterious Varlamov of whom people talked so
+much, whom Solomon despised, and whom even the beautiful countess
+needed? Sitting on the box beside Deniska, Yegorushka, half asleep,
+thought about this person. He had never seen him. But he had often
+heard of him and pictured him in his imagination. He knew that
+Varlamov possessed several tens of thousands of acres of land, about
+a hundred thousand sheep, and a great deal of money. Of his manner
+of life and occupation Yegorushka knew nothing, except that he was
+always "going his rounds in these parts," and he was always being
+looked for.
+
+At home Yegorushka had heard a great deal of the Countess Dranitsky,
+too. She, too, had some tens of thousands of acres, a great many
+sheep, a stud farm and a great deal of money, but she did not "go
+rounds," but lived at home in a splendid house and grounds, about
+which Ivan Ivanitch, who had been more than once at the countess's
+on business, and other acquaintances told many marvellous tales;
+thus, for instance, they said that in the countess's drawing-room,
+where the portraits of all the kings of Poland hung on the walls,
+there was a big table-clock in the form of a rock, on the rock a
+gold horse with diamond eyes, rearing, and on the horse the figure
+of a rider also of gold, who brandished his sword to right and to
+left whenever the clock struck. They said, too, that twice a year
+the countess used to give a ball, to which the gentry and officials
+of the whole province were invited, and to which even Varlamov used
+to come; all the visitors drank tea from silver samovars, ate all
+sorts of extraordinary things (they had strawberries and raspberries,
+for instance, in winter at Christmas), and danced to a band which
+played day and night. . . .
+
+"And how beautiful she is," thought Yegorushka, remembering her
+face and smile.
+
+Kuzmitchov, too, was probably thinking about the countess. For when
+the chaise had driven a mile and a half he said:
+
+"But doesn't that Kazimir Mihalovitch plunder her right and left!
+The year before last when, do you remember, I bought some wool from
+her, he made over three thousand from my purchase alone."
+
+"That is just what you would expect from a Pole," said Father
+Christopher.
+
+"And little does it trouble her. Young and foolish, as they say,
+her head is full of nonsense."
+
+Yegorushka, for some reason, longed to think of nothing but Varlamov
+and the countess, particularly the latter. His drowsy brain utterly
+refused ordinary thoughts, was in a cloud and retained only fantastic
+fairy-tale images, which have the advantage of springing into the
+brain of themselves without any effort on the part of the thinker,
+and completely vanishing of themselves at a mere shake of the head;
+and, indeed, nothing that was around him disposed to ordinary
+thoughts. On the right there were the dark hills which seemed to
+be screening something unseen and terrible; on the left the whole
+sky about the horizon was covered with a crimson glow, and it was
+hard to tell whether there was a fire somewhere, or whether it was
+the moon about to rise. As by day the distance could be seen, but
+its tender lilac tint had gone, quenched by the evening darkness,
+in which the whole steppe was hidden like Moisey Moisevitch's
+children under the quilt.
+
+Corncrakes and quails do not call in the July nights, the nightingale
+does not sing in the woodland marsh, and there is no scent of
+flowers, but still the steppe is lovely and full of life. As soon
+as the sun goes down and the darkness enfolds the earth, the day's
+weariness is forgotten, everything is forgiven, and the steppe
+breathes a light sigh from its broad bosom. As though because the
+grass cannot see in the dark that it has grown old, a gay youthful
+twitter rises up from it, such as is not heard by day; chirruping,
+twittering, whistling, scratching, the basses, tenors and sopranos
+of the steppe all mingle in an incessant, monotonous roar of sound
+in which it is sweet to brood on memories and sorrows. The monotonous
+twitter soothes to sleep like a lullaby; you drive and feel you are
+falling asleep, but suddenly there comes the abrupt agitated cry
+of a wakeful bird, or a vague sound like a voice crying out in
+wonder "A-ah, a-ah!" and slumber closes one's eyelids again. Or you
+drive by a little creek where there are bushes and hear the bird,
+called by the steppe dwellers "the sleeper," call "Asleep, asleep,
+asleep!" while another laughs or breaks into trills of hysterical
+weeping--that is the owl. For whom do they call and who hears
+them on that plain, God only knows, but there is deep sadness and
+lamentation in their cry. . . . There is a scent of hay and dry
+grass and belated flowers, but the scent is heavy, sweetly mawkish
+and soft.
+
+Everything can be seen through the mist, but it is hard to make out
+the colours and the outlines of objects. Everything looks different
+from what it is. You drive on and suddenly see standing before you
+right in the roadway a dark figure like a monk; it stands motionless,
+waiting, holding something in its hands. . . . Can it be a robber?
+The figure comes closer, grows bigger; now it is on a level with
+the chaise, and you see it is not a man, but a solitary bush or a
+great stone. Such motionless expectant figures stand on the low
+hills, hide behind the old barrows, peep out from the high grass,
+and they all look like human beings and arouse suspicion.
+
+And when the moon rises the night becomes pale and dim. The mist
+seems to have passed away. The air is transparent, fresh and warm;
+one can see well in all directions and even distinguish the separate
+stalks of grass by the wayside. Stones and bits of pots can be seen
+at a long distance. The suspicious figures like monks look blacker
+against the light background of the night, and seem more sinister.
+More and more often in the midst of the monotonous chirruping there
+comes the sound of the "A-ah, a-ah!" of astonishment troubling the
+motionless air, and the cry of a sleepless or delirious bird. Broad
+shadows move across the plain like clouds across the sky, and in
+the inconceivable distance, if you look long and intently at it,
+misty monstrous shapes rise up and huddle one against another. . . .
+It is rather uncanny. One glances at the pale green, star-spangled
+sky on which there is no cloudlet, no spot, and understands why the
+warm air is motionless, why nature is on her guard, afraid to stir:
+she is afraid and reluctant to lose one instant of life. Of the
+unfathomable depth and infinity of the sky one can only form a
+conception at sea and on the steppe by night when the moon is
+shining. It is terribly lonely and caressing; it looks down languid
+and alluring, and its caressing sweetness makes one giddy.
+
+You drive on for one hour, for a second. . . . You meet upon the
+way a silent old barrow or a stone figure put up God knows when and
+by whom; a nightbird floats noiselessly over the earth, and little
+by little those legends of the steppes, the tales of men you have
+met, the stories of some old nurse from the steppe, and all the
+things you have managed to see and treasure in your soul, come back
+to your mind. And then in the churring of insects, in the sinister
+figures, in the ancient barrows, in the blue sky, in the moonlight,
+in the flight of the nightbird, in everything you see and hear,
+triumphant beauty, youth, the fulness of power, and the passionate
+thirst for life begin to be apparent; the soul responds to the call
+of her lovely austere fatherland, and longs to fly over the steppes
+with the nightbird. And in the triumph of beauty, in the exuberance
+of happiness you are conscious of yearning and grief, as though the
+steppe knew she was solitary, knew that her wealth and her inspiration
+were wasted for the world, not glorified in song, not wanted by
+anyone; and through the joyful clamour one hears her mournful,
+hopeless call for singers, singers!
+
+"Woa! Good-evening, Panteley! Is everything all right?"
+
+"First-rate, Ivan Ivanitch!
+
+"Haven't you seen Varlamov, lads?"
+
+"No, we haven't."
+
+Yegorushka woke up and opened his eyes. The chaise had stopped. On
+the right the train of waggons stretched for a long way ahead on
+the road, and men were moving to and fro near them. All the waggons
+being loaded up with great bales of wool looked very high and fat,
+while the horses looked short-legged and little.
+
+"Well, then, we shall go on to the Molokans'!" Kuzmitchov said
+aloud. "The Jew told us that Varlamov was putting up for the night
+at the Molokans'. So good-bye, lads! Good luck to you!"
+
+"Good-bye, Ivan Ivanitch," several voices replied.
+
+"I say, lads," Kuzmitchov cried briskly, "you take my little lad
+along with you! Why should he go jolting off with us for nothing?
+You put him on the bales, Panteley, and let him come on slowly, and
+we shall overtake you. Get down, Yegor! Go on; it's all right. . . ."
+
+Yegorushka got down from the box-seat. Several hands caught him,
+lifted him high into the air, and he found himself on something
+big, soft, and rather wet with dew. It seemed to him now as though
+the sky were quite close and the earth far away.
+
+"Hey, take his little coat!" Deniska shouted from somewhere far
+below.
+
+His coat and bundle flung up from far below fell close to Yegorushka.
+Anxious not to think of anything, he quickly put his bundle under
+his head and covered himself with his coat, and stretching his legs
+out and shrinking a little from the dew, he laughed with content.
+
+"Sleep, sleep, sleep, . . ." he thought.
+
+"Don't be unkind to him, you devils!" he heard Deniska's voice
+below.
+
+"Good-bye, lads; good luck to you," shouted Kuzmitchov. "I rely
+upon you!"
+
+"Don't you be uneasy, Ivan Ivanitch!"
+
+Deniska shouted to the horses, the chaise creaked and started, not
+along the road, but somewhere off to the side. For two minutes there
+was silence, as though the waggons were asleep and there was no
+sound except the clanking of the pails tied on at the back of the
+chaise as it slowly died away in the distance. Then someone at the
+head of the waggons shouted:
+
+"Kiruha! Sta-art!"
+
+The foremost of the waggons creaked, then the second, then the
+third. . . . Yegorushka felt the waggon he was on sway and creak
+also. The waggons were moving. Yegorushka took a tighter hold of
+the cord with which the bales were tied on, laughed again with
+content, shifted the cake in his pocket, and fell asleep just as
+he did in his bed at home. . . .
+
+When he woke up the sun had risen, it was screened by an ancient
+barrow, and, trying to shed its light upon the earth, it scattered
+its beams in all directions and flooded the horizon with gold. It
+seemed to Yegorushka that it was not in its proper place, as the
+day before it had risen behind his back, and now it was much more
+to his left. . . . And the whole landscape was different. There
+were no hills now, but on all sides, wherever one looked, there
+stretched the brown cheerless plain; here and there upon it small
+barrows rose up and rooks flew as they had done the day before. The
+belfries and huts of some village showed white in the distance
+ahead; as it was Sunday the Little Russians were at home baking and
+cooking--that could be seen by the smoke which rose from every
+chimney and hung, a dark blue transparent veil, over the village.
+In between the huts and beyond the church there were blue glimpses
+of a river, and beyond the river a misty distance. But nothing was
+so different from yesterday as the road. Something extraordinarily
+broad, spread out and titanic, stretched over the steppe by way of
+a road. It was a grey streak well trodden down and covered with
+dust, like all roads. Its width puzzled Yegorushka and brought
+thoughts of fairy tales to his mind. Who travelled along that road?
+Who needed so much space? It was strange and unintelligible. It
+might have been supposed that giants with immense strides, such as
+Ilya Muromets and Solovy the Brigand, were still surviving in Russia,
+and that their gigantic steeds were still alive. Yegorushka, looking
+at the road, imagined some half a dozen high chariots racing along
+side by side, like some he used to see in pictures in his Scripture
+history; these chariots were each drawn by six wild furious horses,
+and their great wheels raised a cloud of dust to the sky, while the
+horses were driven by men such as one may see in one's dreams or
+in imagination brooding over fairy tales. And if those figures had
+existed, how perfectly in keeping with the steppe and the road they
+would have been!
+
+Telegraph-poles with two wires on them stretched along the right
+side of the road to its furthermost limit. Growing smaller and
+smaller they disappeared near the village behind the huts and green
+trees, and then again came into sight in the lilac distance in the
+form of very small thin sticks that looked like pencils stuck into
+the ground. Hawks, falcons, and crows sat on the wires and looked
+indifferently at the moving waggons.
+
+Yegorushka was lying in the last of the waggons, and so could see
+the whole string. There were about twenty waggons, and there was a
+driver to every three waggons. By the last waggon, the one in which
+Yegorushka was, there walked an old man with a grey beard, as short
+and lean as Father Christopher, but with a sunburnt, stern and
+brooding face. It is very possible that the old man was not stern
+and not brooding, but his red eyelids and his sharp long nose gave
+his face a stern frigid expression such as is common with people
+in the habit of continually thinking of serious things in solitude.
+Like Father Christopher he was wearing a wide-brimmed top-hat, not
+like a gentleman's, but made of brown felt, and in shape more like
+a cone with the top cut off than a real top-hat. Probably from a
+habit acquired in cold winters, when he must more than once have
+been nearly frozen as he trudged beside the waggons, he kept slapping
+his thighs and stamping with his feet as he walked. Noticing that
+Yegorushka was awake, he looked at him and said, shrugging his
+shoulders as though from the cold:
+
+"Ah, you are awake, youngster! So you are the son of Ivan Ivanitch?"
+
+"No; his nephew. . . ."
+
+"Nephew of Ivan Ivanitch? Here I have taken off my boots and am
+hopping along barefoot. My feet are bad; they are swollen, and it's
+easier without my boots . . . easier, youngster . . . without boots,
+I mean. . . . So you are his nephew? He is a good man; no harm in
+him. . . . God give him health. . . . No harm in him . . . I mean
+Ivan Ivanitch. . . . He has gone to the Molokans'. . . . O Lord,
+have mercy upon us!"
+
+The old man talked, too, as though it were very cold, pausing and
+not opening his mouth properly; and he mispronounced the labial
+consonants, stuttering over them as though his lips were frozen.
+As he talked to Yegorushka he did not once smile, and he seemed
+stern.
+
+Two waggons ahead of them there walked a man wearing a long
+reddish-brown coat, a cap and high boots with sagging bootlegs and
+carrying a whip in his hand. This was not an old man, only about
+forty. When he looked round Yegorushka saw a long red face with a
+scanty goat-beard and a spongy looking swelling under his right
+eye. Apart from this very ugly swelling, there was another peculiar
+thing about him which caught the eye at once: in his left hand he
+carried a whip, while he waved the right as though he were conducting
+an unseen choir; from time to time he put the whip under his arm,
+and then he conducted with both hands and hummed something to
+himself.
+
+The next driver was a long rectilinear figure with extremely sloping
+shoulders and a back as flat as a board. He held himself as stiffly
+erect as though he were marching or had swallowed a yard measure.
+His hands did not swing as he walked, but hung down as if they were
+straight sticks, and he strode along in a wooden way, after the
+manner of toy soldiers, almost without bending his knees, and trying
+to take as long steps as possible. While the old man or the owner
+of the spongy swelling were taking two steps he succeeded in taking
+only one, and so it seemed as though he were walking more slowly
+than any of them, and would drop behind. His face was tied up in a
+rag, and on his head something stuck up that looked like a monk's
+peaked cap; he was dressed in a short Little Russian coat, with
+full dark blue trousers and bark shoes.
+
+Yegorushka did not even distinguish those that were farther on. He
+lay on his stomach, picked a little hole in the bale, and, having
+nothing better to do, began twisting the wool into a thread. The
+old man trudging along below him turned out not to be so stern as
+one might have supposed from his face. Having begun a conversation,
+he did not let it drop.
+
+"Where are you going?" he asked, stamping with his feet.
+
+"To school," answered Yegorushka.
+
+"To school? Aha! . . . Well, may the Queen of Heaven help you. Yes.
+One brain is good, but two are better. To one man God gives one
+brain, to another two brains, and to another three. . . . To another
+three, that is true. . . . One brain you are born with, one you get
+from learning, and a third with a good life. So you see, my lad,
+it is a good thing if a man has three brains. Living is easier for
+him, and, what's more, dying is, too. Dying is, too. . . . And we
+shall all die for sure."
+
+The old man scratched his forehead, glanced upwards at Yegorushka
+with his red eyes, and went on:
+
+"Maxim Nikolaitch, the gentleman from Slavyanoserbsk, brought a
+little lad to school, too, last year. I don't know how he is getting
+on there in studying the sciences, but he was a nice good little
+lad. . . . God give them help, they are nice gentlemen. Yes, he,
+too, brought his boy to school. . . . In Slavyanoserbsk there is
+no establishment, I suppose, for study. No. . . . But it is a nice
+town. . . . There's an ordinary school for simple folks, but for
+the higher studies there is nothing. No, that's true. What's your
+name? . . ."
+
+"Yegorushka."
+
+"Yegory, then. . . . The holy martyr Yegory, the Bearer of Victory,
+whose day is the twenty-third of April. And my christian name is
+Panteley, . . . Panteley Zaharov Holodov. . . . We are Holodovs
+. . . . I am a native of--maybe you've heard of it--Tim in the
+province of Kursk. My brothers are artisans and work at trades in
+the town, but I am a peasant. . . . I have remained a peasant. Seven
+years ago I went there--home, I mean. I went to the village and
+to the town. . . . To Tim, I mean. Then, thank God, they were all
+alive and well; . . . but now I don't know. . . . Maybe some of
+them are dead. . . . And it's time they did die, for some of them
+are older than I am. Death is all right; it is good so long, of
+course, as one does not die without repentance. There is no worse
+evil than an impenitent death; an impenitent death is a joy to the
+devil. And if you want to die penitent, so that you may not be
+forbidden to enter the mansions of the Lord, pray to the holy martyr
+Varvara. She is the intercessor. She is, that's the truth. . . .
+For God has given her such a place in the heavens that everyone has
+the right to pray to her for penitence."
+
+Panteley went on muttering, and apparently did not trouble whether
+Yegorushka heard him or not. He talked listlessly, mumbling to
+himself, without raising or dropping his voice, but succeeded in
+telling him a great deal in a short time. All he said was made up
+of fragments that had very little connection with one another, and
+quite uninteresting for Yegorushka. Possibly he talked only in order
+to reckon over his thoughts aloud after the night spent in silence,
+in order to see if they were all there. After talking of repentance,
+he spoke about a certain Maxim Nikolaitch from Slavyanoserbsk.
+
+"Yes, he took his little lad; . . . he took him, that's true . . ."
+
+One of the waggoners walking in front darted from his place, ran
+to one side and began lashing on the ground with his whip. He was
+a stalwart, broad-shouldered man of thirty, with curly flaxen hair
+and a look of great health and vigour. Judging from the movements
+of his shoulders and the whip, and the eagerness expressed in his
+attitude, he was beating something alive. Another waggoner, a short
+stubby little man with a bushy black beard, wearing a waistcoat and
+a shirt outside his trousers, ran up to him. The latter broke into
+a deep guffaw of laughter and coughing and said: "I say, lads, Dymov
+has killed a snake!"
+
+There are people whose intelligence can be gauged at once by their
+voice and laughter. The man with the black beard belonged to that
+class of fortunate individuals; impenetrable stupidity could be
+felt in his voice and laugh. The flaxen-headed Dymov had finished,
+and lifting from the ground with his whip something like a cord,
+flung it with a laugh into the cart.
+
+"That's not a viper; it's a grass snake!" shouted someone.
+
+The man with the wooden gait and the bandage round his face strode
+up quickly to the dead snake, glanced at it and flung up his
+stick-like arms.
+
+"You jail-bird!" he cried in a hollow wailing voice. "What have you
+killed a grass snake for? What had he done to you, you damned brute?
+Look, he has killed a grass snake; how would you like to be treated
+so?"
+
+"Grass snakes ought not to be killed, that's true," Panteley muttered
+placidly, "they ought not. . . They are not vipers; though it looks
+like a snake, it is a gentle, innocent creature. . . . It's friendly
+to man, the grass snake is."
+
+Dymov and the man with the black beard were probably ashamed, for
+they laughed loudly, and not answering, slouched lazily back to
+their waggons. When the hindmost waggon was level with the spot
+where the dead snake lay, the man with his face tied up standing
+over it turned to Panteley and asked in a tearful voice:
+
+"Grandfather, what did he want to kill the grass snake for?"
+
+His eyes, as Yegorushka saw now, were small and dingy looking; his
+face was grey, sickly and looked somehow dingy too while his chin
+was red and seemed very much swollen.
+
+"Grandfather, what did he kill it for?" he repeated, striding along
+beside Panteley.
+
+"A stupid fellow. His hands itch to kill, and that is why he does
+it," answered the old man; "but he oughtn't to kill a grass snake,
+that's true. . . . Dymov is a ruffian, we all know, he kills
+everything he comes across, and Kiruha did not interfere. He ought
+to have taken its part, but instead of that, he goes off into
+'Ha-ha-ha!' and 'Ho-ho-ho!' . . . But don't be angry, Vassya. . . .
+Why be angry? They've killed it--well, never mind them. Dymov
+is a ruffian and Kiruha acted from foolishness--never mind. . . .
+They are foolish people without understanding--but there, don't
+mind them. Emelyan here never touches what he shouldn't; he never
+does; . . . that is true, . . . because he is a man of education,
+while they are stupid. . . . Emelyan, he doesn't touch things."
+
+The waggoner in the reddish-brown coat and the spongy swelling on
+his face, who was conducting an unseen choir, stopped. Hearing his
+name, and waiting till Panteley and Vassya came up to him, he walked
+beside them.
+
+"What are you talking about?" he asked in a husky muffled voice.
+
+"Why, Vassya here is angry," said Panteley. "So I have been saying
+things to him to stop his being angry. . . . Oh, how my swollen
+feet hurt! Oh, oh! They are more inflamed than ever for Sunday,
+God's holy day!"
+
+"It's from walking," observed Vassya.
+
+"No, lad, no. It's not from walking. When I walk it seems easier;
+when I lie down and get warm, . . . it's deadly. Walking is easier
+for me."
+
+Emelyan, in his reddish-brown coat, walked between Panteley and
+Vassya and waved his arms, as though they were going to sing. After
+waving them a little while he dropped them, and croaked out hopelessly:
+
+"I have no voice. It's a real misfortune. All last night and this
+morning I have been haunted by the trio 'Lord, have Mercy' that we
+sang at the wedding at Marionovsky's. It's in my head and in my
+throat. It seems as though I could sing it, but I can't; I have no
+voice."
+
+He paused for a minute, thinking, then went on:
+
+"For fifteen years I was in the choir. In all the Lugansky works
+there was, maybe, no one with a voice like mine. But, confound it,
+I bathed two years ago in the Donets, and I can't get a single note
+true ever since. I took cold in my throat. And without a voice I
+am like a workman without hands."
+
+"That's true," Panteley agreed.
+
+"I think of myself as a ruined man and nothing more."
+
+At that moment Vassya chanced to catch sight of Yegorushka. His
+eyes grew moist and smaller than ever.
+
+"There's a little gentleman driving with us," and he covered his
+nose with his sleeve as though he were bashful. "What a grand driver!
+Stay with us and you shall drive the waggons and sell wool."
+
+The incongruity of one person being at once a little gentleman and
+a waggon driver seemed to strike him as very queer and funny, for
+he burst into a loud guffaw, and went on enlarging upon the idea.
+Emelyan glanced upwards at Yegorushka, too, but coldly and cursorily.
+He was absorbed in his own thoughts, and had it not been for Vassya,
+would not have noticed Yegorushka's presence. Before five minutes
+had passed he was waving his arms again, then describing to his
+companions the beauties of the wedding anthem, "Lord, have Mercy,"
+which he had remembered in the night. He put the whip under his arm
+and waved both hands.
+
+A mile from the village the waggons stopped by a well with a crane.
+Letting his pail down into the well, black-bearded Kiruha lay on
+his stomach on the framework and thrust his shaggy head, his
+shoulders, and part of his chest into the black hole, so that
+Yegorushka could see nothing but his short legs, which scarcely
+touched the ground. Seeing the reflection of his head far down at
+the bottom of the well, he was delighted and went off into his deep
+bass stupid laugh, and the echo from the well answered him. When
+he got up his neck and face were as red as beetroot. The first to
+run up and drink was Dymov. He drank laughing, often turning from
+the pail to tell Kiruha something funny, then he turned round, and
+uttered aloud, to be heard all over the steppe, five very bad words.
+Yegorushka did not understand the meaning of such words, but he
+knew very well they were bad words. He knew the repulsion his friends
+and relations silently felt for such words. He himself, without
+knowing why, shared that feeling and was accustomed to think that
+only drunk and disorderly people enjoy the privilege of uttering
+such words aloud. He remembered the murder of the grass snake,
+listened to Dymov's laughter, and felt something like hatred for
+the man. And as ill-luck would have it, Dymov at that moment caught
+sight of Yegorushka, who had climbed down from the waggon and gone
+up to the well. He laughed aloud and shouted:
+
+"I say, lads, the old man has been brought to bed of a boy in the
+night!"
+
+Kiruha laughed his bass laugh till he coughed. Someone else laughed
+too, while Yegorushka crimsoned and made up his mind finally that
+Dymov was a very wicked man.
+
+With his curly flaxen head, with his shirt opened on his chest and
+no hat on, Dymov looked handsome and exceptionally strong; in every
+movement he made one could see the reckless dare-devil and athlete,
+knowing his value. He shrugged his shoulders, put his arms akimbo,
+talked and laughed louder than any of the rest, and looked as though
+he were going to lift up something very heavy with one hand and
+astonish the whole world by doing so. His mischievous mocking eyes
+glided over the road, the waggons, and the sky without resting on
+anything, and seemed looking for someone to kill, just as a pastime,
+and something to laugh at. Evidently he was afraid of no one, would
+stick at nothing, and most likely was not in the least interested
+in Yegorushka's opinion of him. . . . Yegorushka meanwhile hated
+his flaxen head, his clear face, and his strength with his whole
+heart, listened with fear and loathing to his laughter, and kept
+thinking what word of abuse he could pay him out with.
+
+Panteley, too, went up to the pail. He took out of his pocket a
+little green glass of an ikon lamp, wiped it with a rag, filled it
+from the pail and drank from it, then filled it again, wrapped the
+little glass in the rag, and then put it back into his pocket.
+
+"Grandfather, why do you drink out of a lamp?" Yegorushka asked
+him, surprised.
+
+"One man drinks out of a pail and another out of a lamp," the old
+man answered evasively. "Every man to his own taste. . . . You drink
+out of the pail--well, drink, and may it do you good. . . ."
+
+"You darling, you beauty!" Vassya said suddenly, in a caressing,
+plaintive voice. "You darling!"
+
+His eyes were fixed on the distance; they were moist and smiling,
+and his face wore the same expression as when he had looked at
+Yegorushka.
+
+"Who is it you are talking to?" asked Kiruha.
+
+"A darling fox, . . . lying on her back, playing like a dog."
+
+Everyone began staring into the distance, looking for the fox, but
+no one could see it, only Vassya with his grey muddy-looking eyes,
+and he was enchanted by it. His sight was extraordinarily keen, as
+Yegorushka learnt afterwards. He was so long-sighted that the brown
+steppe was for him always full of life and interest. He had only
+to look into the distance to see a fox, a hare, a bustard, or some
+other animal keeping at a distance from men. There was nothing
+strange in seeing a hare running away or a flying bustard--everyone
+crossing the steppes could see them; but it was not vouchsafed to
+everyone to see wild animals in their own haunts when they were not
+running nor hiding, nor looking about them in alarm. Yet Vassya saw
+foxes playing, hares washing themselves with their paws, bustards
+preening their wings and hammering out their hollow nests. Thanks
+to this keenness of sight, Vassya had, besides the world seen by
+everyone, another world of his own, accessible to no one else, and
+probably a very beautiful one, for when he saw something and was
+in raptures over it it was impossible not to envy him.
+
+When the waggons set off again, the church bells were ringing for
+service.
+
+V
+
+The train of waggons drew up on the bank of a river on one side of
+a village. The sun was blazing, as it had been the day before; the
+air was stagnant and depressing. There were a few willows on the
+bank, but the shade from them did not fall on the earth, but on the
+water, where it was wasted; even in the shade under the waggon it
+was stifling and wearisome. The water, blue from the reflection of
+the sky in it, was alluring.
+
+Styopka, a waggoner whom Yegorushka noticed now for the first time,
+a Little Russian lad of eighteen, in a long shirt without a belt,
+and full trousers that flapped like flags as he walked, undressed
+quickly, ran along the steep bank and plunged into the water. He
+dived three times, then swam on his back and shut his eyes in his
+delight. His face was smiling and wrinkled up as though he were
+being tickled, hurt and amused.
+
+On a hot day when there is nowhere to escape from the sultry,
+stifling heat, the splash of water and the loud breathing of a man
+bathing sounds like good music to the ear. Dymov and Kiruha, looking
+at Styopka, undressed quickly and one after the other, laughing
+loudly in eager anticipation of their enjoyment, dropped into the
+water, and the quiet, modest little river resounded with snorting
+and splashing and shouting. Kiruha coughed, laughed and shouted as
+though they were trying to drown him, while Dymov chased him and
+tried to catch him by the leg.
+
+"Ha-ha-ha!" he shouted. "Catch him! Hold him!"
+
+Kiruha laughed and enjoyed himself, but his expression was the same
+as it had been on dry land, stupid, with a look of astonishment on
+it as though someone had, unnoticed, stolen up behind him and hit
+him on the head with the butt-end of an axe. Yegorushka undressed,
+too, but did not let himself down by the bank, but took a run and
+a flying leap from the height of about ten feet. Describing an arc
+in the air, he fell into the water, sank deep, but did not reach
+the bottom; some force, cold and pleasant to the touch, seemed to
+hold him up and bring him back to the surface. He popped out and,
+snorting and blowing bubbles, opened his eyes; but the sun was
+reflected in the water quite close to his face. At first blinding
+spots of light, then rainbow colours and dark patches, flitted
+before his eyes. He made haste to dive again, opened his eyes in
+the water and saw something cloudy-green like a sky on a moonlight
+night. Again the same force would not let him touch the bottom and
+stay in the coolness, but lifted him to the surface. He popped out
+and heaved a sigh so deep that he had a feeling of space and
+freshness, not only in his chest, but in his stomach. Then, to get
+from the water everything he possibly could get, he allowed himself
+every luxury; he lay on his back and basked, splashed, frolicked,
+swam on his face, on his side, on his back and standing up--just
+as he pleased till he was exhausted. The other bank was thickly
+overgrown with reeds; it was golden in the sun, and the flowers of
+the reeds hung drooping to the water in lovely tassels. In one place
+the reeds were shaking and nodding, with their flowers rustling--
+Styopka and Kiruha were hunting crayfish.
+
+"A crayfish, look, lads! A crayfish!" Kiruha cried triumphantly and
+actually showed a crayfish.
+
+Yegorushka swam up to the reeds, dived, and began fumbling among
+their roots. Burrowing in the slimy, liquid mud, he felt something
+sharp and unpleasant--perhaps it really was a crayfish. But at
+that minute someone seized him by the leg and pulled him to the
+surface. Spluttering and coughing, Yegorushka opened his eyes and
+saw before him the wet grinning face of the dare-devil Dymov. The
+impudent fellow was breathing hard, and from a look in his eyes he
+seemed inclined for further mischief. He held Yegorushka tight by
+the leg, and was lifting his hand to take hold of his neck. But
+Yegorushka tore himself away with repulsion and terror, as though
+disgusted at being touched and afraid that the bully would drown
+him, and said:
+
+"Fool! I'll punch you in the face."
+
+Feeling that this was not sufficient to express his hatred, he
+thought a minute and added:
+
+"You blackguard! You son of a bitch!"
+
+But Dymov, as though nothing were the matter, took no further notice
+of Yegorushka, but swam off to Kiruha, shouting:
+
+"Ha-ha-ha! Let us catch fish! Mates, let us catch fish."
+
+"To be sure," Kiruha agreed; "there must be a lot of fish here."
+
+"Styopka, run to the village and ask the peasants for a net!
+
+"They won't give it to me."
+
+"They will, you ask them. Tell them that they should give it to us
+for Christ's sake, because we are just the same as pilgrims."
+
+"That's true."
+
+Styopka clambered out of the water, dressed quickly, and without a
+cap on he ran, his full trousers flapping, to the village. The water
+lost all its charm for Yegorushka after his encounter with Dymov.
+He got out and began dressing. Panteley and Vassya were sitting on
+the steep bank, with their legs hanging down, looking at the bathers.
+Emelyan was standing naked, up to his knees in the water, holding
+on to the grass with one hand to prevent himself from falling while
+the other stroked his body. With his bony shoulder-blades, with the
+swelling under his eye, bending down and evidently afraid of the
+water, he made a ludicrous figure. His face was grave and severe.
+He looked angrily at the water, as though he were just going to
+upbraid it for having given him cold in the Donets and robbed him
+of his voice.
+
+"And why don't you bathe?" Yegorushka asked Vassya.
+
+"Oh, I don't care for it, . . ." answered Vassya.
+
+"How is it your chin is swollen?"
+
+"It's bad. . . . I used to work at the match factory, little sir.
+. . . The doctor used to say that it would make my jaw rot. The air
+is not healthy there. There were three chaps beside me who had their
+jaws swollen, and with one of them it rotted away altogether."
+
+Styopka soon came back with the net. Dymov and Kiruha were already
+turning blue and getting hoarse by being so long in the water, but
+they set about fishing eagerly. First they went to a deep place
+beside the reeds; there Dymov was up to his neck, while the water
+went over squat Kiruha's head. The latter spluttered and blew
+bubbles, while Dymov stumbling on the prickly roots, fell over and
+got caught in the net; both flopped about in the water, and made a
+noise, and nothing but mischief came of their fishing.
+
+"It's deep," croaked Kiruha. "You won't catch anything."
+
+"Don't tug, you devil!" shouted Dymov trying to put the net in the
+proper position. "Hold it up."
+
+"You won't catch anything here," Panteley shouted from the bank.
+"You are only frightening the fish, you stupids! Go more to the
+left! It's shallower there!"
+
+Once a big fish gleamed above the net; they all drew a breath, and
+Dymov struck the place where it had vanished with his fist, and his
+face expressed vexation.
+
+"Ugh!" cried Panteley, and he stamped his foot. "You've let the
+perch slip! It's gone!"
+
+Moving more to the left, Dymov and Kiruha picked out a shallower
+place, and then fishing began in earnest. They had wandered off
+some hundred paces from the waggons; they could be seen silently
+trying to go as deep as they could and as near the reeds, moving
+their legs a little at a time, drawing out the nets, beating the
+water with their fists to drive them towards the nets. From the
+reeds they got to the further bank; they drew the net out, then,
+with a disappointed air, lifting their knees high as they walked,
+went back into the reeds. They were talking about something, but
+what it was no one could hear. The sun was scorching their backs,
+the flies were stinging them, and their bodies had turned from
+purple to crimson. Styopka was walking after them with a pail in
+his hands; he had tucked his shirt right up under his armpits, and
+was holding it up by the hem with his teeth. After every successful
+catch he lifted up some fish, and letting it shine in the sun,
+shouted:
+
+"Look at this perch! We've five like that!"
+
+Every time Dymov, Kiruha and Styopka pulled out the net they could
+be seen fumbling about in the mud in it, putting some things into
+the pail and throwing other things away; sometimes they passed
+something that was in the net from hand to hand, examined it
+inquisitively, then threw that, too, away.
+
+"What is it?" they shouted to them from the bank.
+
+Styopka made some answer, but it was hard to make out his words.
+Then he climbed out of the water and, holding the pail in both
+hands, forgetting to let his shirt drop, ran to the waggons.
+
+"It's full!" he shouted, breathing hard. "Give us another!"
+
+Yegorushka looked into the pail: it was full. A young pike poked
+its ugly nose out of the water, and there were swarms of crayfish
+and little fish round about it. Yegorushka put his hand down to the
+bottom and stirred up the water; the pike vanished under the crayfish
+and a perch and a tench swam to the surface instead of it. Vassya,
+too, looked into the pail. His eyes grew moist and his face looked
+as caressing as before when he saw the fox. He took something out
+of the pail, put it to his mouth and began chewing it.
+
+"Mates," said Styopka in amazement, "Vassya is eating a live gudgeon!
+Phoo!"
+
+"It's not a gudgeon, but a minnow," Vassya answered calmly, still
+munching.
+
+He took a fish's tail out of his mouth, looked at it caressingly,
+and put it back again. While he was chewing and crunching with his
+teeth it seemed to Yegorushka that he saw before him something not
+human. Vassya's swollen chin, his lustreless eyes, his extraordinary
+sharp sight, the fish's tail in his mouth, and the caressing
+friendliness with which he crunched the gudgeon made him like an
+animal.
+
+Yegorushka felt dreary beside him. And the fishing was over, too.
+He walked about beside the waggons, thought a little, and, feeling
+bored, strolled off to the village.
+
+Not long afterwards he was standing in the church, and with his
+forehead leaning on somebody's back, listened to the singing of the
+choir. The service was drawing to a close. Yegorushka did not
+understand church singing and did not care for it. He listened a
+little, yawned, and began looking at the backs and heads before
+him. In one head, red and wet from his recent bathe, he recognized
+Emelyan. The back of his head had been cropped in a straight line
+higher than is usual; the hair in front had been cut unbecomingly
+high, and Emelyan's ears stood out like two dock leaves, and seemed
+to feel themselves out of place. Looking at the back of his head
+and his ears, Yegorushka, for some reason, thought that Emelyan was
+probably very unhappy. He remembered the way he conducted with his
+hands, his husky voice, his timid air when he was bathing, and felt
+intense pity for him. He longed to say something friendly to him.
+
+"I am here, too," he said, putting out his hand.
+
+People who sing tenor or bass in the choir, especially those who
+have at any time in their lives conducted, are accustomed to look
+with a stern and unfriendly air at boys. They do not give up this
+habit, even when they leave off being in a choir. Turning to
+Yegorushka, Emelyan looked at him from under his brows and said:
+
+"Don't play in church!"
+
+Then Yegorushka moved forwards nearer to the ikon-stand. Here he
+saw interesting people. On the right side, in front of everyone, a
+lady and a gentleman were standing on a carpet. There were chairs
+behind them. The gentleman was wearing newly ironed shantung trousers;
+he stood as motionless as a soldier saluting, and held high his
+bluish shaven chin. There was a very great air of dignity in his
+stand-up collar, in his blue chin, in his small bald patch and his
+cane. His neck was so strained from excess of dignity, and his chin
+was drawn up so tensely, that it looked as though his head were
+ready to fly off and soar upwards any minute. The lady, who was
+stout and elderly and wore a white silk shawl, held her head on one
+side and looked as though she had done someone a favour, and wanted
+to say: "Oh, don't trouble yourself to thank me; I don't like it
+. . . ." A thick wall of Little Russian heads stood all round the
+carpet.
+
+Yegorushka went up to the ikon-stand and began kissing the local
+ikons. Before each image he slowly bowed down to the ground, without
+getting up, looked round at the congregation, then got up and kissed
+the ikon. The contact of his forehead with the cold floor afforded
+him great satisfaction. When the beadle came from the altar with a
+pair of long snuffers to put out the candles, Yegorushka jumped up
+quickly from the floor and ran up to him.
+
+"Have they given out the holy bread?" he asked.
+
+"There is none; there is none," the beadle muttered gruffly. "It
+is no use your. . ."
+
+The service was over; Yegorushka walked out of the church in a
+leisurely way, and began strolling about the market-place. He had
+seen a good many villages, market-places, and peasants in his time,
+and everything that met his eyes was entirely without interest for
+him. At a loss for something to do, he went into a shop over the
+door of which hung a wide strip of red cotton. The shop consisted
+of two roomy, badly lighted parts; in one half they sold drapery
+and groceries, in the other there were tubs of tar, and there were
+horse-collars hanging from the ceiling; from both came the savoury
+smell of leather and tar. The floor of the shop had been watered;
+the man who watered it must have been a very whimsical and original
+person, for it was sprinkled in patterns and mysterious symbols.
+The shopkeeper, an overfed-looking man with a broad face and round
+beard, apparently a Great Russian, was standing, leaning his person
+over the counter. He was nibbling a piece of sugar as he drank his
+tea, and heaved a deep sigh at every sip. His face expressed complete
+indifference, but each sigh seemed to be saying:
+
+"Just wait a minute; I will give it you."
+
+"Give me a farthing's worth of sunflower seeds," Yegorushka said,
+addressing him.
+
+The shopkeeper raised his eyebrows, came out from behind the counter,
+and poured a farthing's worth of sunflower seeds into Yegorushka's
+pocket, using an empty pomatum pot as a measure. Yegorushka did not
+want to go away. He spent a long time in examining the box of cakes,
+thought a little and asked, pointing to some little cakes covered
+with the mildew of age:
+
+"How much are these cakes?"
+
+"Two for a farthing."
+
+Yegorushka took out of his pocket the cake given him the day before
+by the Jewess, and asked him:
+
+"And how much do you charge for cakes like this?"
+
+The shopman took the cake in his hands, looked at it from all sides,
+and raised one eyebrow.
+
+"Like that?" he asked.
+
+Then he raised the other eyebrow, thought a minute, and answered:
+
+"Two for three farthings. . . ."
+
+A silence followed.
+
+"Whose boy are you?" the shopman asked, pouring himself out some
+tea from a red copper teapot.
+
+"The nephew of Ivan Ivanitch."
+
+"There are all sorts of Ivan Ivanitchs," the shopkeeper sighed. He
+looked over Yegorushka's head towards the door, paused a minute and
+asked:
+
+"Would you like some tea?"
+
+"Please. . . ." Yegorushka assented not very readily, though he
+felt an intense longing for his usual morning tea.
+
+The shopkeeper poured him out a glass and gave him with it a bit
+of sugar that looked as though it had been nibbled. Yegorushka sat
+down on the folding chair and began drinking it. He wanted to ask
+the price of a pound of sugar almonds, and had just broached the
+subject when a customer walked in, and the shopkeeper, leaving his
+glass of tea, attended to his business. He led the customer into
+the other half, where there was a smell of tar, and was there a
+long time discussing something with him. The customer, a man
+apparently very obstinate and pig-headed, was continually shaking
+his head to signify his disapproval, and retreating towards the
+door. The shopkeeper tried to persuade him of something and began
+pouring some oats into a big sack for him.
+
+"Do you call those oats?" the customer said gloomily. "Those are
+not oats, but chaff. It's a mockery to give that to the hens; enough
+to make the hens laugh. . . . No, I will go to Bondarenko."
+
+When Yegorushka went back to the river a small camp fire was smoking
+on the bank. The waggoners were cooking their dinner. Styopka was
+standing in the smoke, stirring the cauldron with a big notched
+spoon. A little on one side Kiruha and Vassya, with eyes reddened
+from the smoke, were sitting cleaning the fish. Before them lay the
+net covered with slime and water weeds, and on it lay gleaming fish
+and crawling crayfish.
+
+Emelyan, who had not long been back from the church, was sitting
+beside Panteley, waving his arm and humming just audibly in a husky
+voice: "To Thee we sing. . . ." Dymov was moving about by the horses.
+
+When they had finished cleaning them, Kiruha and Vassya put the
+fish and the living crayfish together in the pail, rinsed them, and
+from the pail poured them all into the boiling water.
+
+"Shall I put in some fat?" asked Styopka, skimming off the froth.
+
+"No need. The fish will make its own gravy," answered Kiruha.
+
+Before taking the cauldron off the fire Styopka scattered into the
+water three big handfuls of millet and a spoonful of salt; finally
+he tried it, smacked his lips, licked the spoon, and gave a
+self-satisfied grunt, which meant that the grain was done.
+
+All except Panteley sat down near the cauldron and set to work with
+their spoons.
+
+"You there! Give the little lad a spoon!" Panteley observed sternly.
+"I dare say he is hungry too!"
+
+"Ours is peasant fare," sighed Kiruha.
+
+"Peasant fare is welcome, too, when one is hungry."
+
+They gave Yegorushka a spoon. He began eating, not sitting, but
+standing close to the cauldron and looking down into it as in a
+hole. The grain smelt of fish and fish-scales were mixed up with
+the millet. The crayfish could not be hooked out with a spoon, and
+the men simply picked them out of the cauldron with their hands;
+Vassya did so particularly freely, and wetted his sleeves as well
+as his hands in the mess. But yet the stew seemed to Yegorushka
+very nice, and reminded him of the crayfish soup which his mother
+used to make at home on fast-days. Panteley was sitting apart
+munching bread.
+
+"Grandfather, why aren't you eating?" Emelyan asked him.
+
+"I don't eat crayfish. . . . Nasty things," the old man said, and
+turned away with disgust.
+
+While they were eating they all talked. From this conversation
+Yegorushka gathered that all his new acquaintances, in spite of the
+differences of their ages and their characters, had one point in
+common which made them all alike: they were all people with a
+splendid past and a very poor present. Of their past they all--
+every one of them--spoke with enthusiasm; their attitude to the
+present was almost one of contempt. The Russian loves recalling
+life, but he does not love living. Yegorushka did not yet know that,
+and before the stew had been all eaten he firmly believed that the
+men sitting round the cauldron were the injured victims of fate.
+Panteley told them that in the past, before there were railways,
+he used to go with trains of waggons to Moscow and to Nizhni, and
+used to earn so much that he did not know what to do with his money;
+and what merchants there used to be in those days! what fish! how
+cheap everything was! Now the roads were shorter, the merchants
+were stingier, the peasants were poorer, the bread was dearer,
+everything had shrunk and was on a smaller scale. Emelyan told them
+that in old days he had been in the choir in the Lugansky works,
+and that he had a remarkable voice and read music splendidly, while
+now he had become a peasant and lived on the charity of his brother,
+who sent him out with his horses and took half his earnings. Vassya
+had once worked in a match factory; Kiruha had been a coachman in
+a good family, and had been reckoned the smartest driver of a
+three-in-hand in the whole district. Dymov, the son of a well-to-do
+peasant, lived at ease, enjoyed himself and had known no trouble
+till he was twenty, when his stern harsh father, anxious to train
+him to work, and afraid he would be spoiled at home, had sent him
+to a carrier's to work as a hired labourer. Styopka was the only
+one who said nothing, but from his beardless face it was evident
+that his life had been a much better one in the past.
+
+Thinking of his father, Dymov frowned and left off eating. Sullenly
+from under his brows he looked round at his companions and his eye
+rested upon Yegorushka.
+
+"You heathen, take off your cap," he said rudely. "You can't eat
+with your cap on, and you a gentleman too!"
+
+Yegorushka took off his hat and did not say a word, but the stew
+lost all savour for him, and he did not hear Panteley and Vassya
+intervening on his behalf. A feeling of anger with the insulting
+fellow was rankling oppressively in his breast, and he made up his
+mind that he would do him some injury, whatever it cost him.
+
+After dinner everyone sauntered to the waggons and lay down in the
+shade.
+
+"Are we going to start soon, grandfather?" Yegorushka asked Panteley.
+
+"In God's good time we shall set off. There's no starting yet; it
+is too hot. . . . O Lord, Thy will be done. Holy Mother. . . Lie
+down, little lad."
+
+Soon there was a sound of snoring from under the waggons. Yegorushka
+meant to go back to the village, but on consideration, yawned and
+lay down by the old man.
+
+VI
+
+The waggons remained by the river the whole day, and set off again
+when the sun was setting.
+
+Yegorushka was lying on the bales again; the waggon creaked softly
+and swayed from side to side. Panteley walked below, stamping his
+feet, slapping himself on his thighs and muttering. The air was
+full of the churring music of the steppes, as it had been the day
+before.
+
+Yegorushka lay on his back, and, putting his hands under his head,
+gazed upwards at the sky. He watched the glow of sunset kindle,
+then fade away; guardian angels covering the horizon with their
+gold wings disposed themselves to slumber. The day had passed
+peacefully; the quiet peaceful night had come, and they could stay
+tranquilly at home in heaven. . . . Yegorushka saw the sky by degrees
+grow dark and the mist fall over the earth--saw the stars light
+up, one after the other. . . .
+
+When you gaze a long while fixedly at the deep sky thoughts and
+feelings for some reason merge in a sense of loneliness. One begins
+to feel hopelessly solitary, and everything one used to look upon
+as near and akin becomes infinitely remote and valueless; the stars
+that have looked down from the sky thousands of years already, the
+mists and the incomprehensible sky itself, indifferent to the brief
+life of man, oppress the soul with their silence when one is left
+face to face with them and tries to grasp their significance. One
+is reminded of the solitude awaiting each one of us in the grave,
+and the reality of life seems awful . . . full of despair. . . .
+
+Yegorushka thought of his grandmother, who was sleeping now under
+the cherry-trees in the cemetery. He remembered how she lay in her
+coffin with pennies on her eyes, how afterwards she was shut in and
+let down into the grave; he even recalled the hollow sound of the
+clods of earth on the coffin lid. . . . He pictured his granny in
+the dark and narrow coffin, helpless and deserted by everyone. His
+imagination pictured his granny suddenly awakening, not understanding
+where she was, knocking upon the lid and calling for help, and in
+the end swooning with horror and dying again. He imagined his mother
+dead, Father Christopher, Countess Dranitsky, Solomon. But however
+much he tried to imagine himself in the dark tomb, far from home,
+outcast, helpless and dead, he could not succeed; for himself
+personally he could not admit the possibility of death, and felt
+that he would never die. . . .
+
+Panteley, for whom death could not be far away, walked below and
+went on reckoning up his thoughts.
+
+"All right. . . . Nice gentlefolk, . . ." he muttered. "Took his
+little lad to school--but how he is doing now I haven't heard say
+--in Slavyanoserbsk. I say there is no establishment for teaching
+them to be very clever. . . . No, that's true--a nice little lad,
+no harm in him. . . . He'll grow up and be a help to his father
+. . . . You, Yegory, are little now, but you'll grow big and will
+keep your father and mother. . . . So it is ordained of God, 'Honour
+your father and your mother.' . . . I had children myself, but they
+were burnt. . . . My wife was burnt and my children, . . . that's
+true. . . . The hut caught fire on the night of Epiphany. . . . I
+was not at home, I was driving in Oryol. In Oryol. . . . Marya
+dashed out into the street, but remembering that the children were
+asleep in the hut, ran back and was burnt with her children. . . .
+Next day they found nothing but bones."
+
+About midnight Yegorushka and the waggoners were again sitting round
+a small camp fire. While the dry twigs and stems were burning up,
+Kiruha and Vassya went off somewhere to get water from a creek;
+they vanished into the darkness, but could be heard all the time
+talking and clinking their pails; so the creek was not far away.
+The light from the fire lay a great flickering patch on the earth;
+though the moon was bright, yet everything seemed impenetrably black
+beyond that red patch. The light was in the waggoners' eyes, and
+they saw only part of the great road; almost unseen in the darkness
+the waggons with the bales and the horses looked like a mountain
+of undefined shape. Twenty paces from the camp fire at the edge of
+the road stood a wooden cross that had fallen aslant. Before the
+camp fire had been lighted, when he could still see things at a
+distance, Yegorushka had noticed that there was a similar old
+slanting cross on the other side of the great road.
+
+Coming back with the water, Kiruha and Vassya filled the cauldron
+and fixed it over the fire. Styopka, with the notched spoon in his
+hand, took his place in the smoke by the cauldron, gazing dreamily
+into the water for the scum to rise. Panteley and Emelyan were
+sitting side by side in silence, brooding over something. Dymov was
+lying on his stomach, with his head propped on his fists, looking
+into the fire. . . . Styopka's shadow was dancing over him, so that
+his handsome face was at one minute covered with darkness, at the
+next lighted up. . . . Kiruha and Vassya were wandering about at a
+little distance gathering dry grass and bark for the fire. Yegorushka,
+with his hands in his pockets, was standing by Panteley, watching
+how the fire devoured the grass.
+
+All were resting, musing on something, and they glanced cursorily
+at the cross over which patches of red light were dancing. There
+is something melancholy, pensive, and extremely poetical about a
+solitary tomb; one feels its silence, and the silence gives one the
+sense of the presence of the soul of the unknown man who lies under
+the cross. Is that soul at peace on the steppe? Does it grieve in
+the moonlight? Near the tomb the steppe seems melancholy, dreary
+and mournful; the grass seems more sorrowful, and one fancies the
+grasshoppers chirrup less freely, and there is no passer-by who
+would not remember that lonely soul and keep looking back at the
+tomb, till it was left far behind and hidden in the mists. . . .
+
+"Grandfather, what is that cross for?" asked Yegorushka.
+
+Panteley looked at the cross and then at Dymov and asked:
+
+"Nikola, isn't this the place where the mowers killed the merchants?"
+
+Dymov not very readily raised himself on his elbow, looked at the
+road and said:
+
+"Yes, it is. . . ."
+
+A silence followed. Kiruha broke up some dry stalks, crushed them
+up together and thrust them under the cauldron. The fire flared up
+brightly; Styopka was enveloped in black smoke, and the shadow cast
+by the cross danced along the road in the dusk beside the waggons.
+
+"Yes, they were killed," Dymov said reluctantly. "Two merchants,
+father and son, were travelling, selling holy images. They put up
+in the inn not far from here that is now kept by Ignat Fomin. The
+old man had a drop too much, and began boasting that he had a lot
+of money with him. We all know merchants are a boastful set, God
+preserve us. . . . They can't resist showing off before the likes
+of us. And at the time some mowers were staying the night at the
+inn. So they overheard what the merchants said and took note of
+it."
+
+"O Lord! . . . Holy Mother!" sighed Panteley.
+
+"Next day, as soon as it was light," Dymov went on, "the merchants
+were preparing to set off and the mowers tried to join them. 'Let
+us go together, your worships. It will be more cheerful and there
+will be less danger, for this is an out-of-the-way place. . . .'
+The merchants had to travel at a walking pace to avoid breaking the
+images, and that just suited the mowers. . . ."
+
+Dymov rose into a kneeling position and stretched.
+
+"Yes," he went on, yawning. "Everything went all right till they
+reached this spot, and then the mowers let fly at them with their
+scythes. The son, he was a fine young fellow, snatched the scythe
+from one of them, and he used it, too. . . . Well, of course, they
+got the best of it because there were eight of them. They hacked
+at the merchants so that there was not a sound place left on their
+bodies; when they had finished they dragged both of them off the
+road, the father to one side and the son to the other. Opposite
+that cross there is another cross on this side. . . . Whether it
+is still standing, I don't know. . . . I can't see from here. . . ."
+
+"It is," said Kiruha.
+
+"They say they did not find much money afterwards."
+
+"No," Panteley confirmed; "they only found a hundred roubles."
+
+"And three of them died afterwards, for the merchant had cut them
+badly with the scythe, too. They died from loss of blood. One had
+his hand cut off, so that they say he ran three miles without his
+hand, and they found him on a mound close to Kurikovo. He was
+squatting on his heels, with his head on his knees, as though he
+were lost in thought, but when they looked at him there was no life
+in him and he was dead. . . ."
+
+"They found him by the track of blood," said Panteley.
+
+Everyone looked at the cross, and again there was a hush. From
+somewhere, most likely from the creek, floated the mournful cry of
+the bird: "Sleep! sleep! sleep!"
+
+"There are a great many wicked people in the world," said Emelyan.
+
+"A great many," assented Panteley, and he moved up closer to the
+fire as though he were frightened. "A great many," he went on in a
+low voice. "I've seen lots and lots of them. . . . Wicked people!
+. . . I have seen a great many holy and just, too. . . . Queen of
+Heaven, save us and have mercy on us. I remember once thirty years
+ago, or maybe more, I was driving a merchant from Morshansk. The
+merchant was a jolly handsome fellow, with money, too . . . the
+merchant was . . . a nice man, no harm in him. . . . So we put up
+for the night at an inn. And in Russia the inns are not what they
+are in these parts. There the yards are roofed in and look like the
+ground floor, or let us say like barns in good farms. Only a barn
+would be a bit higher. So we put up there and were all right. My
+merchant was in a room, while I was with the horses, and everything
+was as it should be. So, lads, I said my prayers before going to
+sleep and began walking about the yard. And it was a dark night, I
+couldn't see anything; it was no good trying. So I walked about a
+bit up to the waggons, or nearly, when I saw a light gleaming. What
+could it mean? I thought the people of the inn had gone to bed long
+ago, and besides the merchant and me there were no other guests in
+the inn. . . . Where could the light have come from? I felt suspicious.
+. . . I went closer . . . towards the light. . . . The Lord have
+mercy upon me! and save me, Queen of Heaven! I looked and there was
+a little window with a grating, . . . close to the ground, in the
+house. . . I lay down on the ground and looked in; as soon as I
+looked in a cold chill ran all down me. . . ."
+
+Kiruha, trying not to make a noise, thrust a handful of twigs into
+the fire. After waiting for it to leave off crackling and hissing,
+the old man went on:
+
+"I looked in and there was a big cellar, black and dark. . . . There
+was a lighted lantern on a tub. In the middle of the cellar were
+about a dozen men in red shirts with their sleeves turned up,
+sharpening long knives. . . . Ugh! So we had fallen into a nest of
+robbers. . . . What's to be done? I ran to the merchant, waked him
+up quietly, and said: 'Don't be frightened, merchant,' said I, 'but
+we are in a bad way. We have fallen into a nest of robbers,' I said.
+He turned pale and asked: 'What are we to do now, Panteley? I have
+a lot of money that belongs to orphans. As for my life,' he said,
+'that's in God's hands. I am not afraid to die, but it's dreadful
+to lose the orphans' money,' said he. . . . What were we to do? The
+gates were locked; there was no getting out. If there had been a
+fence one could have climbed over it, but with the yard shut up!
+. . . 'Come, don't be frightened, merchant,' said I; 'but pray to
+God. Maybe the Lord will not let the orphans suffer. Stay still.'
+said I, 'and make no sign, and meanwhile, maybe, I shall think of
+something. . . .' Right! . . . I prayed to God and the Lord put the
+thought into my mind. . . . I clambered up on my chaise and softly,
+. . . softly so that no one should hear, began pulling out the straw
+in the thatch, made a hole and crept out, crept out. . . . Then I
+jumped off the roof and ran along the road as fast as I could. I
+ran and ran till I was nearly dead. . . . I ran maybe four miles
+without taking breath, if not more. Thank God I saw a village. I
+ran up to a hut and began tapping at a window. 'Good Christian
+people,' I said, and told them all about it, 'do not let a Christian
+soul perish. . . .' I waked them all up. . . . The peasants gathered
+together and went with me, . . one with a cord, one with an oakstick,
+others with pitchforks. . . . We broke in the gates of the inn-yard
+and went straight to the cellar. . . . And the robbers had just
+finished sharpening their knives and were going to kill the merchant.
+The peasants took them, every one of them, bound them and carried
+them to the police. The merchant gave them three hundred roubles
+in his joy, and gave me five gold pieces and put my name down. They
+said that they found human bones in the cellar afterwards, heaps
+and heaps of them. . . . Bones! . . . So they robbed people and
+then buried them, so that there should be no traces. . . . Well,
+afterwards they were punished at Morshansk."
+
+Panteley had finished his story, and he looked round at his listeners.
+They were gazing at him in silence. The water was boiling by now
+and Styopka was skimming off the froth.
+
+"Is the fat ready?" Kiruha asked him in a whisper.
+
+"Wait a little. . . . Directly."
+
+Styopka, his eyes fixed on Panteley as though he were afraid that
+the latter might begin some story before he was back, ran to the
+waggons; soon he came back with a little wooden bowl and began
+pounding some lard in it.
+
+"I went another journey with a merchant, too, . . ." Panteley went
+on again, speaking as before in a low voice and with fixed unblinking
+eyes. "His name, as I remember now, was Pyotr Grigoritch. He was a
+nice man, . . . the merchant was. We stopped in the same way at an
+inn. . . . He indoors and me with the horses. . . . The people of
+the house, the innkeeper and his wife, seemed friendly good sort
+of people; the labourers, too, seemed all right; but yet, lads, I
+couldn't sleep. I had a queer feeling in my heart, . . . a queer
+feeling, that was just it. The gates were open and there were plenty
+of people about, and yet I felt afraid and not myself. Everyone had
+been asleep long ago. It was the middle of the night; it would soon
+be time to get up, and I was lying alone in my chaise and could not
+close my eyes, as though I were some owl. And then, lads, I heard
+this sound, 'Toop! toop! toop!' Someone was creeping up to the
+chaise. I poke my head out, and there was a peasant woman in nothing
+but her shift and with her feet bare. . . . 'What do you want, good
+woman?' I asked. And she was all of a tremble; her face was
+terror-stricken. . . 'Get up, good man,' said she; 'the people are
+plotting evil. . . . They mean to kill your merchant. With my own
+ears I heard the master whispering with his wife. . . .' So it was
+not for nothing, the foreboding of my heart! 'And who are you?' I
+asked. 'I am their cook,' she said. . . . Right! . . . So I got out
+of the chaise and went to the merchant. I waked him up and said:
+'Things aren't quite right, Pyotr Grigoritch. . . . Make haste and
+rouse yourself from sleep, your worship, and dress now while there
+is still time,' I said; 'and to save our skins, let us get away
+from trouble.' He had no sooner begun dressing when the door opened
+and, mercy on us! I saw, Holy Mother! the innkeeper and his wife
+come into the room with three labourers. . . . So they had persuaded
+the labourers to join them. 'The merchant has a lot of money, and
+we'll go shares,' they told them. Every one of the five had a long
+knife in their hand each a knife. The innkeeper locked the door and
+said: 'Say your prayers, travellers, . . . and if you begin screaming,'
+they said, 'we won't let you say your prayers before you die. . . .'
+As though we could scream! I had such a lump in my throat I could
+not cry out. . . . The merchant wept and said: 'Good Christian
+people! you have resolved to kill me because my money tempts you.
+Well, so be it; I shall not be the first nor shall I be the last.
+Many of us merchants have been murdered at inns. But why, good
+Christian brothers,' says he, 'murder my driver? Why should he have
+to suffer for my money?' And he said that so pitifully! And the
+innkeeper answered him: 'If we leave him alive,' said he, 'he will
+be the first to bear witness against us. One may just as well kill
+two as one. You can but answer once for seven misdeeds. . . Say
+your prayers, that's all you can do, and it is no good talking!'
+The merchant and I knelt down side by side and wept and said our
+prayers. He thought of his children. I was young in those days; I
+wanted to live. . . . We looked at the images and prayed, and so
+pitifully that it brings a tear even now. . . . And the innkeeper's
+wife looks at us and says: 'Good people,' said she, 'don't bear a
+grudge against us in the other world and pray to God for our
+punishment, for it is want that drives us to it.' We prayed and
+wept and prayed and wept, and God heard us. He had pity on us, I
+suppose. . . . At the very minute when the innkeeper had taken the
+merchant by the beard to rip open his throat with his knife suddenly
+someone seemed to tap at the window from the yard! We all started,
+and the innkeeper's hands dropped. . . . Someone was tapping at the
+window and shouting: 'Pyotr Grigoritch,' he shouted, 'are you here?
+Get ready and let's go!' The people saw that someone had come for
+the merchant; they were terrified and took to their heels. . . .
+And we made haste into the yard, harnessed the horses, and were out
+of sight in a minute. . ."
+
+"Who was it knocked at the window?" asked Dymov.
+
+"At the window? It must have been a holy saint or angel, for there
+was no one else. . . . When we drove out of the yard there wasn't
+a soul in the street. . . . It was the Lord's doing."
+
+Panteley told other stories, and in all of them "long knives" figured
+and all alike sounded made up. Had he heard these stories from
+someone else, or had he made them up himself in the remote past,
+and afterwards, as his memory grew weaker, mixed up his experiences
+with his imaginations and become unable to distinguish one from the
+other? Anything is possible, but it is strange that on this occasion
+and for the rest of the journey, whenever he happened to tell a
+story, he gave unmistakable preference to fiction, and never told
+of what he really had experienced. At the time Yegorushka took it
+all for the genuine thing, and believed every word; later on it
+seemed to him strange that a man who in his day had travelled all
+over Russia and seen and known so much, whose wife and children had
+been burnt to death, so failed to appreciate the wealth of his life
+that whenever he was sitting by the camp fire he was either silent
+or talked of what had never been.
+
+Over their porridge they were all silent, thinking of what they had
+just heard. Life is terrible and marvellous, and so, however terrible
+a story you tell in Russia, however you embroider it with nests of
+robbers, long knives and such marvels, it always finds an echo of
+reality in the soul of the listener, and only a man who has been a
+good deal affected by education looks askance distrustfully, and
+even he will be silent. The cross by the roadside, the dark bales
+of wool, the wide expanse of the plain, and the lot of the men
+gathered together by the camp fire--all this was of itself so
+marvellous and terrible that the fantastic colours of legend and
+fairy-tale were pale and blended with life.
+
+All the others ate out of the cauldron, but Panteley sat apart and
+ate his porridge out of a wooden bowl. His spoon was not like those
+the others had, but was made of cypress wood, with a little cross
+on it. Yegorushka, looking at him, thought of the little ikon glass
+and asked Styopka softly:
+
+"Why does Grandfather sit apart?"
+
+"He is an Old Believer," Styopka and Vassya answered in a whisper.
+And as they said it they looked as though they were speaking of
+some secret vice or weakness.
+
+All sat silent, thinking. After the terrible stories there was no
+inclination to speak of ordinary things. All at once in the midst
+of the silence Vassya drew himself up and, fixing his lustreless
+eyes on one point, pricked up his ears.
+
+"What is it?" Dymov asked him.
+
+"Someone is coming," answered Vassya.
+
+"Where do you see him?"
+
+"Yo-on-der! There's something white. . ."
+
+There was nothing to be seen but darkness in the direction in which
+Vassya was looking; everyone listened, but they could hear no sound
+of steps.
+
+"Is he coming by the highroad?" asked Dymov.
+
+"No, over the open country. . . . He is coming this way."
+
+A minute passed in silence.
+
+"And maybe it's the merchant who was buried here walking over the
+steppe," said Dymov.
+
+All looked askance at the cross, exchanged glances and suddenly
+broke into a laugh. They felt ashamed of their terror.
+
+"Why should he walk?" asked Panteley. "It's only those walk at night
+whom the earth will not take to herself. And the merchants were all
+right. . . . The merchants have received the crown of martyrs."
+
+But all at once they heard the sound of steps; someone was coming
+in haste.
+
+"He's carrying something," said Vassya.
+
+They could hear the grass rustling and the dry twigs crackling under
+the feet of the approaching wayfarer. But from the glare of the
+camp fire nothing could be seen. At last the steps sounded close
+by, and someone coughed. The flickering light seemed to part; a
+veil dropped from the waggoners' eyes, and they saw a man facing
+them.
+
+Whether it was due to the flickering light or because everyone
+wanted to make out the man's face first of all, it happened, strangely
+enough, that at the first glance at him they all saw, first of all,
+not his face nor his clothes, but his smile. It was an extraordinarily
+good-natured, broad, soft smile, like that of a baby on waking, one
+of those infectious smiles to which it is difficult not to respond
+by smiling too. The stranger, when they did get a good look at him,
+turned out to be a man of thirty, ugly and in no way remarkable.
+He was a tall Little Russian, with a long nose, long arms and long
+legs; everything about him seemed long except his neck, which was
+so short that it made him seem stooping. He was wearing a clean
+white shirt with an embroidered collar, white trousers, and new
+high boots, and in comparison with the waggoners he looked quite a
+dandy. In his arms he was carrying something big, white, and at the
+first glance strange-looking, and the stock of a gun also peeped
+out from behind his shoulder.
+
+Coming from the darkness into the circle of light, he stopped short
+as though petrified, and for half a minute looked at the waggoners
+as though he would have said: "Just look what a smile I have!"
+
+Then he took a step towards the fire, smiled still more radiantly
+and said:
+
+"Bread and salt, friends!"
+
+"You are very welcome!" Panteley answered for them all.
+
+The stranger put down by the fire what he was carrying in his arms
+--it was a dead bustard--and greeted them once more.
+
+They all went up to the bustard and began examining it.
+
+"A fine big bird; what did you kill it with?" asked Dymov.
+
+"Grape-shot. You can't get him with small shot, he won't let you
+get near enough. Buy it, friends! I will let you have it for twenty
+kopecks."
+
+"What use would it be to us? It's good roast, but I bet it would
+be tough boiled; you could not get your teeth into it. . . ."
+
+"Oh, what a pity! I would take it to the gentry at the farm; they
+would give me half a rouble for it. But it's a long way to go--
+twelve miles!"
+
+The stranger sat down, took off his gun and laid it beside him.
+
+He seemed sleepy and languid; he sat smiling, and, screwing up his
+eyes at the firelight, apparently thinking of something very
+agreeable. They gave him a spoon; he began eating.
+
+"Who are you?" Dymov asked him.
+
+The stranger did not hear the question; he made no answer, and did
+not even glance at Dymov. Most likely this smiling man did not taste
+the flavour of the porridge either, for he seemed to eat it
+mechanically, lifting the spoon to his lips sometimes very full and
+sometimes quite empty. He was not drunk, but he seemed to have
+something nonsensical in his head.
+
+"I ask you who you are?" repeated Dymov.
+
+"I?" said the unknown, starting. "Konstantin Zvonik from Rovno.
+It's three miles from here."
+
+And anxious to show straight off that he was not quite an ordinary
+peasant, but something better, Konstantin hastened to add:
+
+"We keep bees and fatten pigs."
+
+"Do you live with your father or in a house of your own?"
+
+"No; now I am living in a house of my own. I have parted. This
+month, just after St. Peter's Day, I got married. I am a married
+man now! . . . It's eighteen days since the wedding."
+
+"That's a good thing," said Panteley. "Marriage is a good thing
+. . . . God's blessing is on it."
+
+"His young wife sits at home while he rambles about the steppe,"
+laughed Kiruha. "Queer chap!"
+
+As though he had been pinched on the tenderest spot, Konstantin
+started, laughed and flushed crimson.
+
+"But, Lord, she is not at home!" he said quickly, taking the spoon
+out of his mouth and looking round at everyone with an expression
+of delight and wonder. "She is not; she has gone to her mother's
+for three days! Yes, indeed, she has gone away, and I feel as though
+I were not married. . . ."
+
+Konstantin waved his hand and turned his head; he wanted to go on
+thinking, but the joy which beamed in his face prevented him. As
+though he were not comfortable, he changed his attitude, laughed,
+and again waved his hand. He was ashamed to share his happy thoughts
+with strangers, but at the same time he had an irresistible longing
+to communicate his joy.
+
+"She has gone to Demidovo to see her mother," he said, blushing and
+moving his gun. "She'll be back to-morrow. . . . She said she would
+be back to dinner."
+
+"And do you miss her?" said Dymov.
+
+"Oh, Lord, yes; I should think so. We have only been married such
+a little while, and she has gone away. . . . Eh! Oh, but she is a
+tricky one, God strike me dead! She is such a fine, splendid girl,
+such a one for laughing and singing, full of life and fire! When
+she is there your brain is in a whirl, and now she is away I wander
+about the steppe like a fool, as though I had lost something. I
+have been walking since dinner."
+
+Konstantin rubbed his eyes, looked at the fire and laughed.
+
+"You love her, then, . . ." said Panteley.
+
+"She is so fine and splendid," Konstantin repeated, not hearing
+him; "such a housewife, clever and sensible. You wouldn't find
+another like her among simple folk in the whole province. She has
+gone away. . . . But she is missing me, I kno-ow! I know the little
+magpie. She said she would be back to-morrow by dinner-time. . . .
+And just think how queer!" Konstantin almost shouted, speaking a
+note higher and shifting his position. "Now she loves me and is sad
+without me, and yet she would not marry me."
+
+"But eat," said Kiruha.
+
+"She would not marry me," Konstantin went on, not heeding him. "I
+have been struggling with her for three years! I saw her at the
+Kalatchik fair; I fell madly in love with her, was ready to hang
+myself. . . . I live at Rovno, she at Demidovo, more than twenty
+miles apart, and there was nothing I could do. I sent match-makers
+to her, and all she said was: 'I won't!' Ah, the magpie! I sent her
+one thing and another, earrings and cakes, and twenty pounds of
+honey--but still she said: 'I won't!' And there it was. If you
+come to think of it, I was not a match for her! She was young and
+lovely, full of fire, while I am old: I shall soon be thirty, and
+a regular beauty, too; a fine beard like a goat's, a clear complexion
+all covered with pimples--how could I be compared with her! The
+only thing to be said is that we are well off, but then the Vahramenkys
+are well off, too. They've six oxen, and they keep a couple of
+labourers. I was in love, friends, as though I were plague-stricken.
+I couldn't sleep or eat; my brain was full of thoughts, and in such
+a maze, Lord preserve us! I longed to see her, and she was in
+Demidovo. What do you think? God be my witness, I am not lying,
+three times a week I walked over there on foot just to have a look
+at her. I gave up my work! I was so frantic that I even wanted to
+get taken on as a labourer in Demidovo, so as to be near her. I was
+in misery! My mother called in a witch a dozen times; my father
+tried thrashing me. For three years I was in this torment, and then
+I made up my mind. 'Damn my soul!' I said. 'I will go to the town
+and be a cabman. . . . It seems it is fated not to be.' At Easter
+I went to Demidovo to have a last look at her. . . ."
+
+Konstantin threw back his head and went off into a mirthful tinkling
+laugh, as though he had just taken someone in very cleverly.
+
+"I saw her by the river with the lads," he went on. "I was overcome
+with anger. . . . I called her aside and maybe for a full hour I
+said all manner of things to her. She fell in love with me! For
+three years she did not like me! she fell in love with me for what
+I said to her. . . ."
+
+"What did you say to her?" asked Dymov.
+
+"What did I say? I don't remember. . . How could one remember? My
+words flowed at the time like water from a tap, without stopping
+to take breath. Ta-ta-ta! And now I can't utter a word. . . . Well,
+so she married me. . . . She's gone now to her mother's, the magpie,
+and while she is away here I wander over the steppe. I can't stay
+at home. It's more than I can do!"
+
+Konstantin awkwardly released his feet, on which he was sitting,
+stretched himself on the earth, and propped his head in his fists,
+then got up and sat down again. Everyone by now thoroughly understood
+that he was in love and happy, poignantly happy; his smile, his
+eyes, and every movement, expressed fervent happiness. He could not
+find a place for himself, and did not know what attitude to take
+to keep himself from being overwhelmed by the multitude of his
+delightful thoughts. Having poured out his soul before these
+strangers, he settled down quietly at last, and, looking at the
+fire, sank into thought.
+
+At the sight of this happy man everyone felt depressed and longed
+to be happy, too. Everyone was dreamy. Dymov got up, walked about
+softly by the fire, and from his walk, from the movement of his
+shoulder-blades, it could be seen that he was weighed down by
+depression and yearning. He stood still for a moment, looked at
+Konstantin and sat down.
+
+The camp fire had died down by now; there was no flicker, and the
+patch of red had grown small and dim. . . . And as the fire went
+out the moonlight grew clearer and clearer. Now they could see the
+full width of the road, the bales of wool, the shafts of the waggons,
+the munching horses; on the further side of the road there was the
+dim outline of the second cross. . . .
+
+Dymov leaned his cheek on his hand and softly hummed some plaintive
+song. Konstantin smiled drowsily and chimed in with a thin voice.
+They sang for half a minute, then sank into silence. Emelyan started,
+jerked his elbows and wriggled his fingers.
+
+"Lads," he said in an imploring voice, "let's sing something sacred!"
+Tears came into his eyes. "Lads," he repeated, pressing his hands
+on his heart, "let's sing something sacred!"
+
+"I don't know anything," said Konstantin.
+
+Everyone refused, then Emelyan sang alone. He waved both arms,
+nodded his head, opened his mouth, but nothing came from his throat
+but a discordant gasp. He sang with his arms, with his head, with
+his eyes, even with the swelling on his face; he sang passionately
+with anguish, and the more he strained his chest to extract at least
+one note from it, the more discordant were his gasps.
+
+Yegorushka, like the rest, was overcome with depression. He went
+to his waggon, clambered up on the bales and lay down. He looked
+at the sky, and thought of happy Konstantin and his wife. Why did
+people get married? What were women in the world for? Yegorushka
+put the vague questions to himself, and thought that a man would
+certainly be happy if he had an affectionate, merry and beautiful
+woman continually living at his side. For some reason he remembered
+the Countess Dranitsky, and thought it would probably be very
+pleasant to live with a woman like that; he would perhaps have
+married her with pleasure if that idea had not been so shameful.
+He recalled her eyebrows, the pupils of her eyes, her carriage, the
+clock with the horseman. . . . The soft warm night moved softly
+down upon him and whispered something in his ear, and it seemed to
+him that it was that lovely woman bending over him, looking at him
+with a smile and meaning to kiss him. . . .
+
+Nothing was left of the fire but two little red eyes, which kept
+on growing smaller and smaller. Konstantin and the waggoners were
+sitting by it, dark motionless figures, and it seemed as though
+there were many more of them than before. The twin crosses were
+equally visible, and far, far away, somewhere by the highroad there
+gleamed a red light--other people cooking their porridge, most
+likely.
+
+"Our Mother Russia is the he-ad of all the world!" Kiruha sang out
+suddenly in a harsh voice, choked and subsided. The steppe echo
+caught up his voice, carried it on, and it seemed as though stupidity
+itself were rolling on heavy wheels over the steppe.
+
+"It's time to go," said Panteley. "Get up, lads."
+
+While they were putting the horses in, Konstantin walked by the
+waggons and talked rapturously of his wife.
+
+"Good-bye, mates!" he cried when the waggons started. "Thank you
+for your hospitality. I shall go on again towards that light. It's
+more than I can stand."
+
+And he quickly vanished in the mist, and for a long time they could
+hear him striding in the direction of the light to tell those other
+strangers of his happiness.
+
+When Yegorushka woke up next day it was early morning; the sun had
+not yet risen. The waggons were at a standstill. A man in a white
+cap and a suit of cheap grey material, mounted on a little Cossack
+stallion, was talking to Dymov and Kiruha beside the foremost waggon.
+A mile and a half ahead there were long low white barns and little
+houses with tiled roofs; there were neither yards nor trees to be
+seen beside the little houses.
+
+"What village is that, Grandfather?" asked Yegorushka.
+
+"That's the Armenian Settlement, youngster," answered Panteley.
+"The Armenians live there. They are a good sort of people, . . .
+the Arnienians are."
+
+The man in grey had finished talking to Dymov and Kiruha; he pulled
+up his little stallion and looked across towards the settlement.
+
+"What a business, only think!" sighed Panteley, looking towards the
+settlement, too, and shuddering at the morning freshness. "He has
+sent a man to the settlement for some papers, and he doesn't come
+. . . . He should have sent Styopka."
+
+"Who is that, Grandfather?" asked Yegorushka.
+
+"Varlamov."
+
+My goodness! Yegorushka jumped up quickly, getting upon his knees,
+and looked at the white cap. It was hard to recognize the mysterious
+elusive Varlamov, who was sought by everyone, who was always "on
+his rounds," and who had far more money than Countess Dranitsky,
+in the short, grey little man in big boots, who was sitting on an
+ugly little nag and talking to peasants at an hour when all decent
+people were asleep.
+
+"He is all right, a good man," said Panteley, looking towards the
+settlement. "God give him health--a splendid gentleman, Semyon
+Alexandritch. . . . It's people like that the earth rests upon.
+That's true. . . . The cocks are not crowing yet, and he is already
+up and about. . . . Another man would be asleep, or gallivanting
+with visitors at home, but he is on the steppe all day, . . . on
+his rounds. . . . He does not let things slip. . . . No-o! He's a
+fine fellow. . ."
+
+Varlamov was talking about something, while he kept his eyes fixed.
+The little stallion shifted from one leg to another impatiently.
+
+"Semyon Alexandritch!" cried Panteley, taking off his hat. "Allow
+us to send Styopka! Emelyan, call out that Styopka should be sent."
+
+But now at last a man on horseback could be seen coming from the
+settlement. Bending very much to one side and brandishing his whip
+above his head like a gallant young Caucasian, and wanting to
+astonish everyone by his horsemanship, he flew towards the waggons
+with the swiftness of a bird.
+
+"That must be one of his circuit men," said Panteley. "He must have
+a hundred such horsemen or maybe more."
+
+Reaching the first waggon, he pulled up his horse, and taking off
+his hat, handed Varlamov a little book. Varlamov took several papers
+out of the book, read them and cried:
+
+"And where is Ivantchuk's letter?"
+
+The horseman took the book back, looked at the papers and shrugged
+his shoulders. He began saying something, probably justifying himself
+and asking to be allowed to ride back to the settlement again. The
+little stallion suddenly stirred as though Varlamov had grown
+heavier. Varlamov stirred too.
+
+"Go along!" he cried angrily, and he waved his whip at the man.
+
+Then he turned his horse round and, looking through the papers in
+the book, moved at a walking pace alongside the waggons. When he
+reached the hindmost, Yegorushka strained his eyes to get a better
+look at him. Varlamov was an elderly man. His face, a simple Russian
+sunburnt face with a small grey beard, was red, wet with dew and
+covered with little blue veins; it had the same expression of
+businesslike coldness as Ivan Ivanitch's face, the same look of
+fanatical zeal for business. But yet what a difference could be
+felt between him and Kuzmitchov! Uncle Ivan Ivanitch always had on
+his face, together with his business-like reserve, a look of anxiety
+and apprehension that he would not find Varlamov, that he would be
+late, that he would miss a good price; nothing of that sort, so
+characteristic of small and dependent persons, could be seen in the
+face or figure of Varlamov. This man made the price himself, was
+not looking for anyone, and did not depend on anyone; however
+ordinary his exterior, yet in everything, even in the manner of
+holding his whip, there was a sense of power and habitual authority
+over the steppe.
+
+As he rode by Yegorushka he did not glance at him. Only the little
+stallion deigned to notice Yegorushka; he looked at him with his
+large foolish eyes, and even he showed no interest. Panteley bowed
+to Varlamov; the latter noticed it, and without taking his eyes off
+the sheets of paper, said lisping:
+
+"How are you, old man?"
+
+Varlamov's conversation with the horseman and the way he had
+brandished his whip had evidently made an overwhelming impression
+on the whole party. Everyone looked grave. The man on horseback,
+cast down at the anger of the great man, remained stationary, with
+his hat off, and the rein loose by the foremost waggon; he was
+silent, and seemed unable to grasp that the day had begun so badly
+for him.
+
+"He is a harsh old man, . ." muttered Panteley. "It's a pity he is
+so harsh! But he is all right, a good man. . . . He doesn't abuse
+men for nothing. . . . It's no matter. . . ."
+
+After examining the papers, Varlamov thrust the book into his pocket;
+the little stallion, as though he knew what was in his mind, without
+waiting for orders, started and dashed along the highroad.
+
+VII
+
+On the following night the waggoners had halted and were cooking
+their porridge. On this occasion there was a sense of overwhelming
+oppression over everyone. It was sultry; they all drank a great
+deal, but could not quench their thirst. The moon was intensely
+crimson and sullen, as though it were sick. The stars, too, were
+sullen, the mist was thicker, the distance more clouded. Nature
+seemed as though languid and weighed down by some foreboding.
+
+There was not the same liveliness and talk round the camp fire as
+there had been the day before. All were dreary and spoke listlessly
+and without interest. Panteley did nothing but sigh and complain
+of his feet, and continually alluded to impenitent deathbeds.
+
+Dymov was lying on his stomach, chewing a straw in silence; there
+was an expression of disgust on his face as though the straw smelt
+unpleasant, a spiteful and exhausted look. . . . Vassya complained
+that his jaw ached, and prophesied bad weather; Emelyan was not
+waving his arms, but sitting still and looking gloomily at the fire.
+Yegorushka, too, was weary. This slow travelling exhausted him, and
+the sultriness of the day had given him a headache.
+
+While they were cooking the porridge, Dymov, to relieve his boredom,
+began quarrelling with his companions.
+
+"Here he lolls, the lumpy face, and is the first to put his spoon
+in," he said, looking spitefully at Emelyan. "Greedy! always contrives
+to sit next the cauldron. He's been a church-singer, so he thinks
+he is a gentleman! There are a lot of singers like you begging along
+the highroad!"
+
+"What are you pestering me for?" asked Emelyan, looking at him
+angrily.
+
+"To teach you not to be the first to dip into the cauldron. Don't
+think too much of yourself!"
+
+"You are a fool, and that is all about it!" wheezed out Emelyan.
+
+Knowing by experience how such conversations usually ended, Panteley
+and Vassya intervened and tried to persuade Dymov not to quarrel
+about nothing.
+
+"A church-singer!" The bully would not desist, but laughed
+contemptuously. "Anyone can sing like that--sit in the church
+porch and sing 'Give me alms, for Christ's sake!' Ugh! you are a
+nice fellow!"
+
+Emelyan did not speak. His silence had an irritating effect on
+Dymov. He looked with still greater hatred at the ex-singer and
+said:
+
+"I don't care to have anything to do with you, or I would show you
+what to think of yourself."
+
+"But why are you pushing me, you Mazeppa?" Emelyan cried, flaring
+up. "Am I interfering with you?"
+
+"What did you call me?" asked Dymov, drawing himself up, and his
+eyes were suffused with blood. "Eh! I am a Mazeppa? Yes? Take that,
+then; go and look for it."
+
+Dymov snatched the spoon out of Emelyan's hand and flung it far
+away. Kiruha, Vassya, and Styopka ran to look for it, while Emelyan
+fixed an imploring and questioning look on Panteley. His face
+suddenly became small and wrinkled; it began twitching, and the
+ex-singer began to cry like a child.
+
+Yegorushka, who had long hated Dymov, felt as though the air all
+at once were unbearably stifling, as though the fire were scorching
+his face; he longed to run quickly to the waggons in the darkness,
+but the bully's angry bored eyes drew the boy to him. With a
+passionate desire to say something extremely offensive, he took a
+step towards Dymov and brought out, gasping for breath:
+
+"You are the worst of the lot; I can't bear you!"
+
+After this he ought to have run to the waggons, but he could not
+stir from the spot and went on:
+
+"In the next world you will burn in hell! I'll complain to Ivan
+Ivanitch. Don't you dare insult Emelyan!"
+
+"Say this too, please," laughed Dyrnov: "'every little sucking-pig
+wants to lay down the law.' Shall I pull your ear?"
+
+Yegorushka felt that he could not breathe; and something which had
+never happened to him before--he suddenly began shaking all over,
+stamping his feet and crying shrilly:
+
+"Beat him, beat him!"
+
+Tears gushed from his eyes; he felt ashamed, and ran staggering
+back to the waggon. The effect produced by his outburst he did not
+see. Lying on the bales and twitching his arms and legs, he whispered:
+
+"Mother, mother!"
+
+And these men and the shadows round the camp fire, and the dark
+bales and the far-away lightning, which was flashing every minute
+in the distance--all struck him now as terrible and unfriendly.
+He was overcome with terror and asked himself in despair why and
+how he had come into this unknown land in the company of terrible
+peasants? Where was his uncle now, where was Father Christopher,
+where was Deniska? Why were they so long in coming? Hadn't they
+forgotten him? At the thought that he was forgotten and cast out
+to the mercy of fate, he felt such a cold chill of dread that he
+had several times an impulse to jump off the bales of wool, and run
+back full speed along the road; but the thought of the huge dark
+crosses, which would certainly meet him on the way, and the lightning
+flashing in the distance, stopped him. . . . And only when he
+whispered, "Mother, mother!" he felt as it were a little better.
+
+The waggoners must have been full of dread, too. After Yegorushka
+had run away from the camp fire they sat at first for a long time
+in silence, then they began speaking in hollow undertones about
+something, saying that it was coming and that they must make haste
+and get away from it. . . . They quickly finished supper, put out
+the fire and began harnessing the horses in silence. From their
+fluster and the broken phrases they uttered it was apparent they
+foresaw some trouble. Before they set off on their way, Dymov went
+up to Panteley and asked softly:
+
+"What's his name?"
+
+"Yegory," answered Panteley.
+
+Dymov put one foot on the wheel, caught hold of the cord which was
+tied round the bales and pulled himself up. Yegorushka saw his face
+and curly head. The face was pale and looked grave and exhausted,
+but there was no expression of spite in it.
+
+"Yera!" he said softly, "here, hit me!"
+
+Yegorushka looked at him in surprise. At that instant there was a
+flash of lightning.
+
+"It's all right, hit me," repeated Dymov. And without waiting for
+Yegorushka to hit him or to speak to him, he jumped down and said:
+"How dreary I am!"
+
+Then, swaying from one leg to the other and moving his shoulder-blades,
+he sauntered lazily alongside the string of waggons and repeated
+in a voice half weeping, half angry:
+
+"How dreary I am! O Lord! Don't you take offence, Emelyan," he said
+as he passed Emelyan. "Ours is a wretched cruel life!"
+
+There was a flash of lightning on the right, and, like a reflection
+in the looking-glass, at once a second flash in the distance.
+
+"Yegory, take this," cried Panteley, throwing up something big and
+dark.
+
+"What is it?" asked Yegorushka.
+
+"A mat. There will be rain, so cover yourself up."
+
+Yegorushka sat up and looked about him. The distance had grown
+perceptibly blacker, and now oftener than every minute winked with
+a pale light. The blackness was being bent towards the right as
+though by its own weight.
+
+"Will there be a storm, Grandfather?" asked Yegorushka.
+
+"Ah, my poor feet, how they ache!" Panteley said in a high-pitched
+voice, stamping his feet and not hearing the boy.
+
+On the left someone seemed to strike a match in the sky; a pale
+phosphorescent streak gleamed and went out. There was a sound as
+though someone very far away were walking over an iron roof, probably
+barefoot, for the iron gave a hollow rumble.
+
+"It's set in!" cried Kiruha.
+
+Between the distance and the horizon on the right there was a flash
+of lightning so vivid that it lighted up part of the steppe and the
+spot where the clear sky met the blackness. A terrible cloud was
+swooping down, without haste, a compact mass; big black shreds hung
+from its edge; similar shreds pressing one upon another were piling
+up on the right and left horizon. The tattered, ragged look of the
+storm-cloud gave it a drunken disorderly air. There was a distinct,
+not smothered, growl of thunder. Yegorushka crossed himself and
+began quickly putting on his great-coat.
+
+"I am dreary!" Dymov's shout floated from the foremost waggon, and
+it could be told from his voice that he was beginning to be
+ill-humoured again. "I am so dreary!"
+
+All at once there was a squall of wind, so violent that it almost
+snatched away Yegorushka's bundle and mat; the mat fluttered in all
+directions and flapped on the bale and on Yegorushka's face. The
+wind dashed whistling over the steppe, whirled round in disorder
+and raised such an uproar from the grass that neither the thunder
+nor the creaking of the wheels could be heard; it blew from the
+black storm-cloud, carrying with it clouds of dust and the scent
+of rain and wet earth. The moonlight grew mistier, as it were
+dirtier; the stars were even more overcast; and clouds of dust could
+be seen hurrying along the edge of the road, followed by their
+shadows. By now, most likely, the whirlwind eddying round and lifting
+from the earth dust, dry grass and feathers, was mounting to the
+very sky; uprooted plants must have been flying by that very black
+storm-cloud, and how frightened they must have been! But through
+the dust that clogged the eyes nothing could be seen but the flash
+of lightning.
+
+Yegorushka, thinking it would pour with rain in a minute, knelt up
+and covered himself with the mat.
+
+"Panteley-ey!" someone shouted in the front. "A. . . a. . . va!"
+
+"I can't!" Panteley answered in a loud high voice. "A . . . a
+. . . va! Arya . . . a!"
+
+There was an angry clap of thunder, which rolled across the sky
+from right to left, then back again, and died away near the foremost
+waggon.
+
+"Holy, holy, holy, Lord of Sabaoth," whispered Yegorushka, crossing
+himself. "Fill heaven and earth with Thy glory."
+
+The blackness in the sky yawned wide and breathed white fire. At
+once there was another clap of thunder. It had scarcely ceased when
+there was a flash of lightning so broad that Yegorushka suddenly
+saw through a slit in the mat the whole highroad to the very horizon,
+all the waggoners and even Kiruha's waistcoat. The black shreds had
+by now moved upwards from the left, and one of them, a coarse,
+clumsy monster like a claw with fingers, stretched to the moon.
+Yegorushka made up his mind to shut his eyes tight, to pay no
+attention to it, and to wait till it was all over.
+
+The rain was for some reason long in coming. Yegorushka peeped out
+from the mat in the hope that perhaps the storm-cloud was passing
+over. It was fearfully dark. Yegorushka could see neither Panteley,
+nor the bale of wool, nor himself; he looked sideways towards the
+place where the moon had lately been, but there was the same black
+darkness there as over the waggons. And in the darkness the flashes
+of lightning seemed more violent and blinding, so that they hurt
+his eyes.
+
+"Panteley!" called Yegorushka.
+
+No answer followed. But now a gust of wind for the last time flung
+up the mat and hurried away. A quiet regular sound was heard. A big
+cold drop fell on Yegorushka's knee, another trickled over his hand.
+He noticed that his knees were not covered, and tried to rearrange
+the mat, but at that moment something began pattering on the road,
+then on the shafts and the bales. It was the rain. As though they
+understood one another, the rain and the mat began prattling of
+something rapidly, gaily and most annoyingly like two magpies.
+
+Yegorushka knelt up or rather squatted on his boots. While the rain
+was pattering on the mat, he leaned forward to screen his knees,
+which were suddenly wet. He succeeded in covering his knees, but
+in less than a minute was aware of a penetrating, unpleasant dampness
+behind on his back and the calves of his legs. He returned to his
+former position, exposing his knees to the rain, and wondered what
+to do to rearrange the mat which he could not see in the darkness.
+But his arms were already wet, the water was trickling up his sleeves
+and down his collar, and his shoulder-blades felt chilly. And he
+made up his mind to do nothing but sit motionless and wait till it
+was all over.
+
+"Holy, holy, holy!" he whispered.
+
+Suddenly, exactly over his head, the sky cracked with a fearful
+deafening din; he huddled up and held his breath, waiting for the
+fragments to fall upon his head and back. He inadvertently opened
+his eyes and saw a blinding intense light flare out and flash five
+times on his fingers, his wet sleeves, and on the trickles of water
+running from the mat upon the bales and down to the ground. There
+was a fresh peal of thunder as violent and awful; the sky was not
+growling and rumbling now, but uttering short crashing sounds like
+the crackling of dry wood.
+
+"Trrah! tah! tah! tah!" the thunder rang out distinctly, rolled
+over the sky, seemed to stumble, and somewhere by the foremost
+waggons or far behind to fall with an abrupt angry "Trrra!"
+
+The flashes of lightning had at first been only terrible, but with
+such thunder they seemed sinister and menacing. Their magic light
+pierced through closed eyelids and sent a chill all over the body.
+What could he do not to see them? Yegorushka made up his mind to
+turn over on his face. Cautiously, as though afraid of being watched,
+he got on all fours, and his hands slipping on the wet bale, he
+turned back again.
+
+"Trrah! tah! tah!" floated over his head, rolled under the waggons
+and exploded "Kraa!"
+
+Again he inadvertently opened his eyes and saw a new danger: three
+huge giants with long pikes were following the waggon! A flash of
+lightning gleamed on the points of their pikes and lighted up their
+figures very distinctly. They were men of huge proportions, with
+covered faces, bowed heads, and heavy footsteps. They seemed gloomy
+and dispirited and lost in thought. Perhaps they were not following
+the waggons with any harmful intent, and yet there was something
+awful in their proximity.
+
+Yegorushka turned quickly forward, and trembling all over cried:
+"Panteley! Grandfather!"
+
+"Trrah! tah! tah!" the sky answered him.
+
+He opened his eyes to see if the waggoners were there. There were
+flashes of lightning in two places, which lighted up the road to
+the far distance, the whole string of waggons and all the waggoners.
+Streams of water were flowing along the road and bubbles were
+dancing. Panteley was walking beside the waggon; his tall hat and
+his shoulder were covered with a small mat; his figure expressed
+neither terror nor uneasiness, as though he were deafened by the
+thunder and blinded by the lightning.
+
+"Grandfather, the giants!" Yegorushka shouted to him in tears.
+
+But the old man did not hear. Further away walked Emelyan. He was
+covered from head to foot with a big mat and was triangular in
+shape. Vassya, without anything over him, was walking with the same
+wooden step as usual, lifting his feet high and not bending his
+knees. In the flash of lightning it seemed as though the waggons
+were not moving and the men were motionless, that Vassya's lifted
+foot was rigid in the same position. . . .
+
+Yegorushka called the old man once more. Getting no answer, he sat
+motionless, and no longer waited for it all to end. He was convinced
+that the thunder would kill him in another minute, that he would
+accidentally open his eyes and see the terrible giants, and he left
+off crossing himself, calling the old man and thinking of his mother,
+and was simply numb with cold and the conviction that the storm
+would never end.
+
+But at last there was the sound of voices.
+
+"Yegory, are you asleep?" Panteley cried below. "Get down! Is he
+deaf, the silly little thing? . . ."
+
+"Something like a storm!" said an unfamiliar bass voice, and the
+stranger cleared his throat as though he had just tossed off a good
+glass of vodka.
+
+Yegorushka opened his eyes. Close to the waggon stood Panteley,
+Emelyan, looking like a triangle, and the giants. The latter were
+by now much shorter, and when Yegorushka looked more closely at
+them they turned out to be ordinary peasants, carrying on their
+shoulders not pikes but pitchforks. In the space between Panteley
+and the triangular figure, gleamed the window of a low-pitched hut.
+So the waggons were halting in the village. Yegorushka flung off
+the mat, took his bundle and made haste to get off the waggon. Now
+when close to him there were people talking and a lighted window
+he no longer felt afraid, though the thunder was crashing as before
+and the whole sky was streaked with lightning.
+
+"It was a good storm, all right, . . ." Panteley was muttering.
+"Thank God, . . . my feet are a little softened by the rain. It was
+all right. . . . Have you got down, Yegory? Well, go into the hut;
+it is all right. . . ."
+
+"Holy, holy, holy!" wheezed Emelyan, "it must have struck something
+. . . . Are you of these parts?" he asked the giants.
+
+"No, from Glinovo. We belong to Glinovo. We are working at the
+Platers'."
+
+"Threshing?"
+
+"All sorts. Just now we are getting in the wheat. The lightning,
+the lightning! It is long since we have had such a storm. . . ."
+
+Yegorushka went into the hut. He was met by a lean hunchbacked old
+woman with a sharp chin. She stood holding a tallow candle in her
+hands, screwing up her eyes and heaving prolonged sighs.
+
+"What a storm God has sent us!" she said. "And our lads are out for
+the night on the steppe; they'll have a bad time, poor dears! Take
+off your things, little sir, take off your things."
+
+Shivering with cold and shrugging squeamishly, Yegorushka pulled
+off his drenched overcoat, then stretched out his arms and straddled
+his legs, and stood a long time without moving. The slightest
+movement caused an unpleasant sensation of cold and wetness. His
+sleeves and the back of his shirt were sopped, his trousers stuck
+to his legs, his head was dripping.
+
+"What's the use of standing there, with your legs apart, little
+lad?" said the old woman. "Come, sit down."
+
+Holding his legs wide apart, Yegorushka went up to the table and
+sat down on a bench near somebody's head. The head moved, puffed a
+stream of air through its nose, made a chewing sound and subsided.
+A mound covered with a sheepskin stretched from the head along the
+bench; it was a peasant woman asleep.
+
+The old woman went out sighing, and came back with a big water melon
+and a little sweet melon.
+
+"Have something to eat, my dear! I have nothing else to offer you,
+. . ." she said, yawning. She rummaged in the table and took out a
+long sharp knife, very much like the one with which the brigands
+killed the merchants in the inn. "Have some, my dear!"
+
+Yegorushka, shivering as though he were in a fever, ate a slice of
+sweet melon with black bread and then a slice of water melon, and
+that made him feel colder still.
+
+"Our lads are out on the steppe for the night, . . ." sighed the
+old woman while he was eating. "The terror of the Lord! I'd light
+the candle under the ikon, but I don't know where Stepanida has put
+it. Have some more, little sir, have some more. . . ."
+
+The old woman gave a yawn and, putting her right hand behind her,
+scratched her left shoulder.
+
+"It must be two o'clock now," she said; "it will soon be time to
+get up. Our lads are out on the steppe for the night; they are all
+wet through for sure. . . ."
+
+"Granny," said Yegorushka. "I am sleepy."
+
+"Lie down, my dear, lie down," the old woman sighed, yawning. "Lord
+Jesus Christ! I was asleep, when I heard a noise as though someone
+were knocking. I woke up and looked, and it was the storm God had
+sent us. . . . I'd have lighted the candle, but I couldn't find
+it."
+
+Talking to herself, she pulled some rags, probably her own bed, off
+the bench, took two sheepskins off a nail by the stove, and began
+laying them out for a bed for Yegorushka. "The storm doesn't grow
+less," she muttered. "If only nothing's struck in an unlucky hour.
+Our lads are out on the steppe for the night. Lie down and sleep,
+my dear. . . . Christ be with you, my child. . . . I won't take
+away the melon; maybe you'll have a bit when you get up."
+
+The sighs and yawns of the old woman, the even breathing of the
+sleeping woman, the half-darkness of the hut, and the sound of the
+rain outside, made one sleepy. Yegorushka was shy of undressing
+before the old woman. He only took off his boots, lay down and
+covered himself with the sheepskin.
+
+"Is the little lad lying down?" he heard Panteley whisper a little
+later.
+
+"Yes," answered the old woman in a whisper. "The terror of the Lord!
+It thunders and thunders, and there is no end to it."
+
+"It will soon be over," wheezed Panteley, sitting down; "it's getting
+quieter. . . . The lads have gone into the huts, and two have stayed
+with the horses. The lads have. . . . They can't; . . . the horses
+would be taken away. . . . I'll sit here a bit and then go and take
+my turn. . . . We can't leave them; they would be taken. . . ."
+
+Panteley and the old woman sat side by side at Yegorushka's feet,
+talking in hissing whispers and interspersing their speech with
+sighs and yawns. And Yegorushka could not get warm. The warm heavy
+sheepskin lay on him, but he was trembling all over; his arms and
+legs were twitching, and his whole inside was shivering. . . . He
+undressed under the sheepskin, but that was no good. His shivering
+grew more and more acute.
+
+Panteley went out to take his turn with the horses, and afterwards
+came back again, and still Yegorushka was shivering all over and
+could not get to sleep. Something weighed upon his head and chest
+and oppressed him, and he did not know what it was, whether it was
+the old people whispering, or the heavy smell of the sheepskin. The
+melon he had eaten had left an unpleasant metallic taste in his
+mouth. Moreover he was being bitten by fleas.
+
+"Grandfather, I am cold," he said, and did not know his own voice.
+
+"Go to sleep, my child, go to sleep," sighed the old woman.
+
+Tit came up to the bedside on his thin little legs and waved his
+arms, then grew up to the ceiling and turned into a windmill. . . .
+Father Christopher, not as he was in the chaise, but in his full
+vestments with the sprinkler in his hand, walked round the mill,
+sprinkling it with holy water, and it left off waving. Yegorushka,
+knowing this was delirium, opened his eyes.
+
+"Grandfather," he called, "give me some water."
+
+No one answered. Yegorushka felt it insufferably stifling and
+uncomfortable lying down. He got up, dressed, and went out of the
+hut. Morning was beginning. The sky was overcast, but it was no
+longer raining. Shivering and wrapping himself in his wet overcoat,
+Yegorushka walked about the muddy yard and listened to the silence;
+he caught sight of a little shed with a half-open door made of
+reeds. He looked into this shed, went into it, and sat down in a
+dark corner on a heap of dry dung.
+
+There was a tangle of thoughts in his heavy head; his mouth was dry
+and unpleasant from the metallic taste. He looked at his hat,
+straightened the peacock's feather on it, and thought how he had
+gone with his mother to buy the hat. He put his hand into his pocket
+and took out a lump of brownish sticky paste. How had that paste
+come into his pocket? He thought a minute, smelt it; it smelt of
+honey. Aha! it was the Jewish cake! How sopped it was, poor thing!
+
+Yegorushka examined his coat. It was a little grey overcoat with
+big bone buttons, cut in the shape of a frock-coat. At home, being
+a new and expensive article, it had not been hung in the hall, but
+with his mother's dresses in her bedroom; he was only allowed to
+wear it on holidays. Looking at it, Yegorushka felt sorry for it.
+He thought that he and the great-coat were both abandoned to the
+mercy of destiny; he thought that he would never get back home, and
+began sobbing so violently that he almost fell off the heap of dung.
+
+A big white dog with woolly tufts like curl-papers about its face,
+sopping from the rain, came into the shed and stared with curiosity
+at Yegorushka. It seemed to be hesitating whether to bark or not.
+Deciding that there was no need to bark, it went cautiously up to
+Yegorushka, ate the sticky plaster and went out again.
+
+"There are Varlamov's men!" someone shouted in the street.
+
+After having his cry out, Yegorushka went out of the shed and,
+walking round a big puddle, made his way towards the street. The
+waggons were standing exactly opposite the gateway. The drenched
+waggoners, with their muddy feet, were sauntering beside them or
+sitting on the shafts, as listless and drowsy as flies in autumn.
+Yegorushka looked at them and thought: "How dreary and comfortless
+to be a peasant!" He went up to Panteley and sat down beside him
+on the shaft.
+
+"Grandfather, I'm cold," he said, shivering and thrusting his hands
+up his sleeves.
+
+"Never mind, we shall soon be there," yawned Panteley. "Never mind,
+you will get warm."
+
+It must have been early when the waggons set off, for it was not
+hot. Yegorushka lay on the bales of wool and shivered with cold,
+though the sun soon came out and dried his clothes, the bales, and
+the earth. As soon as he closed his eyes he saw Tit and the windmill
+again. Feeling a sickness and heaviness all over, he did his utmost
+to drive away these images, but as soon as they vanished the
+dare-devil Dymov, with red eyes and lifted fists, rushed at Yegorushka
+with a roar, or there was the sound of his complaint: "I am so
+dreary!" Varlamov rode by on his little Cossack stallion; happy
+Konstantin passed, with a smile and the bustard in his arms. And
+how tedious these people were, how sickening and unbearable!
+
+Once--it was towards evening--he raised his head to ask for
+water. The waggons were standing on a big bridge across a broad
+river. There was black smoke below over the river, and through it
+could be seen a steamer with a barge in tow. Ahead of them, beyond
+the river, was a huge mountain dotted with houses and churches; at
+the foot of the mountain an engine was being shunted along beside
+some goods trucks.
+
+Yegorushka had never before seen steamers, nor engines, nor broad
+rivers. Glancing at them now, he was not alarmed or surprised; there
+was not even a look of anything like curiosity in his face. He
+merely felt sick, and made haste to turn over to the edge of the
+bale. He was sick. Panteley, seeing this, cleared his throat and
+shook his head.
+
+"Our little lad's taken ill," he said. "He must have got a chill
+to the stomach. The little lad must. . . away from home; it's a bad
+lookout!"
+
+VIII
+
+The waggons stopped at a big inn for merchants, not far from the
+quay. As Yegorushka climbed down from the waggon he heard a very
+familiar voice. Someone was helping him to get down, and saying:
+
+"We arrived yesterday evening. . . . We have been expecting you all
+day. We meant to overtake you yesterday, but it was out of our way;
+we came by the other road. I say, how you have crumpled your coat!
+You'll catch it from your uncle!"
+
+Yegorushka looked into the speaker's mottled face and remembered
+that this was Deniska.
+
+"Your uncle and Father Christopher are in the inn now, drinking
+tea; come along!"
+
+And he led Yegorushka to a big two-storied building, dark and gloomy
+like the almshouse at N. After going across the entry, up a dark
+staircase and through a narrow corridor, Yegorushka and Deniska
+reached a little room in which Ivan Ivanitch and Father Christopher
+were sitting at the tea-table. Seeing the boy, both the old men
+showed surprise and pleasure.
+
+"Aha! Yegor Ni-ko-la-aitch!" chanted Father Christopher. "Mr.
+Lomonosov!"
+
+"Ah, our gentleman that is to be," said Kuzmitchov, "pleased to see
+you!"
+
+Yegorushka took off his great-coat, kissed his uncle's hand and
+Father Christopher's, and sat down to the table.
+
+"Well, how did you like the journey, puer bone?" Father Christopher
+pelted him with questions as he poured him out some tea, with his
+radiant smile. "Sick of it, I've no doubt? God save us all from
+having to travel by waggon or with oxen. You go on and on, God
+forgive us; you look ahead and the steppe is always lying stretched
+out the same as it was--you can't see the end of it! It's not
+travelling but regular torture. Why don't you drink your tea? Drink
+it up; and in your absence, while you have been trailing along with
+the waggons, we have settled all our business capitally. Thank God
+we have sold our wool to Tcherepahin, and no one could wish to have
+done better. . . . We have made a good bargain."
+
+At the first sight of his own people Yegorushka felt an overwhelming
+desire to complain. He did not listen to Father Christopher, but
+thought how to begin and what exactly to complain of. But Father
+Christopher's voice, which seemed to him harsh and unpleasant,
+prevented him from concentrating his attention and confused his
+thoughts. He had not sat at the table five minutes before he got
+up, went to the sofa and lay down.
+
+"Well, well," said Father Christopher in surprise. "What about your
+tea?"
+
+Still thinking what to complain of, Yegorushka leaned his head
+against the wall and broke into sobs.
+
+"Well, well!" repeated Father Christopher, getting up and going to
+the sofa. "Yegory, what is the matter with you? Why are you crying?"
+
+"I'm . . . I'm ill," Yegorushka brought out.
+
+"Ill?" said Father Christopher in amazement. "That's not the right
+thing, my boy. . . . One mustn't be ill on a journey. Aie, aie,
+what are you thinking about, boy . . . eh?"
+
+He put his hand to Yegorushka's head, touched his cheek and said:
+
+"Yes, your head's feverish. . . . You must have caught cold or else
+have eaten something. . . . Pray to God."
+
+"Should we give him quinine? . . ." said Ivan Ivanitch, troubled.
+
+"No; he ought to have something hot. . . . Yegory, have a little
+drop of soup? Eh?"
+
+"I . . . don't want any," said Yegorushka.
+
+"Are you feeling chilly?"
+
+"I was chilly before, but now . . . now I am hot. And I ache all
+over. . . ."
+
+Ivan Ivanitch went up to the sofa, touched Yegorushka on the head,
+cleared his throat with a perplexed air, and went back to the table.
+
+"I tell you what, you undress and go to bed," said Father Christopher.
+"What you want is sleep now."
+
+He helped Yegorushka to undress, gave him a pillow and covered him
+with a quilt, and over that Ivan Ivanitch's great-coat. Then he
+walked away on tiptoe and sat down to the table. Yegorushka shut
+his eyes, and at once it seemed to him that he was not in the hotel
+room, but on the highroad beside the camp fire. Emelyan waved his
+hands, and Dymov with red eyes lay on his stomach and looked mockingly
+at Yegorushka.
+
+"Beat him, beat him!" shouted Yegorushka.
+
+"He is delirious," said Father Christopher in an undertone.
+
+"It's a nuisance!" sighed Ivan Ivanitch.
+
+"He must be rubbed with oil and vinegar. Please God, he will be
+better to-morrow."
+
+To be rid of bad dreams, Yegorushka opened his eyes and began looking
+towards the fire. Father Christopher and Ivan Ivanitch had now
+finished their tea and were talking in a whisper. The first was
+smiling with delight, and evidently could not forget that he had
+made a good bargain over his wool; what delighted him was not so
+much the actual profit he had made as the thought that on getting
+home he would gather round him his big family, wink slyly and go
+off into a chuckle; at first he would deceive them all, and say
+that he had sold the wool at a price below its value, then he would
+give his son-in-law, Mihail, a fat pocket-book and say: "Well, take
+it! that's the way to do business!" Kuzmitchov did not seem pleased;
+his face expressed, as before, a business-like reserve and anxiety.
+
+"If I could have known that Tcherepahin would give such a price,"
+he said in a low voice, "I wouldn't have sold Makarov those five
+tons at home. It is vexatious! But who could have told that the
+price had gone up here?"
+
+A man in a white shirt cleared away the samovar and lighted the
+little lamp before the ikon in the corner. Father Christopher
+whispered something in his ear; the man looked, made a serious face
+like a conspirator, as though to say, "I understand," went out, and
+returned a little while afterwards and put something under the sofa.
+Ivan Ivanitch made himself a bed on the floor, yawned several times,
+said his prayers lazily, and lay down.
+
+"I think of going to the cathedral to-morrow," said Father Christopher.
+"I know the sacristan there. I ought to go and see the bishop after
+mass, but they say he is ill."
+
+He yawned and put out the lamp. Now there was no light in the room
+but the little lamp before the ikon.
+
+"They say he can't receive visitors," Father Christopher went on,
+undressing. "So I shall go away without seeing him."
+
+He took off his full coat, and Yegorushka saw Robinson Crusoe
+reappear. Robinson stirred something in a saucer, went up to
+Yegorushka and whispered:
+
+"Lomonosov, are you asleep? Sit up; I'm going to rub you with oil
+and vinegar. It's a good thing, only you must say a prayer."
+
+Yegorushka roused himself quickly and sat up. Father Christopher
+pulled down the boy's shirt, and shrinking and breathing jerkily,
+as though he were being tickled himself, began rubbing Yegorushka's
+chest.
+
+"In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost," he
+whispered, "lie with your back upwards--that's it. . . . You'll
+be all right to-morrow, but don't do it again. . . . You are as hot
+as fire. I suppose you were on the road in the storm."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"You might well fall ill! In the name of the Father, the Son, and
+the Holy Ghost, . . . you might well fall ill!"
+
+After rubbing Yegorushka, Father Christopher put on his shirt again,
+covered him, made the sign of the cross over him, and walked away.
+Then Yegorushka saw him saying his prayers. Probably the old man
+knew a great many prayers by heart, for he stood a long time before
+the ikon murmuring. After saying his prayers he made the sign of
+the cross over the window, the door, Yegorushka, and Ivan Ivanitch,
+lay down on the little sofa without a pillow, and covered himself
+with his full coat. A clock in the corridor struck ten. Yegorushka
+thought how long a time it would be before morning; feeling miserable,
+he pressed his forehead against the back of the sofa and left off
+trying to get rid of the oppressive misty dreams. But morning came
+much sooner than he expected.
+
+It seemed to him that he had not been lying long with his head
+pressed to the back of the sofa, but when he opened his eyes slanting
+rays of sunlight were already shining on the floor through the two
+windows of the little hotel room. Father Christopher and Ivan
+Ivanitch were not in the room. The room had been tidied; it was
+bright, snug, and smelt of Father Christopher, who always smelt of
+cypress and dried cornflowers (at home he used to make the holy-water
+sprinklers and decorations for the ikonstands out of cornflowers,
+and so he was saturated with the smell of them). Yegorushka looked
+at the pillow, at the slanting sunbeams, at his boots, which had
+been cleaned and were standing side by side near the sofa, and
+laughed. It seemed strange to him that he was not on the bales of
+wool, that everything was dry around him, and that there was no
+thunder and lightning on the ceiling.
+
+He jumped off the sofa and began dressing. He felt splendid; nothing
+was left of his yesterday's illness but a slight weakness in his
+legs and neck. So the vinegar and oil had done good. He remembered
+the steamer, the railway engine, and the broad river, which he had
+dimly seen the day before, and now he made haste to dress, to run
+to the quay and have a look at them. When he had washed and was
+putting on his red shirt, the latch of the door clicked, and Father
+Christopher appeared in the doorway, wearing his top-hat and a brown
+silk cassock over his canvas coat and carrying his staff in his
+hand. Smiling and radiant (old men are always radiant when they
+come back from church), he put a roll of holy bread and a parcel
+of some sort on the table, prayed before the ikon, and said:
+
+"God has sent us blessings--well, how are you?"
+
+"Quite well now," answered Yegorushka, kissing his hand.
+
+"Thank God. . . . I have come from mass. I've been to see a sacristan
+I know. He invited me to breakfast with him, but I didn't go. I
+don't like visiting people too early, God bless them!"
+
+He took off his cassock, stroked himself on the chest, and without
+haste undid the parcel. Yegorushka saw a little tin of caviare, a
+piece of dry sturgeon, and a French loaf.
+
+"See; I passed a fish-shop and brought this," said Father Christopher.
+"There is no need to indulge in luxuries on an ordinary weekday;
+but I thought, I've an invalid at home, so it is excusable. And the
+caviare is good, real sturgeon. . . ."
+
+The man in the white shirt brought in the samovar and a tray with
+tea-things.
+
+"Eat some," said Father Christopher, spreading the caviare on a
+slice of bread and handing it to Yegorushka. "Eat now and enjoy
+yourself, but the time will soon come for you to be studying. Mind
+you study with attention and application, so that good may come of
+it. What you have to learn by heart, learn by heart, but when you
+have to tell the inner sense in your own words, without regard to
+the outer form, then say it in your own words. And try to master
+all subjects. One man knows mathematics excellently, but has never
+heard of Pyotr Mogila; another knows about Pyotr Mogila, but cannot
+explain about the moon. But you study so as to understand everything.
+Study Latin, French, German, . . . geography, of course, history,
+theology, philosophy, mathematics, . . . and when you have mastered
+everything, not with haste but with prayer and with zeal, then go
+into the service. When you know everything it will be easy for you
+in any line of life. . . . You study and strive for the divine
+blessing, and God will show you what to be. Whether a doctor, a
+judge or an engineer. . . ."
+
+Father Christopher spread a little caviare on a piece of bread, put
+it in his mouth and said:
+
+"The Apostle Paul says: 'Do not apply yourself to strange and diverse
+studies.' Of course, if it is black magic, unlawful arts, or calling
+up spirits from the other world, like Saul, or studying subjects
+that can be of no use to yourself or others, better not learn them.
+You must undertake only what God has blessed. Take example . . .
+the Holy Apostles spoke in all languages, so you study languages.
+Basil the Great studied mathematics and philosophy--so you study
+them; St. Nestor wrote history--so you study and write history.
+Take example from the saints."
+
+Father Christopher sipped the tea from his saucer, wiped his
+moustaches, and shook his head.
+
+"Good!" he said. "I was educated in the old-fashioned way; I have
+forgotten a great deal by now, but still I live differently from
+other people. Indeed, there is no comparison. For instance, in
+company at a dinner, or at an assembly, one says something in Latin,
+or makes some allusion from history or philosophy, and it pleases
+people, and it pleases me myself. . . . Or when the circuit court
+comes and one has to take the oath, all the other priests are shy,
+but I am quite at home with the judges, the prosecutors, and the
+lawyers. I talk intellectually, drink a cup of tea with them, laugh,
+ask them what I don't know, . . . and they like it. So that's how
+it is, my boy. Learning is light and ignorance is darkness. Study!
+It's hard, of course; nowadays study is expensive. . . . Your mother
+is a widow; she lives on her pension, but there, of course . . ."
+
+Father Christopher glanced apprehensively towards the door, and
+went on in a whisper:
+
+"Ivan Ivanitch will assist. He won't desert you. He has no children
+of his own, and he will help you. Don't be uneasy."
+
+He looked grave, and whispered still more softly:
+
+"Only mind, Yegory, don't forget your mother and Ivan Ivanitch, God
+preserve you from it. The commandment bids you honour your mother,
+and Ivan Ivanitch is your benefactor and takes the place of a father
+to you. If you become learned, God forbid you should be impatient
+and scornful with people because they are not so clever as you,
+then woe, woe to you!"
+
+Father Christopher raised his hand and repeated in a thin voice:
+
+"Woe to you! Woe to you!"
+
+Father Christopher's tongue was loosened, and he was, as they say,
+warming to his subject; he would not have finished till dinnertime
+but the door opened and Ivan Ivanitch walked in. He said good-morning
+hurriedly, sat down to the table, and began rapidly swallowing his
+tea.
+
+"Well, I have settled all our business," he said. "We might have
+gone home to-day, but we have still to think about Yegor. We must
+arrange for him. My sister told me that Nastasya Petrovna, a friend
+of hers, lives somewhere here, so perhaps she will take him in as
+a boarder."
+
+He rummaged in his pocket-book, found a crumpled note and read:
+
+"'Little Lower Street: Nastasya Petrovna Toskunov, living in a
+house of her own.' We must go at once and try to find her. It's a
+nuisance!"
+
+Soon after breakfast Ivan Ivanitch and Yegorushka left the inn.
+
+"It's a nuisance," muttered his uncle. "You are sticking to me like
+a burr. You and your mother want education and gentlemanly breeding
+and I have nothing but worry with you both. . . ."
+
+When they crossed the yard, the waggons and the drivers were not
+there. They had all gone off to the quay early in the morning. In
+a far-off dark corner of the yard stood the chaise.
+
+"Good-bye, chaise!" thought Yegorushka.
+
+At first they had to go a long way uphill by a broad street, then
+they had to cross a big marketplace; here Ivan Ivanitch asked a
+policeman for Little Lower Street.
+
+"I say," said the policeman, with a grin, "it's a long way off, out
+that way towards the town grazing ground."
+
+They met several cabs but Ivan Ivanitch only permitted himself such
+a weakness as taking a cab in exceptional cases and on great holidays.
+Yegorushka and he walked for a long while through paved streets,
+then along streets where there were only wooden planks at the sides
+and no pavements, and in the end got to streets where there were
+neither planks nor pavements. When their legs and their tongues had
+brought them to Little Lower Street they were both red in the face,
+and taking off their hats, wiped away the perspiration.
+
+"Tell me, please," said Ivan Ivanitch, addressing an old man sitting
+on a little bench by a gate, "where is Nastasya Petrovna Toskunov's
+house?"
+
+"There is no one called Toskunov here," said the old man, after
+pondering a moment. "Perhaps it's Timoshenko you want."
+
+"No, Toskunov. . . ."
+
+"Excuse me, there's no one called Toskunov. . . ."
+
+Ivan Ivanitch shrugged his shoulders and trudged on farther.
+
+"You needn't look," the old man called after them. "I tell you there
+isn't, and there isn't."
+
+"Listen, auntie," said Ivan Ivanitch, addressing an old woman who
+was sitting at a corner with a tray of pears and sunflower seeds,
+"where is Nastasya Petrovna Toskunov's house?"
+
+The old woman looked at him with surprise and laughed.
+
+"Why, Nastasya Petrovna live in her own house now!" she cried.
+"Lord! it is eight years since she married her daughter and gave
+up the house to her son-in-law! It's her son-in-law lives there
+now."
+
+And her eyes expressed: "How is it you didn't know a simple thing
+like that, you fools?"
+
+"And where does she live now?" Ivan Ivanitch asked.
+
+"Oh, Lord!" cried the old woman, flinging up her hands in surprise.
+"She moved ever so long ago! It's eight years since she gave up her
+house to her son-in-law! Upon my word!"
+
+She probably expected Ivan Ivanitch to be surprised, too, and to
+exclaim: "You don't say so," but Ivan Ivanitch asked very calmly:
+
+"Where does she live now?"
+
+The old woman tucked up her sleeves and, stretching out her bare
+arm to point, shouted in a shrill piercing voice:
+
+"Go straight on, straight on, straight on. You will pass a little
+red house, then you will see a little alley on your left. Turn down
+that little alley, and it will be the third gate on the right. . . ."
+
+Ivan Ivanitch and Yegorushka reached the little red house, turned
+to the left down the little alley, and made for the third gate on
+the right. On both sides of this very old grey gate there was a
+grey fence with big gaps in it. The first part of the fence was
+tilting forwards and threatened to fall, while on the left of the
+gate it sloped backwards towards the yard. The gate itself stood
+upright and seemed to be still undecided which would suit it best
+--to fall forwards or backwards. Ivan Ivanitch opened the little
+gate at the side, and he and Yegorushka saw a big yard overgrown
+with weeds and burdocks. A hundred paces from the gate stood a
+little house with a red roof and green shutters. A stout woman with
+her sleeves tucked up and her apron held out was standing in the
+middle of the yard, scattering something on the ground and shouting
+in a voice as shrill as that of the woman selling fruit:
+
+"Chick! . . . Chick! . . . Chick!"
+
+Behind her sat a red dog with pointed ears. Seeing the strangers,
+he ran to the little gate and broke into a tenor bark (all red dogs
+have a tenor bark).
+
+"Whom do you want?" asked the woman, putting up her hand to shade
+her eyes from the sun.
+
+"Good-morning!" Ivan Ivanitch shouted, too, waving off the red dog
+with his stick. "Tell me, please, does Nastasya Petrovna Toskunov
+live here?"
+
+"Yes! But what do you want with her?"
+
+"Perhaps you are Nastasya Petrovna?"
+
+"Well, yes, I am!"
+
+"Very pleased to see you. . . . You see, your old friend Olga
+Ivanovna Knyasev sends her love to you. This is her little son. And
+I, perhaps you remember, am her brother Ivan Ivanitch. . . . You
+are one of us from N. . . . You were born among us and married
+there. . . ."
+
+A silence followed. The stout woman stared blankly at Ivan Ivanitch,
+as though not believing or not understanding him, then she flushed
+all over, and flung up her hands; the oats were scattered out of
+her apron and tears spurted from her eyes.
+
+"Olga Ivanovna!" she screamed, breathless with excitement. "My own
+darling! Ah, holy saints, why am I standing here like a fool? My
+pretty little angel. . . ."
+
+She embraced Yegorushka, wetted his face with her tears, and broke
+down completely.
+
+"Heavens!" she said, wringing her hands, "Olga's little boy! How
+delightful! He is his mother all over! The image of his mother! But
+why are you standing in the yard? Come indoors."
+
+Crying, gasping for breath and talking as she went, she hurried
+towards the house. Her visitors trudged after her.
+
+"The room has not been done yet," she said, ushering the visitors
+into a stuffy little drawing-room adorned with many ikons and pots
+of flowers. "Oh, Mother of God! Vassilisa, go and open the shutters
+anyway! My little angel! My little beauty! I did not know that
+Olitchka had a boy like that!"
+
+When she had calmed down and got over her first surprise Ivan
+Ivanitch asked to speak to her alone. Yegorushka went into another
+room; there was a sewing-machine; in the window was a cage with a
+starling in it, and there were as many ikons and flowers as in the
+drawing-room. Near the machine stood a little girl with a sunburnt
+face and chubby cheeks like Tit's, and a clean cotton dress. She
+stared at Yegorushka without blinking, and apparently felt very
+awkward. Yegorushka looked at her and after a pause asked:
+
+"What's your name?"
+
+The little girl moved her lips, looked as if she were going to cry,
+and answered softly:
+
+"Atka. . . ."
+
+This meant Katka.
+
+"He will live with you," Ivan Ivanitch was whispering in the
+drawing-room, "if you will be so kind, and we will pay ten roubles
+a month for his keep. He is not a spoilt boy; he is quiet. . . ."
+
+"I really don't know what to say, Ivan Ivanitch!" Nastasya Petrovna
+sighed tearfully. "Ten roubles a month is very good, but it is a
+dreadful thing to take another person's child! He may fall ill or
+something. . . ."
+
+When Yegorushka was summoned back to the drawing-room Ivan Ivanitch
+was standing with his hat in his hands, saying good-bye.
+
+"Well, let him stay with you now, then," he said. "Good-bye! You
+stay, Yegor!" he said, addressing his nephew. "Don't be troublesome;
+mind you obey Nastasya Petrovna. . . . Good-bye; I am coming again
+to-morrow."
+
+And he went away. Nastasya once more embraced Yegorushka, called
+him a little angel, and with a tear-stained face began preparing
+for dinner. Three minutes later Yegorushka was sitting beside her,
+answering her endless questions and eating hot savoury cabbage soup.
+
+In the evening he sat again at the same table and, resting his head
+on his hand, listened to Nastasya Petrovna. Alternately laughing
+and crying, she talked of his mother's young days, her own marriage,
+her children. . . . A cricket chirruped in the stove, and there was
+a faint humming from the burner of the lamp. Nastasya Petrovna
+talked in a low voice, and was continually dropping her thimble in
+her excitement; and Katka her granddaughter, crawled under the table
+after it and each time sat a long while under the table, probably
+examining Yegorushka's feet; and Yegorushka listened, half dozing
+and looking at the old woman's face, her wart with hairs on it, and
+the stains of tears, and he felt sad, very sad. He was put to sleep
+on a chest and told that if he were hungry in the night he must go
+out into the little passage and take some chicken, put there under
+a plate in the window.
+
+Next morning Ivan Ivanitch and Father Christopher came to say
+good-bye. Nastasya Petrovna was delighted to see them, and was about
+to set the samovar; but Ivan Ivanitch, who was in a great hurry,
+waved his hands and said:
+
+"We have no time for tea! We are just setting off."
+
+Before parting they all sat down and were silent for a minute.
+Nastasya Petrovna heaved a deep sigh and looked towards the ikon
+with tear-stained eyes.
+
+"Well," began Ivan Ivanitch, getting up, "so you will stay. . . ."
+
+All at once the look of business-like reserve vanished from his
+face; he flushed a little and said with a mournful smile:
+
+"Mind you work hard. . . . Don't forget your mother, and obey
+Nastasya Petrovna. . . . If you are diligent at school, Yegor, I'll
+stand by you."
+
+He took his purse out of his pocket, turned his back to Yegorushka,
+fumbled for a long time among the smaller coins, and, finding a
+ten-kopeck piece, gave it to Yegorushka.
+
+Father Christopher, without haste, blessed Yegorushka.
+
+"In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. . . .
+Study," he said. "Work hard, my lad. If I die, remember me in your
+prayers. Here is a ten-kopeck piece from me, too. . . ."
+
+Yegorushka kissed his hand, and shed tears; something whispered in
+his heart that he would never see the old man again.
+
+"I have applied at the high school already," said Ivan Ivanitch in
+a voice as though there were a corpse in the room. "You will take
+him for the entrance examination on the seventh of August. . . .
+Well, good-bye; God bless you, good-bye, Yegor!"
+
+"You might at least have had a cup of tea," wailed Nastasya Petrovna.
+
+Through the tears that filled his eyes Yegorushka could not see his
+uncle and Father Christopher go out. He rushed to the window, but
+they were not in the yard, and the red dog, who had just been
+barking, was running back from the gate with the air of having done
+his duty. When Yegorushka ran out of the gate Ivan Ivanitch and
+Father Christopher, the former waving his stick with the crook, the
+latter his staff, were just turning the corner. Yegorushka felt
+that with these people all that he had known till then had vanished
+from him for ever. He sank helplessly on to the little bench, and
+with bitter tears greeted the new unknown life that was beginning
+for him now. . . .
+
+What would that life be like?
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Bishop and Other Stories, by Anton Chekhov
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 13419 ***
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+  <body>
+<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 13419 ***</div>
+
+    <div style="height: 8em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h1>
+      THE TALES OF CHEKHOV
+    </h1>
+    <h4>
+      Volume 7
+    </h4>
+    <h3>
+      THE BISHOP AND OTHER STORIES
+    </h3>
+    <h2>
+      By Anton Tchekhov
+    </h2>
+    <h4>
+      Translated by Constance Garnett
+    </h4>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <b>CONTENTS</b>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0001"> THE BISHOP </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0002"> THE LETTER </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0003"> EASTER EVE </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0004"> A NIGHTMARE </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0005"> THE MURDER </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0006"> UPROOTED </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0007"> THE STEPPE </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0001" id="link2H_4_0001"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <h2>
+      THE BISHOP
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      I
+    </h3>
+    <p class="pfirst">
+      <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">T</span>HE evening service
+      was being celebrated on the eve of Palm Sunday in the Old Petrovsky
+      Convent. When they began distributing the palm it was close upon ten
+      o&rsquo;clock, the candles were burning dimly, the wicks wanted snuffing; it was
+      all in a sort of mist. In the twilight of the church the crowd seemed
+      heaving like the sea, and to Bishop Pyotr, who had been unwell for the
+      last three days, it seemed that all the faces&mdash;old and young, men&rsquo;s
+      and women&rsquo;s&mdash;were alike, that everyone who came up for the palm had
+      the same expression in his eyes. In the mist he could not see the doors;
+      the crowd kept moving and looked as though there were no end to it. The
+      female choir was singing, a nun was reading the prayers for the day.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      How stifling, how hot it was! How long the service went on! Bishop Pyotr
+      was tired. His breathing was laboured and rapid, his throat was parched,
+      his shoulders ached with weariness, his legs were trembling. And it
+      disturbed him unpleasantly when a religious maniac uttered occasional
+      shrieks in the gallery. And then all of a sudden, as though in a dream or
+      delirium, it seemed to the bishop as though his own mother Marya
+      Timofyevna, whom he had not seen for nine years, or some old woman just
+      like his mother, came up to him out of the crowd, and, after taking a palm
+      branch from him, walked away looking at him all the while good-humouredly
+      with a kind, joyful smile until she was lost in the crowd. And for some
+      reason tears flowed down his face. There was peace in his heart,
+      everything was well, yet he kept gazing fixedly towards the left choir,
+      where the prayers were being read, where in the dusk of evening you could
+      not recognize anyone, and&mdash;wept. Tears glistened on his face and on
+      his beard. Here someone close at hand was weeping, then someone else
+      farther away, then others and still others, and little by little the
+      church was filled with soft weeping. And a little later, within five
+      minutes, the nuns&rsquo; choir was singing; no one was weeping and everything
+      was as before.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Soon the service was over. When the bishop got into his carriage to drive
+      home, the gay, melodious chime of the heavy, costly bells was filling the
+      whole garden in the moonlight. The white walls, the white crosses on the
+      tombs, the white birch-trees and black shadows, and the far-away moon in
+      the sky exactly over the convent, seemed now living their own life, apart
+      and incomprehensible, yet very near to man. It was the beginning of April,
+      and after the warm spring day it turned cool; there was a faint touch of
+      frost, and the breath of spring could be felt in the soft, chilly air. The
+      road from the convent to the town was sandy, the horses had to go at a
+      walking pace, and on both sides of the carriage in the brilliant, peaceful
+      moonlight there were people trudging along home from church through the
+      sand. And all was silent, sunk in thought; everything around seemed
+      kindly, youthful, akin, everything&mdash;trees and sky and even the moon,
+      and one longed to think that so it would be always.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At last the carriage drove into the town and rumbled along the principal
+      street. The shops were already shut, but at Erakin&rsquo;s, the millionaire
+      shopkeeper&rsquo;s, they were trying the new electric lights, which flickered
+      brightly, and a crowd of people were gathered round. Then came wide, dark,
+      deserted streets, one after another; then the highroad, the open country,
+      the fragrance of pines. And suddenly there rose up before the bishop&rsquo;s
+      eyes a white turreted wall, and behind it a tall belfry in the full
+      moonlight, and beside it five shining, golden cupolas: this was the
+      Pankratievsky Monastery, in which Bishop Pyotr lived. And here, too, high
+      above the monastery, was the silent, dreamy moon. The carriage drove in at
+      the gate, crunching over the sand; here and there in the moonlight there
+      were glimpses of dark monastic figures, and there was the sound of
+      footsteps on the flag-stones. . . .
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You know, your holiness, your mamma arrived while you were away,&rdquo; the lay
+      brother informed the bishop as he went into his cell.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My mother? When did she come?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Before the evening service. She asked first where you were and then she
+      went to the convent.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then it was her I saw in the church, just now! Oh, Lord!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And the bishop laughed with joy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She bade me tell your holiness,&rdquo; the lay brother went on, &ldquo;that she would
+      come to-morrow. She had a little girl with her&mdash;her grandchild, I
+      suppose. They are staying at Ovsyannikov&rsquo;s inn.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What time is it now?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A little after eleven.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, how vexing!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The bishop sat for a little while in the parlour, hesitating, and as it
+      were refusing to believe it was so late. His arms and legs were stiff, his
+      head ached. He was hot and uncomfortable. After resting a little he went
+      into his bedroom, and there, too, he sat a little, still thinking of his
+      mother; he could hear the lay brother going away, and Father Sisoy
+      coughing the other side of the wall. The monastery clock struck a quarter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The bishop changed his clothes and began reading the prayers before sleep.
+      He read attentively those old, long familiar prayers, and at the same time
+      thought about his mother. She had nine children and about forty
+      grandchildren. At one time, she had lived with her husband, the deacon, in
+      a poor village; she had lived there a very long time from the age of
+      seventeen to sixty. The bishop remembered her from early childhood, almost
+      from the age of three, and&mdash;how he had loved her! Sweet, precious
+      childhood, always fondly remembered! Why did it, that long-past time that
+      could never return, why did it seem brighter, fuller, and more festive
+      than it had really been? When in his childhood or youth he had been ill,
+      how tender and sympathetic his mother had been! And now his prayers
+      mingled with the memories, which gleamed more and more brightly like a
+      flame, and the prayers did not hinder his thinking of his mother.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When he had finished his prayers he undressed and lay down, and at once,
+      as soon as it was dark, there rose before his mind his dead father, his
+      mother, his native village Lesopolye . . . the creak of wheels, the bleat
+      of sheep, the church bells on bright summer mornings, the gypsies under
+      the window&mdash;oh, how sweet to think of it! He remembered the priest of
+      Lesopolye, Father Simeon&mdash;mild, gentle, kindly; he was a lean little
+      man, while his son, a divinity student, was a huge fellow and talked in a
+      roaring bass voice. The priest&rsquo;s son had flown into a rage with the cook
+      and abused her: &ldquo;Ah, you Jehud&rsquo;s ass!&rdquo; and Father Simeon overhearing it,
+      said not a word, and was only ashamed because he could not remember where
+      such an ass was mentioned in the Bible. After him the priest at Lesopolye
+      had been Father Demyan, who used to drink heavily, and at times drank till
+      he saw green snakes, and was even nicknamed Demyan Snakeseer. The
+      schoolmaster at Lesopolye was Matvey Nikolaitch, who had been a divinity
+      student, a kind and intelligent man, but he, too, was a drunkard; he never
+      beat the schoolchildren, but for some reason he always had hanging on his
+      wall a bunch of birch-twigs, and below it an utterly meaningless
+      inscription in Latin: &ldquo;Betula kinderbalsamica secuta.&rdquo; He had a shaggy
+      black dog whom he called Syntax.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And his holiness laughed. Six miles from Lesopolye was the village Obnino
+      with a wonder-working ikon. In the summer they used to carry the ikon in
+      procession about the neighbouring villages and ring the bells the whole
+      day long; first in one village and then in another, and it used to seem to
+      the bishop then that joy was quivering in the air, and he (in those days
+      his name was Pavlusha) used to follow the ikon, bareheaded and barefoot,
+      with naïve faith, with a naïve smile, infinitely happy. In Obnino, he
+      remembered now, there were always a lot of people, and the priest there,
+      Father Alexey, to save time during mass, used to make his deaf nephew
+      Ilarion read the names of those for whose health or whose souls&rsquo; peace
+      prayers were asked. Ilarion used to read them, now and then getting a five
+      or ten kopeck piece for the service, and only when he was grey and bald,
+      when life was nearly over, he suddenly saw written on one of the pieces of
+      paper: &ldquo;What a fool you are, Ilarion.&rdquo; Up to fifteen at least Pavlusha was
+      undeveloped and idle at his lessons, so much so that they thought of
+      taking him away from the clerical school and putting him into a shop; one
+      day, going to the post at Obnino for letters, he had stared a long time at
+      the post-office clerks and asked: &ldquo;Allow me to ask, how do you get your
+      salary, every month or every day?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His holiness crossed himself and turned over on the other side, trying to
+      stop thinking and go to sleep.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My mother has come,&rdquo; he remembered and laughed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The moon peeped in at the window, the floor was lighted up, and there were
+      shadows on it. A cricket was chirping. Through the wall Father Sisoy was
+      snoring in the next room, and his aged snore had a sound that suggested
+      loneliness, forlornness, even vagrancy. Sisoy had once been housekeeper to
+      the bishop of the diocese, and was called now &ldquo;the former Father
+      Housekeeper&rdquo;; he was seventy years old, he lived in a monastery twelve
+      miles from the town and stayed sometimes in the town, too. He had come to
+      the Pankratievsky Monastery three days before, and the bishop had kept him
+      that he might talk to him at his leisure about matters of business, about
+      the arrangements here. . . .
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At half-past one they began ringing for matins. Father Sisoy could be
+      heard coughing, muttering something in a discontented voice, then he got
+      up and walked barefoot about the rooms.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Father Sisoy,&rdquo; the bishop called.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sisoy went back to his room and a little later made his appearance in his
+      boots, with a candle; he had on his cassock over his underclothes and on
+      his head was an old faded skull-cap.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can&rsquo;t sleep,&rdquo; said the bishop, sitting up. &ldquo;I must be unwell. And what
+      it is I don&rsquo;t know. Fever!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You must have caught cold, your holiness. You must be rubbed with
+      tallow.&rdquo; Sisoy stood a little and yawned. &ldquo;O Lord, forgive me, a sinner.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They had the electric lights on at Erakin&rsquo;s today,&rdquo; he said; &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t
+      like it!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Father Sisoy was old, lean, bent, always dissatisfied with something, and
+      his eyes were angry-looking and prominent as a crab&rsquo;s.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t like it,&rdquo; he said, going away. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t like it. Bother it!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <h3>
+      II
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      Next day, Palm Sunday, the bishop took the service in the cathedral in the
+      town, then he visited the bishop of the diocese, then visited a very sick
+      old lady, the widow of a general, and at last drove home. Between one and
+      two o&rsquo;clock he had welcome visitors dining with him&mdash;his mother and
+      his niece Katya, a child of eight years old. All dinner-time the spring
+      sunshine was streaming in at the windows, throwing bright light on the
+      white tablecloth and on Katya&rsquo;s red hair. Through the double windows they
+      could hear the noise of the rooks and the notes of the starlings in the
+      garden.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is nine years since we have met,&rdquo; said the old lady. &ldquo;And when I
+      looked at you in the monastery yesterday, good Lord! you&rsquo;ve not changed a
+      bit, except maybe you are thinner and your beard is a little longer. Holy
+      Mother, Queen of Heaven! Yesterday at the evening service no one could
+      help crying. I, too, as I looked at you, suddenly began crying, though I
+      couldn&rsquo;t say why. His Holy Will!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And in spite of the affectionate tone in which she said this, he could see
+      she was constrained as though she were uncertain whether to address him
+      formally or familiarly, to laugh or not, and that she felt herself more a
+      deacon&rsquo;s widow than his mother. And Katya gazed without blinking at her
+      uncle, his holiness, as though trying to discover what sort of a person he
+      was. Her hair sprang up from under the comb and the velvet ribbon and
+      stood out like a halo; she had a turned-up nose and sly eyes. The child
+      had broken a glass before sitting down to dinner, and now her grandmother,
+      as she talked, moved away from Katya first a wineglass and then a tumbler.
+      The bishop listened to his mother and remembered how many, many years ago
+      she used to take him and his brothers and sisters to relations whom she
+      considered rich; in those days she was taken up with the care of her
+      children, now with her grandchildren, and she had brought Katya. . . .
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your sister, Varenka, has four children,&rdquo; she told him; &ldquo;Katya, here, is
+      the eldest. And your brother-in-law Father Ivan fell sick, God knows of
+      what, and died three days before the Assumption; and my poor Varenka is
+      left a beggar.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And how is Nikanor getting on?&rdquo; the bishop asked about his eldest
+      brother.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He is all right, thank God. Though he has nothing much, yet he can live.
+      Only there is one thing: his son, my grandson Nikolasha, did not want to
+      go into the Church; he has gone to the university to be a doctor. He
+      thinks it is better; but who knows! His Holy Will!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nikolasha cuts up dead people,&rdquo; said Katya, spilling water over her
+      knees.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sit still, child,&rdquo; her grandmother observed calmly, and took the glass
+      out of her hand. &ldquo;Say a prayer, and go on eating.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How long it is since we have seen each other!&rdquo; said the bishop, and he
+      tenderly stroked his mother&rsquo;s hand and shoulder; &ldquo;and I missed you abroad,
+      mother, I missed you dreadfully.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thank you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I used to sit in the evenings at the open window, lonely and alone; often
+      there was music playing, and all at once I used to be overcome with
+      homesickness and felt as though I would give everything only to be at home
+      and see you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His mother smiled, beamed, but at once she made a grave face and said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thank you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His mood suddenly changed. He looked at his mother and could not
+      understand how she had come by that respectfulness, that timid expression
+      of face: what was it for? And he did not recognize her. He felt sad and
+      vexed. And then his head ached just as it had the day before; his legs
+      felt fearfully tired, and the fish seemed to him stale and tasteless; he
+      felt thirsty all the time. . . .
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After dinner two rich ladies, landowners, arrived and sat for an hour and
+      a half in silence with rigid countenances; the archimandrite, a silent,
+      rather deaf man, came to see him about business. Then they began ringing
+      for vespers; the sun was setting behind the wood and the day was over.
+      When he returned from church, he hurriedly said his prayers, got into bed,
+      and wrapped himself up as warm as possible.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was disagreeable to remember the fish he had eaten at dinner. The
+      moonlight worried him, and then he heard talking. In an adjoining room,
+      probably in the parlour, Father Sisoy was talking politics:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There&rsquo;s war among the Japanese now. They are fighting. The Japanese, my
+      good soul, are the same as the Montenegrins; they are the same race. They
+      were under the Turkish yoke together.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And then he heard the voice of Marya Timofyevna:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So, having said our prayers and drunk tea, we went, you know, to Father
+      Yegor at Novokatnoye, so. . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And she kept on saying, &ldquo;having had tea&rdquo; or &ldquo;having drunk tea,&rdquo; and it
+      seemed as though the only thing she had done in her life was to drink tea.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The bishop slowly, languidly, recalled the seminary, the academy. For
+      three years he had been Greek teacher in the seminary: by that time he
+      could not read without spectacles. Then he had become a monk; he had been
+      made a school inspector. Then he had defended his thesis for his degree.
+      When he was thirty-two he had been made rector of the seminary, and
+      consecrated archimandrite: and then his life had been so easy, so
+      pleasant; it seemed so long, so long, no end was in sight. Then he had
+      begun to be ill, had grown very thin and almost blind, and by the advice
+      of the doctors had to give up everything and go abroad.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And what then?&rdquo; asked Sisoy in the next room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then we drank tea . . .&rdquo; answered Marya Timofyevna.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good gracious, you&rsquo;ve got a green beard,&rdquo; said Katya suddenly in
+      surprise, and she laughed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The bishop remembered that the grey-headed Father Sisoy&rsquo;s beard really had
+      a shade of green in it, and he laughed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;God have mercy upon us, what we have to put up with with this girl!&rdquo; said
+      Sisoy, aloud, getting angry. &ldquo;Spoilt child! Sit quiet!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The bishop remembered the perfectly new white church in which he had
+      conducted the services while living abroad, he remembered the sound of the
+      warm sea. In his flat he had five lofty light rooms; in his study he had a
+      new writing-table, lots of books. He had read a great deal and often
+      written. And he remembered how he had pined for his native land, how a
+      blind beggar woman had played the guitar under his window every day and
+      sung of love, and how, as he listened, he had always for some reason
+      thought of the past. But eight years had passed and he had been called
+      back to Russia, and now he was a suffragan bishop, and all the past had
+      retreated far away into the mist as though it were a dream. . . .
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Father Sisoy came into the bedroom with a candle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I say!&rdquo; he said, wondering, &ldquo;are you asleep already, your holiness?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, it&rsquo;s still early, ten o&rsquo;clock or less. I bought a candle to-day; I
+      wanted to rub you with tallow.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am in a fever . . .&rdquo; said the bishop, and he sat up. &ldquo;I really ought to
+      have something. My head is bad. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sisoy took off the bishop&rsquo;s shirt and began rubbing his chest and back
+      with tallow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s the way . . . that&rsquo;s the way . . .&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Lord Jesus Christ .
+      . . that&rsquo;s the way. I walked to the town to-day; I was at
+      what&rsquo;s-his-name&rsquo;s&mdash;the chief priest Sidonsky&rsquo;s. . . . I had tea with
+      him. I don&rsquo;t like him. Lord Jesus Christ. . . . That&rsquo;s the way. I don&rsquo;t
+      like him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <h3>
+      III
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      The bishop of the diocese, a very fat old man, was ill with rheumatism or
+      gout, and had been in bed for over a month. Bishop Pyotr went to see him
+      almost every day, and saw all who came to ask his help. And now that he
+      was unwell he was struck by the emptiness, the triviality of everything
+      which they asked and for which they wept; he was vexed at their ignorance,
+      their timidity; and all this useless, petty business oppressed him by the
+      mass of it, and it seemed to him that now he understood the diocesan
+      bishop, who had once in his young days written on &ldquo;The Doctrines of the
+      Freedom of the Will,&rdquo; and now seemed to be all lost in trivialities, to
+      have forgotten everything, and to have no thoughts of religion. The bishop
+      must have lost touch with Russian life while he was abroad; he did not
+      find it easy; the peasants seemed to him coarse, the women who sought his
+      help dull and stupid, the seminarists and their teachers uncultivated and
+      at times savage. And the documents coming in and going out were reckoned
+      by tens of thousands; and what documents they were! The higher clergy in
+      the whole diocese gave the priests, young and old, and even their wives
+      and children, marks for their behaviour&mdash;a five, a four, and
+      sometimes even a three; and about this he had to talk and to read and
+      write serious reports. And there was positively not one minute to spare;
+      his soul was troubled all day long, and the bishop was only at peace when
+      he was in church.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He could not get used, either, to the awe which, through no wish of his
+      own, he inspired in people in spite of his quiet, modest disposition. All
+      the people in the province seemed to him little, scared, and guilty when
+      he looked at them. Everyone was timid in his presence, even the old chief
+      priests; everyone &ldquo;flopped&rdquo; at his feet, and not long previously an old
+      lady, a village priest&rsquo;s wife who had come to consult him, was so overcome
+      by awe that she could not utter a single word, and went empty away. And
+      he, who could never in his sermons bring himself to speak ill of people,
+      never reproached anyone because he was so sorry for them, was moved to
+      fury with the people who came to consult him, lost his temper and flung
+      their petitions on the floor. The whole time he had been here, not one
+      person had spoken to him genuinely, simply, as to a human being; even his
+      old mother seemed now not the same! And why, he wondered, did she chatter
+      away to Sisoy and laugh so much; while with him, her son, she was grave
+      and usually silent and constrained, which did not suit her at all. The
+      only person who behaved freely with him and said what he meant was old
+      Sisoy, who had spent his whole life in the presence of bishops and had
+      outlived eleven of them. And so the bishop was at ease with him, although,
+      of course, he was a tedious and nonsensical man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After the service on Tuesday, his holiness Pyotr was in the diocesan
+      bishop&rsquo;s house receiving petitions there; he got excited and angry, and
+      then drove home. He was as unwell as before; he longed to be in bed, but
+      he had hardly reached home when he was informed that a young merchant
+      called Erakin, who subscribed liberally to charities, had come to see him
+      about a very important matter. The bishop had to see him. Erakin stayed
+      about an hour, talked very loud, almost shouted, and it was difficult to
+      understand what he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;God grant it may,&rdquo; he said as he went away. &ldquo;Most essential! According to
+      circumstances, your holiness! I trust it may!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      After him came the Mother Superior from a distant convent. And when she
+      had gone they began ringing for vespers. He had to go to church.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the evening the monks sang harmoniously, with inspiration. A young
+      priest with a black beard conducted the service; and the bishop, hearing
+      of the Bridegroom who comes at midnight and of the Heavenly Mansion
+      adorned for the festival, felt no repentance for his sins, no tribulation,
+      but peace at heart and tranquillity. And he was carried back in thought to
+      the distant past, to his childhood and youth, when, too, they used to sing
+      of the Bridegroom and of the Heavenly Mansion; and now that past rose up
+      before him&mdash;living, fair, and joyful as in all likelihood it never
+      had been. And perhaps in the other world, in the life to come, we shall
+      think of the distant past, of our life here, with the same feeling. Who
+      knows? The bishop was sitting near the altar. It was dark; tears flowed
+      down his face. He thought that here he had attained everything a man in
+      his position could attain; he had faith and yet everything was not clear,
+      something was lacking still. He did not want to die; and he still felt
+      that he had missed what was most important, something of which he had
+      dimly dreamed in the past; and he was troubled by the same hopes for the
+      future as he had felt in childhood, at the academy and abroad.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How well they sing to-day!&rdquo; he thought, listening to the singing. &ldquo;How
+      nice it is!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <h3>
+      IV
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      On Thursday he celebrated mass in the cathedral; it was the Washing of
+      Feet. When the service was over and the people were going home, it was
+      sunny, warm; the water gurgled in the gutters, and the unceasing trilling
+      of the larks, tender, telling of peace, rose from the fields outside the
+      town. The trees were already awakening and smiling a welcome, while above
+      them the infinite, fathomless blue sky stretched into the distance, God
+      knows whither.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On reaching home his holiness drank some tea, then changed his clothes,
+      lay down on his bed, and told the lay brother to close the shutters on the
+      windows. The bedroom was darkened. But what weariness, what pain in his
+      legs and his back, a chill heavy pain, what a noise in his ears! He had
+      not slept for a long time&mdash;for a very long time, as it seemed to him
+      now, and some trifling detail which haunted his brain as soon as his eyes
+      were closed prevented him from sleeping. As on the day before, sounds
+      reached him from the adjoining rooms through the walls, voices, the jingle
+      of glasses and teaspoons. . . . Marya Timofyevna was gaily telling Father
+      Sisoy some story with quaint turns of speech, while the latter answered in
+      a grumpy, ill-humoured voice: &ldquo;Bother them! Not likely! What next!&rdquo; And
+      the bishop again felt vexed and then hurt that with other people his old
+      mother behaved in a simple, ordinary way, while with him, her son, she was
+      shy, spoke little, and did not say what she meant, and even, as he
+      fancied, had during all those three days kept trying in his presence to
+      find an excuse for standing up, because she was embarrassed at sitting
+      before him. And his father? He, too, probably, if he had been living,
+      would not have been able to utter a word in the bishop&rsquo;s presence. . . .
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Something fell down on the floor in the adjoining room and was broken;
+      Katya must have dropped a cup or a saucer, for Father Sisoy suddenly spat
+      and said angrily:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What a regular nuisance the child is! Lord forgive my transgressions! One
+      can&rsquo;t provide enough for her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Then all was quiet, the only sounds came from outside. And when the bishop
+      opened his eyes he saw Katya in his room, standing motionless, staring at
+      him. Her red hair, as usual, stood up from under the comb like a halo.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is that you, Katya?&rdquo; he asked. &ldquo;Who is it downstairs who keeps opening
+      and shutting a door?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t hear it,&rdquo; answered Katya; and she listened.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There, someone has just passed by.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But that was a noise in your stomach, uncle.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He laughed and stroked her on the head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So you say Cousin Nikolasha cuts up dead people?&rdquo; he asked after a pause.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, he is studying.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And is he kind?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, yes, he&rsquo;s kind. But he drinks vodka awfully.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And what was it your father died of?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Papa was weak and very, very thin, and all at once his throat was bad. I
+      was ill then, too, and brother Fedya; we all had bad throats. Papa died,
+      uncle, and we got well.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Her chin began quivering, and tears gleamed in her eyes and trickled down
+      her cheeks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your holiness,&rdquo; she said in a shrill voice, by now weeping bitterly,
+      &ldquo;uncle, mother and all of us are left very wretched. . . . Give us a
+      little money . . . do be kind . . . uncle darling. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He, too, was moved to tears, and for a long time was too much touched to
+      speak. Then he stroked her on the head, patted her on the shoulder and
+      said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very good, very good, my child. When the holy Easter comes, we will talk
+      it over. . . . I will help you. . . . I will help you. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His mother came in quietly, timidly, and prayed before the ikon. Noticing
+      that he was not sleeping, she said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Won&rsquo;t you have a drop of soup?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, thank you,&rdquo; he answered, &ldquo;I am not hungry.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You seem to be unwell, now I look at you. I should think so; you may well
+      be ill! The whole day on your legs, the whole day. . . . And, my goodness,
+      it makes one&rsquo;s heart ache even to look at you! Well, Easter is not far
+      off; you will rest then, please God. Then we will have a talk, too, but
+      now I&rsquo;m not going to disturb you with my chatter. Come along, Katya; let
+      his holiness sleep a little.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And he remembered how once very long ago, when he was a boy, she had
+      spoken exactly like that, in the same jestingly respectful tone, with a
+      Church dignitary. . . . Only from her extraordinarily kind eyes and the
+      timid, anxious glance she stole at him as she went out of the room could
+      one have guessed that this was his mother. He shut his eyes and seemed to
+      sleep, but twice heard the clock strike and Father Sisoy coughing the
+      other side of the wall. And once more his mother came in and looked
+      timidly at him for a minute. Someone drove up to the steps, as he could
+      hear, in a coach or in a chaise. Suddenly a knock, the door slammed, the
+      lay brother came into the bedroom.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your holiness,&rdquo; he called.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The horses are here; it&rsquo;s time for the evening service.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What o&rsquo;clock is it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A quarter past seven.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He dressed and drove to the cathedral. During all the &ldquo;Twelve Gospels&rdquo; he
+      had to stand in the middle of the church without moving, and the first
+      gospel, the longest and the most beautiful, he read himself. A mood of
+      confidence and courage came over him. That first gospel, &ldquo;Now is the Son
+      of Man glorified,&rdquo; he knew by heart; and as he read he raised his eyes
+      from time to time, and saw on both sides a perfect sea of lights and heard
+      the splutter of candles, but, as in past years, he could not see the
+      people, and it seemed as though these were all the same people as had been
+      round him in those days, in his childhood and his youth; that they would
+      always be the same every year and till such time as God only knew.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His father had been a deacon, his grandfather a priest, his
+      great-grandfather a deacon, and his whole family, perhaps from the days
+      when Christianity had been accepted in Russia, had belonged to the
+      priesthood; and his love for the Church services, for the priesthood, for
+      the peal of the bells, was deep in him, ineradicable, innate. In church,
+      particularly when he took part in the service, he felt vigorous, of good
+      cheer, happy. So it was now. Only when the eighth gospel had been read, he
+      felt that his voice had grown weak, even his cough was inaudible. His head
+      had begun to ache intensely, and he was troubled by a fear that he might
+      fall down. And his legs were indeed quite numb, so that by degrees he
+      ceased to feel them and could not understand how or on what he was
+      standing, and why he did not fall. . . .
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was a quarter to twelve when the service was over. When he reached
+      home, the bishop undressed and went to bed at once without even saying his
+      prayers. He could not speak and felt that he could not have stood up. When
+      he had covered his head with the quilt he felt a sudden longing to be
+      abroad, an insufferable longing! He felt that he would give his life not
+      to see those pitiful cheap shutters, those low ceilings, not to smell that
+      heavy monastery smell. If only there were one person to whom he could have
+      talked, have opened his heart!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For a long while he heard footsteps in the next room and could not tell
+      whose they were. At last the door opened, and Sisoy came in with a candle
+      and a tea-cup in his hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are in bed already, your holiness?&rdquo; he asked. &ldquo;Here I have come to
+      rub you with spirit and vinegar. A thorough rubbing does a great deal of
+      good. Lord Jesus Christ! . . . That&rsquo;s the way . . . that&rsquo;s the way. . . .
+      I&rsquo;ve just been in our monastery. . . . I don&rsquo;t like it. I&rsquo;m going away
+      from here to-morrow, your holiness; I don&rsquo;t want to stay longer. Lord
+      Jesus Christ. . . . That&rsquo;s the way. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sisoy could never stay long in the same place, and he felt as though he
+      had been a whole year in the Pankratievsky Monastery. Above all, listening
+      to him it was difficult to understand where his home was, whether he cared
+      for anyone or anything, whether he believed in God. . . . He did not know
+      himself why he was a monk, and, indeed, he did not think about it, and the
+      time when he had become a monk had long passed out of his memory; it
+      seemed as though he had been born a monk.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;m going away to-morrow; God be with them all.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I should like to talk to you. . . . I can&rsquo;t find the time,&rdquo; said the
+      bishop softly with an effort. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know anything or anybody here. . .
+      .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll stay till Sunday if you like; so be it, but I don&rsquo;t want to stay
+      longer. I am sick of them!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I ought not to be a bishop,&rdquo; said the bishop softly. &ldquo;I ought to have
+      been a village priest, a deacon . . . or simply a monk. . . . All this
+      oppresses me . . . oppresses me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What? Lord Jesus Christ. . . . That&rsquo;s the way. Come, sleep well, your
+      holiness! . . . What&rsquo;s the good of talking? It&rsquo;s no use. Good-night!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The bishop did not sleep all night. And at eight o&rsquo;clock in the morning he
+      began to have hemorrhage from the bowels. The lay brother was alarmed, and
+      ran first to the archimandrite, then for the monastery doctor, Ivan
+      Andreyitch, who lived in the town. The doctor, a stout old man with a long
+      grey beard, made a prolonged examination of the bishop, and kept shaking
+      his head and frowning, then said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you know, your holiness, you have got typhoid?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      After an hour or so of hemorrhage the bishop looked much thinner, paler,
+      and wasted; his face looked wrinkled, his eyes looked bigger, and he
+      seemed older, shorter, and it seemed to him that he was thinner, weaker,
+      more insignificant than any one, that everything that had been had
+      retreated far, far away and would never go on again or be repeated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How good,&rdquo; he thought, &ldquo;how good!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His old mother came. Seeing his wrinkled face and his big eyes, she was
+      frightened, she fell on her knees by the bed and began kissing his face,
+      his shoulders, his hands. And to her, too, it seemed that he was thinner,
+      weaker, and more insignificant than anyone, and now she forgot that he was
+      a bishop, and kissed him as though he were a child very near and very dear
+      to her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Pavlusha, darling,&rdquo; she said; &ldquo;my own, my darling son! . . . Why are you
+      like this? Pavlusha, answer me!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Katya, pale and severe, stood beside her, unable to understand what was
+      the matter with her uncle, why there was such a look of suffering on her
+      grandmother&rsquo;s face, why she was saying such sad and touching things. By
+      now he could not utter a word, he could understand nothing, and he
+      imagined he was a simple ordinary man, that he was walking quickly,
+      cheerfully through the fields, tapping with his stick, while above him was
+      the open sky bathed in sunshine, and that he was free now as a bird and
+      could go where he liked!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Pavlusha, my darling son, answer me,&rdquo; the old woman was saying. &ldquo;What is
+      it? My own!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t disturb his holiness,&rdquo; Sisoy said angrily, walking about the room.
+      &ldquo;Let him sleep . . . what&rsquo;s the use . . . it&rsquo;s no good. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Three doctors arrived, consulted together, and went away again. The day
+      was long, incredibly long, then the night came on and passed slowly,
+      slowly, and towards morning on Saturday the lay brother went in to the old
+      mother who was lying on the sofa in the parlour, and asked her to go into
+      the bedroom: the bishop had just breathed his last.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Next day was Easter Sunday. There were forty-two churches and six
+      monasteries in the town; the sonorous, joyful clang of the bells hung over
+      the town from morning till night unceasingly, setting the spring air
+      aquiver; the birds were singing, the sun was shining brightly. The big
+      market square was noisy, swings were going, barrel organs were playing,
+      accordions were squeaking, drunken voices were shouting. After midday
+      people began driving up and down the principal street.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In short, all was merriment, everything was satisfactory, just as it had
+      been the year before, and as it will be in all likelihood next year.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A month later a new suffragan bishop was appointed, and no one thought
+      anything more of Bishop Pyotr, and afterwards he was completely forgotten.
+      And only the dead man&rsquo;s old mother, who is living to-day with her
+      son-in-law the deacon in a remote little district town, when she goes out
+      at night to bring her cow in and meets other women at the pasture, begins
+      talking of her children and her grandchildren, and says that she had a son
+      a bishop, and this she says timidly, afraid that she may not be believed.
+      . . .
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And, indeed, there are some who do not believe her.
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0002" id="link2H_4_0002"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <h2>
+      THE LETTER
+    </h2>
+    <p class="pfirst">
+      <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">T</span>he clerical
+      superintendent of the district, his Reverence Father Fyodor Orlov, a
+      handsome, well-nourished man of fifty, grave and important as he always
+      was, with an habitual expression of dignity that never left his face, was
+      walking to and fro in his little drawing-room, extremely exhausted, and
+      thinking intensely about the same thing: &ldquo;When would his visitor go?&rdquo; The
+      thought worried him and did not leave him for a minute. The visitor,
+      Father Anastasy, the priest of one of the villages near the town, had come
+      to him three hours before on some very unpleasant and dreary business of
+      his own, had stayed on and on, was now sitting in the corner at a little
+      round table with his elbow on a thick account book, and apparently had no
+      thought of going, though it was getting on for nine o&rsquo;clock in the
+      evening.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Not everyone knows when to be silent and when to go. It not infrequently
+      happens that even diplomatic persons of good worldly breeding fail to
+      observe that their presence is arousing a feeling akin to hatred in their
+      exhausted or busy host, and that this feeling is being concealed with an
+      effort and disguised with a lie. But Father Anastasy perceived it clearly,
+      and realized that his presence was burdensome and inappropriate, that his
+      Reverence, who had taken an early morning service in the night and a long
+      mass at midday, was exhausted and longing for repose; every minute he was
+      meaning to get up and go, but he did not get up, he sat on as though he
+      were waiting for something. He was an old man of sixty-five, prematurely
+      aged, with a bent and bony figure, with a sunken face and the dark skin of
+      old age, with red eyelids and a long narrow back like a fish&rsquo;s; he was
+      dressed in a smart cassock of a light lilac colour, but too big for him
+      (presented to him by the widow of a young priest lately deceased), a full
+      cloth coat with a broad leather belt, and clumsy high boots the size and
+      hue of which showed clearly that Father Anastasy dispensed with goloshes.
+      In spite of his position and his venerable age, there was something
+      pitiful, crushed and humiliated in his lustreless red eyes, in the strands
+      of grey hair with a shade of green in it on the nape of his neck, and in
+      the big shoulder-blades on his lean back. . . . He sat without speaking or
+      moving, and coughed with circumspection, as though afraid that the sound
+      of his coughing might make his presence more noticeable.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The old man had come to see his Reverence on business. Two months before
+      he had been prohibited from officiating till further notice, and his case
+      was being inquired into. His shortcomings were numerous. He was
+      intemperate in his habits, fell out with the other clergy and the commune,
+      kept the church records and accounts carelessly &mdash;these were the
+      formal charges against him; but besides all that, there had been rumours
+      for a long time past that he celebrated unlawful marriages for money and
+      sold certificates of having fasted and taken the sacrament to officials
+      and officers who came to him from the town. These rumours were maintained
+      the more persistently that he was poor and had nine children to keep, who
+      were as incompetent and unsuccessful as himself. The sons were spoilt and
+      uneducated, and stayed at home doing nothing, while the daughters were
+      ugly and did not get married.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Not having the moral force to be open, his Reverence walked up and down
+      the room and said nothing or spoke in hints.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So you are not going home to-night?&rdquo; he asked, stopping near the dark
+      window and poking with his little finger into the cage where a canary was
+      asleep with its feathers puffed out.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Father Anastasy started, coughed cautiously and said rapidly:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Home? I don&rsquo;t care to, Fyodor Ilyitch. I cannot officiate, as you know,
+      so what am I to do there? I came away on purpose that I might not have to
+      look the people in the face. One is ashamed not to officiate, as you know.
+      Besides, I have business here, Fyodor Ilyitch. To-morrow after breaking
+      the fast I want to talk things over thoroughly with the Father charged
+      with the inquiry.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah! . . .&rdquo; yawned his Reverence, &ldquo;and where are you staying?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;At Zyavkin&rsquo;s.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Father Anastasy suddenly remembered that within two hours his Reverence
+      had to take the Easter-night service, and he felt so ashamed of his
+      unwelcome burdensome presence that he made up his mind to go away at once
+      and let the exhausted man rest. And the old man got up to go. But before
+      he began saying good-bye he stood clearing his throat for a minute and
+      looking searchingly at his Reverence&rsquo;s back, still with the same
+      expression of vague expectation in his whole figure; his face was working
+      with shame, timidity, and a pitiful forced laugh such as one sees in
+      people who do not respect themselves. Waving his hand as it were
+      resolutely, he said with a husky quavering laugh:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Father Fyodor, do me one more kindness: bid them give me at leave-taking
+      . . . one little glass of vodka.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s not the time to drink vodka now,&rdquo; said his Reverence sternly. &ldquo;One
+      must have some regard for decency.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Father Anastasy was still more overwhelmed by confusion; he laughed, and,
+      forgetting his resolution to go away, he dropped back on his chair. His
+      Reverence looked at his helpless, embarrassed face and his bent figure and
+      he felt sorry for the old man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Please God, we will have a drink to-morrow,&rdquo; he said, wishing to soften
+      his stem refusal. &ldquo;Everything is good in due season.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His Reverence believed in people&rsquo;s reforming, but now when a feeling of
+      pity had been kindled in him it seemed to him that this disgraced,
+      worn-out old man, entangled in a network of sins and weaknesses, was
+      hopelessly wrecked, that there was no power on earth that could straighten
+      out his spine, give brightness to his eyes and restrain the unpleasant
+      timid laugh which he laughed on purpose to smoothe over to some slight
+      extent the repulsive impression he made on people.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The old man seemed now to Father Fyodor not guilty and not vicious, but
+      humiliated, insulted, unfortunate; his Reverence thought of his wife, his
+      nine children, the dirty beggarly shelter at Zyavkin&rsquo;s; he thought for
+      some reason of the people who are glad to see priests drunk and persons in
+      authority detected in crimes; and thought that the very best thing Father
+      Anastasy could do now would be to die as soon as possible and to depart
+      from this world for ever.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There were a sound of footsteps.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Father Fyodor, you are not resting?&rdquo; a bass voice asked from the passage.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, deacon; come in.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Orlov&rsquo;s colleague, the deacon Liubimov, an elderly man with a big bald
+      patch on the top of his head, though his hair was still black and he was
+      still vigorous-looking, with thick black eyebrows like a Georgian&rsquo;s,
+      walked in. He bowed to Father Anastasy and sat down.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What good news have you?&rdquo; asked his Reverence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What good news?&rdquo; answered the deacon, and after a pause he went on with a
+      smile: &ldquo;When your children are little, your trouble is small; when your
+      children are big, your trouble is great. Such goings on, Father Fyodor,
+      that I don&rsquo;t know what to think of it. It&rsquo;s a regular farce, that&rsquo;s what
+      it is.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He paused again for a little, smiled still more broadly and said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nikolay Matveyitch came back from Harkov to-day. He has been telling me
+      about my Pyotr. He has been to see him twice, he tells me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What has he been telling you, then?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He has upset me, God bless him. He meant to please me but when I came to
+      think it over, it seems there is not much to be pleased at. I ought to
+      grieve rather than be pleased. . . &lsquo;Your Petrushka,&rsquo; said he, &lsquo;lives in
+      fine style. He is far above us now,&rsquo; said he. &lsquo;Well thank God for that,&rsquo;
+      said I. &lsquo;I dined with him,&rsquo; said he, &lsquo;and saw his whole manner of life. He
+      lives like a gentleman,&rsquo; he said; &lsquo;you couldn&rsquo;t wish to live better.&rsquo; I
+      was naturally interested and I asked, &lsquo;And what did you have for dinner?&rsquo;
+      &lsquo;First,&rsquo; he said, &lsquo;a fish course something like fish soup, then tongue and
+      peas,&rsquo; and then he said, &lsquo;roast turkey.&rsquo; &lsquo;Turkey in Lent? that is
+      something to please me,&rsquo; said I. &lsquo;Turkey in Lent? Eh?&rsquo;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nothing marvellous in that,&rdquo; said his Reverence, screwing up his eyes
+      ironically. And sticking both thumbs in his belt, he drew himself up and
+      said in the tone in which he usually delivered discourses or gave his
+      Scripture lessons to the pupils in the district school: &ldquo;People who do not
+      keep the fasts are divided into two different categories: some do not keep
+      them through laxity, others through infidelity. Your Pyotr does not keep
+      them through infidelity. Yes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The deacon looked timidly at Father Fyodor&rsquo;s stern face and said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There is worse to follow. . . . We talked and discussed one thing and
+      another, and it turned out that my infidel of a son is living with some
+      madame, another man&rsquo;s wife. She takes the place of wife and hostess in his
+      flat, pours out the tea, receives visitors and all the rest of it, as
+      though she were his lawful wife. For over two years he has been keeping up
+      this dance with this viper. It&rsquo;s a regular farce. They have been living
+      together for three years and no children.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I suppose they have been living in chastity!&rdquo; chuckled Father Anastasy,
+      coughing huskily. &ldquo;There are children, Father Deacon&mdash; there are, but
+      they don&rsquo;t keep them at home! They send them to the Foundling! He-he-he! .
+      . .&rdquo; Anastasy went on coughing till he choked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t interfere, Father Anastasy,&rdquo; said his Reverence sternly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nikolay Matveyitch asked him, &lsquo;What madame is this helping the soup at
+      your table?&rsquo;&rdquo; the deacon went on, gloomily scanning Anastasy&rsquo;s bent
+      figure. &ldquo;&lsquo;That is my wife,&rsquo; said he. &lsquo;When was your wedding?&rsquo; Nikolay
+      Matveyitch asked him, and Pyotr answered, &lsquo;We were married at Kulikov&rsquo;s
+      restaurant.&rsquo;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His Reverence&rsquo;s eyes flashed wrathfully and the colour came into his
+      temples. Apart from his sinfulness, Pyotr was not a person he liked.
+      Father Fyodor had, as they say, a grudge against him. He remembered him a
+      boy at school&mdash;he remembered him distinctly, because even then the
+      boy had seemed to him not normal. As a schoolboy, Petrushka had been
+      ashamed to serve at the altar, had been offended at being addressed
+      without ceremony, had not crossed himself on entering the room, and what
+      was still more noteworthy, was fond of talking a great deal and with heat&mdash;and,
+      in Father Fyodor&rsquo;s opinion, much talking was unseemly in children and
+      pernicious to them; moreover Petrushka had taken up a contemptuous and
+      critical attitude to fishing, a pursuit to which both his Reverence and
+      the deacon were greatly addicted. As a student Pyotr had not gone to
+      church at all, had slept till midday, had looked down on people, and had
+      been given to raising delicate and insoluble questions with a peculiarly
+      provoking zest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What would you have?&rdquo; his Reverence asked, going up to the deacon and
+      looking at him angrily. &ldquo;What would you have? This was to be expected! I
+      always knew and was convinced that nothing good would come of your Pyotr!
+      I told you so, and I tell you so now. What you have sown, that now you
+      must reap! Reap it!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But what have I sown, Father Fyodor?&rdquo; the deacon asked softly, looking up
+      at his Reverence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, who is to blame if not you? You&rsquo;re his father, he is your offspring!
+      You ought to have admonished him, have instilled the fear of God into him.
+      A child must be taught! You have brought him into the world, but you
+      haven&rsquo;t trained him up in the right way. It&rsquo;s a sin! It&rsquo;s wrong! It&rsquo;s a
+      shame!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His Reverence forgot his exhaustion, paced to and fro and went on talking.
+      Drops of perspiration came out on the deacon&rsquo;s bald head and forehead. He
+      raised his eyes to his Reverence with a look of guilt, and said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But didn&rsquo;t I train him, Father Fyodor? Lord have mercy on us, haven&rsquo;t I
+      been a father to my children? You know yourself I spared nothing for his
+      good; I have prayed and done my best all my life to give him a thorough
+      education. He went to the high school and I got him tutors, and he took
+      his degree at the University. And as to my not being able to influence his
+      mind, Father Fyodor, why, you can judge for yourself that I am not
+      qualified to do so! Sometimes when he used to come here as a student, I
+      would begin admonishing him in my way, and he wouldn&rsquo;t heed me. I&rsquo;d say to
+      him, &lsquo;Go to church,&rsquo; and he would answer, &lsquo;What for?&rsquo; I would begin
+      explaining, and he would say, &lsquo;Why? what for?&rsquo; Or he would slap me on the
+      shoulder and say, &lsquo;Everything in this world is relative, approximate and
+      conditional. I don&rsquo;t know anything, and you don&rsquo;t know anything either,
+      dad.&rsquo;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Father Anastasy laughed huskily, cleared his throat and waved his fingers
+      in the air as though preparing to say something. His Reverence glanced at
+      him and said sternly:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t interfere, Father Anastasy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The old man laughed, beamed, and evidently listened with pleasure to the
+      deacon as though he were glad there were other sinful persons in this
+      world besides himself. The deacon spoke sincerely, with an aching heart,
+      and tears actually came into his eyes. Father Fyodor felt sorry for him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are to blame, deacon, you are to blame,&rdquo; he said, but not so sternly
+      and heatedly as before. &ldquo;If you could beget him, you ought to know how to
+      instruct him. You ought to have trained him in his childhood; it&rsquo;s no good
+      trying to correct a student.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A silence followed; the deacon clasped his hands and said with a sigh:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you know I shall have to answer for him!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To be sure you will!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      After a brief silence his Reverence yawned and sighed at the same moment
+      and asked:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who is reading the &lsquo;Acts&rsquo;?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yevstrat. Yevstrat always reads them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The deacon got up and, looking imploringly at his Reverence, asked:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Father Fyodor, what am I to do now?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do as you please; you are his father, not I. You ought to know best.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know anything, Father Fyodor! Tell me what to do, for goodness&rsquo;
+      sake! Would you believe it, I am sick at heart! I can&rsquo;t sleep now, nor
+      keep quiet, and the holiday will be no holiday to me. Tell me what to do,
+      Father Fyodor!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Write him a letter.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What am I to write to him?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Write that he mustn&rsquo;t go on like that. Write shortly, but sternly and
+      circumstantially, without softening or smoothing away his guilt. It is
+      your parental duty; if you write, you will have done your duty and will be
+      at peace.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s true. But what am I to write to him, to what effect? If I write to
+      him, he will answer, &lsquo;Why? what for? Why is it a sin?&rsquo;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Father Anastasy laughed hoarsely again, and brandished his fingers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why? what for? why is it a sin?&rdquo; he began shrilly. &ldquo;I was once confessing
+      a gentleman, and I told him that excessive confidence in the Divine Mercy
+      is a sin; and he asked, &lsquo;Why?&rsquo; I tried to answer him, but&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+       Anastasy slapped himself on the forehead. &ldquo;I had nothing here.
+      He-he-he-he! . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Anastasy&rsquo;s words, his hoarse jangling laugh at what was not laughable, had
+      an unpleasant effect on his Reverence and on the deacon. The former was on
+      the point of saying, &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t interfere&rdquo; again, but he did not say it, he
+      only frowned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can&rsquo;t write to him,&rdquo; sighed the deacon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you can&rsquo;t, who can?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Father Fyodor!&rdquo; said the deacon, putting his head on one side and
+      pressing his hand to his heart. &ldquo;I am an uneducated slow-witted man, while
+      the Lord has vouchsafed you judgment and wisdom. You know everything and
+      understand everything. You can master anything, while I don&rsquo;t know how to
+      put my words together sensibly. Be generous. Instruct me how to write the
+      letter. Teach me what to say and how to say it. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is there to teach? There is nothing to teach. Sit down and write.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, do me the favour, Father Fyodor! I beseech you! I know he will be
+      frightened and will attend to your letter, because, you see, you are a
+      cultivated man too. Do be so good! I&rsquo;ll sit down, and you&rsquo;ll dictate to
+      me. It will be a sin to write to-morrow, but now would be the very time;
+      my mind would be set at rest.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His Reverence looked at the deacon&rsquo;s imploring face, thought of the
+      disagreeable Pyotr, and consented to dictate. He made the deacon sit down
+      to his table and began.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, write . . . &lsquo;Christ is risen, dear son . . .&rsquo; exclamation mark.
+      &lsquo;Rumours have reached me, your father,&rsquo; then in parenthesis, &lsquo;from what
+      source is no concern of yours . . .&rsquo; close the parenthesis. . . . Have you
+      written it? &lsquo;That you are leading a life inconsistent with the laws both
+      of God and of man. Neither the luxurious comfort, nor the worldly
+      splendour, nor the culture with which you seek outwardly to disguise it,
+      can hide your heathen manner of life. In name you are a Christian, but in
+      your real nature a heathen as pitiful and wretched as all other heathens&mdash;more
+      wretched, indeed, seeing that those heathens who know not Christ are lost
+      from ignorance, while you are lost in that, possessing a treasure, you
+      neglect it. I will not enumerate here your vices, which you know well
+      enough; I will say that I see the cause of your ruin in your infidelity.
+      You imagine yourself to be wise, boast of your knowledge of science, but
+      refuse to see that science without faith, far from elevating a man,
+      actually degrades him to the level of a lower animal, inasmuch as. . .&rsquo;&rdquo;
+       The whole letter was in this strain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When he had finished writing it the deacon read it aloud, beamed all over
+      and jumped up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a gift, it&rsquo;s really a gift!&rdquo; he said, clasping his hands and looking
+      enthusiastically at his Reverence. &ldquo;To think of the Lord&rsquo;s bestowing a
+      gift like that! Eh? Holy Mother! I do believe I couldn&rsquo;t write a letter
+      like that in a hundred years. Lord save you!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Father Anastasy was enthusiastic too.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;One couldn&rsquo;t write like that without a gift,&rdquo; he said, getting up and
+      wagging his fingers&mdash;&ldquo;that one couldn&rsquo;t! His rhetoric would trip any
+      philosopher and shut him up. Intellect. Brilliant intellect! If you
+      weren&rsquo;t married, Father Fyodor, you would have been a bishop long ago, you
+      would really!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Having vented his wrath in a letter, his Reverence felt relieved; his
+      fatigue and exhaustion came back to him. The deacon was an old friend, and
+      his Reverence did not hesitate to say to him:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well deacon, go, and God bless you. I&rsquo;ll have half an hour&rsquo;s nap on the
+      sofa; I must rest.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The deacon went away and took Anastasy with him. As is always the case on
+      Easter Eve, it was dark in the street, but the whole sky was sparkling
+      with bright luminous stars. There was a scent of spring and holiday in the
+      soft still air.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How long was he dictating?&rdquo; the deacon said admiringly. &ldquo;Ten minutes, not
+      more! It would have taken someone else a month to compose such a letter.
+      Eh! What a mind! Such a mind that I don&rsquo;t know what to call it! It&rsquo;s a
+      marvel! It&rsquo;s really a marvel!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Education!&rdquo; sighed Anastasy as he crossed the muddy street; holding up
+      his cassock to his waist. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s not for us to compare ourselves with him.
+      We come of the sacristan class, while he has had a learned education. Yes,
+      he&rsquo;s a real man, there is no denying that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And you listen how he&rsquo;ll read the Gospel in Latin at mass to-day! He
+      knows Latin and he knows Greek. . . . Ah Petrushka, Petrushka!&rdquo; the deacon
+      said, suddenly remembering. &ldquo;Now that will make him scratch his head! That
+      will shut his mouth, that will bring it home to him! Now he won&rsquo;t ask
+      &lsquo;Why.&rsquo; It is a case of one wit to outwit another! Haha-ha!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The deacon laughed gaily and loudly. Since the letter had been written to
+      Pyotr he had become serene and more cheerful. The consciousness of having
+      performed his duty as a father and his faith in the power of the letter
+      had brought back his mirthfulness and good-humour.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Pyotr means a stone,&rdquo; said he, as he went into his house. &ldquo;My Pyotr is
+      not a stone, but a rag. A viper has fastened upon him and he pampers her,
+      and hasn&rsquo;t the pluck to kick her out. Tfoo! To think there should be women
+      like that, God forgive me! Eh? Has she no shame? She has fastened upon the
+      lad, sticking to him, and keeps him tied to her apron strings. . . . Fie
+      upon her!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps it&rsquo;s not she keeps hold of him, but he of her?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She is a shameless one anyway! Not that I am defending Pyotr. . . . He&rsquo;ll
+      catch it. He&rsquo;ll read the letter and scratch his head! He&rsquo;ll burn with
+      shame!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a splendid letter, only you know I wouldn&rsquo;t send it, Father Deacon.
+      Let him alone.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What?&rdquo; said the deacon, disconcerted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why. . . . Don&rsquo;t send it, deacon! What&rsquo;s the sense of it? Suppose you
+      send it; he reads it, and . . . and what then? You&rsquo;ll only upset him.
+      Forgive him. Let him alone!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The deacon looked in surprise at Anastasy&rsquo;s dark face, at his unbuttoned
+      cassock, which looked in the dusk like wings, and shrugged his shoulders.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How can I forgive him like that?&rdquo; he asked. &ldquo;Why I shall have to answer
+      for him to God!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Even so, forgive him all the same. Really! And God will forgive you for
+      your kindness to him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But he is my son, isn&rsquo;t he? Ought I not to teach him?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Teach him? Of course&mdash;why not? You can teach him, but why call him a
+      heathen? It will hurt his feelings, you know, deacon. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The deacon was a widower, and lived in a little house with three windows.
+      His elder sister, an old maid, looked after his house for him, though she
+      had three years before lost the use of her legs and was confined to her
+      bed; he was afraid of her, obeyed her, and did nothing without her advice.
+      Father Anastasy went in with him. Seeing his table already laid with
+      Easter cakes and red eggs, he began weeping for some reason, probably
+      thinking of his own home, and to turn these tears into a jest, he at once
+      laughed huskily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, we shall soon be breaking the fast,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Yes . . . it wouldn&rsquo;t
+      come amiss, deacon, to have a little glass now. Can we? I&rsquo;ll drink it so
+      that the old lady does not hear,&rdquo; he whispered, glancing sideways towards
+      the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Without a word the deacon moved a decanter and wineglass towards him. He
+      unfolded the letter and began reading it aloud. And now the letter pleased
+      him just as much as when his Reverence had dictated it to him. He beamed
+      with pleasure and wagged his head, as though he had been tasting something
+      very sweet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A-ah, what a letter!&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Petrushka has never dreamt of such a
+      letter. It&rsquo;s just what he wants, something to throw him into a fever. . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you know, deacon, don&rsquo;t send it!&rdquo; said Anastasy, pouring himself out a
+      second glass of vodka as though unconsciously. &ldquo;Forgive him, let him
+      alone! I am telling you . . . what I really think. If his own father can&rsquo;t
+      forgive him, who will forgive him? And so he&rsquo;ll live without forgiveness.
+      Think, deacon: there will be plenty to chastise him without you, but you
+      should look out for some who will show mercy to your son! I&rsquo;ll . . . I&rsquo;ll
+      . . . have just one more. The last, old man. . . . Just sit down and write
+      straight off to him, &lsquo;I forgive you Pyotr!&rsquo; He will under-sta-and! He will
+      fe-el it! I understand it from myself, you see old man . . . deacon, I
+      mean. When I lived like other people, I hadn&rsquo;t much to trouble about, but
+      now since I lost the image and semblance, there is only one thing I care
+      about, that good people should forgive me. And remember, too, it&rsquo;s not the
+      righteous but sinners we must forgive. Why should you forgive your old
+      woman if she is not sinful? No, you must forgive a man when he is a sad
+      sight to look at . . . yes!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Anastasy leaned his head on his fist and sank into thought.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a terrible thing, deacon,&rdquo; he sighed, evidently struggling with the
+      desire to take another glass&mdash;&ldquo;a terrible thing! In sin my mother
+      bore me, in sin I have lived, in sin I shall die. . . . God forgive me, a
+      sinner! I have gone astray, deacon! There is no salvation for me! And it&rsquo;s
+      not as though I had gone astray in my life, but in old age&mdash;at
+      death&rsquo;s door . . . I . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The old man, with a hopeless gesture, drank off another glass, then got up
+      and moved to another seat. The deacon, still keeping the letter in his
+      hand, was walking up and down the room. He was thinking of his son.
+      Displeasure, distress and anxiety no longer troubled him; all that had
+      gone into the letter. Now he was simply picturing Pyotr; he imagined his
+      face, he thought of the past years when his son used to come to stay with
+      him for the holidays. His thoughts were only of what was good, warm,
+      touching, of which one might think for a whole lifetime without wearying.
+      Longing for his son, he read the letter through once more and looked
+      questioningly at Anastasy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t send it,&rdquo; said the latter, with a wave of his hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, I must send it anyway; I must . . . bring him to his senses a little,
+      all the same. It&rsquo;s just as well. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The deacon took an envelope from the table, but before putting the letter
+      into it he sat down to the table, smiled and added on his own account at
+      the bottom of the letter:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They have sent us a new inspector. He&rsquo;s much friskier than the old one.
+      He&rsquo;s a great one for dancing and talking, and there&rsquo;s nothing he can&rsquo;t do,
+      so that all the Govorovsky girls are crazy over him. Our military chief,
+      Kostyrev, will soon get the sack too, they say. High time he did!&rdquo; And
+      very well pleased, without the faintest idea that with this postscript he
+      had completely spoiled the stern letter, the deacon addressed the envelope
+      and laid it in the most conspicuous place on the table.
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0003" id="link2H_4_0003"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <h2>
+      EASTER EVE
+    </h2>
+    <p class="pfirst">
+      <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">I</span> was standing on
+      the bank of the River Goltva, waiting for the ferry-boat from the other
+      side. At ordinary times the Goltva is a humble stream of moderate size,
+      silent and pensive, gently glimmering from behind thick reeds; but now a
+      regular lake lay stretched out before me. The waters of spring, running
+      riot, had overflowed both banks and flooded both sides of the river for a
+      long distance, submerging vegetable gardens, hayfields and marshes, so
+      that it was no unusual thing to meet poplars and bushes sticking out above
+      the surface of the water and looking in the darkness like grim solitary
+      crags.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The weather seemed to me magnificent. It was dark, yet I could see the
+      trees, the water and the people. . . . The world was lighted by the stars,
+      which were scattered thickly all over the sky. I don&rsquo;t remember ever
+      seeing so many stars. Literally one could not have put a finger in between
+      them. There were some as big as a goose&rsquo;s egg, others tiny as hempseed. .
+      . . They had come out for the festival procession, every one of them,
+      little and big, washed, renewed and joyful, and everyone of them was
+      softly twinkling its beams. The sky was reflected in the water; the stars
+      were bathing in its dark depths and trembling with the quivering eddies.
+      The air was warm and still. . . . Here and there, far away on the further
+      bank in the impenetrable darkness, several bright red lights were
+      gleaming. . . .
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A couple of paces from me I saw the dark silhouette of a peasant in a high
+      hat, with a thick knotted stick in his hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How long the ferry-boat is in coming!&rdquo; I said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is time it was here,&rdquo; the silhouette answered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are waiting for the ferry-boat, too?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No I am not,&rdquo; yawned the peasant&mdash;&ldquo;I am waiting for the
+      illumination. I should have gone, but to tell you the truth, I haven&rsquo;t the
+      five kopecks for the ferry.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll give you the five kopecks.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No; I humbly thank you. . . . With that five kopecks put up a candle for
+      me over there in the monastery. . . . That will be more interesting, and I
+      will stand here. What can it mean, no ferry-boat, as though it had sunk in
+      the water!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The peasant went up to the water&rsquo;s edge, took the rope in his hands, and
+      shouted; &ldquo;Ieronim! Ieron&mdash;im!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      As though in answer to his shout, the slow peal of a great bell floated
+      across from the further bank. The note was deep and low, as from the
+      thickest string of a double bass; it seemed as though the darkness itself
+      had hoarsely uttered it. At once there was the sound of a cannon shot. It
+      rolled away in the darkness and ended somewhere in the far distance behind
+      me. The peasant took off his hat and crossed himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;&ldquo;Christ is risen,&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Before the vibrations of the first peal of the bell had time to die away
+      in the air a second sounded, after it at once a third, and the darkness
+      was filled with an unbroken quivering clamour. Near the red lights fresh
+      lights flashed, and all began moving together and twinkling restlessly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ieron&mdash;im!&rdquo; we heard a hollow prolonged shout.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They are shouting from the other bank,&rdquo; said the peasant, &ldquo;so there is no
+      ferry there either. Our Ieronim has gone to sleep.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The lights and the velvety chimes of the bell drew one towards them. . . .
+      I was already beginning to lose patience and grow anxious, but behold at
+      last, staring into the dark distance, I saw the outline of something very
+      much like a gibbet. It was the long-expected ferry. It moved towards us
+      with such deliberation that if it had not been that its lines grew
+      gradually more definite, one might have supposed that it was standing
+      still or moving to the other bank.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Make haste! Ieronim!&rdquo; shouted my peasant. &ldquo;The gentleman&rsquo;s tired of
+      waiting!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The ferry crawled to the bank, gave a lurch and stopped with a creak. A
+      tall man in a monk&rsquo;s cassock and a conical cap stood on it, holding the
+      rope.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why have you been so long?&rdquo; I asked jumping upon the ferry.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Forgive me, for Christ&rsquo;s sake,&rdquo; Ieronim answered gently. &ldquo;Is there no one
+      else?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No one. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ieronim took hold of the rope in both hands, bent himself to the figure of
+      a mark of interrogation, and gasped. The ferry-boat creaked and gave a
+      lurch. The outline of the peasant in the high hat began slowly retreating
+      from me&mdash;so the ferry was moving off. Ieronim soon drew himself up
+      and began working with one hand only. We were silent, gazing towards the
+      bank to which we were floating. There the illumination for which the
+      peasant was waiting had begun. At the water&rsquo;s edge barrels of tar were
+      flaring like huge camp fires. Their reflections, crimson as the rising
+      moon, crept to meet us in long broad streaks. The burning barrels lighted
+      up their own smoke and the long shadows of men flitting about the fire;
+      but further to one side and behind them from where the velvety chime
+      floated there was still the same unbroken black gloom. All at once,
+      cleaving the darkness, a rocket zigzagged in a golden ribbon up the sky;
+      it described an arc and, as though broken to pieces against the sky, was
+      scattered crackling into sparks. There was a roar from the bank like a
+      far-away hurrah.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How beautiful!&rdquo; I said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Beautiful beyond words!&rdquo; sighed Ieronim. &ldquo;Such a night, sir! Another time
+      one would pay no attention to the fireworks, but to-day one rejoices in
+      every vanity. Where do you come from?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I told him where I came from.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To be sure . . . a joyful day to-day. . . .&rdquo; Ieronim went on in a weak
+      sighing tenor like the voice of a convalescent. &ldquo;The sky is rejoicing and
+      the earth and what is under the earth. All the creatures are keeping
+      holiday. Only tell me kind sir, why, even in the time of great rejoicing,
+      a man cannot forget his sorrows?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I fancied that this unexpected question was to draw me into one of those
+      endless religious conversations which bored and idle monks are so fond of.
+      I was not disposed to talk much, and so I only asked:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What sorrows have you, father?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;As a rule only the same as all men, kind sir, but to-day a special sorrow
+      has happened in the monastery: at mass, during the reading of the Bible,
+      the monk and deacon Nikolay died.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, it&rsquo;s God&rsquo;s will!&rdquo; I said, falling into the monastic tone. &ldquo;We must
+      all die. To my mind, you ought to rejoice indeed. . . . They say if anyone
+      dies at Easter he goes straight to the kingdom of heaven.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s true.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      We sank into silence. The figure of the peasant in the high hat melted
+      into the lines of the bank. The tar barrels were flaring up more and more.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The Holy Scripture points clearly to the vanity of sorrow and so does
+      reflection,&rdquo; said Ieronim, breaking the silence, &ldquo;but why does the heart
+      grieve and refuse to listen to reason? Why does one want to weep
+      bitterly?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ieronim shrugged his shoulders, turned to me and said quickly:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If I died, or anyone else, it would not be worth notice perhaps; but, you
+      see, Nikolay is dead! No one else but Nikolay! Indeed, it&rsquo;s hard to
+      believe that he is no more! I stand here on my ferry-boat and every minute
+      I keep fancying that he will lift up his voice from the bank. He always
+      used to come to the bank and call to me that I might not be afraid on the
+      ferry. He used to get up from his bed at night on purpose for that. He was
+      a kind soul. My God! how kindly and gracious! Many a mother is not so good
+      to her child as Nikolay was to me! Lord, save his soul!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ieronim took hold of the rope, but turned to me again at once.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And such a lofty intelligence, your honour,&rdquo; he said in a vibrating
+      voice. &ldquo;Such a sweet and harmonious tongue! Just as they will sing
+      immediately at early matins: &lsquo;Oh lovely! oh sweet is Thy Voice!&rsquo; Besides
+      all other human qualities, he had, too, an extraordinary gift!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What gift?&rdquo; I asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The monk scrutinized me, and as though he had convinced himself that he
+      could trust me with a secret, he laughed good-humouredly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He had a gift for writing hymns of praise,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;It was a marvel,
+      sir; you couldn&rsquo;t call it anything else! You would be amazed if I tell you
+      about it. Our Father Archimandrite comes from Moscow, the Father Sub-Prior
+      studied at the Kazan academy, we have wise monks and elders, but, would
+      you believe it, no one could write them; while Nikolay, a simple monk, a
+      deacon, had not studied anywhere, and had not even any outer appearance of
+      it, but he wrote them! A marvel! A real marvel!&rdquo; Ieronim clasped his hands
+      and, completely forgetting the rope, went on eagerly:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The Father Sub-Prior has great difficulty in composing sermons; when he
+      wrote the history of the monastery he worried all the brotherhood and
+      drove a dozen times to town, while Nikolay wrote canticles! Hymns of
+      praise! That&rsquo;s a very different thing from a sermon or a history!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is it difficult to write them?&rdquo; I asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There&rsquo;s great difficulty!&rdquo; Ieronim wagged his head. &ldquo;You can do nothing
+      by wisdom and holiness if God has not given you the gift. The monks who
+      don&rsquo;t understand argue that you only need to know the life of the saint
+      for whom you are writing the hymn, and to make it harmonize with the other
+      hymns of praise. But that&rsquo;s a mistake, sir. Of course, anyone who writes
+      canticles must know the life of the saint to perfection, to the least
+      trivial detail. To be sure, one must make them harmonize with the other
+      canticles and know where to begin and what to write about. To give you an
+      instance, the first response begins everywhere with &lsquo;the chosen&rsquo; or &lsquo;the
+      elect.&rsquo; . . . The first line must always begin with the &lsquo;angel.&rsquo; In the
+      canticle of praise to Jesus the Most Sweet, if you are interested in the
+      subject, it begins like this: &lsquo;Of angels Creator and Lord of all powers!&rsquo;
+      In the canticle to the Holy Mother of God: &lsquo;Of angels the foremost sent
+      down from on high,&rsquo; to Nikolay, the Wonder-worker&mdash; &lsquo;An angel in
+      semblance, though in substance a man,&rsquo; and so on. Everywhere you begin
+      with the angel. Of course, it would be impossible without making them
+      harmonize, but the lives of the saints and conformity with the others is
+      not what matters; what matters is the beauty and sweetness of it.
+      Everything must be harmonious, brief and complete. There must be in every
+      line softness, graciousness and tenderness; not one word should be harsh
+      or rough or unsuitable. It must be written so that the worshipper may
+      rejoice at heart and weep, while his mind is stirred and he is thrown into
+      a tremor. In the canticle to the Holy Mother are the words: &lsquo;Rejoice, O
+      Thou too high for human thought to reach! Rejoice, O Thou too deep for
+      angels&rsquo; eyes to fathom!&rsquo; In another place in the same canticle: &lsquo;Rejoice,
+      O tree that bearest the fair fruit of light that is the food of the
+      faithful! Rejoice, O tree of gracious spreading shade, under which there
+      is shelter for multitudes!&rsquo;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ieronim hid his face in his hands, as though frightened at something or
+      overcome with shame, and shook his head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tree that bearest the fair fruit of light . . . tree of gracious
+      spreading shade. . . .&rdquo; he muttered. &ldquo;To think that a man should find
+      words like those! Such a power is a gift from God! For brevity he packs
+      many thoughts into one phrase, and how smooth and complete it all is!
+      &lsquo;Light-radiating torch to all that be . . .&rsquo; comes in the canticle to
+      Jesus the Most Sweet. &lsquo;Light-radiating!&rsquo; There is no such word in
+      conversation or in books, but you see he invented it, he found it in his
+      mind! Apart from the smoothness and grandeur of language, sir, every line
+      must be beautified in every way, there must be flowers and lightning and
+      wind and sun and all the objects of the visible world. And every
+      exclamation ought to be put so as to be smooth and easy for the ear.
+      &lsquo;Rejoice, thou flower of heavenly growth!&rsquo; comes in the hymn to Nikolay
+      the Wonder-worker. It&rsquo;s not simply &lsquo;heavenly flower,&rsquo; but &lsquo;flower of
+      heavenly growth.&rsquo; It&rsquo;s smoother so and sweet to the ear. That was just as
+      Nikolay wrote it! Exactly like that! I can&rsquo;t tell you how he used to
+      write!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, in that case it is a pity he is dead,&rdquo; I said; &ldquo;but let us get on,
+      father, or we shall be late.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ieronim started and ran to the rope; they were beginning to peal all the
+      bells. Probably the procession was already going on near the monastery,
+      for all the dark space behind the tar barrels was now dotted with moving
+      lights.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did Nikolay print his hymns?&rdquo; I asked Ieronim.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How could he print them?&rdquo; he sighed. &ldquo;And indeed, it would be strange to
+      print them. What would be the object? No one in the monastery takes any
+      interest in them. They don&rsquo;t like them. They knew Nikolay wrote them, but
+      they let it pass unnoticed. No one esteems new writings nowadays, sir!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Were they prejudiced against him?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, indeed. If Nikolay had been an elder perhaps the brethren would have
+      been interested, but he wasn&rsquo;t forty, you know. There were some who
+      laughed and even thought his writing a sin.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What did he write them for?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Chiefly for his own comfort. Of all the brotherhood, I was the only one
+      who read his hymns. I used to go to him in secret, that no one else might
+      know of it, and he was glad that I took an interest in them. He would
+      embrace me, stroke my head, speak to me in caressing words as to a little
+      child. He would shut his cell, make me sit down beside him, and begin to
+      read. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ieronim left the rope and came up to me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We were dear friends in a way,&rdquo; he whispered, looking at me with shining
+      eyes. &ldquo;Where he went I would go. If I were not there he would miss me. And
+      he cared more for me than for anyone, and all because I used to weep over
+      his hymns. It makes me sad to remember. Now I feel just like an orphan or
+      a widow. You know, in our monastery they are all good people, kind and
+      pious, but . . . there is no one with softness and refinement, they are
+      just like peasants. They all speak loudly, and tramp heavily when they
+      walk; they are noisy, they clear their throats, but Nikolay always talked
+      softly, caressingly, and if he noticed that anyone was asleep or praying
+      he would slip by like a fly or a gnat. His face was tender, compassionate.
+      . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ieronim heaved a deep sigh and took hold of the rope again. We were by now
+      approaching the bank. We floated straight out of the darkness and
+      stillness of the river into an enchanted realm, full of stifling smoke,
+      crackling lights and uproar. By now one could distinctly see people moving
+      near the tar barrels. The flickering of the lights gave a strange, almost
+      fantastic, expression to their figures and red faces. From time to time
+      one caught among the heads and faces a glimpse of a horse&rsquo;s head
+      motionless as though cast in copper.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They&rsquo;ll begin singing the Easter hymn directly, . . .&rdquo; said Ieronim, &ldquo;and
+      Nikolay is gone; there is no one to appreciate it. . . . There was nothing
+      written dearer to him than that hymn. He used to take in every word!
+      You&rsquo;ll be there, sir, so notice what is sung; it takes your breath away!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Won&rsquo;t you be in church, then?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can&rsquo;t; . . . I have to work the ferry. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But won&rsquo;t they relieve you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know. . . . I ought to have been relieved at eight; but, as you
+      see, they don&rsquo;t come! . . . And I must own I should have liked to be in
+      the church. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you a monk?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes . . . that is, I am a lay-brother.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The ferry ran into the bank and stopped. I thrust a five-kopeck piece into
+      Ieronim&rsquo;s hand for taking me across and jumped on land. Immediately a cart
+      with a boy and a sleeping woman in it drove creaking onto the ferry.
+      Ieronim, with a faint glow from the lights on his figure, pressed on the
+      rope, bent down to it, and started the ferry back. . . .
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I took a few steps through mud, but a little farther walked on a soft
+      freshly trodden path. This path led to the dark monastery gates, that
+      looked like a cavern through a cloud of smoke, through a disorderly crowd
+      of people, unharnessed horses, carts and chaises. All this crowd was
+      rattling, snorting, laughing, and the crimson light and wavering shadows
+      from the smoke flickered over it all . . . . A perfect chaos! And in this
+      hubbub the people yet found room to load a little cannon and to sell
+      cakes. There was no less commotion on the other side of the wall in the
+      monastery precincts, but there was more regard for decorum and order. Here
+      there was a smell of juniper and incense. They talked loudly, but there
+      was no sound of laughter or snorting. Near the tombstones and crosses
+      people pressed close to one another with Easter cakes and bundles in their
+      arms. Apparently many had come from a long distance for their cakes to be
+      blessed and now were exhausted. Young lay brothers, making a metallic
+      sound with their boots, ran busily along the iron slabs that paved the way
+      from the monastery gates to the church door. They were busy and shouting
+      on the belfry, too.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What a restless night!&rdquo; I thought. &ldquo;How nice!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      One was tempted to see the same unrest and sleeplessness in all nature,
+      from the night darkness to the iron slabs, the crosses on the tombs and
+      the trees under which the people were moving to and fro. But nowhere was
+      the excitement and restlessness so marked as in the church. An unceasing
+      struggle was going on in the entrance between the inflowing stream and the
+      outflowing stream. Some were going in, others going out and soon coming
+      back again to stand still for a little and begin moving again. People were
+      scurrying from place to place, lounging about as though they were looking
+      for something. The stream flowed from the entrance all round the church,
+      disturbing even the front rows, where persons of weight and dignity were
+      standing. There could be no thought of concentrated prayer. There were no
+      prayers at all, but a sort of continuous, childishly irresponsible joy,
+      seeking a pretext to break out and vent itself in some movement, even in
+      senseless jostling and shoving.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The same unaccustomed movement is striking in the Easter service itself.
+      The altar gates are flung wide open, thick clouds of incense float in the
+      air near the candelabra; wherever one looks there are lights, the gleam
+      and splutter of candles. . . . There is no reading; restless and
+      lighthearted singing goes on to the end without ceasing. After each hymn
+      the clergy change their vestments and come out to burn the incense, which
+      is repeated every ten minutes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I had no sooner taken a place, when a wave rushed from in front and forced
+      me back. A tall thick-set deacon walked before me with a long red candle;
+      the grey-headed archimandrite in his golden mitre hurried after him with
+      the censer. When they had vanished from sight the crowd squeezed me back
+      to my former position. But ten minutes had not passed before a new wave
+      burst on me, and again the deacon appeared. This time he was followed by
+      the Father Sub-Prior, the man who, as Ieronim had told me, was writing the
+      history of the monastery.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As I mingled with the crowd and caught the infection of the universal
+      joyful excitement, I felt unbearably sore on Ieronim&rsquo;s account. Why did
+      they not send someone to relieve him? Why could not someone of less
+      feeling and less susceptibility go on the ferry? &lsquo;Lift up thine eyes, O
+      Sion, and look around,&rsquo; they sang in the choir, &lsquo;for thy children have
+      come to thee as to a beacon of divine light from north and south, and from
+      east and from the sea. . . .&rsquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I looked at the faces; they all had a lively expression of triumph, but
+      not one was listening to what was being sung and taking it in, and not one
+      was &lsquo;holding his breath.&rsquo; Why was not Ieronim released? I could fancy
+      Ieronim standing meekly somewhere by the wall, bending forward and
+      hungrily drinking in the beauty of the holy phrase. All this that glided
+      by the ears of the people standing by me he would have eagerly drunk in
+      with his delicately sensitive soul, and would have been spell-bound to
+      ecstasy, to holding his breath, and there would not have been a man
+      happier than he in all the church. Now he was plying to and fro over the
+      dark river and grieving for his dead friend and brother.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The wave surged back. A stout smiling monk, playing with his rosary and
+      looking round behind him, squeezed sideways by me, making way for a lady
+      in a hat and velvet cloak. A monastery servant hurried after the lady,
+      holding a chair over our heads.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I came out of the church. I wanted to have a look at the dead Nikolay, the
+      unknown canticle writer. I walked about the monastery wall, where there
+      was a row of cells, peeped into several windows, and, seeing nothing, came
+      back again. I do not regret now that I did not see Nikolay; God knows,
+      perhaps if I had seen him I should have lost the picture my imagination
+      paints for me now. I imagine the lovable poetical figure solitary and not
+      understood, who went out at nights to call to Ieronim over the water, and
+      filled his hymns with flowers, stars and sunbeams, as a pale timid man
+      with soft mild melancholy features. His eyes must have shone, not only
+      with intelligence, but with kindly tenderness and that hardly restrained
+      childlike enthusiasm which I could hear in Ieronim&rsquo;s voice when he quoted
+      to me passages from the hymns.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When we came out of church after mass it was no longer night. The morning
+      was beginning. The stars had gone out and the sky was a morose greyish
+      blue. The iron slabs, the tombstones and the buds on the trees were
+      covered with dew There was a sharp freshness in the air. Outside the
+      precincts I did not find the same animated scene as I had beheld in the
+      night. Horses and men looked exhausted, drowsy, scarcely moved, while
+      nothing was left of the tar barrels but heaps of black ash. When anyone is
+      exhausted and sleepy he fancies that nature, too, is in the same
+      condition. It seemed to me that the trees and the young grass were asleep.
+      It seemed as though even the bells were not pealing so loudly and gaily as
+      at night. The restlessness was over, and of the excitement nothing was
+      left but a pleasant weariness, a longing for sleep and warmth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now I could see both banks of the river; a faint mist hovered over it in
+      shifting masses. There was a harsh cold breath from the water. When I
+      jumped on to the ferry, a chaise and some two dozen men and women were
+      standing on it already. The rope, wet and as I fancied drowsy, stretched
+      far away across the broad river and in places disappeared in the white
+      mist.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Christ is risen! Is there no one else?&rdquo; asked a soft voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I recognized the voice of Ieronim. There was no darkness now to hinder me
+      from seeing the monk. He was a tall narrow-shouldered man of
+      five-and-thirty, with large rounded features, with half-closed
+      listless-looking eyes and an unkempt wedge-shaped beard. He had an
+      extraordinarily sad and exhausted look.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They have not relieved you yet?&rdquo; I asked in surprise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Me?&rdquo; he answered, turning to me his chilled and dewy face with a smile.
+      &ldquo;There is no one to take my place now till morning. They&rsquo;ll all be going
+      to the Father Archimandrite&rsquo;s to break the fast directly.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      With the help of a little peasant in a hat of reddish fur that looked like
+      the little wooden tubs in which honey is sold, he threw his weight on the
+      rope; they gasped simultaneously, and the ferry started.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We floated across, disturbing on the way the lazily rising mist. Everyone
+      was silent. Ieronim worked mechanically with one hand. He slowly passed
+      his mild lustreless eyes over us; then his glance rested on the rosy face
+      of a young merchant&rsquo;s wife with black eyebrows, who was standing on the
+      ferry beside me silently shrinking from the mist that wrapped her about.
+      He did not take his eyes off her face all the way.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was little that was masculine in that prolonged gaze. It seemed to
+      me that Ieronim was looking in the woman&rsquo;s face for the soft and tender
+      features of his dead friend.
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0004" id="link2H_4_0004"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <h2>
+      A NIGHTMARE
+    </h2>
+    <p class="pfirst">
+      <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">K</span>unin, a young man
+      of thirty, who was a permanent member of the Rural Board, on returning
+      from Petersburg to his district, Borisovo, immediately sent a mounted
+      messenger to Sinkino, for the priest there, Father Yakov Smirnov.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Five hours later Father Yakov appeared.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very glad to make your acquaintance,&rdquo; said Kunin, meeting him in the
+      entry. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve been living and serving here for a year; it seems as though
+      we ought to have been acquainted before. You are very welcome! But . . .
+      how young you are!&rdquo; Kunin added in surprise. &ldquo;What is your age?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Twenty-eight, . . .&rdquo; said Father Yakov, faintly pressing Kunin&rsquo;s
+      outstretched hand, and for some reason turning crimson.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Kunin led his visitor into his study and began looking at him more
+      attentively.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What an uncouth womanish face!&rdquo; he thought.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There certainly was a good deal that was womanish in Father Yakov&rsquo;s face:
+      the turned-up nose, the bright red cheeks, and the large grey-blue eyes
+      with scanty, scarcely perceptible eyebrows. His long reddish hair, smooth
+      and dry, hung down in straight tails on to his shoulders. The hair on his
+      upper lip was only just beginning to form into a real masculine moustache,
+      while his little beard belonged to that class of good-for-nothing beards
+      which among divinity students are for some reason called &ldquo;ticklers.&rdquo; It
+      was scanty and extremely transparent; it could not have been stroked or
+      combed, it could only have been pinched. . . . All these scanty
+      decorations were put on unevenly in tufts, as though Father Yakov,
+      thinking to dress up as a priest and beginning to gum on the beard, had
+      been interrupted halfway through. He had on a cassock, the colour of weak
+      coffee with chicory in it, with big patches on both elbows.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A queer type,&rdquo; thought Kunin, looking at his muddy skirts. &ldquo;Comes to the
+      house for the first time and can&rsquo;t dress decently.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sit down, Father,&rdquo; he began more carelessly than cordially, as he moved
+      an easy-chair to the table. &ldquo;Sit down, I beg you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Father Yakov coughed into his fist, sank awkwardly on to the edge of the
+      chair, and laid his open hands on his knees. With his short figure, his
+      narrow chest, his red and perspiring face, he made from the first moment a
+      most unpleasant impression on Kunin. The latter could never have imagined
+      that there were such undignified and pitiful-looking priests in Russia;
+      and in Father Yakov&rsquo;s attitude, in the way he held his hands on his knees
+      and sat on the very edge of his chair, he saw a lack of dignity and even a
+      shade of servility.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have invited you on business, Father. . . .&rdquo; Kunin began, sinking back
+      in his low chair. &ldquo;It has fallen to my lot to perform the agreeable duty
+      of helping you in one of your useful undertakings. . . . On coming back
+      from Petersburg, I found on my table a letter from the Marshal of
+      Nobility. Yegor Dmitrevitch suggests that I should take under my
+      supervision the church parish school which is being opened in Sinkino. I
+      shall be very glad to, Father, with all my heart. . . . More than that, I
+      accept the proposition with enthusiasm.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Kunin got up and walked about the study.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course, both Yegor Dmitrevitch and probably you, too, are aware that I
+      have not great funds at my disposal. My estate is mortgaged, and I live
+      exclusively on my salary as the permanent member. So that you cannot
+      reckon on very much assistance, but I will do all that is in my power. . .
+      . And when are you thinking of opening the school Father?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When we have the money, . . .&rdquo; answered Father Yakov.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You have some funds at your disposal already?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Scarcely any. . . . The peasants settled at their meeting that they would
+      pay, every man of them, thirty kopecks a year; but that&rsquo;s only a promise,
+      you know! And for the first beginning we should need at least two hundred
+      roubles. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;M&rsquo;yes. . . . Unhappily, I have not that sum now,&rdquo; said Kunin with a sigh.
+      &ldquo;I spent all I had on my tour and got into debt, too. Let us try and think
+      of some plan together.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Kunin began planning aloud. He explained his views and watched Father
+      Yakov&rsquo;s face, seeking signs of agreement or approval in it. But the face
+      was apathetic and immobile, and expressed nothing but constrained shyness
+      and uneasiness. Looking at it, one might have supposed that Kunin was
+      talking of matters so abstruse that Father Yakov did not understand and
+      only listened from good manners, and was at the same time afraid of being
+      detected in his failure to understand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The fellow is not one of the brightest, that&rsquo;s evident . . .&rdquo; thought
+      Kunin. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s rather shy and much too stupid.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Father Yakov revived somewhat and even smiled only when the footman came
+      into the study bringing in two glasses of tea on a tray and a cake-basket
+      full of biscuits. He took his glass and began drinking at once.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Shouldn&rsquo;t we write at once to the bishop?&rdquo; Kunin went on, meditating
+      aloud. &ldquo;To be precise, you know, it is not we, not the Zemstvo, but the
+      higher ecclesiastical authorities, who have raised the question of the
+      church parish schools. They ought really to apportion the funds. I
+      remember I read that a sum of money had been set aside for the purpose. Do
+      you know nothing about it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Father Yakov was so absorbed in drinking tea that he did not answer this
+      question at once. He lifted his grey-blue eyes to Kunin, thought a moment,
+      and as though recalling his question, he shook his head in the negative.
+      An expression of pleasure and of the most ordinary prosaic appetite
+      overspread his face from ear to ear. He drank and smacked his lips over
+      every gulp. When he had drunk it to the very last drop, he put his glass
+      on the table, then took his glass back again, looked at the bottom of it,
+      then put it back again. The expression of pleasure faded from his face. .
+      . . Then Kunin saw his visitor take a biscuit from the cake-basket, nibble
+      a little bit off it, then turn it over in his hand and hurriedly stick it
+      in his pocket.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, that&rsquo;s not at all clerical!&rdquo; thought Kunin, shrugging his shoulders
+      contemptuously. &ldquo;What is it, priestly greed or childishness?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      After giving his visitor another glass of tea and seeing him to the entry,
+      Kunin lay down on the sofa and abandoned himself to the unpleasant feeling
+      induced in him by the visit of Father Yakov.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What a strange wild creature!&rdquo; he thought. &ldquo;Dirty, untidy, coarse,
+      stupid, and probably he drinks. . . . My God, and that&rsquo;s a priest, a
+      spiritual father! That&rsquo;s a teacher of the people! I can fancy the irony
+      there must be in the deacon&rsquo;s face when before every mass he booms out:
+      &lsquo;Thy blessing, Reverend Father!&rsquo; A fine reverend Father! A reverend Father
+      without a grain of dignity or breeding, hiding biscuits in his pocket like
+      a schoolboy. . . . Fie! Good Lord, where were the bishop&rsquo;s eyes when he
+      ordained a man like that? What can he think of the people if he gives them
+      a teacher like that? One wants people here who . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And Kunin thought what Russian priests ought to be like.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If I were a priest, for instance. . . . An educated priest fond of his
+      work might do a great deal. . . . I should have had the school opened long
+      ago. And the sermons? If the priest is sincere and is inspired by love for
+      his work, what wonderful rousing sermons he might give!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Kunin shut his eyes and began mentally composing a sermon. A little later
+      he sat down to the table and rapidly began writing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll give it to that red-haired fellow, let him read it in church, . . .&rdquo;
+       he thought.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The following Sunday Kunin drove over to Sinkino in the morning to settle
+      the question of the school, and while he was there to make acquaintance
+      with the church of which he was a parishioner. In spite of the awful state
+      of the roads, it was a glorious morning. The sun was shining brightly and
+      cleaving with its rays the layers of white snow still lingering here and
+      there. The snow as it took leave of the earth glittered with such diamonds
+      that it hurt the eyes to look, while the young winter corn was hastily
+      thrusting up its green beside it. The rooks floated with dignity over the
+      fields. A rook would fly, drop to earth, and give several hops before
+      standing firmly on its feet. . . .
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The wooden church up to which Kunin drove was old and grey; the columns of
+      the porch had once been painted white, but the colour had now completely
+      peeled off, and they looked like two ungainly shafts. The ikon over the
+      door looked like a dark smudged blur. But its poverty touched and softened
+      Kunin. Modestly dropping his eyes, he went into the church and stood by
+      the door. The service had only just begun. An old sacristan, bent into a
+      bow, was reading the &ldquo;Hours&rdquo; in a hollow indistinct tenor. Father Yakov,
+      who conducted the service without a deacon, was walking about the church,
+      burning incense. Had it not been for the softened mood in which Kunin
+      found himself on entering the poverty-stricken church, he certainly would
+      have smiled at the sight of Father Yakov. The short priest was wearing a
+      crumpled and extremely long robe of some shabby yellow material; the hem
+      of the robe trailed on the ground.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The church was not full. Looking at the parishioners, Kunin was struck at
+      the first glance by one strange circumstance: he saw nothing but old
+      people and children. . . . Where were the men of working age? Where was
+      the youth and manhood? But after he had stood there a little and looked
+      more attentively at the aged-looking faces, Kunin saw that he had mistaken
+      young people for old. He did not, however, attach any significance to this
+      little optical illusion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The church was as cold and grey inside as outside. There was not one spot
+      on the ikons nor on the dark brown walls which was not begrimed and
+      defaced by time. There were many windows, but the general effect of colour
+      was grey, and so it was twilight in the church.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Anyone pure in soul can pray here very well,&rdquo; thought Kunin. &ldquo;Just as in
+      St. Peter&rsquo;s in Rome one is impressed by grandeur, here one is touched by
+      the lowliness and simplicity.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But his devout mood vanished like smoke as soon as Father Yakov went up to
+      the altar and began mass. Being still young and having come straight from
+      the seminary bench to the priesthood, Father Yakov had not yet formed a
+      set manner of celebrating the service. As he read he seemed to be
+      vacillating between a high tenor and a thin bass; he bowed clumsily,
+      walked quickly, and opened and shut the gates abruptly. . . . The old
+      sacristan, evidently deaf and ailing, did not hear the prayers very
+      distinctly, and this very often led to slight misunderstandings. Before
+      Father Yakov had time to finish what he had to say, the sacristan began
+      chanting his response, or else long after Father Yakov had finished the
+      old man would be straining his ears, listening in the direction of the
+      altar and saying nothing till his skirt was pulled. The old man had a
+      sickly hollow voice and an asthmatic quavering lisp. . . . The complete
+      lack of dignity and decorum was emphasized by a very small boy who
+      seconded the sacristan and whose head was hardly visible over the railing
+      of the choir. The boy sang in a shrill falsetto and seemed to be trying to
+      avoid singing in tune. Kunin stayed a little while, listened and went out
+      for a smoke. He was disappointed, and looked at the grey church almost
+      with dislike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They complain of the decline of religious feeling among the people . . .&rdquo;
+       he sighed. &ldquo;I should rather think so! They&rsquo;d better foist a few more
+      priests like this one on them!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Kunin went back into the church three times, and each time he felt a great
+      temptation to get out into the open air again. Waiting till the end of the
+      mass, he went to Father Yakov&rsquo;s. The priest&rsquo;s house did not differ
+      outwardly from the peasants&rsquo; huts, but the thatch lay more smoothly on the
+      roof and there were little white curtains in the windows. Father Yakov led
+      Kunin into a light little room with a clay floor and walls covered with
+      cheap paper; in spite of some painful efforts towards luxury in the way of
+      photographs in frames and a clock with a pair of scissors hanging on the
+      weight the furnishing of the room impressed him by its scantiness. Looking
+      at the furniture, one might have supposed that Father Yakov had gone from
+      house to house and collected it in bits; in one place they had given him a
+      round three-legged table, in another a stool, in a third a chair with a
+      back bent violently backwards; in a fourth a chair with an upright back,
+      but the seat smashed in; while in a fifth they had been liberal and given
+      him a semblance of a sofa with a flat back and a lattice-work seat. This
+      semblance had been painted dark red and smelt strongly of paint. Kunin
+      meant at first to sit down on one of the chairs, but on second thoughts he
+      sat down on the stool.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This is the first time you have been to our church?&rdquo; asked Father Yakov,
+      hanging his hat on a huge misshapen nail.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes it is. I tell you what, Father, before we begin on business, will you
+      give me some tea? My soul is parched.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Father Yakov blinked, gasped, and went behind the partition wall. There
+      was a sound of whispering.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;With his wife, I suppose,&rdquo; thought Kunin; &ldquo;it would be interesting to see
+      what the red-headed fellow&rsquo;s wife is like.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A little later Father Yakov came back, red and perspiring and with an
+      effort to smile, sat down on the edge of the sofa.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They will heat the samovar directly,&rdquo; he said, without looking at his
+      visitor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My goodness, they have not heated the samovar yet!&rdquo; Kunin thought with
+      horror. &ldquo;A nice time we shall have to wait.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have brought you,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;the rough draft of the letter I have
+      written to the bishop. I&rsquo;ll read it after tea; perhaps you may find
+      something to add. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very well.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A silence followed. Father Yakov threw furtive glances at the partition
+      wall, smoothed his hair, and blew his nose.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s wonderful weather, . . .&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes. I read an interesting thing yesterday. . . . the Volsky Zemstvo have
+      decided to give their schools to the clergy, that&rsquo;s typical.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Kunin got up, and pacing up and down the clay floor, began to give
+      expression to his reflections.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That would be all right,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;if only the clergy were equal to
+      their high calling and recognized their tasks. I am so unfortunate as to
+      know priests whose standard of culture and whose moral qualities make them
+      hardly fit to be army secretaries, much less priests. You will agree that
+      a bad teacher does far less harm than a bad priest.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Kunin glanced at Father Yakov; he was sitting bent up, thinking intently
+      about something and apparently not listening to his visitor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yasha, come here!&rdquo; a woman&rsquo;s voice called from behind the partition.
+      Father Yakov started and went out. Again a whispering began.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Kunin felt a pang of longing for tea.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No; it&rsquo;s no use my waiting for tea here,&rdquo; he thought, looking at his
+      watch. &ldquo;Besides I fancy I am not altogether a welcome visitor. My host has
+      not deigned to say one word to me; he simply sits and blinks.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Kunin took up his hat, waited for Father Yakov to return, and said
+      good-bye to him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have simply wasted the morning,&rdquo; he thought wrathfully on the way home.
+      &ldquo;The blockhead! The dummy! He cares no more about the school than I about
+      last year&rsquo;s snow. . . . No, I shall never get anything done with him! We
+      are bound to fail! If the Marshal knew what the priest here was like, he
+      wouldn&rsquo;t be in such a hurry to talk about a school. We ought first to try
+      and get a decent priest, and then think about the school.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      By now Kunin almost hated Father Yakov. The man, his pitiful, grotesque
+      figure in the long crumpled robe, his womanish face, his manner of
+      officiating, his way of life and his formal restrained respectfulness,
+      wounded the tiny relic of religious feeling which was stored away in a
+      warm corner of Kunin&rsquo;s heart together with his nurse&rsquo;s other fairy tales.
+      The coldness and lack of attention with which Father Yakov had met Kunin&rsquo;s
+      warm and sincere interest in what was the priest&rsquo;s own work was hard for
+      the former&rsquo;s vanity to endure. . . .
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the evening of the same day Kunin spent a long time walking about his
+      rooms and thinking. Then he sat down to the table resolutely and wrote a
+      letter to the bishop. After asking for money and a blessing for the
+      school, he set forth genuinely, like a son, his opinion of the priest at
+      Sinkino.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He is young,&rdquo; he wrote, &ldquo;insufficiently educated, leads, I fancy, an
+      intemperate life, and altogether fails to satisfy the ideals which the
+      Russian people have in the course of centuries formed of what a pastor
+      should be.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      After writing this letter Kunin heaved a deep sigh, and went to bed with
+      the consciousness that he had done a good deed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On Monday morning, while he was still in bed, he was informed that Father
+      Yakov had arrived. He did not want to get up, and instructed the servant
+      to say he was not at home. On Tuesday he went away to a sitting of the
+      Board, and when he returned on Saturday he was told by the servants that
+      Father Yakov had called every day in his absence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He liked my biscuits, it seems,&rdquo; he thought.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Towards evening on Sunday Father Yakov arrived. This time not only his
+      skirts, but even his hat, was bespattered with mud. Just as on his first
+      visit, he was hot and perspiring, and sat down on the edge of his chair as
+      he had done then. Kunin determined not to talk about the school&mdash;not
+      to cast pearls.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have brought you a list of books for the school, Pavel Mihailovitch, .
+      . .&rdquo; Father Yakov began.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thank you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But everything showed that Father Yakov had come for something else
+      besides the list. Has whole figure was expressive of extreme
+      embarrassment, and at the same time there was a look of determination upon
+      his face, as on the face of a man suddenly inspired by an idea. He
+      struggled to say something important, absolutely necessary, and strove to
+      overcome his timidity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why is he dumb?&rdquo; Kunin thought wrathfully. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s settled himself
+      comfortably! I haven&rsquo;t time to be bothered with him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      To smoothe over the awkwardness of his silence and to conceal the struggle
+      going on within him, the priest began to smile constrainedly, and this
+      slow smile, wrung out on his red perspiring face, and out of keeping with
+      the fixed look in his grey-blue eyes, made Kunin turn away. He felt moved
+      to repulsion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Excuse me, Father, I have to go out,&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Father Yakov started like a man asleep who has been struck a blow, and,
+      still smiling, began in his confusion wrapping round him the skirts of his
+      cassock. In spite of his repulsion for the man, Kunin felt suddenly sorry
+      for him, and he wanted to soften his cruelty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Please come another time, Father,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;and before we part I want to
+      ask you a favour. I was somehow inspired to write two sermons the other
+      day. . . . I will give them to you to look at. If they are suitable, use
+      them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very good,&rdquo; said Father Yakov, laying his open hand on Kunin&rsquo;s sermons
+      which were lying on the table. &ldquo;I will take them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      After standing a little, hesitating and still wrapping his cassock round
+      him, he suddenly gave up the effort to smile and lifted his head
+      resolutely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Pavel Mihailovitch,&rdquo; he said, evidently trying to speak loudly and
+      distinctly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What can I do for you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have heard that you . . . er . . . have dismissed your secretary, and .
+      . . and are looking for a new one. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, I am. . . . Why, have you someone to recommend?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I. . . er . . . you see . . . I . . . Could you not give the post to me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, are you giving up the Church?&rdquo; said Kunin in amazement.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, no,&rdquo; Father Yakov brought out quickly, for some reason turning pale
+      and trembling all over. &ldquo;God forbid! If you feel doubtful, then never
+      mind, never mind. You see, I could do the work between whiles, . . so as
+      to increase my income. . . . Never mind, don&rsquo;t disturb yourself!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;H&rsquo;m! . . . your income. . . . But you know, I only pay my secretary
+      twenty roubles a month.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good heavens! I would take ten,&rdquo; whispered Father Yakov, looking about
+      him. &ldquo;Ten would be enough! You . . . you are astonished, and everyone is
+      astonished. The greedy priest, the grasping priest, what does he do with
+      his money? I feel myself I am greedy, . . . and I blame myself, I condemn
+      myself. . . . I am ashamed to look people in the face. . . . I tell you on
+      my conscience, Pavel Mihailovitch. . . . I call the God of truth to
+      witness. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Father Yakov took breath and went on:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;On the way here I prepared a regular confession to make you, but . . .
+      I&rsquo;ve forgotten it all; I cannot find a word now. I get a hundred and fifty
+      roubles a year from my parish, and everyone wonders what I do with the
+      money. . . . But I&rsquo;ll explain it all truly. . . . I pay forty roubles a
+      year to the clerical school for my brother Pyotr. He has everything found
+      there, except that I have to provide pens and paper.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, I believe you; I believe you! But what&rsquo;s the object of all this?&rdquo;
+       said Kunin, with a wave of the hand, feeling terribly oppressed by this
+      outburst of confidence on the part of his visitor, and not knowing how to
+      get away from the tearful gleam in his eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then I have not yet paid up all that I owe to the consistory for my place
+      here. They charged me two hundred roubles for the living, and I was to pay
+      ten roubles a month. . . . You can judge what is left! And, besides, I
+      must allow Father Avraamy at least three roubles a month.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What Father Avraamy?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Father Avraamy who was priest at Sinkino before I came. He was deprived
+      of the living on account of . . . his failing, but you know, he is still
+      living at Sinkino! He has nowhere to go. There is no one to keep him.
+      Though he is old, he must have a corner, and food and clothing&mdash;I
+      can&rsquo;t let him go begging on the roads in his position! It would be on my
+      conscience if anything happened! It would be my fault! He is. . . in debt
+      all round; but, you see, I am to blame for not paying for him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Father Yakov started up from his seat and, looking frantically at the
+      floor, strode up and down the room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My God, my God!&rdquo; he muttered, raising his hands and dropping them again.
+      &ldquo;Lord, save us and have mercy upon us! Why did you take such a calling on
+      yourself if you have so little faith and no strength? There is no end to
+      my despair! Save me, Queen of Heaven!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Calm yourself, Father,&rdquo; said Kunin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am worn out with hunger, Pavel Mihailovitch,&rdquo; Father Yakov went on.
+      &ldquo;Generously forgive me, but I am at the end of my strength . . . . I know
+      if I were to beg and to bow down, everyone would help, but . . . I cannot!
+      I am ashamed. How can I beg of the peasants? You are on the Board here, so
+      you know. . . . How can one beg of a beggar? And to beg of richer people,
+      of landowners, I cannot! I have pride! I am ashamed!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Father Yakov waved his hand, and nervously scratched his head with both
+      hands.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am ashamed! My God, I am ashamed! I am proud and can&rsquo;t bear people to
+      see my poverty! When you visited me, Pavel Mihailovitch, I had no tea in
+      the house! There wasn&rsquo;t a pinch of it, and you know it was pride prevented
+      me from telling you! I am ashamed of my clothes, of these patches here. .
+      . . I am ashamed of my vestments, of being hungry. . . . And is it seemly
+      for a priest to be proud?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Father Yakov stood still in the middle of the study, and, as though he did
+      not notice Kunin&rsquo;s presence, began reasoning with himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, supposing I endure hunger and disgrace&mdash;but, my God, I have a
+      wife! I took her from a good home! She is not used to hard work; she is
+      soft; she is used to tea and white bread and sheets on her bed. . . . At
+      home she used to play the piano. . . . She is young, not twenty yet. . . .
+      She would like, to be sure, to be smart, to have fun, go out to see
+      people. . . . And she is worse off with me than any cook; she is ashamed
+      to show herself in the street. My God, my God! Her only treat is when I
+      bring an apple or some biscuit from a visit. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Father Yakov scratched his head again with both hands.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And it makes us feel not love but pity for each other. . . . I cannot
+      look at her without compassion! And the things that happen in this life, O
+      Lord! Such things that people would not believe them if they saw them in
+      the newspaper. . . . And when will there be an end to it all!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hush, Father!&rdquo; Kunin almost shouted, frightened at his tone. &ldquo;Why take
+      such a gloomy view of life?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Generously forgive me, Pavel Mihailovitch . . .&rdquo; muttered Father Yakov as
+      though he were drunk, &ldquo;Forgive me, all this . . . doesn&rsquo;t matter, and
+      don&rsquo;t take any notice of it. . . . Only I do blame myself, and always
+      shall blame myself . . . always.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Father Yakov looked about him and began whispering:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;One morning early I was going from Sinkino to Lutchkovo; I saw a woman
+      standing on the river bank, doing something. . . . I went up close and
+      could not believe my eyes. . . . It was horrible! The wife of the doctor,
+      Ivan Sergeitch, was sitting there washing her linen. . . . A doctor&rsquo;s
+      wife, brought up at a select boarding-school! She had got up you see,
+      early and gone half a mile from the village that people should not see
+      her. . . . She couldn&rsquo;t get over her pride! When she saw that I was near
+      her and noticed her poverty, she turned red all over. . . . I was
+      flustered&mdash;I was frightened, and ran up to help her, but she hid her
+      linen from me; she was afraid I should see her ragged chemises. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All this is positively incredible,&rdquo; said Kunin, sitting down and looking
+      almost with horror at Father Yakov&rsquo;s pale face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Incredible it is! It&rsquo;s a thing that has never been! Pavel Mihailovitch,
+      that a doctor&rsquo;s wife should be rinsing the linen in the river! Such a
+      thing does not happen in any country! As her pastor and spiritual father,
+      I ought not to allow it, but what can I do? What? Why, I am always trying
+      to get treated by her husband for nothing myself! It is true that, as you
+      say, it is all incredible! One can hardly believe one&rsquo;s eyes. During Mass,
+      you know, when I look out from the altar and see my congregation, Avraamy
+      starving, and my wife, and think of the doctor&rsquo;s wife&mdash;how blue her
+      hands were from the cold water&mdash;would you believe it, I forget myself
+      and stand senseless like a fool, until the sacristan calls to me. . . .
+      It&rsquo;s awful!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Father Yakov began walking about again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Lord Jesus!&rdquo; he said, waving his hands, &ldquo;holy Saints! I can&rsquo;t officiate
+      properly. . . . Here you talk to me about the school, and I sit like a
+      dummy and don&rsquo;t understand a word, and think of nothing but food. . . .
+      Even before the altar. . . . But . . . what am I doing?&rdquo; Father Yakov
+      pulled himself up suddenly. &ldquo;You want to go out. Forgive me, I meant
+      nothing. . . . Excuse . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Kunin shook hands with Father Yakov without speaking, saw him into the
+      hall, and going back into his study, stood at the window. He saw Father
+      Yakov go out of the house, pull his wide-brimmed rusty-looking hat over
+      his eyes, and slowly, bowing his head, as though ashamed of his outburst,
+      walk along the road.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t see his horse,&rdquo; thought Kunin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Kunin did not dare to think that the priest had come on foot every day to
+      see him; it was five or six miles to Sinkino, and the mud on the road was
+      impassable. Further on he saw the coachman Andrey and the boy Paramon,
+      jumping over the puddles and splashing Father Yakov with mud, run up to
+      him for his blessing. Father Yakov took off his hat and slowly blessed
+      Andrey, then blessed the boy and stroked his head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Kunin passed his hand over his eyes, and it seemed to him that his hand
+      was moist. He walked away from the window and with dim eyes looked round
+      the room in which he still seemed to hear the timid droning voice. He
+      glanced at the table. Luckily, Father Yakov, in his haste, had forgotten
+      to take the sermons. Kunin rushed up to them, tore them into pieces, and
+      with loathing thrust them under the table.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And I did not know!&rdquo; he moaned, sinking on to the sofa. &ldquo;After being here
+      over a year as member of the Rural Board, Honorary Justice of the Peace,
+      member of the School Committee! Blind puppet, egregious idiot! I must make
+      haste and help them, I must make haste!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He turned from side to side uneasily, pressed his temples and racked his
+      brains.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;On the twentieth I shall get my salary, two hundred roubles. . . . On
+      some good pretext I will give him some, and some to the doctor&rsquo;s wife. . .
+      . I will ask them to perform a special service here, and will get up an
+      illness for the doctor. . . . In that way I shan&rsquo;t wound their pride. And
+      I&rsquo;ll help Father Avraamy too. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He reckoned his money on his fingers, and was afraid to own to himself
+      that those two hundred roubles would hardly be enough for him to pay his
+      steward, his servants, the peasant who brought the meat. . . . He could
+      not help remembering the recent past when he was senselessly squandering
+      his father&rsquo;s fortune, when as a puppy of twenty he had given expensive
+      fans to prostitutes, had paid ten roubles a day to Kuzma, his cab-driver,
+      and in his vanity had made presents to actresses. Oh, how useful those
+      wasted rouble, three-rouble, ten-rouble notes would have been now!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Father Avraamy lives on three roubles a month!&rdquo; thought Kunin. &ldquo;For a
+      rouble the priest&rsquo;s wife could get herself a chemise, and the doctor&rsquo;s
+      wife could hire a washerwoman. But I&rsquo;ll help them, anyway! I must help
+      them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Here Kunin suddenly recalled the private information he had sent to the
+      bishop, and he writhed as from a sudden draught of cold air. This
+      remembrance filled him with overwhelming shame before his inner self and
+      before the unseen truth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So had begun and had ended a sincere effort to be of public service on the
+      part of a well-intentioned but unreflecting and over-comfortable person.
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0005" id="link2H_4_0005"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <h2>
+      THE MURDER
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      I
+    </h3>
+    <p class="pfirst">
+      <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">T</span>he evening service
+      was being celebrated at Progonnaya Station. Before the great ikon, painted
+      in glaring colours on a background of gold, stood the crowd of railway
+      servants with their wives and children, and also of the timbermen and
+      sawyers who worked close to the railway line. All stood in silence,
+      fascinated by the glare of the lights and the howling of the snow-storm
+      which was aimlessly disporting itself outside, regardless of the fact that
+      it was the Eve of the Annunciation. The old priest from Vedenyapino
+      conducted the service; the sacristan and Matvey Terehov were singing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Matvey&rsquo;s face was beaming with delight; he sang stretching out his neck as
+      though he wanted to soar upwards. He sang tenor and chanted the &ldquo;Praises&rdquo;
+       too in a tenor voice with honied sweetness and persuasiveness. When he
+      sang &ldquo;Archangel Voices&rdquo; he waved his arms like a conductor, and trying to
+      second the sacristan&rsquo;s hollow bass with his tenor, achieved something
+      extremely complex, and from his face it could be seen that he was
+      experiencing great pleasure.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At last the service was over, and they all quietly dispersed, and it was
+      dark and empty again, and there followed that hush which is only known in
+      stations that stand solitary in the open country or in the forest when the
+      wind howls and nothing else is heard and when all the emptiness around,
+      all the dreariness of life slowly ebbing away is felt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Matvey lived not far from the station at his cousin&rsquo;s tavern. But he did
+      not want to go home. He sat down at the refreshment bar and began talking
+      to the waiter in a low voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We had our own choir in the tile factory. And I must tell you that though
+      we were only workmen, our singing was first-rate, splendid. We were often
+      invited to the town, and when the Deputy Bishop, Father Ivan, took the
+      service at Trinity Church, the bishop&rsquo;s singers sang in the right choir
+      and we in the left. Only they complained in the town that we kept the
+      singing on too long: &lsquo;the factory choir drag it out,&rsquo; they used to say. It
+      is true we began St. Andrey&rsquo;s prayers and the Praises between six and
+      seven, and it was past eleven when we finished, so that it was sometimes
+      after midnight when we got home to the factory. It was good,&rdquo; sighed
+      Matvey. &ldquo;Very good it was, indeed, Sergey Nikanoritch! But here in my
+      father&rsquo;s house it is anything but joyful. The nearest church is four miles
+      away; with my weak health I can&rsquo;t get so far; there are no singers there.
+      And there is no peace or quiet in our family; day in day out, there is an
+      uproar, scolding, uncleanliness; we all eat out of one bowl like peasants;
+      and there are beetles in the cabbage soup. . . . God has not given me
+      health, else I would have gone away long ago, Sergey Nikanoritch.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Matvey Terehov was a middle-aged man about forty-five, but he had a look
+      of ill-health; his face was wrinkled and his lank, scanty beard was quite
+      grey, and that made him seem many years older. He spoke in a weak voice,
+      circumspectly, and held his chest when he coughed, while his eyes assumed
+      the uneasy and anxious look one sees in very apprehensive people. He never
+      said definitely what was wrong with him, but he was fond of describing at
+      length how once at the factory he had lifted a heavy box and had ruptured
+      himself, and how this had led to &ldquo;the gripes,&rdquo; and had forced him to give
+      up his work in the tile factory and come back to his native place; but he
+      could not explain what he meant by &ldquo;the gripes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I must own I am not fond of my cousin,&rdquo; he went on, pouring himself out
+      some tea. &ldquo;He is my elder; it is a sin to censure him, and I fear the
+      Lord, but I cannot bear it in patience. He is a haughty, surly, abusive
+      man; he is the torment of his relations and workmen, and constantly out of
+      humour. Last Sunday I asked him in an amiable way, &lsquo;Brother, let us go to
+      Pahomovo for the Mass!&rsquo; but he said &lsquo;I am not going; the priest there is a
+      gambler;&rsquo; and he would not come here to-day because, he said, the priest
+      from Vedenyapino smokes and drinks vodka. He doesn&rsquo;t like the clergy! He
+      reads Mass himself and the Hours and the Vespers, while his sister acts as
+      sacristan; he says, &lsquo;Let us pray unto the Lord&rsquo;! and she, in a thin little
+      voice like a turkey-hen, &lsquo;Lord, have mercy upon us! . . .&rsquo; It&rsquo;s a sin,
+      that&rsquo;s what it is. Every day I say to him, &lsquo;Think what you are doing,
+      brother! Repent, brother!&rsquo; and he takes no notice.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sergey Nikanoritch, the waiter, poured out five glasses of tea and carried
+      them on a tray to the waiting-room. He had scarcely gone in when there was
+      a shout:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is that the way to serve it, pig&rsquo;s face? You don&rsquo;t know how to wait!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was the voice of the station-master. There was a timid mutter, then
+      again a harsh and angry shout:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Get along!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The waiter came back greatly crestfallen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There was a time when I gave satisfaction to counts and princes,&rdquo; he said
+      in a low voice; &ldquo;but now I don&rsquo;t know how to serve tea. . . . He called me
+      names before the priest and the ladies!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The waiter, Sergey Nikanoritch, had once had money of his own, and had
+      kept a buffet at a first-class station, which was a junction, in the
+      principal town of a province. There he had worn a swallow-tail coat and a
+      gold chain. But things had gone ill with him; he had squandered all his
+      own money over expensive fittings and service; he had been robbed by his
+      staff, and getting gradually into difficulties, had moved to another
+      station less bustling. Here his wife had left him, taking with her all the
+      silver, and he moved to a third station of a still lower class, where no
+      hot dishes were served. Then to a fourth. Frequently changing his
+      situation and sinking lower and lower, he had at last come to Progonnaya,
+      and here he used to sell nothing but tea and cheap vodka, and for lunch
+      hard-boiled eggs and dry sausages, which smelt of tar, and which he
+      himself sarcastically said were only fit for the orchestra. He was bald
+      all over the top of his head, and had prominent blue eyes and thick bushy
+      whiskers, which he often combed out, looking into the little
+      looking-glass. Memories of the past haunted him continually; he could
+      never get used to sausage &ldquo;only fit for the orchestra,&rdquo; to the rudeness of
+      the station-master, and to the peasants who used to haggle over the
+      prices, and in his opinion it was as unseemly to haggle over prices in a
+      refreshment room as in a chemist&rsquo;s shop. He was ashamed of his poverty and
+      degradation, and that shame was now the leading interest of his life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Spring is late this year,&rdquo; said Matvey, listening. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a good job; I
+      don&rsquo;t like spring. In spring it is very muddy, Sergey Nikanoritch. In
+      books they write: Spring, the birds sing, the sun is setting, but what is
+      there pleasant in that? A bird is a bird, and nothing more. I am fond of
+      good company, of listening to folks, of talking of religion or singing
+      something agreeable in chorus; but as for nightingales and flowers&mdash;bless
+      them, I say!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He began again about the tile factory, about the choir, but Sergey
+      Nikanoritch could not get over his mortification, and kept shrugging his
+      shoulders and muttering. Matvey said good-bye and went home.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was no frost, and the snow was already melting on the roofs, though
+      it was still falling in big flakes; they were whirling rapidly round and
+      round in the air and chasing one another in white clouds along the railway
+      line. And the oak forest on both sides of the line, in the dim light of
+      the moon which was hidden somewhere high up in the clouds, resounded with
+      a prolonged sullen murmur. When a violent storm shakes the trees, how
+      terrible they are! Matvey walked along the causeway beside the line,
+      covering his face and his hands, while the wind beat on his back. All at
+      once a little nag, plastered all over with snow, came into sight; a sledge
+      scraped along the bare stones of the causeway, and a peasant, white all
+      over, too, with his head muffled up, cracked his whip. Matvey looked round
+      after him, but at once, as though it had been a vision, there was neither
+      sledge nor peasant to be seen, and he hastened his steps, suddenly scared,
+      though he did not know why.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Here was the crossing and the dark little house where the signalman lived.
+      The barrier was raised, and by it perfect mountains had drifted and clouds
+      of snow were whirling round like witches on broomsticks. At that point the
+      line was crossed by an old highroad, which was still called &ldquo;the track.&rdquo;
+       On the right, not far from the crossing, by the roadside stood Terehov&rsquo;s
+      tavern, which had been a posting inn. Here there was always a light
+      twinkling at night.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When Matvey reached home there was a strong smell of incense in all the
+      rooms and even in the entry. His cousin Yakov Ivanitch was still reading
+      the evening service. In the prayer-room where this was going on, in the
+      corner opposite the door, there stood a shrine of old-fashioned ancestral
+      ikons in gilt settings, and both walls to right and to left were decorated
+      with ikons of ancient and modern fashion, in shrines and without them. On
+      the table, which was draped to the floor, stood an ikon of the
+      Annunciation, and close by a cyprus-wood cross and the censer; wax candles
+      were burning. Beside the table was a reading desk. As he passed by the
+      prayer-room, Matvey stopped and glanced in at the door. Yakov Ivanitch was
+      reading at the desk at that moment, his sister Aglaia, a tall lean old
+      woman in a dark-blue dress and white kerchief, was praying with him. Yakov
+      Ivanitch&rsquo;s daughter Dashutka, an ugly freckled girl of eighteen, was
+      there, too, barefoot as usual, and wearing the dress in which she had at
+      nightfall taken water to the cattle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Glory to Thee Who hast shown us the light!&rdquo; Yakov Ivanitch boomed out in
+      a chant, bowing low.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Aglaia propped her chin on her hand and chanted in a thin, shrill,
+      drawling voice. And upstairs, above the ceiling, there was the sound of
+      vague voices which seemed menacing or ominous of evil. No one had lived on
+      the storey above since a fire there a long time ago. The windows were
+      boarded up, and empty bottles lay about on the floor between the beams.
+      Now the wind was banging and droning, and it seemed as though someone were
+      running and stumbling over the beams.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Half of the lower storey was used as a tavern, while Terehov&rsquo;s family
+      lived in the other half, so that when drunken visitors were noisy in the
+      tavern every word they said could be heard in the rooms. Matvey lived in a
+      room next to the kitchen, with a big stove, in which, in old days, when
+      this had been a posting inn, bread had been baked every day. Dashutka, who
+      had no room of her own, lived in the same room behind the stove. A cricket
+      chirped there always at night and mice ran in and out.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Matvey lighted a candle and began reading a book which he had borrowed
+      from the station policeman. While he was sitting over it the service
+      ended, and they all went to bed. Dashutka lay down, too. She began snoring
+      at once, but soon woke up and said, yawning:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You shouldn&rsquo;t burn a candle for nothing, Uncle Matvey.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s my candle,&rdquo; answered Matvey; &ldquo;I bought it with my own money.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Dashutka turned over a little and fell asleep again. Matvey sat up a good
+      time longer&mdash;he was not sleepy&mdash;and when he had finished the
+      last page he took a pencil out of a box and wrote on the book:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I, Matvey Terehov, have read this book, and think it the very best of all
+      the books I have read, for which I express my gratitude to the
+      non-commissioned officer of the Police Department of Railways, Kuzma
+      Nikolaev Zhukov, as the possessor of this priceless book.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He considered it an obligation of politeness to make such inscriptions in
+      other people&rsquo;s books.
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      II
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      On Annunciation Day, after the mail train had been sent off, Matvey was
+      sitting in the refreshment bar, talking and drinking tea with lemon in it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The waiter and Zhukov the policeman were listening to him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I was, I must tell you,&rdquo; Matvey was saying, &ldquo;inclined to religion from my
+      earliest childhood. I was only twelve years old when I used to read the
+      epistle in church, and my parents were greatly delighted, and every summer
+      I used to go on a pilgrimage with my dear mother. Sometimes other lads
+      would be singing songs and catching crayfish, while I would be all the
+      time with my mother. My elders commended me, and, indeed, I was pleased
+      myself that I was of such good behaviour. And when my mother sent me with
+      her blessing to the factory, I used between working hours to sing tenor
+      there in our choir, and nothing gave me greater pleasure. I needn&rsquo;t say, I
+      drank no vodka, I smoked no tobacco, and lived in chastity; but we all
+      know such a mode of life is displeasing to the enemy of mankind, and he,
+      the unclean spirit, once tried to ruin me and began to darken my mind,
+      just as now with my cousin. First of all, I took a vow to fast every
+      Monday and not to eat meat any day, and as time went on all sorts of
+      fancies came over me. For the first week of Lent down to Saturday the holy
+      fathers have ordained a diet of dry food, but it is no sin for the weak or
+      those who work hard even to drink tea, yet not a crumb passed into my
+      mouth till the Sunday, and afterwards all through Lent I did not allow
+      myself a drop of oil, and on Wednesdays and Fridays I did not touch a
+      morsel at all. It was the same in the lesser fasts. Sometimes in St.
+      Peter&rsquo;s fast our factory lads would have fish soup, while I would sit a
+      little apart from them and suck a dry crust. Different people have
+      different powers, of course, but I can say of myself I did not find fast
+      days hard, and, indeed, the greater the zeal the easier it seems. You are
+      only hungry on the first days of the fast, and then you get used to it; it
+      goes on getting easier, and by the end of a week you don&rsquo;t mind it at all,
+      and there is a numb feeling in your legs as though you were not on earth,
+      but in the clouds. And, besides that, I laid all sorts of penances on
+      myself; I used to get up in the night and pray, bowing down to the ground,
+      used to drag heavy stones from place to place, used to go out barefoot in
+      the snow, and I even wore chains, too. Only, as time went on, you know, I
+      was confessing one day to the priest and suddenly this reflection occurred
+      to me: why, this priest, I thought, is married, he eats meat and smokes
+      tobacco&mdash;how can he confess me, and what power has he to absolve my
+      sins if he is more sinful that I? I even scruple to eat Lenten oil, while
+      he eats sturgeon, I dare say. I went to another priest, and he, as ill
+      luck would have it, was a fat fleshy man, in a silk cassock; he rustled
+      like a lady, and he smelt of tobacco too. I went to fast and confess in
+      the monastery, and my heart was not at ease even there; I kept fancying
+      the monks were not living according to their rules. And after that I could
+      not find a service to my mind: in one place they read the service too
+      fast, in another they sang the wrong prayer, in a third the sacristan
+      stammered. Sometimes, the Lord forgive me a sinner, I would stand in
+      church and my heart would throb with anger. How could one pray, feeling
+      like that? And I fancied that the people in the church did not cross
+      themselves properly, did not listen properly; wherever I looked it seemed
+      to me that they were all drunkards, that they broke the fast, smoked,
+      lived loose lives and played cards. I was the only one who lived according
+      to the commandments. The wily spirit did not slumber; it got worse as it
+      went on. I gave up singing in the choir and I did not go to church at all;
+      since my notion was that I was a righteous man and that the church did not
+      suit me owing to its imperfections&mdash;that is, indeed, like a fallen
+      angel, I was puffed up in my pride beyond all belief. After this I began
+      attempting to make a church for myself. I hired from a deaf woman a tiny
+      little room, a long way out of town near the cemetery, and made a
+      prayer-room like my cousin&rsquo;s, only I had big church candlesticks, too, and
+      a real censer. In this prayer-room of mine I kept the rules of holy Mount
+      Athos&mdash;that is, every day my matins began at midnight without fail,
+      and on the eve of the chief of the twelve great holy days my midnight
+      service lasted ten hours and sometimes even twelve. Monks are allowed by
+      rule to sit during the singing of the Psalter and the reading of the
+      Bible, but I wanted to be better than the monks, and so I used to stand
+      all through. I used to read and sing slowly, with tears and sighing,
+      lifting up my hands, and I used to go straight from prayer to work without
+      sleeping; and, indeed, I was always praying at my work, too. Well, it got
+      all over the town &lsquo;Matvey is a saint; Matvey heals the sick and
+      senseless.&rsquo; I never had healed anyone, of course, but we all know wherever
+      any heresy or false doctrine springs up there&rsquo;s no keeping the female sex
+      away. They are just like flies on the honey. Old maids and females of all
+      sorts came trailing to me, bowing down to my feet, kissing my hands and
+      crying out I was a saint and all the rest of it, and one even saw a halo
+      round my head. It was too crowded in the prayer-room. I took a bigger
+      room, and then we had a regular tower of Babel. The devil got hold of me
+      completely and screened the light from my eyes with his unclean hoofs. We
+      all behaved as though we were frantic. I read, while the old maids and
+      other females sang, and then after standing on their legs for twenty-four
+      hours or longer without eating or drinking, suddenly a trembling would
+      come over them as though they were in a fever; after that, one would begin
+      screaming and then another&mdash;it was horrible! I, too, would shiver all
+      over like a Jew in a frying-pan, I don&rsquo;t know myself why, and our legs
+      began to prance about. It&rsquo;s a strange thing, indeed: you don&rsquo;t want to,
+      but you prance about and waggle your arms; and after that, screaming and
+      shrieking, we all danced and ran after one another &mdash;ran till we
+      dropped; and in that way, in wild frenzy, I fell into fornication.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The policeman laughed, but, noticing that no one else was laughing, became
+      serious and said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s Molokanism. I have heard they are all like that in the Caucasus.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But I was not killed by a thunderbolt,&rdquo; Matvey went on, crossing himself
+      before the ikon and moving his lips. &ldquo;My dead mother must have been
+      praying for me in the other world. When everyone in the town looked upon
+      me as a saint, and even the ladies and gentlemen of good family used to
+      come to me in secret for consolation, I happened to go into our landlord,
+      Osip Varlamitch, to ask forgiveness &mdash;it was the Day of Forgiveness&mdash;and
+      he fastened the door with the hook, and we were left alone face to face.
+      And he began to reprove me, and I must tell you Osip Varlamitch was a man
+      of brains, though without education, and everyone respected and feared
+      him, for he was a man of stern, God-fearing life and worked hard. He had
+      been the mayor of the town, and a warden of the church for twenty years
+      maybe, and had done a great deal of good; he had covered all the New
+      Moscow Road with gravel, had painted the church, and had decorated the
+      columns to look like malachite. Well, he fastened the door, and&mdash;&lsquo;I
+      have been wanting to get at you for a long time, you rascal, . . .&rsquo; he
+      said. &lsquo;You think you are a saint,&rsquo; he said. &lsquo;No you are not a saint, but a
+      backslider from God, a heretic and an evildoer! . . .&rsquo; And he went on and
+      on. . . . I can&rsquo;t tell you how he said it, so eloquently and cleverly, as
+      though it were all written down, and so touchingly. He talked for two
+      hours. His words penetrated my soul; my eyes were opened. I listened,
+      listened and &mdash;burst into sobs! &lsquo;Be an ordinary man,&rsquo; he said, &lsquo;eat
+      and drink, dress and pray like everyone else. All that is above the
+      ordinary is of the devil. Your chains,&rsquo; he said, &lsquo;are of the devil; your
+      fasting is of the devil; your prayer-room is of the devil. It is all
+      pride,&rsquo; he said. Next day, on Monday in Holy Week, it pleased God I should
+      fall ill. I ruptured myself and was taken to the hospital. I was terribly
+      worried, and wept bitterly and trembled. I thought there was a straight
+      road before me from the hospital to hell, and I almost died. I was in
+      misery on a bed of sickness for six months, and when I was discharged the
+      first thing I did I confessed, and took the sacrament in the regular way
+      and became a man again. Osip Varlamitch saw me off home and exhorted me:
+      &lsquo;Remember, Matvey, that anything above the ordinary is of the devil.&rsquo; And
+      now I eat and drink like everyone else and pray like everyone else . . . .
+      If it happens now that the priest smells of tobacco or vodka I don&rsquo;t
+      venture to blame him, because the priest, too, of course, is an ordinary
+      man. But as soon as I am told that in the town or in the village a saint
+      has set up who does not eat for weeks, and makes rules of his own, I know
+      whose work it is. So that is how I carried on in the past, gentlemen. Now,
+      like Osip Varlamitch, I am continually exhorting my cousins and
+      reproaching them, but I am a voice crying in the wilderness. God has not
+      vouchsafed me the gift.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Matvey&rsquo;s story evidently made no impression whatever. Sergey Nikanoritch
+      said nothing, but began clearing the refreshments off the counter, while
+      the policeman began talking of how rich Matvey&rsquo;s cousin was.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He must have thirty thousand at least,&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Zhukov the policeman, a sturdy, well-fed, red-haired man with a full face
+      (his cheeks quivered when he walked), usually sat lolling and crossing his
+      legs when not in the presence of his superiors. As he talked he swayed to
+      and fro and whistled carelessly, while his face had a self-satisfied
+      replete air, as though he had just had dinner. He was making money, and he
+      always talked of it with the air of a connoisseur. He undertook jobs as an
+      agent, and when anyone wanted to sell an estate, a horse or a carriage,
+      they applied to him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, it will be thirty thousand, I dare say,&rdquo; Sergey Nikanoritch
+      assented. &ldquo;Your grandfather had an immense fortune,&rdquo; he said, addressing
+      Matvey. &ldquo;Immense it was; all left to your father and your uncle. Your
+      father died as a young man and your uncle got hold of it all, and
+      afterwards, of course, Yakov Ivanitch. While you were going pilgrimages
+      with your mama and singing tenor in the factory, they didn&rsquo;t let the grass
+      grow under their feet.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Fifteen thousand comes to your share,&rdquo; said the policeman swaying from
+      side to side. &ldquo;The tavern belongs to you in common, so the capital is in
+      common. Yes. If I were in your place I should have taken it into court
+      long ago. I would have taken it into court for one thing, and while the
+      case was going on I&rsquo;d have knocked his face to a jelly.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Yakov Ivanitch was disliked because, when anyone believes differently from
+      others, it upsets even people who are indifferent to religion. The
+      policeman disliked him also because he, too, sold horses and carriages.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You don&rsquo;t care about going to law with your cousin because you have
+      plenty of money of your own,&rdquo; said the waiter to Matvey, looking at him
+      with envy. &ldquo;It is all very well for anyone who has means, but here I shall
+      die in this position, I suppose. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Matvey began declaring that he hadn&rsquo;t any money at all, but Sergey
+      Nikanoritch was not listening. Memories of the past and of the insults
+      which he endured every day came showering upon him. His bald head began to
+      perspire; he flushed and blinked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A cursed life!&rdquo; he said with vexation, and he banged the sausage on the
+      floor.
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      III
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      The story ran that the tavern had been built in the time of Alexander I,
+      by a widow who had settled here with her son; her name was Avdotya
+      Terehov. The dark roofed-in courtyard and the gates always kept locked
+      excited, especially on moonlight nights, a feeling of depression and
+      unaccountable uneasiness in people who drove by with posting-horses, as
+      though sorcerers or robbers were living in it; and the driver always
+      looked back after he passed, and whipped up his horses. Travellers did not
+      care to put up here, as the people of the house were always unfriendly and
+      charged heavily. The yard was muddy even in summer; huge fat pigs used to
+      lie there in the mud, and the horses in which the Terehovs dealt wandered
+      about untethered, and often it happened that they ran out of the yard and
+      dashed along the road like mad creatures, terrifying the pilgrim women. At
+      that time there was a great deal of traffic on the road; long trains of
+      loaded waggons trailed by, and all sorts of adventures happened, such as,
+      for instance, that thirty years ago some waggoners got up a quarrel with a
+      passing merchant and killed him, and a slanting cross is standing to this
+      day half a mile from the tavern; posting-chaises with bells and the heavy
+      <i>dormeuses</i> of country gentlemen drove by; and herds of horned cattle
+      passed bellowing and stirring up clouds of dust.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When the railway came there was at first at this place only a platform,
+      which was called simply a halt; ten years afterwards the present station,
+      Progonnaya, was built. The traffic on the old posting-road almost ceased,
+      and only local landowners and peasants drove along it now, but the working
+      people walked there in crowds in spring and autumn. The posting-inn was
+      transformed into a restaurant; the upper storey was destroyed by fire, the
+      roof had grown yellow with rust, the roof over the yard had fallen by
+      degrees, but huge fat pigs, pink and revolting, still wallowed in the mud
+      in the yard. As before, the horses sometimes ran away and, lashing their
+      tails dashed madly along the road. In the tavern they sold tea, hay oats
+      and flour, as well as vodka and beer, to be drunk on the premises and also
+      to be taken away; they sold spirituous liquors warily, for they had never
+      taken out a licence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Terehovs had always been distinguished by their piety, so much so that
+      they had even been given the nickname of the &ldquo;Godlies.&rdquo; But perhaps
+      because they lived apart like bears, avoided people and thought out all
+      their ideas for themselves, they were given to dreams and to doubts and to
+      changes of faith and almost each generation had a peculiar faith of its
+      own. The grandmother Avdotya, who had built the inn, was an Old Believer;
+      her son and both her grandsons (the fathers of Matvey and Yakov) went to
+      the Orthodox church, entertained the clergy, and worshipped before the new
+      ikons as devoutly as they had done before the old. The son in old age
+      refused to eat meat and imposed upon himself the rule of silence,
+      considering all conversation as sin; it was the peculiarity of the
+      grandsons that they interpreted the Scripture not simply, but sought in it
+      a hidden meaning, declaring that every sacred word must contain a mystery.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Avdotya&rsquo;s great-grandson Matvey had struggled from early childhood with
+      all sorts of dreams and fancies and had been almost ruined by it; the
+      other great-grandson, Yakov Ivanitch, was orthodox, but after his wife&rsquo;s
+      death he gave up going to church and prayed at home. Following his
+      example, his sister Aglaia had turned, too; she did not go to church
+      herself, and did not let Dashutka go. Of Aglaia it was told that in her
+      youth she used to attend the Flagellant meetings in Vedenyapino, and that
+      she was still a Flagellant in secret, and that was why she wore a white
+      kerchief.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yakov Ivanitch was ten years older than Matvey&mdash;he was a very
+      handsome tall old man with a big grey beard almost to his waist, and bushy
+      eyebrows which gave his face a stern, even ill-natured expression. He wore
+      a long jerkin of good cloth or a black sheepskin coat, and altogether
+      tried to be clean and neat in dress; he wore goloshes even in dry weather.
+      He did not go to church, because, to his thinking, the services were not
+      properly celebrated and because the priests drank wine at unlawful times
+      and smoked tobacco. Every day he read and sang the service at home with
+      Aglaia. At Vedenyapino they left out the &ldquo;Praises&rdquo; at early matins, and
+      had no evening service even on great holidays, but he used to read through
+      at home everything that was laid down for every day, without hurrying or
+      leaving out a single line, and even in his spare time read aloud the Lives
+      of the Saints. And in everyday life he adhered strictly to the rules of
+      the church; thus, if wine were allowed on some day in Lent &ldquo;for the sake
+      of the vigil,&rdquo; then he never failed to drink wine, even if he were not
+      inclined.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He read, sang, burned incense and fasted, not for the sake of receiving
+      blessings of some sort from God, but for the sake of good order. Man
+      cannot live without religion, and religion ought to be expressed from year
+      to year and from day to day in a certain order, so that every morning and
+      every evening a man might turn to God with exactly those words and
+      thoughts that were befitting that special day and hour. One must live,
+      and, therefore, also pray as is pleasing to God, and so every day one must
+      read and sing what is pleasing to God&mdash;that is, what is laid down in
+      the rule of the church. Thus the first chapter of St. John must only be
+      read on Easter Day, and &ldquo;It is most meet&rdquo; must not be sung from Easter to
+      Ascension, and so on. The consciousness of this order and its importance
+      afforded Yakov Ivanitch great gratification during his religious
+      exercises. When he was forced to break this order by some necessity&mdash;to
+      drive to town or to the bank, for instance his conscience was uneasy and
+      he felt miserable.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When his cousin Matvey had returned unexpectedly from the factory and
+      settled in the tavern as though it were his home, he had from the very
+      first day disturbed his settled order. He refused to pray with them, had
+      meals and drank tea at wrong times, got up late, drank milk on Wednesdays
+      and Fridays on the pretext of weak health; almost every day he went into
+      the prayer-room while they were at prayers and cried: &ldquo;Think what you are
+      doing, brother! Repent, brother!&rdquo; These words threw Yakov into a fury,
+      while Aglaia could not refrain from beginning to scold; or at night Matvey
+      would steal into the prayer-room and say softly: &ldquo;Cousin, your prayer is
+      not pleasing to God. For it is written, First be reconciled with thy
+      brother and then offer thy gift. You lend money at usury, you deal in
+      vodka&mdash;repent!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      In Matvey&rsquo;s words Yakov saw nothing but the usual evasions of empty-headed
+      and careless people who talk of loving your neighbour, of being reconciled
+      with your brother, and so on, simply to avoid praying, fasting and reading
+      holy books, and who talk contemptuously of profit and interest simply
+      because they don&rsquo;t like working. Of course, to be poor, save nothing, and
+      put by nothing was a great deal easier than being rich.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But yet he was troubled and could not pray as before. As soon as he went
+      into the prayer-room and opened the book he began to be afraid his cousin
+      would come in and hinder him; and, in fact, Matvey did soon appear and cry
+      in a trembling voice: &ldquo;Think what you are doing, brother! Repent,
+      brother!&rdquo; Aglaia stormed and Yakov, too, flew into a passion and shouted:
+      &ldquo;Go out of my house!&rdquo; while Matvey answered him: &ldquo;The house belongs to
+      both of us.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Yakov would begin singing and reading again, but he could not regain his
+      calm, and unconsciously fell to dreaming over his book. Though he regarded
+      his cousin&rsquo;s words as nonsense, yet for some reason it had of late haunted
+      his memory that it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven,
+      that the year before last he had made a very good bargain over buying a
+      stolen horse, that one day when his wife was alive a drunkard had died of
+      vodka in his tavern. . . .
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He slept badly at nights now and woke easily, and he could hear that
+      Matvey, too, was awake, and continually sighing and pining for his tile
+      factory. And while Yakov turned over from one side to another at night he
+      thought of the stolen horse and the drunken man, and what was said in the
+      gospels about the camel.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It looked as though his dreaminess were coming over him again. And as
+      ill-luck would have it, although it was the end of March, every day it
+      kept snowing, and the forest roared as though it were winter, and there
+      was no believing that spring would ever come. The weather disposed one to
+      depression, and to quarrelling and to hatred and in the night, when the
+      wind droned over the ceiling, it seemed as though someone were living
+      overhead in the empty storey; little by little the broodings settled like
+      a burden on his mind, his head burned and he could not sleep.
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      IV
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      On the morning of the Monday before Good Friday, Matvey heard from his
+      room Dashutka say to Aglaia:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Uncle Matvey said, the other day, that there is no need to fast.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Matvey remembered the whole conversation he had had the evening before
+      with Dashutka, and he felt hurt all at once.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Girl, don&rsquo;t do wrong!&rdquo; he said in a moaning voice, like a sick man. &ldquo;You
+      can&rsquo;t do without fasting; our Lord Himself fasted forty days. I only
+      explained that fasting does a bad man no good.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You should just listen to the factory hands; they can teach you
+      goodness,&rdquo; Aglaia said sarcastically as she washed the floor (she usually
+      washed the floors on working days and was always angry with everyone when
+      she did it). &ldquo;We know how they keep the fasts in the factory. You had
+      better ask that uncle of yours&mdash;ask him about his &lsquo;Darling,&rsquo; how he
+      used to guzzle milk on fast days with her, the viper. He teaches others;
+      he forgets about his viper. But ask him who was it he left his money with&mdash;who
+      was it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Matvey had carefully concealed from everyone, as though it were a foul
+      sore, that during that period of his life when old women and unmarried
+      girls had danced and run about with him at their prayers he had formed a
+      connection with a working woman and had had a child by her. When he went
+      home he had given this woman all he had saved at the factory, and had
+      borrowed from his landlord for his journey, and now he had only a few
+      roubles which he spent on tea and candles. The &ldquo;Darling&rdquo; had informed him
+      later on that the child was dead, and asked him in a letter what she
+      should do with the money. This letter was brought from the station by the
+      labourer. Aglaia intercepted it and read it, and had reproached Matvey
+      with his &ldquo;Darling&rdquo; every day since.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Just fancy, nine hundred roubles,&rdquo; Aglaia went on. &ldquo;You gave nine hundred
+      roubles to a viper, no relation, a factory jade, blast you!&rdquo; She had flown
+      into a passion by now and was shouting shrilly: &ldquo;Can&rsquo;t you speak? I could
+      tear you to pieces, wretched creature! Nine hundred roubles as though it
+      were a farthing. You might have left it to Dashutka&mdash;she is a
+      relation, not a stranger&mdash;or else have it sent to Byelev for Marya&rsquo;s
+      poor orphans. And your viper did not choke, may she be thrice accursed,
+      the she-devil! May she never look upon the light of day!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Yakov Ivanitch called to her: it was time to begin the &ldquo;Hours.&rdquo; She
+      washed, put on a white kerchief, and by now quiet and meek, went into the
+      prayer-room to the brother she loved. When she spoke to Matvey or served
+      peasants in the tavern with tea she was a gaunt, keen-eyed, ill-humoured
+      old woman; in the prayer-room her face was serene and softened, she looked
+      younger altogether, she curtsied affectedly, and even pursed up her lips.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yakov Ivanitch began reading the service softly and dolefully, as he
+      always did in Lent. After he had read a little he stopped to listen to the
+      stillness that reigned through the house, and then went on reading again,
+      with a feeling of gratification; he folded his hands in supplication,
+      rolled his eyes, shook his head, sighed. But all at once there was the
+      sound of voices. The policeman and Sergey Nikanoritch had come to see
+      Matvey. Yakov Ivanitch was embarrassed at reading aloud and singing when
+      there were strangers in the house, and now, hearing voices, he began
+      reading in a whisper and slowly. He could hear in the prayer-room the
+      waiter say:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The Tatar at Shtchepovo is selling his business for fifteen hundred.
+      He&rsquo;ll take five hundred down and an I.O.U. for the rest. And so, Matvey
+      Vassilitch, be so kind as to lend me that five hundred roubles. I will pay
+      you two per cent a month.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What money have I got?&rdquo; cried Matvey, amazed. &ldquo;I have no money!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Two per cent a month will be a godsend to you,&rdquo; the policeman explained.
+      &ldquo;While lying by, your money is simply eaten by the moth, and that&rsquo;s all
+      that you get from it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Afterwards the visitors went out and a silence followed. But Yakov
+      Ivanitch had hardly begun reading and singing again when a voice was heard
+      outside the door:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Brother, let me have a horse to drive to Vedenyapino.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was Matvey. And Yakov was troubled again. &ldquo;Which can you go with?&rdquo; he
+      asked after a moment&rsquo;s thought. &ldquo;The man has gone with the sorrel to take
+      the pig, and I am going with the little stallion to Shuteykino as soon as
+      I have finished.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Brother, why is it you can dispose of the horses and not I?&rdquo; Matvey asked
+      with irritation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Because I am not taking them for pleasure, but for work.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Our property is in common, so the horses are in common, too, and you
+      ought to understand that, brother.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A silence followed. Yakov did not go on praying, but waited for Matvey to
+      go away from the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Brother,&rdquo; said Matvey, &ldquo;I am a sick man. I don&rsquo;t want possession &mdash;let
+      them go; you have them, but give me a small share to keep me in my
+      illness. Give it me and I&rsquo;ll go away.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Yakov did not speak. He longed to be rid of Matvey, but he could not give
+      him money, since all the money was in the business; besides, there had
+      never been a case of the family dividing in the whole history of the
+      Terehovs. Division means ruin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yakov said nothing, but still waited for Matvey to go away, and kept
+      looking at his sister, afraid that she would interfere, and that there
+      would be a storm of abuse again, as there had been in the morning. When at
+      last Matvey did go Yakov went on reading, but now he had no pleasure in
+      it. There was a heaviness in his head and a darkness before his eyes from
+      continually bowing down to the ground, and he was weary of the sound of
+      his soft dejected voice. When such a depression of spirit came over him at
+      night, he put it down to not being able to sleep; by day it frightened
+      him, and he began to feel as though devils were sitting on his head and
+      shoulders.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Finishing the service after a fashion, dissatisfied and ill-humoured, he
+      set off for Shuteykino. In the previous autumn a gang of navvies had dug a
+      boundary ditch near Progonnaya, and had run up a bill at the tavern for
+      eighteen roubles, and now he had to find their foreman in Shuteykino and
+      get the money from him. The road had been spoilt by the thaw and the
+      snowstorm; it was of a dark colour and full of holes, and in parts it had
+      given way altogether. The snow had sunk away at the sides below the road,
+      so that he had to drive, as it were, upon a narrow causeway, and it was
+      very difficult to turn off it when he met anything. The sky had been
+      overcast ever since the morning and a damp wind was blowing. . . .
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A long train of sledges met him; peasant women were carting bricks. Yakov
+      had to turn off the road. His horse sank into the snow up to its belly;
+      the sledge lurched over to the right, and to avoid falling out he bent
+      over to the left, and sat so all the time the sledges moved slowly by him.
+      Through the wind he heard the creaking of the sledge poles and the
+      breathing of the gaunt horses, and the women saying about him, &ldquo;There&rsquo;s
+      Godly coming,&rdquo; while one, gazing with compassion at his horse, said
+      quickly:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It looks as though the snow will be lying till Yegory&rsquo;s Day! They are
+      worn out with it!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Yakov sat uncomfortably huddled up, screwing up his eyes on account of the
+      wind, while horses and red bricks kept passing before him. And perhaps
+      because he was uncomfortable and his side ached, he felt all at once
+      annoyed, and the business he was going about seemed to him unimportant,
+      and he reflected that he might send the labourer next day to Shuteykino.
+      Again, as in the previous sleepless night, he thought of the saying about
+      the camel, and then memories of all sorts crept into his mind; of the
+      peasant who had sold him the stolen horse, of the drunken man, of the
+      peasant women who had brought their samovars to him to pawn. Of course,
+      every merchant tries to get as much as he can, but Yakov felt depressed
+      that he was in trade; he longed to get somewhere far away from this
+      routine, and he felt dreary at the thought that he would have to read the
+      evening service that day. The wind blew straight into his face and soughed
+      in his collar; and it seemed as though it were whispering to him all these
+      thoughts, bringing them from the broad white plain . . . . Looking at that
+      plain, familiar to him from childhood, Yakov remembered that he had had
+      just this same trouble and these same thoughts in his young days when
+      dreams and imaginings had come upon him and his faith had wavered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He felt miserable at being alone in the open country; he turned back and
+      drove slowly after the sledges, and the women laughed and said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Godly has turned back.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At home nothing had been cooked and the samovar was not heated on account
+      of the fast, and this made the day seem very long. Yakov Ivanitch had long
+      ago taken the horse to the stable, dispatched the flour to the station,
+      and twice taken up the Psalms to read, and yet the evening was still far
+      off. Aglaia has already washed all the floors, and, having nothing to do,
+      was tidying up her chest, the lid of which was pasted over on the inside
+      with labels off bottles. Matvey, hungry and melancholy, sat reading, or
+      went up to the Dutch stove and slowly scrutinized the tiles which reminded
+      him of the factory. Dashutka was asleep; then, waking up, she went to take
+      water to the cattle. When she was getting water from the well the cord
+      broke and the pail fell in. The labourer began looking for a boathook to
+      get the pail out, and Dashutka, barefooted, with legs as red as a goose&rsquo;s,
+      followed him about in the muddy snow, repeating: &ldquo;It&rsquo;s too far!&rdquo; She meant
+      to say that the well was too deep for the hook to reach the bottom, but
+      the labourer did not understand her, and evidently she bothered him, so
+      that he suddenly turned around and abused her in unseemly language. Yakov
+      Ivanitch, coming out that moment into the yard, heard Dashutka answer the
+      labourer in a long rapid stream of choice abuse, which she could only have
+      learned from drunken peasants in the tavern.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What are you saying, shameless girl!&rdquo; he cried to her, and he was
+      positively aghast. &ldquo;What language!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And she looked at her father in perplexity, dully, not understanding why
+      she should not use those words. He would have admonished her, but she
+      struck him as so savage and benighted; and for the first time he realized
+      that she had no religion. And all this life in the forest, in the snow,
+      with drunken peasants, with coarse oaths, seemed to him as savage and
+      benighted as this girl, and instead of giving her a lecture he only waved
+      his hand and went back into the room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At that moment the policeman and Sergey Nikanoritch came in again to see
+      Matvey. Yakov Ivanitch thought that these people, too, had no religion,
+      and that that did not trouble them in the least; and human life began to
+      seem to him as strange, senseless and unenlightened as a dog&rsquo;s. Bareheaded
+      he walked about the yard, then he went out on to the road, clenching his
+      fists. Snow was falling in big flakes at the time. His beard was blown
+      about in the wind. He kept shaking his head, as though there were
+      something weighing upon his head and shoulders, as though devils were
+      sitting on them; and it seemed to him that it was not himself walking
+      about, but some wild beast, a huge terrible beast, and that if he were to
+      cry out his voice would be a roar that would sound all over the forest and
+      the plain, and would frighten everyone. . . .
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      V
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      When he went back into the house the policeman was no longer there, but
+      the waiter was sitting with Matvey, counting something on the reckoning
+      beads. He was in the habit of coming often, almost every day, to the
+      tavern; in old days he had come to see Yakov Ivanitch, now he came to see
+      Matvey. He was continually reckoning on the beads, while his face
+      perspired and looked strained, or he would ask for money or, stroking his
+      whiskers, would describe how he had once been in a first-class station and
+      used to prepare champagne-punch for officers, and at grand dinners served
+      the sturgeon-soup with his own hands. Nothing in this world interested him
+      but refreshment bars, and he could only talk about things to eat, about
+      wines and the paraphernalia of the dinner-table. On one occasion, handing
+      a cup of tea to a young woman who was nursing her baby and wishing to say
+      something agreeable to her, he expressed himself in this way:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The mother&rsquo;s breast is the baby&rsquo;s refreshment bar.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Reckoning with the beads in Matvey&rsquo;s room, he asked for money; said he
+      could not go on living at Progonnaya, and several times repeated in a tone
+      of voice that sounded as though he were just going to cry:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where am I to go? Where am I to go now? Tell me that, please.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Then Matvey went into the kitchen and began peeling some boiled potatoes
+      which he had probably put away from the day before. It was quiet, and it
+      seemed to Yakov Ivanitch that the waiter was gone. It was past the time
+      for evening service; he called Aglaia, and, thinking there was no one else
+      in the house sang out aloud without embarrassment. He sang and read, but
+      was inwardly pronouncing other words, &ldquo;Lord, forgive me! Lord, save me!&rdquo;
+       and, one after another, without ceasing, he made low bows to the ground as
+      though he wanted to exhaust himself, and he kept shaking his head, so that
+      Aglaia looked at him with wonder. He was afraid Matvey would come in, and
+      was certain that he would come in, and felt an anger against him which he
+      could overcome neither by prayer nor by continually bowing down to the
+      ground.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Matvey opened the door very softly and went into the prayer-room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a sin, such a sin!&rdquo; he said reproachfully, and heaved a sigh.
+      &ldquo;Repent! Think what you are doing, brother!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Yakov Ivanitch, clenching his fists and not looking at him for fear of
+      striking him, went quickly out of the room. Feeling himself a huge
+      terrible wild beast, just as he had done before on the road, he crossed
+      the passage into the grey, dirty room, reeking with smoke and fog, in
+      which the peasants usually drank tea, and there he spent a long time
+      walking from one corner to the other, treading heavily, so that the
+      crockery jingled on the shelves and the tables shook. It was clear to him
+      now that he was himself dissatisfied with his religion, and could not pray
+      as he used to do. He must repent, he must think things over, reconsider,
+      live and pray in some other way. But how pray? And perhaps all this was a
+      temptation of the devil, and nothing of this was necessary? . . . How was
+      it to be? What was he to do? Who could guide him? What helplessness! He
+      stopped and, clutching at his head, began to think, but Matvey&rsquo;s being
+      near him prevented him from reflecting calmly. And he went rapidly into
+      the room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Matvey was sitting in the kitchen before a bowl of potato, eating. Close
+      by, near the stove, Aglaia and Dashutka were sitting facing one another,
+      spinning yarn. Between the stove and the table at which Matvey was sitting
+      was stretched an ironing-board; on it stood a cold iron.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sister,&rdquo; Matvey asked, &ldquo;let me have a little oil!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who eats oil on a day like this?&rdquo; asked Aglaia.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am not a monk, sister, but a layman. And in my weak health I may take
+      not only oil but milk.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, at the factory you may have anything.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Aglaia took a bottle of Lenten oil from the shelf and banged it angrily
+      down before Matvey, with a malignant smile evidently pleased that he was
+      such a sinner.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But I tell you, you can&rsquo;t eat oil!&rdquo; shouted Yakov.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Aglaia and Dashutka started, but Matvey poured the oil into the bowl and
+      went on eating as though he had not heard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I tell you, you can&rsquo;t eat oil!&rdquo; Yakov shouted still more loudly; he
+      turned red all over, snatched up the bowl, lifted it higher than his head,
+      and dashed it with all his force to the ground, so that it flew into
+      fragments. &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t dare to speak!&rdquo; he cried in a furious voice, though
+      Matvey had not said a word. &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t dare!&rdquo; he repeated, and struck his fist
+      on the table.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Matvey turned pale and got up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Brother!&rdquo; he said, still munching&mdash;&ldquo;brother, think what you are
+      about!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Out of my house this minute!&rdquo; shouted Yakov; he loathed Matvey&rsquo;s wrinkled
+      face, and his voice, and the crumbs on his moustache, and the fact that he
+      was munching. &ldquo;Out, I tell you!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Brother, calm yourself! The pride of hell has confounded you!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hold your tongue!&rdquo; (Yakov stamped.) &ldquo;Go away, you devil!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you care to know,&rdquo; Matvey went on in a loud voice, as he, too, began
+      to get angry, &ldquo;you are a backslider from God and a heretic. The accursed
+      spirits have hidden the true light from you; your prayer is not acceptable
+      to God. Repent before it is too late! The deathbed of the sinner is
+      terrible! Repent, brother!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Yakov seized him by the shoulders and dragged him away from the table,
+      while he turned whiter than ever, and frightened and bewildered, began
+      muttering, &ldquo;What is it? What&rsquo;s the matter?&rdquo; and, struggling and making
+      efforts to free himself from Yakov&rsquo;s hands, he accidentally caught hold of
+      his shirt near the neck and tore the collar; and it seemed to Aglaia that
+      he was trying to beat Yakov. She uttered a shriek, snatched up the bottle
+      of Lenten oil and with all her force brought it down straight on the skull
+      of the cousin she hated. Matvey reeled, and in one instant his face became
+      calm and indifferent. Yakov, breathing heavily, excited, and feeling
+      pleasure at the gurgle the bottle had made, like a living thing, when it
+      had struck the head, kept him from falling and several times (he
+      remembered this very distinctly) motioned Aglaia towards the iron with his
+      finger; and only when the blood began trickling through his hands and he
+      heard Dashutka&rsquo;s loud wail, and when the ironing-board fell with a crash,
+      and Matvey rolled heavily on it, Yakov left off feeling anger and
+      understood what had happened.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let him rot, the factory buck!&rdquo; Aglaia brought out with repulsion, still
+      keeping the iron in her hand. The white bloodstained kerchief slipped on
+      to her shoulders and her grey hair fell in disorder. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s got what he
+      deserved!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Everything was terrible. Dashutka sat on the floor near the stove with the
+      yarn in her hands, sobbing, and continually bowing down, uttering at each
+      bow a gasping sound. But nothing was so terrible to Yakov as the potato in
+      the blood, on which he was afraid of stepping, and there was something
+      else terrible which weighed upon him like a bad dream and seemed the worst
+      danger, though he could not take it in for the first minute. This was the
+      waiter, Sergey Nikanoritch, who was standing in the doorway with the
+      reckoning beads in his hands, very pale, looking with horror at what was
+      happening in the kitchen. Only when he turned and went quickly into the
+      passage and from there outside, Yakov grasped who it was and followed him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wiping his hands on the snow as he went, he reflected. The idea flashed
+      through his mind that their labourer had gone away long before and had
+      asked leave to stay the night at home in the village; the day before they
+      had killed a pig, and there were huge bloodstains in the snow and on the
+      sledge, and even one side of the top of the well was splattered with
+      blood, so that it could not have seemed suspicious even if the whole of
+      Yakov&rsquo;s family had been stained with blood. To conceal the murder would be
+      agonizing, but for the policeman, who would whistle and smile ironically,
+      to come from the station, for the peasants to arrive and bind Yakov&rsquo;s and
+      Aglaia&rsquo;s hands, and take them solemnly to the district courthouse and from
+      there to the town, while everyone on the way would point at them and say
+      mirthfully, &ldquo;They are taking the Godlies!&rdquo;&mdash;this seemed to Yakov more
+      agonizing than anything, and he longed to lengthen out the time somehow,
+      so as to endure this shame not now, but later, in the future.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can lend you a thousand roubles, . . .&rdquo; he said, overtaking Sergey
+      Nikanoritch. &ldquo;If you tell anyone, it will do no good. . . . There&rsquo;s no
+      bringing the man back, anyway;&rdquo; and with difficulty keeping up with the
+      waiter, who did not look round, but tried to walk away faster than ever,
+      he went on: &ldquo;I can give you fifteen hundred. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He stopped because he was out of breath, while Sergey Nikanoritch walked
+      on as quickly as ever, probably afraid that he would be killed, too. Only
+      after passing the railway crossing and going half the way from the
+      crossing to the station, he furtively looked round and walked more slowly.
+      Lights, red and green, were already gleaming in the station and along the
+      line; the wind had fallen, but flakes of snow were still coming down and
+      the road had turned white again. But just at the station Sergey
+      Nikanoritch stopped, thought a minute, and turned resolutely back. It was
+      growing dark.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oblige me with the fifteen hundred, Yakov Ivanitch,&rdquo; he said, trembling
+      all over. &ldquo;I agree.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <h3>
+      VI
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      Yakov Ivanitch&rsquo;s money was in the bank of the town and was invested in
+      second mortgages; he only kept a little at home, Just what was wanted for
+      necessary expenses. Going into the kitchen he felt for the matchbox, and
+      while the sulphur was burning with a blue light he had time to make out
+      the figure of Matvey, which was still lying on the floor near the table,
+      but now it was covered with a white sheet, and nothing could be seen but
+      his boots. A cricket was chirruping. Aglaia and Dashutka were not in the
+      room, they were both sitting behind the counter in the tea-room, spinning
+      yarn in silence. Yakov Ivanitch crossed to his own room with a little lamp
+      in his hand, and pulled from under the bed a little box in which he kept
+      his money. This time there were in it four hundred and twenty one-rouble
+      notes and silver to the amount of thirty-five roubles; the notes had an
+      unpleasant heavy smell. Putting the money together in his cap, Yakov
+      Ivanitch went out into the yard and then out of the gate. He walked,
+      looking from side to side, but there was no sign of the waiter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hi!&rdquo; cried Yakov.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A dark figure stepped out from the barrier at the railway crossing and
+      came irresolutely towards him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why do you keep walking about?&rdquo; said Yakov with vexation, as he
+      recognized the waiter. &ldquo;Here you are; there is a little less than five
+      hundred. . . . I&rsquo;ve no more in the house.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very well; . . . very grateful to you,&rdquo; muttered Sergey Nikanoritch,
+      taking the money greedily and stuffing it into his pockets. He was
+      trembling all over, and that was perceptible in spite of the darkness.
+      &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t worry yourself, Yakov Ivanitch. . . . What should I chatter for: I
+      came and went away, that&rsquo;s all I&rsquo;ve had to do with it. As the saying is, I
+      know nothing and I can tell nothing . . .&rdquo; And at once he added with a
+      sigh &ldquo;Cursed life!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      For a minute they stood in silence, without looking at each other.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So it all came from a trifle, goodness knows how, . . .&rdquo; said the waiter,
+      trembling. &ldquo;I was sitting counting to myself when all at once a noise. . .
+      . I looked through the door, and just on account of Lenten oil you. . . .
+      Where is he now?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Lying there in the kitchen.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You ought to take him somewhere. . . . Why put it off?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Yakov accompanied him to the station without a word, then went home again
+      and harnessed the horse to take Matvey to Limarovo. He had decided to take
+      him to the forest of Limarovo, and to leave him there on the road, and
+      then he would tell everyone that Matvey had gone off to Vedenyapino and
+      had not come back, and then everyone would think that he had been killed
+      by someone on the road. He knew there was no deceiving anyone by this, but
+      to move, to do something, to be active, was not as agonizing as to sit
+      still and wait. He called Dashutka, and with her carried Matvey out.
+      Aglaia stayed behind to clean up the kitchen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When Yakov and Dashutka turned back they were detained at the railway
+      crossing by the barrier being let down. A long goods train was passing,
+      dragged by two engines, breathing heavily, and flinging puffs of crimson
+      fire out of their funnels.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The foremost engine uttered a piercing whistle at the crossing in sight of
+      the station.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s whistling, . . .&rdquo; said Dashutka.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The train had passed at last, and the signalman lifted the barrier without
+      haste.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is that you, Yakov Ivanitch? I didn&rsquo;t know you, so you&rsquo;ll be rich.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And then when they had reached home they had to go to bed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Aglaia and Dashutka made themselves a bed in the tea-room and lay down
+      side by side, while Yakov stretched himself on the counter. They neither
+      said their prayers nor lighted the ikon lamp before lying down to sleep.
+      All three lay awake till morning, but did not utter a single word, and it
+      seemed to them that all night someone was walking about in the empty
+      storey overhead.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Two days later a police inspector and the examining magistrate came from
+      the town and made a search, first in Matvey&rsquo;s room and then in the whole
+      tavern. They questioned Yakov first of all, and he testified that on the
+      Monday Matvey had gone to Vedenyapino to confess, and that he must have
+      been killed by the sawyers who were working on the line.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And when the examining magistrate had asked him how it had happened that
+      Matvey was found on the road, while his cap had turned up at home&mdash;surely
+      he had not gone to Vedenyapino without his cap?&mdash; and why they had
+      not found a single drop of blood beside him in the snow on the road,
+      though his head was smashed in and his face and chest were black with
+      blood, Yakov was confused, lost his head and answered:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I cannot tell.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And just what Yakov had so feared happened: the policeman came, the
+      district police officer smoked in the prayer-room and Aglaia fell upon him
+      with abuse and was rude to the police inspector; and afterwards when Yakov
+      and Aglaia were led out to the yard, the peasants crowded at the gates and
+      said, &ldquo;They are taking the Godlies!&rdquo; and it seemed that they were all
+      glad.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the inquiry the policeman stated positively that Yakov and Aglaia had
+      killed Matvey in order not to share with him, and that Matvey had money of
+      his own, and that if it was not found at the search evidently Yakov and
+      Aglaia had got hold of it. And Dashutka was questioned. She said that
+      Uncle Matvey and Aunt Aglaia quarrelled and almost fought every day over
+      money, and that Uncle Matvey was rich, so much so that he had given
+      someone&mdash;&ldquo;his Darling&rdquo;&mdash;nine hundred roubles.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Dashutka was left alone in the tavern. No one came now to drink tea or
+      vodka, and she divided her time between cleaning up the rooms, drinking
+      mead and eating rolls; but a few days later they questioned the signalman
+      at the railway crossing, and he said that late on Monday evening he had
+      seen Yakov and Dashutka driving from Limarovo. Dashutka, too, was
+      arrested, taken to the town and put in prison. It soon became known, from
+      what Aglaia said, that Sergey Nikanoritch had been present at the murder.
+      A search was made in his room, and money was found in an unusual place, in
+      his snowboots under the stove, and the money was all in small change,
+      three hundred one-rouble notes. He swore he had made this money himself,
+      and that he hadn&rsquo;t been in the tavern for a year, but witnesses testified
+      that he was poor and had been in great want of money of late, and that he
+      used to go every day to the tavern to borrow from Matvey; and the
+      policeman described how on the day of the murder he had himself gone twice
+      to the tavern with the waiter to help him to borrow. It was recalled at
+      this juncture that on Monday evening Sergey Nikanoritch had not been there
+      to meet the passenger train, but had gone off somewhere. And he, too, was
+      arrested and taken to the town.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The trial took place eleven months later.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yakov Ivanitch looked much older and much thinner, and spoke in a low
+      voice like a sick man. He felt weak, pitiful, lower in stature that anyone
+      else, and it seemed as though his soul, too, like his body, had grown
+      older and wasted, from the pangs of his conscience and from the dreams and
+      imaginings which never left him all the while he was in prison. When it
+      came out that he did not go to church the president of the court asked
+      him:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you a dissenter?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can&rsquo;t tell,&rdquo; he answered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had no religion at all now; he knew nothing and understood nothing; and
+      his old belief was hateful to him now, and seemed to him darkness and
+      folly. Aglaia was not in the least subdued, and she still went on abusing
+      the dead man, blaming him for all their misfortunes. Sergey Nikanoritch
+      had grown a beard instead of whiskers. At the trial he was red and
+      perspiring, and was evidently ashamed of his grey prison coat and of
+      sitting on the same bench with humble peasants. He defended himself
+      awkwardly, and, trying to prove that he had not been to the tavern for a
+      whole year, got into an altercation with every witness, and the spectators
+      laughed at him. Dashutka had grown fat in prison. At the trial she did not
+      understand the questions put to her, and only said that when they killed
+      Uncle Matvey she was dreadfully frightened, but afterwards she did not
+      mind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All four were found guilty of murder with mercenary motives. Yakov
+      Ivanitch was sentenced to penal servitude for twenty years; Aglaia for
+      thirteen and a half; Sergey Nikanoritch to ten; Dashutka to six.
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      VII
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      Late one evening a foreign steamer stopped in the roads of Dué in Sahalin
+      and asked for coal. The captain was asked to wait till morning, but he did
+      not want to wait over an hour, saying that if the weather changed for the
+      worse in the night there would be a risk of his having to go off without
+      coal. In the Gulf of Tartary the weather is liable to violent changes in
+      the course of half an hour, and then the shores of Sahalin are dangerous.
+      And already it had turned fresh, and there was a considerable sea running.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A gang of convicts were sent to the mine from the Voevodsky prison, the
+      grimmest and most forbidding of all the prisons in Sahalin. The coal had
+      to be loaded upon barges, and then they had to be towed by a steam-cutter
+      alongside the steamer which was anchored more than a quarter of a mile
+      from the coast, and then the unloading and reloading had to begin&mdash;an
+      exhausting task when the barge kept rocking against the steamer and the
+      men could scarcely keep on their legs for sea-sickness. The convicts, only
+      just roused from their sleep, still drowsy, went along the shore,
+      stumbling in the darkness and clanking their fetters. On the left,
+      scarcely visible, was a tall, steep, extremely gloomy-looking cliff, while
+      on the right there was a thick impenetrable mist, in which the sea moaned
+      with a prolonged monotonous sound, &ldquo;Ah! . . . ah! . . . ah! . . . ah! . .
+      .&rdquo; And it was only when the overseer was lighting his pipe, casting as he
+      did so a passing ray of light on the escort with a gun and on the coarse
+      faces of two or three of the nearest convicts, or when he went with his
+      lantern close to the water that the white crests of the foremost waves
+      could be discerned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One of this gang was Yakov Ivanitch, nicknamed among the convicts the
+      &ldquo;Brush,&rdquo; on account of his long beard. No one had addressed him by his
+      name or his father&rsquo;s name for a long time now; they called him simply
+      Yashka.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was here in disgrace, as, three months after coming to Siberia, feeling
+      an intense irresistible longing for home, he had succumbed to temptation
+      and run away; he had soon been caught, had been sentenced to penal
+      servitude for life and given forty lashes. Then he was punished by
+      flogging twice again for losing his prison clothes, though on each
+      occasion they were stolen from him. The longing for home had begun from
+      the very time he had been brought to Odessa, and the convict train had
+      stopped in the night at Progonnaya; and Yakov, pressing to the window, had
+      tried to see his own home, and could see nothing in the darkness. He had
+      no one with whom to talk of home. His sister Aglaia had been sent right
+      across Siberia, and he did not know where she was now. Dashutka was in
+      Sahalin, but she had been sent to live with some ex-convict in a far away
+      settlement; there was no news of her except that once a settler who had
+      come to the Voevodsky Prison told Yakov that Dashutka had three children.
+      Sergey Nikanoritch was serving as a footman at a government official&rsquo;s at
+      Dué, but he could not reckon on ever seeing him, as he was ashamed of
+      being acquainted with convicts of the peasant class.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The gang reached the mine, and the men took their places on the quay. It
+      was said there would not be any loading, as the weather kept getting worse
+      and the steamer was meaning to set off. They could see three lights. One
+      of them was moving: that was the steam-cutter going to the steamer, and it
+      seemed to be coming back to tell them whether the work was to be done or
+      not. Shivering with the autumn cold and the damp sea mist, wrapping
+      himself in his short torn coat, Yakov Ivanitch looked intently without
+      blinking in the direction in which lay his home. Ever since he had lived
+      in prison together with men banished here from all ends of the earth&mdash;with
+      Russians, Ukrainians, Tatars, Georgians, Chinese, Gypsies, Jews&mdash; and
+      ever since he had listened to their talk and watched their sufferings, he
+      had begun to turn again to God, and it seemed to him at last that he had
+      learned the true faith for which all his family, from his grandmother
+      Avdotya down, had so thirsted, which they had sought so long and which
+      they had never found. He knew it all now and understood where God was, and
+      how He was to be served, and the only thing he could not understand was
+      why men&rsquo;s destinies were so diverse, why this simple faith which other men
+      receive from God for nothing and together with their lives, had cost him
+      such a price that his arms and legs trembled like a drunken man&rsquo;s from all
+      the horrors and agonies which as far as he could see would go on without a
+      break to the day of his death. He looked with strained eyes into the
+      darkness, and it seemed to him that through the thousand miles of that
+      mist he could see home, could see his native province, his district,
+      Progonnaya, could see the darkness, the savagery, the heartlessness, and
+      the dull, sullen, animal indifference of the men he had left there. His
+      eyes were dimmed with tears; but still he gazed into the distance where
+      the pale lights of the steamer faintly gleamed, and his heart ached with
+      yearning for home, and he longed to live, to go back home to tell them
+      there of his new faith and to save from ruin if only one man, and to live
+      without suffering if only for one day.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The cutter arrived, and the overseer announced in a loud voice that there
+      would be no loading.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Back!&rdquo; he commanded. &ldquo;Steady!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They could hear the hoisting of the anchor chain on the steamer. A strong
+      piercing wind was blowing by now; somewhere on the steep cliff overhead
+      the trees were creaking. Most likely a storm was coming.
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0006" id="link2H_4_0006"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <h2>
+      UPROOTED
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      <i>An Incident of My Travels</i>
+    </h3>
+    <p class="pfirst">
+      <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">I</span> WAS on my way
+      back from evening service. The clock in the belfry of the Svyatogorsky
+      Monastery pealed out its soft melodious chimes by way of prelude and then
+      struck twelve. The great courtyard of the monastery stretched out at the
+      foot of the Holy Mountains on the banks of the Donets, and, enclosed by
+      the high hostel buildings as by a wall, seemed now in the night, when it
+      was lighted up only by dim lanterns, lights in the windows, and the stars,
+      a living hotch-potch full of movement, sound, and the most original
+      confusion. From end to end, so far as the eye could see, it was all choked
+      up with carts, old-fashioned coaches and chaises, vans, tilt-carts, about
+      which stood crowds of horses, dark and white, and horned oxen, while
+      people bustled about, and black long-skirted lay brothers threaded their
+      way in and out in all directions. Shadows and streaks of light cast from
+      the windows moved over the carts and the heads of men and horses, and in
+      the dense twilight this all assumed the most monstrous capricious shapes:
+      here the tilted shafts stretched upwards to the sky, here eyes of fire
+      appeared in the face of a horse, there a lay brother grew a pair of black
+      wings. . . . There was the noise of talk, the snorting and munching of
+      horses, the creaking of carts, the whimpering of children. Fresh crowds
+      kept walking in at the gate and belated carts drove up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The pines which were piled up on the overhanging mountain, one above
+      another, and leaned towards the roof of the hostel, gazed into the
+      courtyard as into a deep pit, and listened in wonder; in their dark
+      thicket the cuckoos and nightingales never ceased calling. . . . Looking
+      at the confusion, listening to the uproar, one fancied that in this living
+      hotch-potch no one understood anyone, that everyone was looking for
+      something and would not find it, and that this multitude of carts, chaises
+      and human beings could not ever succeed in getting off.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      More than ten thousand people flocked to the Holy Mountains for the
+      festivals of St. John the Divine and St. Nikolay the wonder-worker. Not
+      only the hostel buildings, but even the bakehouse, the tailoring room, the
+      carpenter&rsquo;s shop, the carriage house, were filled to overflowing. . . .
+      Those who had arrived towards night clustered like flies in autumn, by the
+      walls, round the wells in the yard, or in the narrow passages of the
+      hostel, waiting to be shown a resting-place for the night. The lay
+      brothers, young and old, were in an incessant movement, with no rest or
+      hope of being relieved. By day or late at night they produced the same
+      impression of men hastening somewhere and agitated by something, yet, in
+      spite of their extreme exhaustion, their faces remained full of courage
+      and kindly welcome, their voices friendly, their movements rapid. . . .
+      For everyone who came they had to find a place to sleep, and to provide
+      food and drink; to those who were deaf, slow to understand, or profuse in
+      questions, they had to give long and wearisome explanations, to tell them
+      why there were no empty rooms, at what o&rsquo;clock the service was to be where
+      holy bread was sold, and so on. They had to run, to carry, to talk
+      incessantly, but more than that, they had to be polite, too, to be
+      tactful, to try to arrange that the Greeks from Mariupol, accustomed to
+      live more comfortably than the Little Russians, should be put with other
+      Greeks, that some shopkeeper from Bahmut or Lisitchansk, dressed like a
+      lady, should not be offended by being put with peasants. There were
+      continual cries of: &ldquo;Father, kindly give us some kvass! Kindly give us
+      some hay!&rdquo; or &ldquo;Father, may I drink water after confession?&rdquo; And the lay
+      brother would have to give out kvass or hay or to answer: &ldquo;Address
+      yourself to the priest, my good woman, we have not the authority to give
+      permission.&rdquo; Another question would follow, &ldquo;Where is the priest then?&rdquo;
+       and the lay brother would have to explain where was the priest&rsquo;s cell.
+      With all this bustling activity, he yet had to make time to go to service
+      in the church, to serve in the part devoted to the gentry, and to give
+      full answers to the mass of necessary and unnecessary questions which
+      pilgrims of the educated class are fond of showering about them. Watching
+      them during the course of twenty-four hours, I found it hard to imagine
+      when these black moving figures sat down and when they slept.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When, coming back from the evening service, I went to the hostel in which
+      a place had been assigned me, the monk in charge of the sleeping quarters
+      was standing in the doorway, and beside him, on the steps, was a group of
+      several men and women dressed like townsfolk.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sir,&rdquo; said the monk, stopping me, &ldquo;will you be so good as to allow this
+      young man to pass the night in your room? If you would do us the favour!
+      There are so many people and no place left&mdash;it is really dreadful!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And he indicated a short figure in a light overcoat and a straw hat. I
+      consented, and my chance companion followed me. Unlocking the little
+      padlock on my door, I was always, whether I wanted to or not, obliged to
+      look at the picture that hung on the doorpost on a level with my face.
+      This picture with the title, &ldquo;A Meditation on Death,&rdquo; depicted a monk on
+      his knees, gazing at a coffin and at a skeleton laying in it. Behind the
+      man&rsquo;s back stood another skeleton, somewhat more solid and carrying a
+      scythe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There are no bones like that,&rdquo; said my companion, pointing to the place
+      in the skeleton where there ought to have been a pelvis. &ldquo;Speaking
+      generally, you know, the spiritual fare provided for the people is not of
+      the first quality,&rdquo; he added, and heaved through his nose a long and very
+      melancholy sigh, meant to show me that I had to do with a man who really
+      knew something about spiritual fare.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While I was looking for the matches to light a candle he sighed once more
+      and said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When I was in Harkov I went several times to the anatomy theatre and saw
+      the bones there; I have even been in the mortuary. Am I not in your way?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      My room was small and poky, with neither table nor chairs in it, but quite
+      filled up with a chest of drawers by the window, the stove and two little
+      wooden sofas which stood against the walls, facing one another, leaving a
+      narrow space to walk between them. Thin rusty-looking little mattresses
+      lay on the little sofas, as well as my belongings. There were two sofas,
+      so this room was evidently intended for two, and I pointed out the fact to
+      my companion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They will soon be ringing for mass, though,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;and I shan&rsquo;t have
+      to be in your way very long.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Still under the impression that he was in my way and feeling awkward, he
+      moved with a guilty step to his little sofa, sighed guiltily and sat down.
+      When the tallow candle with its dim, dilatory flame had left off
+      flickering and burned up sufficiently to make us both visible, I could
+      make out what he was like. He was a young man of two-and-twenty, with a
+      round and pleasing face, dark childlike eyes, dressed like a townsman in
+      grey cheap clothes, and as one could judge from his complexion and narrow
+      shoulders, not used to manual labour. He was of a very indefinite type;
+      one could take him neither for a student nor for a man in trade, still
+      less for a workman. But looking at his attractive face and childlike
+      friendly eyes, I was unwilling to believe he was one of those vagabond
+      impostors with whom every conventual establishment where they give food
+      and lodging is flooded, and who give themselves out as divinity students,
+      expelled for standing up for justice, or for church singers who have lost
+      their voice. . . . There was something characteristic, typical, very
+      familiar in his face, but what exactly, I could not remember nor make out.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For a long time he sat silent, pondering. Probably because I had not shown
+      appreciation of his remarks about bones and the mortuary, he thought that
+      I was ill-humoured and displeased at his presence. Pulling a sausage out
+      of his pocket, he turned it about before his eyes and said irresolutely:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Excuse my troubling you, . . . have you a knife?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I gave him a knife.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The sausage is disgusting,&rdquo; he said, frowning and cutting himself off a
+      little bit. &ldquo;In the shop here they sell you rubbish and fleece you
+      horribly. . . . I would offer you a piece, but you would scarcely care to
+      consume it. Will you have some?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      In his language, too, there was something typical that had a very great
+      deal in common with what was characteristic in his face, but what it was
+      exactly I still could not decide. To inspire confidence and to show that I
+      was not ill-humoured, I took some of the proffered sausage. It certainly
+      was horrible; one needed the teeth of a good house-dog to deal with it. As
+      we worked our jaws we got into conversation; we began complaining to each
+      other of the lengthiness of the service.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The rule here approaches that of Mount Athos,&rdquo; I said; &ldquo;but at Athos the
+      night services last ten hours, and on great feast-days &mdash;fourteen!
+      You should go there for prayers!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; answered my companion, and he wagged his head, &ldquo;I have been here
+      for three weeks. And you know, every day services, every day services. On
+      ordinary days at midnight they ring for matins, at five o&rsquo;clock for early
+      mass, at nine o&rsquo;clock for late mass. Sleep is utterly out of the question.
+      In the daytime there are hymns of praise, special prayers, vespers. . . .
+      And when I was preparing for the sacrament I was simply dropping from
+      exhaustion.&rdquo; He sighed and went on: &ldquo;And it&rsquo;s awkward not to go to church.
+      . . . The monks give one a room, feed one, and, you know, one is ashamed
+      not to go. One wouldn&rsquo;t mind standing it for a day or two, perhaps, but
+      three weeks is too much&mdash;much too much! Are you here for long?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am going to-morrow evening.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But I am staying another fortnight.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But I thought it was not the rule to stay for so long here?&rdquo; I said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, that&rsquo;s true: if anyone stays too long, sponging on the monks, he is
+      asked to go. Judge for yourself, if the proletariat were allowed to stay
+      on here as long as they liked there would never be a room vacant, and they
+      would eat up the whole monastery. That&rsquo;s true. But the monks make an
+      exception for me, and I hope they won&rsquo;t turn me out for some time. You
+      know I am a convert.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You mean?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am a Jew baptized. . . . Only lately I have embraced orthodoxy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Now I understood what I had before been utterly unable to understand from
+      his face: his thick lips, and his way of twitching up the right corner of
+      his mouth and his right eyebrow, when he was talking, and that peculiar
+      oily brilliance of his eyes which is only found in Jews. I understood,
+      too, his phraseology. . . . From further conversation I learned that his
+      name was Alexandr Ivanitch, and had in the past been Isaac, that he was a
+      native of the Mogilev province, and that he had come to the Holy Mountains
+      from Novotcherkassk, where he had adopted the orthodox faith.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Having finished his sausage, Alexandr Ivanitch got up, and, raising his
+      right eyebrow, said his prayer before the ikon. The eyebrow remained up
+      when he sat down again on the little sofa and began giving me a brief
+      account of his long biography.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;From early childhood I cherished a love for learning,&rdquo; he began in a tone
+      which suggested he was not speaking of himself, but of some great man of
+      the past. &ldquo;My parents were poor Hebrews; they exist by buying and selling
+      in a small way; they live like beggars, you know, in filth. In fact, all
+      the people there are poor and superstitious; they don&rsquo;t like education,
+      because education, very naturally, turns a man away from religion. . . .
+      They are fearful fanatics. . . . Nothing would induce my parents to let me
+      be educated, and they wanted me to take to trade, too, and to know nothing
+      but the Talmud. . . . But you will agree, it is not everyone who can spend
+      his whole life struggling for a crust of bread, wallowing in filth, and
+      mumbling the Talmud. At times officers and country gentlemen would put up
+      at papa&rsquo;s inn, and they used to talk a great deal of things which in those
+      days I had never dreamed of; and, of course, it was alluring and moved me
+      to envy. I used to cry and entreat them to send me to school, but they
+      taught me to read Hebrew and nothing more. Once I found a Russian
+      newspaper, and took it home with me to make a kite of it. I was beaten for
+      it, though I couldn&rsquo;t read Russian. Of course, fanaticism is inevitable,
+      for every people instinctively strives to preserve its nationality, but I
+      did not know that then and was very indignant. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Having made such an intellectual observation, Isaac, as he had been,
+      raised his right eyebrow higher than ever in his satisfaction and looked
+      at me, as it were, sideways, like a cock at a grain of corn, with an air
+      as though he would say: &ldquo;Now at last you see for certain that I am an
+      intellectual man, don&rsquo;t you?&rdquo; After saying something more about fanaticism
+      and his irresistible yearning for enlightenment, he went on:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What could I do? I ran away to Smolensk. And there I had a cousin who
+      relined saucepans and made tins. Of course, I was glad to work under him,
+      as I had nothing to live upon; I was barefoot and in rags. . . . I thought
+      I could work by day and study at night and on Saturdays. And so I did, but
+      the police found out I had no passport and sent me back by stages to my
+      father. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Alexandr Ivanitch shrugged one shoulder and sighed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What was one to do?&rdquo; he went on, and the more vividly the past rose up
+      before his mind, the more marked his Jewish accent became. &ldquo;My parents
+      punished me and handed me over to my grandfather, a fanatical old Jew, to
+      be reformed. But I went off at night to Shklov. And when my uncle tried to
+      catch me in Shklov, I went off to Mogilev; there I stayed two days and
+      then I went off to Starodub with a comrade.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Later on he mentioned in his story Gonel, Kiev, Byelaya, Tserkov, Uman,
+      Balt, Bendery and at last reached Odessa.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In Odessa I wandered about for a whole week, out of work and hungry, till
+      I was taken in by some Jews who went about the town buying second-hand
+      clothes. I knew how to read and write by then, and had done arithmetic up
+      to fractions, and I wanted to go to study somewhere, but I had not the
+      means. What was I to do? For six months I went about Odessa buying old
+      clothes, but the Jews paid me no wages, the rascals. I resented it and
+      left them. Then I went by steamer to Perekop.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What for?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, nothing. A Greek promised me a job there. In short, till I was
+      sixteen I wandered about like that with no definite work and no roots till
+      I got to Poltava. There a student, a Jew, found out that I wanted to
+      study, and gave me a letter to the Harkov students. Of course, I went to
+      Harkov. The students consulted together and began to prepare me for the
+      technical school. And, you know, I must say the students that I met there
+      were such that I shall never forget them to the day of my death. To say
+      nothing of their giving me food and lodging, they set me on the right
+      path, they made me think, showed me the object of life. Among them were
+      intellectual remarkable people who by now are celebrated. For instance,
+      you have heard of Grumaher, haven&rsquo;t you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, I haven&rsquo;t.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You haven&rsquo;t! He wrote very clever articles in the <i>Harkov Gazette</i>,
+      and was preparing to be a professor. Well, I read a great deal and
+      attended the student&rsquo;s societies, where you hear nothing that is
+      commonplace. I was working up for six months, but as one has to have been
+      through the whole high-school course of mathematics to enter the technical
+      school, Grumaher advised me to try for the veterinary institute, where
+      they admit high-school boys from the sixth form. Of course, I began
+      working for it. I did not want to be a veterinary surgeon but they told me
+      that after finishing the course at the veterinary institute I should be
+      admitted to the faculty of medicine without examination. I learnt all
+      Kühner; I could read Cornelius Nepos, <i>à livre ouvert</i>; and in Greek
+      I read through almost all Curtius. But, you know, one thing and another, .
+      . . the students leaving and the uncertainty of my position, and then I
+      heard that my mamma had come and was looking for me all over Harkov. Then
+      I went away. What was I to do? But luckily I learned that there was a
+      school of mines here on the Donets line. Why should I not enter that? You
+      know the school of mines qualifies one as a mining foreman&mdash;a
+      splendid berth. I know of mines where the foremen get a salary of fifteen
+      hundred a year. Capital. . . . I entered it. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      With an expression of reverent awe on his face Alexandr Ivanitch
+      enumerated some two dozen abstruse sciences in which instruction was given
+      at the school of mines; he described the school itself, the construction
+      of the shafts, and the condition of the miners. . . . Then he told me a
+      terrible story which sounded like an invention, though I could not help
+      believing it, for his tone in telling it was too genuine and the
+      expression of horror on his Semitic face was too evidently sincere.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;While I was doing the practical work, I had such an accident one day!&rdquo; he
+      said, raising both eyebrows. &ldquo;I was at a mine here in the Donets district.
+      You have seen, I dare say, how people are let down into the mine. You
+      remember when they start the horse and set the gates moving one bucket on
+      the pulley goes down into the mine, while the other comes up; when the
+      first begins to come up, then the second goes down&mdash;exactly like a
+      well with two pails. Well, one day I got into the bucket, began going
+      down, and can you fancy, all at once I heard, Trrr! The chain had broken
+      and I flew to the devil together with the bucket and the broken bit of
+      chain. . . . I fell from a height of twenty feet, flat on my chest and
+      stomach, while the bucket, being heavier, reached the bottom before me,
+      and I hit this shoulder here against its edge. I lay, you know, stunned. I
+      thought I was killed, and all at once I saw a fresh calamity: the other
+      bucket, which was going up, having lost the counter-balancing weight, was
+      coming down with a crash straight upon me. . . . What was I to do? Seeing
+      the position, I squeezed closer to the wall, crouching and waiting for the
+      bucket to come full crush next minute on my head. I thought of papa and
+      mamma and Mogilev and Grumaher. . . . I prayed. . . . But happily . . . it
+      frightens me even to think of it. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Alexandr Ivanitch gave a constrained smile and rubbed his forehead with
+      his hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But happily it fell beside me and only caught this side a little. . . .
+      It tore off coat, shirt and skin, you know, from this side. . . . The
+      force of it was terrific. I was unconscious after it. They got me out and
+      sent me to the hospital. I was there four months, and the doctors there
+      said I should go into consumption. I always have a cough now and a pain in
+      my chest. And my psychic condition is terrible. . . . When I am alone in a
+      room I feel overcome with terror. Of course, with my health in that state,
+      to be a mining foreman is out of the question. I had to give up the school
+      of mines. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And what are you doing now?&rdquo; I asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have passed my examination as a village schoolmaster. Now I belong to
+      the orthodox church, and I have a right to be a teacher. In
+      Novotcherkassk, where I was baptized, they took a great interest in me and
+      promised me a place in a church parish school. I am going there in a
+      fortnight, and shall ask again.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Alexandr Ivanitch took off his overcoat and remained in a shirt with an
+      embroidered Russian collar and a worsted belt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is time for bed,&rdquo; he said, folding his overcoat for a pillow, and
+      yawning. &ldquo;Till lately, you know, I had no knowledge of God at all. I was
+      an atheist. When I was lying in the hospital I thought of religion, and
+      began reflecting on that subject. In my opinion, there is only one
+      religion possible for a thinking man, and that is the Christian religion.
+      If you don&rsquo;t believe in Christ, then there is nothing else to believe in,
+      . . . is there? Judaism has outlived its day, and is preserved only owing
+      to the peculiarities of the Jewish race. When civilization reaches the
+      Jews there will not be a trace of Judaism left. All young Jews are
+      atheists now, observe. The New Testament is the natural continuation of
+      the Old, isn&rsquo;t it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I began trying to find out the reasons which had led him to take so grave
+      and bold a step as the change of religion, but he kept repeating the same,
+      &ldquo;The New Testament is the natural continuation of the Old&rdquo;&mdash;a formula
+      obviously not his own, but acquired&mdash; which did not explain the
+      question in the least. In spite of my efforts and artifices, the reasons
+      remained obscure. If one could believe that he had embraced Orthodoxy from
+      conviction, as he said he had done, what was the nature and foundation of
+      this conviction it was impossible to grasp from his words. It was equally
+      impossible to assume that he had changed his religion from interested
+      motives: his cheap shabby clothes, his going on living at the expense of
+      the convent, and the uncertainty of his future, did not look like
+      interested motives. There was nothing for it but to accept the idea that
+      my companion had been impelled to change his religion by the same restless
+      spirit which had flung him like a chip of wood from town to town, and
+      which he, using the generally accepted formula, called the craving for
+      enlightenment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Before going to bed I went into the corridor to get a drink of water. When
+      I came back my companion was standing in the middle of the room, and he
+      looked at me with a scared expression. His face looked a greyish white,
+      and there were drops of perspiration on his forehead.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My nerves are in an awful state,&rdquo; he muttered with a sickly smile,&rdquo;
+       awful! It&rsquo;s acute psychological disturbance. But that&rsquo;s of no
+      consequence.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And he began reasoning again that the New Testament was a natural
+      continuation of the Old, that Judaism has outlived its day. . . . Picking
+      out his phrases, he seemed to be trying to put together the forces of his
+      conviction and to smother with them the uneasiness of his soul, and to
+      prove to himself that in giving up the religion of his fathers he had done
+      nothing dreadful or peculiar, but had acted as a thinking man free from
+      prejudice, and that therefore he could boldly remain in a room all alone
+      with his conscience. He was trying to convince himself, and with his eyes
+      besought my assistance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Meanwhile a big clumsy wick had burned up on our tallow candle. It was by
+      now getting light. At the gloomy little window, which was turning blue, we
+      could distinctly see both banks of the Donets River and the oak copse
+      beyond the river. It was time to sleep.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It will be very interesting here to-morrow,&rdquo; said my companion when I put
+      out the candle and went to bed. &ldquo;After early mass, the procession will go
+      in boats from the Monastery to the Hermitage.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Raising his right eyebrow and putting his head on one side, he prayed
+      before the ikons, and, without undressing, lay down on his little sofa.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; he said, turning over on the other side.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why yes?&rdquo; I asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When I accepted orthodoxy in Novotcherkassk my mother was looking for me
+      in Rostov. She felt that I meant to change my religion,&rdquo; he sighed, and
+      went on: &ldquo;It is six years since I was there in the province of Mogilev. My
+      sister must be married by now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      After a short silence, seeing that I was still awake, he began talking
+      quietly of how they soon, thank God, would give him a job, and that at
+      last he would have a home of his own, a settled position, his daily bread
+      secure. . . . And I was thinking that this man would never have a home of
+      his own, nor a settled position, nor his daily bread secure. He dreamed
+      aloud of a village school as of the Promised Land; like the majority of
+      people, he had a prejudice against a wandering life, and regarded it as
+      something exceptional, abnormal and accidental, like an illness, and was
+      looking for salvation in ordinary workaday life. The tone of his voice
+      betrayed that he was conscious of his abnormal position and regretted it.
+      He seemed as it were apologizing and justifying himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Not more than a yard from me lay a homeless wanderer; in the rooms of the
+      hostels and by the carts in the courtyard among the pilgrims some hundreds
+      of such homeless wanderers were waiting for the morning, and further away,
+      if one could picture to oneself the whole of Russia, a vast multitude of
+      such uprooted creatures was pacing at that moment along highroads and
+      side-tracks, seeking something better, or were waiting for the dawn,
+      asleep in wayside inns and little taverns, or on the grass under the open
+      sky. . . . As I fell asleep I imagined how amazed and perhaps even
+      overjoyed all these people would have been if reasoning and words could be
+      found to prove to them that their life was as little in need of
+      justification as any other. In my sleep I heard a bell ring outside as
+      plaintively as though shedding bitter tears, and the lay brother calling
+      out several times:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy upon us! Come to mass!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      When I woke up my companion was not in the room. It was sunny and there
+      was a murmur of the crowds through the window. Going out, I learned that
+      mass was over and that the procession had set off for the Hermitage some
+      time before. The people were wandering in crowds upon the river bank and,
+      feeling at liberty, did not know what to do with themselves: they could
+      not eat or drink, as the late mass was not yet over at the Hermitage; the
+      Monastery shops where pilgrims are so fond of crowding and asking prices
+      were still shut. In spite of their exhaustion, many of them from sheer
+      boredom were trudging to the Hermitage. The path from the Monastery to the
+      Hermitage, towards which I directed my steps, twined like a snake along
+      the high steep bank, going up and down and threading in and out among the
+      oaks and pines. Below, the Donets gleamed, reflecting the sun; above, the
+      rugged chalk cliff stood up white with bright green on the top from the
+      young foliage of oaks and pines, which, hanging one above another, managed
+      somehow to grow on the vertical cliff without falling. The pilgrims
+      trailed along the path in single file, one behind another. The majority of
+      them were Little Russians from the neighbouring districts, but there were
+      many from a distance, too, who had come on foot from the provinces of
+      Kursk and Orel; in the long string of varied colours there were Greek
+      settlers, too, from Mariupol, strongly built, sedate and friendly people,
+      utterly unlike their weakly and degenerate compatriots who fill our
+      southern seaside towns. There were men from the Donets, too, with red
+      stripes on their breeches, and emigrants from the Tavritchesky province.
+      There were a good many pilgrims of a nondescript class, like my Alexandr
+      Ivanitch; what sort of people they were and where they came from it was
+      impossible to tell from their faces, from their clothes, or from their
+      speech. The path ended at the little landing-stage, from which a narrow
+      road went to the left to the Hermitage, cutting its way through the
+      mountain. At the landing-stage stood two heavy big boats of a forbidding
+      aspect, like the New Zealand pirogues which one may see in the works of
+      Jules Verne. One boat with rugs on the seats was destined for the clergy
+      and the singers, the other without rugs for the public. When the
+      procession was returning I found myself among the elect who had succeeded
+      in squeezing themselves into the second. There were so many of the elect
+      that the boat scarcely moved, and one had to stand all the way without
+      stirring and to be careful that one&rsquo;s hat was not crushed. The route was
+      lovely. Both banks&mdash;one high, steep and white, with overhanging pines
+      and oaks, with the crowds hurrying back along the path, and the other
+      shelving, with green meadows and an oak copse bathed in sunshine&mdash;looked
+      as happy and rapturous as though the May morning owed its charm only to
+      them. The reflection of the sun in the rapidly flowing Donets quivered and
+      raced away in all directions, and its long rays played on the chasubles,
+      on the banners and on the drops splashed up by the oars. The singing of
+      the Easter hymns, the ringing of the bells, the splash of the oars in the
+      water, the calls of the birds, all mingled in the air into something
+      tender and harmonious. The boat with the priests and the banners led the
+      way; at its helm the black figure of a lay brother stood motionless as a
+      statue.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When the procession was getting near the Monastery, I noticed Alexandr
+      Ivanitch among the elect. He was standing in front of them all, and, his
+      mouth wide open with pleasure and his right eyebrow cocked up, was gazing
+      at the procession. His face was beaming; probably at such moments, when
+      there were so many people round him and it was so bright, he was satisfied
+      with himself, his new religion, and his conscience.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When a little later we were sitting in our room, drinking tea, he still
+      beamed with satisfaction; his face showed that he was satisfied both with
+      the tea and with me, that he fully appreciated my being an intellectual,
+      but that he would know how to play his part with credit if any
+      intellectual topic turned up. . . .
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tell me, what psychology ought I to read?&rdquo; he began an intellectual
+      conversation, wrinkling up his nose.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, what do you want it for?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;One cannot be a teacher without a knowledge of psychology. Before
+      teaching a boy I ought to understand his soul.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I told him that psychology alone would not be enough to make one
+      understand a boy&rsquo;s soul, and moreover psychology for a teacher who had not
+      yet mastered the technical methods of instruction in reading, writing, and
+      arithmetic would be a luxury as superfluous as the higher mathematics. He
+      readily agreed with me, and began describing how hard and responsible was
+      the task of a teacher, how hard it was to eradicate in the boy the
+      habitual tendency to evil and superstition, to make him think honestly and
+      independently, to instil into him true religion, the ideas of personal
+      dignity, of freedom, and so on. In answer to this I said something to him.
+      He agreed again. He agreed very readily, in fact. Obviously his brain had
+      not a very firm grasp of all these &ldquo;intellectual subjects.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Up to the time of my departure we strolled together about the Monastery,
+      whiling away the long hot day. He never left my side a minute; whether he
+      had taken a fancy to me or was afraid of solitude, God only knows! I
+      remember we sat together under a clump of yellow acacia in one of the
+      little gardens that are scattered on the mountain side.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am leaving here in a fortnight,&rdquo; he said; &ldquo;it is high time.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you going on foot?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;From here to Slavyansk I shall walk, then by railway to Nikitovka; from
+      Nikitovka the Donets line branches off, and along that branch line I shall
+      walk as far as Hatsepetovka, and there a railway guard, I know, will help
+      me on my way.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I thought of the bare, deserted steppe between Nikitovka and Hatsepetovka,
+      and pictured to myself Alexandr Ivanitch striding along it, with his
+      doubts, his homesickness, and his fear of solitude . . . . He read boredom
+      in my face, and sighed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And my sister must be married by now,&rdquo; he said, thinking aloud, and at
+      once, to shake off melancholy thoughts, pointed to the top of the rock and
+      said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;From that mountain one can see Izyum.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      As we were walking up the mountain he had a little misfortune. I suppose
+      he stumbled, for he slit his cotton trousers and tore the sole of his
+      shoe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tss!&rdquo; he said, frowning as he took off a shoe and exposed a bare foot
+      without a stocking. &ldquo;How unpleasant! . . . That&rsquo;s a complication, you
+      know, which . . . Yes!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Turning the shoe over and over before his eyes, as though unable to
+      believe that the sole was ruined for ever, he spent a long time frowning,
+      sighing, and clicking with his tongue.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I had in my trunk a pair of boots, old but fashionable, with pointed toes
+      and laces. I had brought them with me in case of need, and only wore them
+      in wet weather. When we got back to our room I made up a phrase as
+      diplomatic as I could and offered him these boots. He accepted them and
+      said with dignity:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I should thank you, but I know that you consider thanks a convention.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He was pleased as a child with the pointed toes and the laces, and even
+      changed his plans.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now I shall go to Novotcherkassk in a week, and not in a fortnight,&rdquo; he
+      said, thinking aloud. &ldquo;In shoes like these I shall not be ashamed to show
+      myself to my godfather. I was not going away from here just because I
+      hadn&rsquo;t any decent clothes. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      When the coachman was carrying out my trunk, a lay brother with a good
+      ironical face came in to sweep out the room. Alexandr Ivanitch seemed
+      flustered and embarrassed and asked him timidly:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Am I to stay here or go somewhere else?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He could not make up his mind to occupy a whole room to himself, and
+      evidently by now was feeling ashamed of living at the expense of the
+      Monastery. He was very reluctant to part from me; to put off being lonely
+      as long as possible, he asked leave to see me on my way.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The road from the Monastery, which had been excavated at the cost of no
+      little labour in the chalk mountain, moved upwards, going almost like a
+      spiral round the mountain, over roots and under sullen overhanging pines.
+      . . .
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Donets was the first to vanish from our sight, after it the Monastery
+      yard with its thousands of people, and then the green roofs. . . . Since I
+      was mounting upwards everything seemed vanishing into a pit. The cross on
+      the church, burnished by the rays of the setting sun, gleamed brightly in
+      the abyss and vanished. Nothing was left but the oaks, the pines, and the
+      white road. But then our carriage came out on a level country, and that
+      was all left below and behind us. Alexandr Ivanitch jumped out and,
+      smiling mournfully, glanced at me for the last time with his childish
+      eyes, and vanished from me for ever. . . .
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The impressions of the Holy Mountains had already become memories, and I
+      saw something new: the level plain, the whitish-brown distance, the way
+      side copse, and beyond it a windmill which stood with out moving, and
+      seemed bored at not being allowed to wave its sails because it was a
+      holiday.
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0007" id="link2H_4_0007"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <h2>
+      THE STEPPE
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      <i>The Story of a Journey</i>
+    </h3>
+    <h3>
+      I
+    </h3>
+    <p class="pfirst">
+      <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">E</span>ARLY one morning
+      in July a shabby covered chaise, one of those antediluvian chaises without
+      springs in which no one travels in Russia nowadays, except merchant&rsquo;s
+      clerks, dealers and the less well-to-do among priests, drove out of N.,
+      the principal town of the province of Z., and rumbled noisily along the
+      posting-track. It rattled and creaked at every movement; the pail, hanging
+      on behind, chimed in gruffly, and from these sounds alone and from the
+      wretched rags of leather hanging loose about its peeling body one could
+      judge of its decrepit age and readiness to drop to pieces.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Two of the inhabitants of N. were sitting in the chaise; they were a
+      merchant of N. called Ivan Ivanitch Kuzmitchov, a man with a shaven face
+      wearing glasses and a straw hat, more like a government clerk than a
+      merchant, and Father Christopher Sireysky, the priest of the Church of St.
+      Nikolay at N., a little old man with long hair, in a grey canvas cassock,
+      a wide-brimmed top-hat and a coloured embroidered girdle. The former was
+      absorbed in thought, and kept tossing his head to shake off drowsiness; in
+      his countenance an habitual business-like reserve was struggling with the
+      genial expression of a man who has just said good-bye to his relatives and
+      has had a good drink at parting. The latter gazed with moist eyes
+      wonderingly at God&rsquo;s world, and his smile was so broad that it seemed to
+      embrace even the brim of his hat; his face was red and looked frozen. Both
+      of them, Father Christopher as well as Kuzmitchov, were going to sell
+      wool. At parting with their families they had just eaten heartily of
+      pastry puffs and cream, and although it was so early in the morning had
+      had a glass or two. . . . Both were in the best of humours.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Apart from the two persons described above and the coachman Deniska, who
+      lashed the pair of frisky bay horses, there was another figure in the
+      chaise&mdash;a boy of nine with a sunburnt face, wet with tears. This was
+      Yegorushka, Kuzmitchov&rsquo;s nephew. With the sanction of his uncle and the
+      blessing of Father Christopher, he was now on his way to go to school. His
+      mother, Olga Ivanovna, the widow of a collegiate secretary, and
+      Kuzmitchov&rsquo;s sister, who was fond of educated people and refined society,
+      had entreated her brother to take Yegorushka with him when he went to sell
+      wool and to put him to school; and now the boy was sitting on the box
+      beside the coachman Deniska, holding on to his elbow to keep from falling
+      off, and dancing up and down like a kettle on the hob, with no notion
+      where he was going or what he was going for. The rapid motion through the
+      air blew out his red shirt like a balloon on his back and made his new hat
+      with a peacock&rsquo;s feather in it, like a coachman&rsquo;s, keep slipping on to the
+      back of his head. He felt himself an intensely unfortunate person, and had
+      an inclination to cry.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When the chaise drove past the prison, Yegorushka glanced at the sentinels
+      pacing slowly by the high white walls, at the little barred windows, at
+      the cross shining on the roof, and remembered how the week before, on the
+      day of the Holy Mother of Kazan, he had been with his mother to the prison
+      church for the Dedication Feast, and how before that, at Easter, he had
+      gone to the prison with Deniska and Ludmila the cook, and had taken the
+      prisoners Easter bread, eggs, cakes and roast beef. The prisoners had
+      thanked them and made the sign of the cross, and one of them had given
+      Yegorushka a pewter buckle of his own making.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The boy gazed at the familiar places, while the hateful chaise flew by and
+      left them all behind. After the prison he caught glimpses of black grimy
+      foundries, followed by the snug green cemetery surrounded by a wall of
+      cobblestones; white crosses and tombstones, nestling among green
+      cherry-trees and looking in the distance like patches of white, peeped out
+      gaily from behind the wall. Yegorushka remembered that when the cherries
+      were in blossom those white patches melted with the flowers into a sea of
+      white; and that when the cherries were ripe the white tombstones and
+      crosses were dotted with splashes of red like bloodstains. Under the
+      cherry trees in the cemetery Yegorushka&rsquo;s father and granny, Zinaida
+      Danilovna, lay sleeping day and night. When Granny had died she had been
+      put in a long narrow coffin and two pennies had been put upon her eyes,
+      which would not keep shut. Up to the time of her death she had been brisk,
+      and used to bring soft rolls covered with poppy seeds from the market. Now
+      she did nothing but sleep and sleep. . . .
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Beyond the cemetery came the smoking brickyards. From under the long roofs
+      of reeds that looked as though pressed flat to the ground, a thick black
+      smoke rose in great clouds and floated lazily upwards. The sky was murky
+      above the brickyards and the cemetery, and great shadows from the clouds
+      of smoke crept over the fields and across the roads. Men and horses
+      covered with red dust were moving about in the smoke near the roofs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The town ended with the brickyards and the open country began. Yegorushka
+      looked at the town for the last time, pressed his face against Deniska&rsquo;s
+      elbow, and wept bitterly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come, not done howling yet, cry-baby!&rdquo; cried Kuzmitchov. &ldquo;You are
+      blubbering again, little milksop! If you don&rsquo;t want to go, stay behind; no
+      one is taking you by force!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Never mind, never mind, Yegor boy, never mind,&rdquo; Father Christopher
+      muttered rapidly&mdash;&ldquo;never mind, my boy. . . . Call upon God. . . . You
+      are not going for your harm, but for your good. Learning is light, as the
+      saying is, and ignorance is darkness. . . . That is so, truly.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you want to go back?&rdquo; asked Kuzmitchov.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, . . . yes, . . .&rdquo; answered Yegorushka, sobbing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, you&rsquo;d better go back then. Anyway, you are going for nothing; it&rsquo;s
+      a day&rsquo;s journey for a spoonful of porridge.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Never mind, never mind, my boy,&rdquo; Father Christopher went on. &ldquo;Call upon
+      God. . . . Lomonosov set off with the fishermen in the same way, and he
+      became a man famous all over Europe. Learning in conjunction with faith
+      brings forth fruit pleasing to God. What are the words of the prayer? For
+      the glory of our Maker, for the comfort of our parents, for the benefit of
+      our Church and our country. . . . Yes, indeed!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The benefit is not the same in all cases,&rdquo; said Kuzmitchov, lighting a
+      cheap cigar; &ldquo;some will study twenty years and get no sense from it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That does happen.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Learning is a benefit to some, but others only muddle their brains. My
+      sister is a woman who does not understand; she is set upon refinement, and
+      wants to turn Yegorka into a learned man, and she does not understand that
+      with my business I could settle Yegorka happily for the rest of his life.
+      I tell you this, that if everyone were to go in for being learned and
+      refined there would be no one to sow the corn and do the trading; they
+      would all die of hunger.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And if all go in for trading and sowing corn there will be no one to
+      acquire learning.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And considering that each of them had said something weighty and
+      convincing, Kuzmitchov and Father Christopher both looked serious and
+      cleared their throats simultaneously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Deniska, who had been listening to their conversation without
+      understanding a word of it, shook his head and, rising in his seat, lashed
+      at both the bays. A silence followed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Meanwhile a wide boundless plain encircled by a chain of low hills lay
+      stretched before the travellers&rsquo; eyes. Huddling together and peeping out
+      from behind one another, these hills melted together into rising ground,
+      which stretched right to the very horizon and disappeared into the lilac
+      distance; one drives on and on and cannot discern where it begins or where
+      it ends. . . . The sun had already peeped out from beyond the town behind
+      them, and quietly, without fuss, set to its accustomed task. At first in
+      the distance before them a broad, bright, yellow streak of light crept
+      over the ground where the earth met the sky, near the little barrows and
+      the windmills, which in the distance looked like tiny men waving their
+      arms. A minute later a similar streak gleamed a little nearer, crept to
+      the right and embraced the hills. Something warm touched Yegorushka&rsquo;s
+      spine; the streak of light, stealing up from behind, darted between the
+      chaise and the horses, moved to meet the other streak, and soon the whole
+      wide steppe flung off the twilight of early morning, and was smiling and
+      sparkling with dew.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The cut rye, the coarse steppe grass, the milkwort, the wild hemp, all
+      withered from the sultry heat, turned brown and half dead, now washed by
+      the dew and caressed by the sun, revived, to fade again. Arctic petrels
+      flew across the road with joyful cries; marmots called to one another in
+      the grass. Somewhere, far away to the left, lapwings uttered their
+      plaintive notes. A covey of partridges, scared by the chaise, fluttered up
+      and with their soft &ldquo;trrrr!&rdquo; flew off to the hills. In the grass crickets,
+      locusts and grasshoppers kept up their churring, monotonous music.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But a little time passed, the dew evaporated, the air grew stagnant, and
+      the disillusioned steppe began to wear its jaded July aspect. The grass
+      drooped, everything living was hushed. The sun-baked hills, brownish-green
+      and lilac in the distance, with their quiet shadowy tones, the plain with
+      the misty distance and, arched above them, the sky, which seems terribly
+      deep and transparent in the steppes, where there are no woods or high
+      hills, seemed now endless, petrified with dreariness. . . .
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      How stifling and oppressive it was! The chaise raced along, while
+      Yegorushka saw always the same&mdash;the sky, the plain, the low hills . .
+      . . The music in the grass was hushed, the petrels had flown away, the
+      partridges were out of sight, rooks hovered idly over the withered grass;
+      they were all alike and made the steppe even more monotonous.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A hawk flew just above the ground, with an even sweep of its wings,
+      suddenly halted in the air as though pondering on the dreariness of life,
+      then fluttered its wings and flew like an arrow over the steppe, and there
+      was no telling why it flew off and what it wanted. In the distance a
+      windmill waved its sails. . . .
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now and then a glimpse of a white potsherd or a heap of stones broke the
+      monotony; a grey stone stood out for an instant or a parched willow with a
+      blue crow on its top branch; a marmot would run across the road and&mdash;again
+      there flitted before the eyes only the high grass, the low hills, the
+      rooks. . . .
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But at last, thank God, a waggon loaded with sheaves came to meet them; a
+      peasant wench was lying on the very top. Sleepy, exhausted by the heat,
+      she lifted her head and looked at the travellers. Deniska gaped, looking
+      at her; the horses stretched out their noses towards the sheaves; the
+      chaise, squeaking, kissed the waggon, and the pointed ears passed over
+      Father Christopher&rsquo;s hat like a brush.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are driving over folks, fatty!&rdquo; cried Deniska. &ldquo;What a swollen lump
+      of a face, as though a bumble-bee had stung it!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The girl smiled drowsily, and moving her lips lay down again; then a
+      solitary poplar came into sight on the low hill. Someone had planted it,
+      and God only knows why it was there. It was hard to tear the eyes away
+      from its graceful figure and green drapery. Was that lovely creature
+      happy? Sultry heat in summer, in winter frost and snowstorms, terrible
+      nights in autumn when nothing is to be seen but darkness and nothing is to
+      be heard but the senseless angry howling wind, and, worst of all, alone,
+      alone for the whole of life . . . . Beyond the poplar stretches of wheat
+      extended like a bright yellow carpet from the road to the top of the
+      hills. On the hills the corn was already cut and laid up in sheaves, while
+      at the bottom they were still cutting. . . . Six mowers were standing in a
+      row swinging their scythes, and the scythes gleamed gaily and uttered in
+      unison together &ldquo;Vzhee, vzhee!&rdquo; From the movements of the peasant women
+      binding the sheaves, from the faces of the mowers, from the glitter of the
+      scythes, it could be seen that the sultry heat was baking and stifling. A
+      black dog with its tongue hanging out ran from the mowers to meet the
+      chaise, probably with the intention of barking, but stopped halfway and
+      stared indifferently at Deniska, who shook his whip at him; it was too hot
+      to bark! One peasant woman got up and, putting both hands to her aching
+      back, followed Yegorushka&rsquo;s red shirt with her eyes. Whether it was that
+      the colour pleased her or that he reminded her of her children, she stood
+      a long time motionless staring after him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But now the wheat, too, had flashed by; again the parched plain, the
+      sunburnt hills, the sultry sky stretched before them; again a hawk hovered
+      over the earth. In the distance, as before, a windmill whirled its sails,
+      and still it looked like a little man waving his arms. It was wearisome to
+      watch, and it seemed as though one would never reach it, as though it were
+      running away from the chaise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Father Christopher and Kuzmitchov were silent. Deniska lashed the horses
+      and kept shouting to them, while Yegorushka had left off crying, and gazed
+      about him listlessly. The heat and the tedium of the steppes overpowered
+      him. He felt as though he had been travelling and jolting up and down for
+      a very long time, that the sun had been baking his back a long time.
+      Before they had gone eight miles he began to feel &ldquo;It must be time to
+      rest.&rdquo; The geniality gradually faded out of his uncle&rsquo;s face and nothing
+      else was left but the air of business reserve; and to a gaunt shaven face,
+      especially when it is adorned with spectacles and the nose and temples are
+      covered with dust, this reserve gives a relentless, inquisitorial
+      appearance. Father Christopher never left off gazing with wonder at God&rsquo;s
+      world, and smiling. Without speaking, he brooded over something pleasant
+      and nice, and a kindly, genial smile remained imprinted on his face. It
+      seemed as though some nice and pleasant thought were imprinted on his
+      brain by the heat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, Deniska, shall we overtake the waggons to-day?&rdquo; asked Kuzmitchov.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Deniska looked at the sky, rose in his seat, lashed at his horses and then
+      answered:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;By nightfall, please God, we shall overtake them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a sound of dogs barking. Half a dozen steppe sheep-dogs,
+      suddenly leaping out as though from ambush, with ferocious howling barks,
+      flew to meet the chaise. All of them, extraordinarily furious, surrounded
+      the chaise, with their shaggy spider-like muzzles and their eyes red with
+      anger, and jostling against one another in their anger, raised a hoarse
+      howl. They were filled with passionate hatred of the horses, of the
+      chaise, and of the human beings, and seemed ready to tear them into
+      pieces. Deniska, who was fond of teasing and beating, was delighted at the
+      chance of it, and with a malignant expression bent over and lashed at the
+      sheep-dogs with his whip. The brutes growled more than ever, the horses
+      flew on; and Yegorushka, who had difficulty in keeping his seat on the
+      box, realized, looking at the dogs&rsquo; eyes and teeth, that if he fell down
+      they would instantly tear him to bits; but he felt no fear and looked at
+      them as malignantly as Deniska, and regretted that he had no whip in his
+      hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The chaise came upon a flock of sheep.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Stop!&rdquo; cried Kuzmitchov. &ldquo;Pull up! Woa!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Deniska threw his whole body backwards and pulled up the horses.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come here!&rdquo; Kuzmitchov shouted to the shepherd. &ldquo;Call off the dogs, curse
+      them!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The old shepherd, tattered and barefoot, wearing a fur cap, with a dirty
+      sack round his loins and a long crook in his hand&mdash;a regular figure
+      from the Old Testament&mdash;called off the dogs, and taking off his cap,
+      went up to the chaise. Another similar Old Testament figure was standing
+      motionless at the other end of the flock, staring without interest at the
+      travellers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Whose sheep are these?&rdquo; asked Kuzmitchov.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Varlamov&rsquo;s,&rdquo; the old man answered in a loud voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Varlamov&rsquo;s,&rdquo; repeated the shepherd standing at the other end of the
+      flock.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did Varlamov come this way yesterday or not?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He did not; his clerk came. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Drive on!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The chaise rolled on and the shepherds, with their angry dogs, were left
+      behind. Yegorushka gazed listlessly at the lilac distance in front, and it
+      began to seem as though the windmill, waving its sails, were getting
+      nearer. It became bigger and bigger, grew quite large, and now he could
+      distinguish clearly its two sails. One sail was old and patched, the other
+      had only lately been made of new wood and glistened in the sun. The chaise
+      drove straight on, while the windmill, for some reason, began retreating
+      to the left. They drove on and on, and the windmill kept moving away to
+      the left, and still did not disappear.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A fine windmill Boltva has put up for his son,&rdquo; observed Deniska.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And how is it we don&rsquo;t see his farm?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is that way, beyond the creek.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Boltva&rsquo;s farm, too, soon came into sight, but yet the windmill did not
+      retreat, did not drop behind; it still watched Yegorushka with its shining
+      sail and waved. What a sorcerer!
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      II
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      Towards midday the chaise turned off the road to the right; it went on a
+      little way at walking pace and then stopped. Yegorushka heard a soft, very
+      caressing gurgle, and felt a different air breathe on his face with a cool
+      velvety touch. Through a little pipe of hemlock stuck there by some
+      unknown benefactor, water was running in a thin trickle from a low hill,
+      put together by nature of huge monstrous stones. It fell to the ground,
+      and limpid, sparkling gaily in the sun, and softly murmuring as though
+      fancying itself a great tempestuous torrent, flowed swiftly away to the
+      left. Not far from its source the little stream spread itself out into a
+      pool; the burning sunbeams and the parched soil greedily drank it up and
+      sucked away its strength; but a little further on it must have mingled
+      with another rivulet, for a hundred paces away thick reeds showed green
+      and luxuriant along its course, and three snipe flew up from them with a
+      loud cry as the chaise drove by.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The travellers got out to rest by the stream and feed the horses.
+      Kuzmitchov, Father Christopher and Yegorushka sat down on a mat in the
+      narrow strip of shade cast by the chaise and the unharnessed horses. The
+      nice pleasant thought that the heat had imprinted in Father Christopher&rsquo;s
+      brain craved expression after he had had a drink of water and eaten a
+      hard-boiled egg. He bent a friendly look upon Yegorushka, munched, and
+      began:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I studied too, my boy; from the earliest age God instilled into me good
+      sense and understanding, so that while I was just such a lad as you I was
+      beyond others, a comfort to my parents and preceptors by my good sense.
+      Before I was fifteen I could speak and make verses in Latin, just as in
+      Russian. I was the crosier-bearer to his Holiness Bishop Christopher.
+      After mass one day, as I remember it was the patron saint&rsquo;s day of His
+      Majesty Tsar Alexandr Pavlovitch of blessed memory, he unrobed at the
+      altar, looked kindly at me and asked, &lsquo;Puer bone, quam appelaris?&rsquo; And I
+      answered, &lsquo;Christopherus sum;&rsquo; and he said, &lsquo;Ergo connominati sumus&rsquo;&mdash;that
+      is, that we were namesakes. . . Then he asked in Latin, &lsquo;Whose son are
+      you?&rsquo; To which I answered, also in Latin, that I was the son of deacon
+      Sireysky of the village of Lebedinskoe. Seeing my readiness and the
+      clearness of my answers, his Holiness blessed me and said, &lsquo;Write to your
+      father that I will not forget him, and that I will keep you in view.&rsquo; The
+      holy priests and fathers who were standing round the altar, hearing our
+      discussion in Latin, were not a little surprised, and everyone expressed
+      his pleasure in praise of me. Before I had moustaches, my boy, I could
+      read Latin, Greek, and French; I knew philosophy, mathematics, secular
+      history, and all the sciences. The Lord gave me a marvellous memory.
+      Sometimes, if I read a thing once or twice, I knew it by heart. My
+      preceptors and patrons were amazed, and so they expected I should make a
+      learned man, a luminary of the Church. I did think of going to Kiev to
+      continue my studies, but my parents did not approve. &lsquo;You&rsquo;ll be studying
+      all your life,&rsquo; said my father; &lsquo;when shall we see you finished?&rsquo; Hearing
+      such words, I gave up study and took a post. . . . Of course, I did not
+      become a learned man, but then I did not disobey my parents; I was a
+      comfort to them in their old age and gave them a creditable funeral.
+      Obedience is more than fasting and prayer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I suppose you have forgotten all your learning?&rdquo; observed Kuzmitchov.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I should think so! Thank God, I have reached my eightieth year! Something
+      of philosophy and rhetoric I do remember, but languages and mathematics I
+      have quite forgotten.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Father Christopher screwed up his eyes, thought a minute and said in an
+      undertone:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is a substance? A creature is a self-existing object, not requiring
+      anything else for its completion.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He shook his head and laughed with feeling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Spiritual nourishment!&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Of a truth matter nourishes the flesh
+      and spiritual nourishment the soul!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Learning is all very well,&rdquo; sighed Kuzmitchov, &ldquo;but if we don&rsquo;t overtake
+      Varlamov, learning won&rsquo;t do much for us.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A man isn&rsquo;t a needle&mdash;we shall find him. He must be going his rounds
+      in these parts.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Among the sedge were flying the three snipe they had seen before, and in
+      their plaintive cries there was a note of alarm and vexation at having
+      been driven away from the stream. The horses were steadily munching and
+      snorting. Deniska walked about by them and, trying to appear indifferent
+      to the cucumbers, pies, and eggs that the gentry were eating, he
+      concentrated himself on the gadflies and horseflies that were fastening
+      upon the horses&rsquo; backs and bellies; he squashed his victims apathetically,
+      emitting a peculiar, fiendishly triumphant, guttural sound, and when he
+      missed them cleared his throat with an air of vexation and looked after
+      every lucky one that escaped death.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Deniska, where are you? Come and eat,&rdquo; said Kuzmitchov, heaving a deep
+      sigh, a sign that he had had enough.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Deniska diffidently approached the mat and picked out five thick and
+      yellow cucumbers (he did not venture to take the smaller and fresher
+      ones), took two hard-boiled eggs that looked dark and were cracked, then
+      irresolutely, as though afraid he might get a blow on his outstretched
+      hand, touched a pie with his finger.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Take them, take them,&rdquo; Kuzmitchov urged him on.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Deniska took the pies resolutely, and, moving some distance away, sat down
+      on the grass with his back to the chaise. At once there was such a sound
+      of loud munching that even the horses turned round to look suspiciously at
+      Deniska.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After his meal Kuzmitchov took a sack containing something out of the
+      chaise and said to Yegorushka:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am going to sleep, and you mind that no one takes the sack from under
+      my head.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Father Christopher took off his cassock, his girdle, and his full coat,
+      and Yegorushka, looking at him, was dumb with astonishment. He had never
+      imagined that priests wore trousers, and Father Christopher had on real
+      canvas trousers thrust into high boots, and a short striped jacket.
+      Looking at him, Yegorushka thought that in this costume, so unsuitable to
+      his dignified position, he looked with his long hair and beard very much
+      like Robinson Crusoe. After taking off their outer garments Kuzmitchov and
+      Father Christopher lay down in the shade under the chaise, facing one
+      another, and closed their eyes. Deniska, who had finished munching,
+      stretched himself out on his back and also closed his eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You look out that no one takes away the horses!&rdquo; he said to Yegorushka,
+      and at once fell asleep.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Stillness reigned. There was no sound except the munching and snorting of
+      the horses and the snoring of the sleepers; somewhere far away a lapwing
+      wailed, and from time to time there sounded the shrill cries of the three
+      snipe who had flown up to see whether their uninvited visitors had gone
+      away; the rivulet babbled, lisping softly, but all these sounds did not
+      break the stillness, did not stir the stagnation, but, on the contrary,
+      lulled all nature to slumber.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yegorushka, gasping with the heat, which was particularly oppressive after
+      a meal, ran to the sedge and from there surveyed the country. He saw
+      exactly the same as he had in the morning: the plain, the low hills, the
+      sky, the lilac distance; only the hills stood nearer; and he could not see
+      the windmill, which had been left far behind. From behind the rocky hill
+      from which the stream flowed rose another, smoother and broader; a little
+      hamlet of five or six homesteads clung to it. No people, no trees, no
+      shade were to be seen about the huts; it looked as though the hamlet had
+      expired in the burning air and was dried up. To while away the time
+      Yegorushka caught a grasshopper in the grass, held it in his closed hand
+      to his ear, and spent a long time listening to the creature playing on its
+      instrument. When he was weary of its music he ran after a flock of yellow
+      butterflies who were flying towards the sedge on the watercourse, and
+      found himself again beside the chaise, without noticing how he came there.
+      His uncle and Father Christopher were sound asleep; their sleep would be
+      sure to last two or three hours till the horses had rested. . . . How was
+      he to get through that long time, and where was he to get away from the
+      heat? A hard problem. . . . Mechanically Yegorushka put his lips to the
+      trickle that ran from the waterpipe; there was a chilliness in his mouth
+      and there was the smell of hemlock. He drank at first eagerly, then went
+      on with effort till the sharp cold had run from his mouth all over his
+      body and the water was spilt on his shirt. Then he went up to the chaise
+      and began looking at the sleeping figures. His uncle&rsquo;s face wore, as
+      before, an expression of business-like reserve. Fanatically devoted to his
+      work, Kuzmitchov always, even in his sleep and at church when they were
+      singing, &ldquo;Like the cherubim,&rdquo; thought about his business and could never
+      forget it for a moment; and now he was probably dreaming about bales of
+      wool, waggons, prices, Varlamov. . . . Father Christopher, now, a soft,
+      frivolous and absurd person, had never all his life been conscious of
+      anything which could, like a boa-constrictor, coil about his soul and hold
+      it tight. In all the numerous enterprises he had undertaken in his day
+      what attracted him was not so much the business itself, but the bustle and
+      the contact with other people involved in every undertaking. Thus, in the
+      present expedition, he was not so much interested in wool, in Varlamov,
+      and in prices, as in the long journey, the conversations on the way, the
+      sleeping under a chaise, and the meals at odd times. . . . And now,
+      judging from his face, he must have been dreaming of Bishop Christopher,
+      of the Latin discussion, of his wife, of puffs and cream and all sorts of
+      things that Kuzmitchov could not possibly dream of.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While Yegorushka was watching their sleeping faces he suddenly heard a
+      soft singing; somewhere at a distance a woman was singing, and it was
+      difficult to tell where and in what direction. The song was subdued,
+      dreary and melancholy, like a dirge, and hardly audible, and seemed to
+      come first from the right, then from the left, then from above, and then
+      from underground, as though an unseen spirit were hovering over the steppe
+      and singing. Yegorushka looked about him, and could not make out where the
+      strange song came from. Then as he listened he began to fancy that the
+      grass was singing; in its song, withered and half-dead, it was without
+      words, but plaintively and passionately, urging that it was not to blame,
+      that the sun was burning it for no fault of its own; it urged that it
+      ardently longed to live, that it was young and might have been beautiful
+      but for the heat and the drought; it was guiltless, but yet it prayed
+      forgiveness and protested that it was in anguish, sad and sorry for
+      itself. . . .
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yegorushka listened for a little, and it began to seem as though this
+      dreary, mournful song made the air hotter, more suffocating and more
+      stagnant. . . . To drown the singing he ran to the sedge, humming to
+      himself and trying to make a noise with his feet. From there he looked
+      about in all directions and found out who was singing. Near the furthest
+      hut in the hamlet stood a peasant woman in a short petticoat, with long
+      thin legs like a heron. She was sowing something. A white dust floated
+      languidly from her sieve down the hillock. Now it was evident that she was
+      singing. A couple of yards from her a little bare-headed boy in nothing
+      but a smock was standing motionless. As though fascinated by the song, he
+      stood stock-still, staring away into the distance, probably at
+      Yegorushka&rsquo;s crimson shirt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The song ceased. Yegorushka sauntered back to the chaise, and to while
+      away the time went again to the trickle of water.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And again there was the sound of the dreary song. It was the same
+      long-legged peasant woman in the hamlet over the hill. Yegorushka&rsquo;s
+      boredom came back again. He left the pipe and looked upwards. What he saw
+      was so unexpected that he was a little frightened. Just above his head on
+      one of the big clumsy stones stood a chubby little boy, wearing nothing
+      but a shirt, with a prominent stomach and thin legs, the same boy who had
+      been standing before by the peasant woman. He was gazing with open mouth
+      and unblinking eyes at Yegorushka&rsquo;s crimson shirt and at the chaise, with
+      a look of blank astonishment and even fear, as though he saw before him
+      creatures of another world. The red colour of the shirt charmed and
+      allured him. But the chaise and the men sleeping under it excited his
+      curiosity; perhaps he had not noticed how the agreeable red colour and
+      curiosity had attracted him down from the hamlet, and now probably he was
+      surprised at his own boldness. For a long while Yegorushka stared at him,
+      and he at Yegorushka. Both were silent and conscious of some awkwardness.
+      After a long silence Yegorushka asked:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What&rsquo;s your name?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The stranger&rsquo;s cheeks puffed out more than ever; he pressed his back
+      against the rock, opened his eyes wide, moved his lips, and answered in a
+      husky bass: &ldquo;Tit!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The boys said not another word to each other; after a brief silence, still
+      keeping his eyes fixed on Yegorushka, the mysterious Tit kicked up one
+      leg, felt with his heel for a niche and clambered up the rock; from that
+      point he ascended to the next rock, staggering backwards and looking
+      intently at Yegorushka, as though afraid he might hit him from behind, and
+      so made his way upwards till he disappeared altogether behind the crest of
+      the hill.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After watching him out of sight, Yegorushka put his arms round his knees
+      and leaned his head on them. . . . The burning sun scorched the back of
+      his head, his neck, and his spine. The melancholy song died away, then
+      floated again on the stagnant stifling air. The rivulet gurgled
+      monotonously, the horses munched, and time dragged on endlessly, as though
+      it, too, were stagnant and had come to a standstill. It seemed as though a
+      hundred years had passed since the morning. Could it be that God&rsquo;s world,
+      the chaise and the horses would come to a standstill in that air, and,
+      like the hills, turn to stone and remain for ever in one spot? Yegorushka
+      raised his head, and with smarting eyes looked before him; the lilac
+      distance, which till then had been motionless, began heaving, and with the
+      sky floated away into the distance. . . . It drew after it the brown
+      grass, the sedge, and with extraordinary swiftness Yegorushka floated
+      after the flying distance. Some force noiselessly drew him onwards, and
+      the heat and the wearisome song flew after in pursuit. Yegorushka bent his
+      head and shut his eyes. . . .
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Deniska was the first to wake up. Something must have bitten him, for he
+      jumped up, quickly scratched his shoulder and said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Plague take you, cursed idolater!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Then he went to the brook, had a drink and slowly washed. His splashing
+      and puffing roused Yegorushka from his lethargy. The boy looked at his wet
+      face with drops of water and big freckles which made it look like marble,
+      and asked:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Shall we soon be going?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Deniska looked at the height of the sun and answered:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I expect so.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He dried himself with the tail of his shirt and, making a very serious
+      face, hopped on one leg.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I say, which of us will get to the sedge first?&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yegorushka was exhausted by the heat and drowsiness, but he raced off
+      after him all the same. Deniska was in his twentieth year, was a coachman
+      and going to be married, but he had not left off being a boy. He was very
+      fond of flying kites, chasing pigeons, playing knuckle-bones, running
+      races, and always took part in children&rsquo;s games and disputes. No sooner
+      had his master turned his back or gone to sleep than Deniska would begin
+      doing something such as hopping on one leg or throwing stones. It was hard
+      for any grown-up person, seeing the genuine enthusiasm with which he
+      frolicked about in the society of children, to resist saying, &ldquo;What a
+      baby!&rdquo; Children, on the other hand, saw nothing strange in the invasion of
+      their domain by the big coachman. &ldquo;Let him play,&rdquo; they thought, &ldquo;as long
+      as he doesn&rsquo;t fight!&rdquo; In the same way little dogs see nothing strange in
+      it when a simple-hearted big dog joins their company uninvited and begins
+      playing with them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Deniska outstripped Yegorushka, and was evidently very much pleased at
+      having done so. He winked at him, and to show that he could hop on one leg
+      any distance, suggested to Yegorushka that he should hop with him along
+      the road and from there, without resting, back to the chaise. Yegorushka
+      declined this suggestion, for he was very much out of breath and
+      exhausted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All at once Deniska looked very grave, as he did not look even when
+      Kuzmitchov gave him a scolding or threatened him with a stick; listening
+      intently, he dropped quietly on one knee and an expression of sternness
+      and alarm came into his face, such as one sees in people who hear
+      heretical talk. He fixed his eyes on one spot, raised his hand curved into
+      a hollow, and suddenly fell on his stomach on the ground and slapped the
+      hollow of his hand down upon the grass.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Caught!&rdquo; he wheezed triumphantly, and, getting up, lifted a big
+      grasshopper to Yegorushka&rsquo;s eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The two boys stroked the grasshopper&rsquo;s broad green back with their fingers
+      and touched his antenna, supposing that this would please the creature.
+      Then Deniska caught a fat fly that had been sucking blood and offered it
+      to the grasshopper. The latter moved his huge jaws, that were like the
+      visor of a helmet, with the utmost unconcern, as though he had been long
+      acquainted with Deniska, and bit off the fly&rsquo;s stomach. They let him go.
+      With a flash of the pink lining of his wings, he flew down into the grass
+      and at once began his churring notes again. They let the fly go, too. It
+      preened its wings, and without its stomach flew off to the horses.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A loud sigh was heard from under the chaise. It was Kuzmitchov waking up.
+      He quickly raised his head, looked uneasily into the distance, and from
+      that look, which passed by Yegorushka and Deniska without sympathy or
+      interest, it could be seen that his thought on awaking was of the wool and
+      of Varlamov.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Father Christopher, get up; it is time to start,&rdquo; he said anxiously.
+      &ldquo;Wake up; we&rsquo;ve slept too long as it is! Deniska, put the horses in.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Father Christopher woke up with the same smile with which he had fallen
+      asleep; his face looked creased and wrinkled from sleep, and seemed only
+      half the size. After washing and dressing, he proceeded without haste to
+      take out of his pocket a little greasy psalter; and standing with his face
+      towards the east, began in a whisper repeating the psalms of the day and
+      crossing himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Father Christopher,&rdquo; said Kuzmitchov reproachfully, &ldquo;it&rsquo;s time to start;
+      the horses are ready, and here are you, . . . upon my word.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In a minute, in a minute,&rdquo; muttered Father Christopher. &ldquo;I must read the
+      psalms. . . . I haven&rsquo;t read them to-day.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The psalms can wait.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ivan Ivanitch, that is my rule every day. . . . I can&rsquo;t . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;God will overlook it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      For a full quarter of an hour Father Christopher stood facing the east and
+      moving his lips, while Kuzmitchov looked at him almost with hatred and
+      impatiently shrugged his shoulders. He was particularly irritated when,
+      after every &ldquo;Hallelujah,&rdquo; Father Christopher drew a long breath, rapidly
+      crossed himself and repeated three times, intentionally raising his voice
+      so that the others might cross themselves, &ldquo;Hallelujah, hallelujah,
+      hallelujah! Glory be to Thee, O Lord!&rdquo; At last he smiled, looked upwards
+      at the sky, and, putting the psalter in his pocket, said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Finis!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A minute later the chaise had started on the road. As though it were going
+      backwards and not forwards, the travellers saw the same scene as they had
+      before midday.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The low hills were still plunged in the lilac distance, and no end could
+      be seen to them. There were glimpses of high grass and heaps of stones;
+      strips of stubble land passed by them and still the same rooks, the same
+      hawk, moving its wings with slow dignity, moved over the steppe. The air
+      was more sultry than ever; from the sultry heat and the stillness
+      submissive nature was spellbound into silence . . . . No wind, no fresh
+      cheering sound, no cloud.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But at last, when the sun was beginning to sink into the west, the steppe,
+      the hills and the air could bear the oppression no longer, and, driven out
+      of all patience, exhausted, tried to fling off the yoke. A fleecy
+      ashen-grey cloud unexpectedly appeared behind the hills. It exchanged
+      glances with the steppe, as though to say, &ldquo;Here I am,&rdquo; and frowned.
+      Suddenly something burst in the stagnant air; there was a violent squall
+      of wind which whirled round and round, roaring and whistling over the
+      steppe. At once a murmur rose from the grass and last year&rsquo;s dry herbage,
+      the dust curled in spiral eddies over the road, raced over the steppe, and
+      carrying with it straws, dragon flies and feathers, rose up in a whirling
+      black column towards the sky and darkened the sun. Prickly uprooted plants
+      ran stumbling and leaping in all directions over the steppe, and one of
+      them got caught in the whirlwind, turned round and round like a bird, flew
+      towards the sky, and turning into a little black speck, vanished from
+      sight. After it flew another, and then a third, and Yegorushka saw two of
+      them meet in the blue height and clutch at one another as though they were
+      wrestling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A bustard flew up by the very road. Fluttering his wings and his tail, he
+      looked, bathed in the sunshine, like an angler&rsquo;s glittering tin fish or a
+      waterfly flashing so swiftly over the water that its wings cannot be told
+      from its antenna, which seem to be growing before, behind and on all
+      sides. . . . Quivering in the air like an insect with a shimmer of bright
+      colours, the bustard flew high up in a straight line, then, probably
+      frightened by a cloud of dust, swerved to one side, and for a long time
+      the gleam of his wings could be seen. . . .
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then a corncrake flew up from the grass, alarmed by the hurricane and not
+      knowing what was the matter. It flew with the wind and not against it,
+      like all the other birds, so that all its feathers were ruffled up and it
+      was puffed out to the size of a hen and looked very angry and impressive.
+      Only the rooks who had grown old on the steppe and were accustomed to its
+      vagaries hovered calmly over the grass, or taking no notice of anything,
+      went on unconcernedly pecking with their stout beaks at the hard earth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a dull roll of thunder beyond the hills; there came a whiff of
+      fresh air. Deniska gave a cheerful whistle and lashed his horses. Father
+      Christopher and Kuzmitchov held their hats and looked intently towards the
+      hills. . . . How pleasant a shower of rain would have been!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One effort, one struggle more, and it seemed the steppe would have got the
+      upper hand. But the unseen oppressive force gradually riveted its fetters
+      on the wind and the air, laid the dust, and the stillness came back again
+      as though nothing had happened, the cloud hid, the sun-baked hills frowned
+      submissively, the air grew calm, and only somewhere the troubled lapwings
+      wailed and lamented their destiny. . . .
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Soon after that the evening came on.
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      III
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      In the dusk of evening a big house of one storey, with a rusty iron roof
+      and with dark windows, came into sight. This house was called a
+      posting-inn, though it had nothing like a stableyard, and it stood in the
+      middle of the steppe, with no kind of enclosure round it. A little to one
+      side of it a wretched little cherry orchard shut in by a hurdle fence made
+      a dark patch, and under the windows stood sleepy sunflowers drooping their
+      heavy heads. From the orchard came the clatter of a little toy windmill,
+      set there to frighten away hares by the rattle. Nothing more could be seen
+      near the house, and nothing could be heard but the steppe. The chaise had
+      scarcely stopped at the porch with an awning over it, when from the house
+      there came the sound of cheerful voices, one a man&rsquo;s, another a woman&rsquo;s;
+      there was the creak of a swing-door, and in a flash a tall gaunt figure,
+      swinging its arms and fluttering its coat, was standing by the chaise.
+      This was the innkeeper, Moisey Moisevitch, a man no longer young, with a
+      very pale face and a handsome beard as black as charcoal. He was wearing a
+      threadbare black coat, which hung flapping on his narrow shoulders as
+      though on a hatstand, and fluttered its skirts like wings every time
+      Moisey Moisevitch flung up his hands in delight or horror. Besides his
+      coat the innkeeper was wearing full white trousers, not stuck into his
+      boots, and a velvet waistcoat with brown flowers on it that looked like
+      gigantic bugs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Moisey Moisevitch was at first dumb with excess of feeling on recognizing
+      the travellers, then he clasped his hands and uttered a moan. His coat
+      swung its skirts, his back bent into a bow, and his pale face twisted into
+      a smile that suggested that to see the chaise was not merely a pleasure to
+      him, but actually a joy so sweet as to be painful.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh dear! oh dear!&rdquo; he began in a thin sing-song voice, breathless,
+      fussing about and preventing the travellers from getting out of the chaise
+      by his antics. &ldquo;What a happy day for me! Oh, what am I to do now? Ivan
+      Ivanitch! Father Christopher! What a pretty little gentleman sitting on
+      the box, God strike me dead! Oh, my goodness! why am I standing here
+      instead of asking the visitors indoors? Please walk in, I humbly beg you.
+      . . . You are kindly welcome! Give me all your things. . . . Oh, my
+      goodness me!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Moisey Moisevitch, who was rummaging in the chaise and assisting the
+      travellers to alight, suddenly turned back and shouted in a voice as
+      frantic and choking as though he were drowning and calling for help:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Solomon! Solomon!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Solomon! Solomon!&rdquo; a woman&rsquo;s voice repeated indoors.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The swing-door creaked, and in the doorway appeared a rather short young
+      Jew with a big beak-like nose, with a bald patch surrounded by rough red
+      curly hair; he was dressed in a short and very shabby reefer jacket, with
+      rounded lappets and short sleeves, and in short serge trousers, so that he
+      looked skimpy and short-tailed like an unfledged bird. This was Solomon,
+      the brother of Moisey Moisevitch. He went up to the chaise, smiling rather
+      queerly, and did not speak or greet the travellers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ivan Ivanitch and Father Christopher have come,&rdquo; said Moisey Moisevitch
+      in a tone as though he were afraid his brother would not believe him.
+      &ldquo;Dear, dear! What a surprise! Such honoured guests to have come us so
+      suddenly! Come, take their things, Solomon. Walk in, honoured guests.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A little later Kuzmitchov, Father Christopher, and Yegorushka were sitting
+      in a big gloomy empty room at an old oak table. The table was almost in
+      solitude, for, except a wide sofa covered with torn American leather and
+      three chairs, there was no other furniture in the room. And, indeed, not
+      everybody would have given the chairs that name. They were a pitiful
+      semblance of furniture, covered with American leather that had seen its
+      best days, and with backs bent backwards at an unnaturally acute angle, so
+      that they looked like children&rsquo;s sledges. It was hard to imagine what had
+      been the unknown carpenter&rsquo;s object in bending the chairbacks so
+      mercilessly, and one was tempted to imagine that it was not the
+      carpenter&rsquo;s fault, but that some athletic visitor had bent the chairs like
+      this as a feat, then had tried to bend them back again and had made them
+      worse. The room looked gloomy, the walls were grey, the ceilings and the
+      cornices were grimy; on the floor were chinks and yawning holes that were
+      hard to account for (one might have fancied they were made by the heel of
+      the same athlete), and it seemed as though the room would still have been
+      dark if a dozen lamps had hung in it. There was nothing approaching an
+      ornament on the walls or the windows. On one wall, however, there hung a
+      list of regulations of some sort under a two-headed eagle in a grey wooden
+      frame, and on another wall in the same sort of frame an engraving with the
+      inscription, &ldquo;The Indifference of Man.&rdquo; What it was to which men were
+      indifferent it was impossible to make out, as the engraving was very dingy
+      with age and was extensively flyblown. There was a smell of something
+      decayed and sour in the room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As he led the visitors into the room, Moisey Moisevitch went on wriggling,
+      gesticulating, shrugging and uttering joyful exclamations; he considered
+      these antics necessary in order to seem polite and agreeable.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When did our waggons go by?&rdquo; Kuzmitchov asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;One party went by early this morning, and the other, Ivan Ivanitch, put
+      up here for dinner and went on towards evening.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah! . . . Has Varlamov been by or not?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, Ivan Ivanitch. His clerk, Grigory Yegoritch, went by yesterday
+      morning and said that he had to be to-day at the Molokans&rsquo; farm.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good! so we will go after the waggons directly and then on to the
+      Molokans&rsquo;.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mercy on us, Ivan Ivanitch!&rdquo; Moisey Moisevitch cried in horror, flinging
+      up his hands. &ldquo;Where are you going for the night? You will have a nice
+      little supper and stay the night, and to-morrow morning, please God, you
+      can go on and overtake anyone you like.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There is no time for that. . . . Excuse me, Moisey Moisevitch, another
+      time; but now I must make haste. We&rsquo;ll stay a quarter of an hour and then
+      go on; we can stay the night at the Molokans&rsquo;.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A quarter of an hour!&rdquo; squealed Moisey Moisevitch. &ldquo;Have you no fear of
+      God, Ivan Ivanitch? You will compel me to hide your caps and lock the
+      door! You must have a cup of tea and a snack of something, anyway.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We have no time for tea,&rdquo; said Kuzmitchov.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Moisey Moisevitch bent his head on one side, crooked his knees, and put
+      his open hands before him as though warding off a blow, while with a smile
+      of agonized sweetness he began imploring:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ivan Ivanitch! Father Christopher! Do be so good as to take a cup of tea
+      with me. Surely I am not such a bad man that you can&rsquo;t even drink tea in
+      my house? Ivan Ivanitch!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, we may just as well have a cup of tea,&rdquo; said Father Christopher,
+      with a sympathetic smile; &ldquo;that won&rsquo;t keep us long.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very well,&rdquo; Kuzmitchov assented.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Moisey Moisevitch, in a fluster uttered an exclamation of joy, and
+      shrugging as though he had just stepped out of cold weather into warm, ran
+      to the door and cried in the same frantic voice in which he had called
+      Solomon:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Rosa! Rosa! Bring the samovar!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A minute later the door opened, and Solomon came into the room carrying a
+      large tray in his hands. Setting the tray on the table, he looked away
+      sarcastically with the same queer smile as before. Now, by the light of
+      the lamp, it was possible to see his smile distinctly; it was very
+      complex, and expressed a variety of emotions, but the predominant element
+      in it was undisguised contempt. He seemed to be thinking of something
+      ludicrous and silly, to be feeling contempt and dislike, to be pleased at
+      something and waiting for the favourable moment to turn something into
+      ridicule and to burst into laughter. His long nose, his thick lips, and
+      his sly prominent eyes seemed tense with the desire to laugh. Looking at
+      his face, Kuzmitchov smiled ironically and asked:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Solomon, why did you not come to our fair at N. this summer, and act some
+      Jewish scenes?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Two years before, as Yegorushka remembered very well, at one of the booths
+      at the fair at N., Solomon had performed some scenes of Jewish life, and
+      his acting had been a great success. The allusion to this made no
+      impression whatever upon Solomon. Making no answer, he went out and
+      returned a little later with the samovar.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When he had done what he had to do at the table he moved a little aside,
+      and, folding his arms over his chest and thrusting out one leg, fixed his
+      sarcastic eyes on Father Christopher. There was something defiant,
+      haughty, and contemptuous in his attitude, and at the same time it was
+      comic and pitiful in the extreme, because the more impressive his attitude
+      the more vividly it showed up his short trousers, his bobtail coat, his
+      caricature of a nose, and his bird-like plucked-looking little figure.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Moisey Moisevitch brought a footstool from the other room and sat down a
+      little way from the table.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wish you a good appetite! Tea and sugar!&rdquo; he began, trying to entertain
+      his visitors. &ldquo;I hope you will enjoy it. Such rare guests, such rare ones;
+      it is years since I last saw Father Christopher. And will no one tell me
+      who is this nice little gentleman?&rdquo; he asked, looking tenderly at
+      Yegorushka.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He is the son of my sister, Olga Ivanovna,&rdquo; answered Kuzmitchov.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And where is he going?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To school. We are taking him to a high school.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      In his politeness, Moisey Moisevitch put on a look of wonder and wagged
+      his head expressively.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, that is a fine thing,&rdquo; he said, shaking his finger at the samovar.
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s a fine thing. You will come back from the high school such a
+      gentleman that we shall all take off our hats to you. You will be wealthy
+      and wise and so grand that your mamma will be delighted. Oh, that&rsquo;s a fine
+      thing!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He paused a little, stroked his knees, and began again in a jocose and
+      deferential tone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You must excuse me, Father Christopher, but I am thinking of writing to
+      the bishop to tell him you are robbing the merchants of their living. I
+      shall take a sheet of stamped paper and write that I suppose Father
+      Christopher is short of pence, as he has taken up with trade and begun
+      selling wool.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;H&rsquo;m, yes . . . it&rsquo;s a queer notion in my old age,&rdquo; said Father
+      Christopher, and he laughed. &ldquo;I have turned from priest to merchant,
+      brother. I ought to be at home now saying my prayers, instead of galloping
+      about the country like a Pharaoh in his chariot. . . . Vanity!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But it will mean a lot of pence!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, I dare say! More kicks than halfpence, and serve me right. The wool&rsquo;s
+      not mine, but my son-in-law Mikhail&rsquo;s!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why doesn&rsquo;t he go himself?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, because . . . His mother&rsquo;s milk is scarcely dry upon his lips. He
+      can buy wool all right, but when it comes to selling, he has no sense; he
+      is young yet. He has wasted all his money; he wanted to grow rich and cut
+      a dash, but he tried here and there, and no one would give him his price.
+      And so the lad went on like that for a year, and then he came to me and
+      said, &lsquo;Daddy, you sell the wool for me; be kind and do it! I am no good at
+      the business!&rsquo; And that is true enough. As soon as there is anything wrong
+      then it&rsquo;s &lsquo;Daddy,&rsquo; but till then they could get on without their dad. When
+      he was buying he did not consult me, but now when he is in difficulties
+      it&rsquo;s Daddy&rsquo;s turn. And what does his dad know about it? If it were not for
+      Ivan Ivanitch, his dad could do nothing. I have a lot of worry with them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes; one has a lot of worry with one&rsquo;s children, I can tell you that,&rdquo;
+       sighed Moisey Moisevitch. &ldquo;I have six of my own. One needs schooling,
+      another needs doctoring, and a third needs nursing, and when they grow up
+      they are more trouble still. It is not only nowadays, it was the same in
+      Holy Scripture. When Jacob had little children he wept, and when they grew
+      up he wept still more bitterly.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;H&rsquo;m, yes . . .&rdquo; Father Christopher assented pensively, looking at his
+      glass. &ldquo;I have no cause myself to rail against the Lord. I have lived to
+      the end of my days as any man might be thankful to live. . . . I have
+      married my daughters to good men, my sons I have set up in life, and now I
+      am free; I have done my work and can go where I like. I live in peace with
+      my wife. I eat and drink and sleep and rejoice in my grandchildren, and
+      say my prayers and want nothing more. I live on the fat of the land, and
+      don&rsquo;t need to curry favour with anyone. I have never had any trouble from
+      childhood, and now suppose the Tsar were to ask me, &lsquo;What do you need?
+      What would you like?&rsquo; why, I don&rsquo;t need anything. I have everything I want
+      and everything to be thankful for. In the whole town there is no happier
+      man than I am. My only trouble is I have so many sins, but there &mdash;only
+      God is without sin. That&rsquo;s right, isn&rsquo;t it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No doubt it is.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have no teeth, of course; my poor old back aches; there is one thing
+      and another, . . . asthma and that sort of thing. . . . I ache. . . . The
+      flesh is weak, but then think of my age! I am in the eighties! One can&rsquo;t
+      go on for ever; one mustn&rsquo;t outstay one&rsquo;s welcome.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Father Christopher suddenly thought of something, spluttered into his
+      glass and choked with laughter. Moisey Moisevitch laughed, too, from
+      politeness, and he, too, cleared his throat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So funny!&rdquo; said Father Christopher, and he waved his hand. &ldquo;My eldest son
+      Gavrila came to pay me a visit. He is in the medical line, and is a
+      district doctor in the province of Tchernigov. . . . &lsquo;Very well . . .&rsquo; I
+      said to him, &lsquo;here I have asthma and one thing and another. . . . You are
+      a doctor; cure your father!&rsquo; He undressed me on the spot, tapped me,
+      listened, and all sorts of tricks, . . . kneaded my stomach, and then he
+      said, &lsquo;Dad, you ought to be treated with compressed air.&rsquo;&rdquo; Father
+      Christopher laughed convulsively, till the tears came into his eyes, and
+      got up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And I said to him, &lsquo;God bless your compressed air!&rsquo;&rdquo; he brought out
+      through his laughter, waving both hands. &ldquo;God bless your compressed air!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Moisey Moisevitch got up, too, and with his hands on his stomach, went off
+      into shrill laughter like the yap of a lap-dog.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;God bless the compressed air!&rdquo; repeated Father Christopher, laughing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Moisey Moisevitch laughed two notes higher and so violently that he could
+      hardly stand on his feet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh dear!&rdquo; he moaned through his laughter. &ldquo;Let me get my breath . . . .
+      You&rsquo;ll be the death of me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He laughed and talked, though at the same time he was casting timorous and
+      suspicious looks at Solomon. The latter was standing in the same attitude
+      and still smiling. To judge from his eyes and his smile, his contempt and
+      hatred were genuine, but that was so out of keeping with his
+      plucked-looking figure that it seemed to Yegorushka as though he were
+      putting on his defiant attitude and biting sarcastic smile to play the
+      fool for the entertainment of their honoured guests.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After drinking six glasses of tea in silence, Kuzmitchov cleared a space
+      before him on the table, took his bag, the one which he kept under his
+      head when he slept under the chaise, untied the string and shook it. Rolls
+      of paper notes were scattered out of the bag on the table.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;While we have the time, Father Christopher, let us reckon up,&rdquo; said
+      Kuzmitchov.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Moisey Moisevitch was embarrassed at the sight of the money. He got up,
+      and, as a man of delicate feeling unwilling to pry into other people&rsquo;s
+      secrets, he went out of the room on tiptoe, swaying his arms. Solomon
+      remained where he was.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How many are there in the rolls of roubles?&rdquo; Father Christopher began.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The rouble notes are done up in fifties, . . . the three-rouble notes in
+      nineties, the twenty-five and hundred roubles in thousands. You count out
+      seven thousand eight hundred for Varlamov, and I will count out for
+      Gusevitch. And mind you don&rsquo;t make a mistake. . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Yegorushka had never in his life seen so much money as was lying on the
+      table before him. There must have been a great deal of money, for the roll
+      of seven thousand eight hundred, which Father Christopher put aside for
+      Varlamov, seemed very small compared with the whole heap. At any other
+      time such a mass of money would have impressed Yegorushka, and would have
+      moved him to reflect how many cracknels, buns and poppy-cakes could be
+      bought for that money. Now he looked at it listlessly, only conscious of
+      the disgusting smell of kerosene and rotten apples that came from the heap
+      of notes. He was exhausted by the jolting ride in the chaise, tired out
+      and sleepy. His head was heavy, his eyes would hardly keep open and his
+      thoughts were tangled like threads. If it had been possible he would have
+      been relieved to lay his head on the table, so as not to see the lamp and
+      the fingers moving over the heaps of notes, and to have let his tired
+      sleepy thoughts go still more at random. When he tried to keep awake, the
+      light of the lamp, the cups and the fingers grew double, the samovar
+      heaved and the smell of rotten apples seemed even more acrid and
+      disgusting.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, money, money!&rdquo; sighed Father Christopher, smiling. &ldquo;You bring
+      trouble! Now I expect my Mihailo is asleep and dreaming that I am going to
+      bring him a heap of money like this.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your Mihailo Timofevitch is a man who doesn&rsquo;t understand business,&rdquo; said
+      Kuzmitchov in an undertone; &ldquo;he undertakes what isn&rsquo;t his work, but you
+      understand and can judge. You had better hand over your wool to me, as I
+      have said already, and I would give you half a rouble above my own price&mdash;yes,
+      I would, simply out of regard for you. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, Ivan Ivanitch.&rdquo; Father Christopher sighed. &ldquo;I thank you for your
+      kindness. . . . Of course, if it were for me to decide, I shouldn&rsquo;t think
+      twice about it; but as it is, the wool is not mine, as you know. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Moisey Moisevitch came in on tiptoe. Trying from delicacy not to look at
+      the heaps of money, he stole up to Yegorushka and pulled at his shirt from
+      behind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come along, little gentleman,&rdquo; he said in an undertone, &ldquo;come and see the
+      little bear I can show you! Such a queer, cross little bear. Oo-oo!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The sleepy boy got up and listlessly dragged himself after Moisey
+      Moisevitch to see the bear. He went into a little room, where, before he
+      saw anything, he felt he could not breathe from the smell of something
+      sour and decaying, which was much stronger here than in the big room and
+      probably spread from this room all over the house. One part of the room
+      was occupied by a big bed, covered with a greasy quilt and another by a
+      chest of drawers and heaps of rags of all kinds from a woman&rsquo;s stiff
+      petticoat to children&rsquo;s little breeches and braces. A tallow candle stood
+      on the chest of drawers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Instead of the promised bear, Yegorushka saw a big fat Jewess with her
+      hair hanging loose, in a red flannel skirt with black sprigs on it; she
+      turned with difficulty in the narrow space between the bed and the chest
+      of drawers and uttered drawn-out moaning as though she had toothache. On
+      seeing Yegorushka, she made a doleful, woe-begone face, heaved a long
+      drawn-out sigh, and before he had time to look round, put to his lips a
+      slice of bread smeared with honey.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Eat it, dearie, eat it!&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;You are here without your mamma, and
+      no one to look after you. Eat it up.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Yegorushka did eat it, though after the goodies and poppy-cakes he had
+      every day at home, he did not think very much of the honey, which was
+      mixed with wax and bees&rsquo; wings. He ate while Moisey Moisevitch and the
+      Jewess looked at him and sighed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where are you going, dearie?&rdquo; asked the Jewess.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To school,&rdquo; answered Yegorushka.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And how many brothers and sisters have you got?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am the only one; there are no others.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;O-oh!&rdquo; sighed the Jewess, and turned her eyes upward. &ldquo;Poor mamma, poor
+      mamma! How she will weep and miss you! We are going to send our Nahum to
+      school in a year. O-oh!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, Nahum, Nahum!&rdquo; sighed Moisey Moisevitch, and the skin of his pale
+      face twitched nervously. &ldquo;And he is so delicate.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The greasy quilt quivered, and from beneath it appeared a child&rsquo;s curly
+      head on a very thin neck; two black eyes gleamed and stared with curiosity
+      at Yegorushka. Still sighing, Moisey Moisevitch and the Jewess went to the
+      chest of drawers and began talking in Yiddish. Moisey Moisevitch spoke in
+      a low bass undertone, and altogether his talk in Yiddish was like a
+      continual &ldquo;ghaal-ghaal-ghaal-ghaal, . . .&rdquo; while his wife answered him in
+      a shrill voice like a turkeycock&rsquo;s, and the whole effect of her talk was
+      something like &ldquo;Too-too-too-too!&rdquo; While they were consulting, another
+      little curly head on a thin neck peeped out of the greasy quilt, then a
+      third, then a fourth. . . . If Yegorushka had had a fertile imagination he
+      might have imagined that the hundred-headed hydra was hiding under the
+      quilt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ghaal-ghaal-ghaal-ghaal!&rdquo; said Moisey Moisevitch.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Too-too-too-too!&rdquo; answered the Jewess.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The consultation ended in the Jewess&rsquo;s diving with a deep sigh into the
+      chest of drawers, and, unwrapping some sort of green rag there, she took
+      out a big rye cake made in the shape of a heart.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Take it, dearie,&rdquo; she said, giving Yegorushka the cake; &ldquo;you have no
+      mamma now&mdash;no one to give you nice things.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Yegorushka stuck the cake in his pocket and staggered to the door, as he
+      could not go on breathing the foul, sour air in which the innkeeper and
+      his wife lived. Going back to the big room, he settled himself more
+      comfortably on the sofa and gave up trying to check his straying thoughts.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As soon as Kuzmitchov had finished counting out the notes he put them back
+      into the bag. He did not treat them very respectfully and stuffed them
+      into the dirty sack without ceremony, as indifferently as though they had
+      not been money but waste paper.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Father Christopher was talking to Solomon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, Solomon the Wise!&rdquo; he said, yawning and making the sign of the
+      cross over his mouth. &ldquo;How is business?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What sort of business are you talking about?&rdquo; asked Solomon, and he
+      looked as fiendish, as though it were a hint of some crime on his part.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, things in general. What are you doing?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What am I doing?&rdquo; Solomon repeated, and he shrugged his shoulders. &ldquo;The
+      same as everyone else. . . . You see, I am a menial, I am my brother&rsquo;s
+      servant; my brother&rsquo;s the servant of the visitors; the visitors are
+      Varlamov&rsquo;s servants; and if I had ten millions, Varlamov would be my
+      servant.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why would he be your servant?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, because there isn&rsquo;t a gentleman or millionaire who isn&rsquo;t ready to
+      lick the hand of a scabby Jew for the sake of making a kopeck. Now, I am a
+      scabby Jew and a beggar. Everybody looks at me as though I were a dog, but
+      if I had money Varlamov would play the fool before me just as Moisey does
+      before you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Father Christopher and Kuzmitchov looked at each other. Neither of them
+      understood Solomon. Kuzmitchov looked at him sternly and dryly, and asked:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How can you compare yourself with Varlamov, you blockhead?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am not such a fool as to put myself on a level with Varlamov,&rdquo; answered
+      Solomon, looking sarcastically at the speaker. &ldquo;Though Varlamov is a
+      Russian, he is at heart a scabby Jew; money and gain are all he lives for,
+      but I threw my money in the stove! I don&rsquo;t want money, or land, or sheep,
+      and there is no need for people to be afraid of me and to take off their
+      hats when I pass. So I am wiser than your Varlamov and more like a man!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A little later Yegorushka, half asleep, heard Solomon in a hoarse hollow
+      voice choked with hatred, in hurried stuttering phrases, talking about the
+      Jews. At first he talked correctly in Russian, then he fell into the tone
+      of a Jewish recitation, and began speaking as he had done at the fair with
+      an exaggerated Jewish accent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Stop! . . .&rdquo; Father Christopher said to him. &ldquo;If you don&rsquo;t like your
+      religion you had better change it, but to laugh at it is a sin; it is only
+      the lowest of the low who will make fun of his religion.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You don&rsquo;t understand,&rdquo; Solomon cut him short rudely. &ldquo;I am talking of one
+      thing and you are talking of something else. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;One can see you are a foolish fellow,&rdquo; sighed Father Christopher. &ldquo;I
+      admonish you to the best of my ability, and you are angry. I speak to you
+      like an old man quietly, and you answer like a turkeycock: &lsquo;Bla&mdash;-bla&mdash;-bla!&rsquo;
+      You really are a queer fellow. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Moisey Moisevitch came in. He looked anxiously at Solomon and at his
+      visitors, and again the skin on his face quivered nervously. Yegorushka
+      shook his head and looked about him; he caught a passing glimpse of
+      Solomon&rsquo;s face at the very moment when it was turned three-quarters
+      towards him and when the shadow of his long nose divided his left cheek in
+      half; the contemptuous smile mingled with that shadow; the gleaming
+      sarcastic eyes, the haughty expression, and the whole plucked-looking
+      little figure, dancing and doubling itself before Yegorushka&rsquo;s eyes, made
+      him now not like a buffoon, but like something one sometimes dreams of,
+      like an evil spirit.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What a ferocious fellow you&rsquo;ve got here, Moisey Moisevitch! God bless
+      him!&rdquo; said Father Christopher with a smile. &ldquo;You ought to find him a place
+      or a wife or something. . . . There&rsquo;s no knowing what to make of him. . .
+      .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Kuzmitchov frowned angrily. Moisey Moisevitch looked uneasily and
+      inquiringly at his brother and the visitors again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Solomon, go away!&rdquo; he said shortly. &ldquo;Go away!&rdquo; and he added something in
+      Yiddish. Solomon gave an abrupt laugh and went out.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What was it?&rdquo; Moisey Moisevitch asked Father Christopher anxiously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He forgets himself,&rdquo; answered Kuzmitchov. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s rude and thinks too much
+      of himself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I knew it!&rdquo; Moisey Moisevitch cried in horror, clasping his hands. &ldquo;Oh
+      dear, oh dear!&rdquo; he muttered in a low voice. &ldquo;Be so kind as to excuse it,
+      and don&rsquo;t be angry. He is such a queer fellow, such a queer fellow! Oh
+      dear, oh dear! He is my own brother, but I have never had anything but
+      trouble from him. You know he&rsquo;s. . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Moisey Moisevitch crooked his finger by his forehead and went on:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He is not in his right mind; . . . he&rsquo;s hopeless. And I don&rsquo;t know what I
+      am to do with him! He cares for nobody, he respects nobody, and is afraid
+      of nobody. . . . You know he laughs at everybody, he says silly things,
+      speaks familiarly to anyone. You wouldn&rsquo;t believe it, Varlamov came here
+      one day and Solomon said such things to him that he gave us both a taste
+      of his whip. . . . But why whip me? Was it my fault? God has robbed him of
+      his wits, so it is God&rsquo;s will, and how am I to blame?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ten minutes passed and Moisey Moisevitch was still muttering in an
+      undertone and sighing:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He does not sleep at night, and is always thinking and thinking and
+      thinking, and what he is thinking about God only knows. If you go to him
+      at night he is angry and laughs. He doesn&rsquo;t like me either . . . . And
+      there is nothing he wants! When our father died he left us each six
+      thousand roubles. I bought myself an inn, married, and now I have
+      children; and he burnt all his money in the stove. Such a pity, such a
+      pity! Why burn it? If he didn&rsquo;t want it he could give it to me, but why
+      burn it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Suddenly the swing-door creaked and the floor shook under footsteps.
+      Yegorushka felt a draught of cold air, and it seemed to him as though some
+      big black bird had passed by him and had fluttered its wings close in his
+      face. He opened his eyes. . . . His uncle was standing by the sofa with
+      his sack in his hands ready for departure; Father Christopher, holding his
+      broad-brimmed top-hat, was bowing to someone and smiling&mdash;not his
+      usual soft kindly smile, but a respectful forced smile which did not suit
+      his face at all&mdash;while Moisey Moisevitch looked as though his body
+      had been broken into three parts, and he were balancing and doing his
+      utmost not to drop to pieces. Only Solomon stood in the corner with his
+      arms folded, as though nothing had happened, and smiled contemptuously as
+      before.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your Excellency must excuse us for not being tidy,&rdquo; moaned Moisey
+      Moisevitch with the agonizingly sweet smile, taking no more notice of
+      Kuzmitchov or Father Christopher, but swaying his whole person so as to
+      avoid dropping to pieces. &ldquo;We are plain folks, your Excellency.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Yegorushka rubbed his eyes. In the middle of the room there really was
+      standing an Excellency, in the form of a young plump and very beautiful
+      woman in a black dress and a straw hat. Before Yegorushka had time to
+      examine her features the image of the solitary graceful poplar he had seen
+      that day on the hill for some reason came into his mind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Has Varlamov been here to-day?&rdquo; a woman&rsquo;s voice inquired.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, your Excellency,&rdquo; said Moisey Moisevitch.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you see him to-morrow, ask him to come and see me for a minute.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      All at once, quite unexpectedly, Yegorushka saw half an inch from his eyes
+      velvety black eyebrows, big brown eyes, delicate feminine cheeks with
+      dimples, from which smiles seemed radiating all over the face like
+      sunbeams. There was a glorious scent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What a pretty boy!&rdquo; said the lady. &ldquo;Whose boy is it? Kazimir Mihalovitch,
+      look what a charming fellow! Good heavens, he is asleep!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And the lady kissed Yegorushka warmly on both cheeks, and he smiled and,
+      thinking he was asleep, shut his eyes. The swing-door squeaked, and there
+      was the sound of hurried footsteps, coming in and going out.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yegorushka, Yegorushka!&rdquo; he heard two bass voices whisper. &ldquo;Get up; it is
+      time to start.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Somebody, it seemed to be Deniska, set him on his feet and led him by the
+      arm. On the way he half-opened his eyes and once more saw the beautiful
+      lady in the black dress who had kissed him. She was standing in the middle
+      of the room and watched him go out, smiling at him and nodding her head in
+      a friendly way. As he got near the door he saw a handsome, stoutly built,
+      dark man in a bowler hat and in leather gaiters. This must have been the
+      lady&rsquo;s escort.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Woa!&rdquo; he heard from the yard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the front door Yegorushka saw a splendid new carriage and a pair of
+      black horses. On the box sat a groom in livery, with a long whip in his
+      hands. No one but Solomon came to see the travellers off. His face was
+      tense with a desire to laugh; he looked as though he were waiting
+      impatiently for the visitors to be gone, so that he might laugh at them
+      without restraint.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The Countess Dranitsky,&rdquo; whispered Father Christopher, clambering into
+      the chaise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, Countess Dranitsky,&rdquo; repeated Kuzmitchov, also in a whisper.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The impression made by the arrival of the countess was probably very
+      great, for even Deniska spoke in a whisper, and only ventured to lash his
+      bays and shout when the chaise had driven a quarter of a mile away and
+      nothing could be seen of the inn but a dim light.
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      IV
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      Who was this elusive, mysterious Varlamov of whom people talked so much,
+      whom Solomon despised, and whom even the beautiful countess needed?
+      Sitting on the box beside Deniska, Yegorushka, half asleep, thought about
+      this person. He had never seen him. But he had often heard of him and
+      pictured him in his imagination. He knew that Varlamov possessed several
+      tens of thousands of acres of land, about a hundred thousand sheep, and a
+      great deal of money. Of his manner of life and occupation Yegorushka knew
+      nothing, except that he was always &ldquo;going his rounds in these parts,&rdquo; and
+      he was always being looked for.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At home Yegorushka had heard a great deal of the Countess Dranitsky, too.
+      She, too, had some tens of thousands of acres, a great many sheep, a stud
+      farm and a great deal of money, but she did not &ldquo;go rounds,&rdquo; but lived at
+      home in a splendid house and grounds, about which Ivan Ivanitch, who had
+      been more than once at the countess&rsquo;s on business, and other acquaintances
+      told many marvellous tales; thus, for instance, they said that in the
+      countess&rsquo;s drawing-room, where the portraits of all the kings of Poland
+      hung on the walls, there was a big table-clock in the form of a rock, on
+      the rock a gold horse with diamond eyes, rearing, and on the horse the
+      figure of a rider also of gold, who brandished his sword to right and to
+      left whenever the clock struck. They said, too, that twice a year the
+      countess used to give a ball, to which the gentry and officials of the
+      whole province were invited, and to which even Varlamov used to come; all
+      the visitors drank tea from silver samovars, ate all sorts of
+      extraordinary things (they had strawberries and raspberries, for instance,
+      in winter at Christmas), and danced to a band which played day and night.
+      . . .
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And how beautiful she is,&rdquo; thought Yegorushka, remembering her face and
+      smile.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Kuzmitchov, too, was probably thinking about the countess. For when the
+      chaise had driven a mile and a half he said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But doesn&rsquo;t that Kazimir Mihalovitch plunder her right and left! The year
+      before last when, do you remember, I bought some wool from her, he made
+      over three thousand from my purchase alone.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That is just what you would expect from a Pole,&rdquo; said Father Christopher.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And little does it trouble her. Young and foolish, as they say, her head
+      is full of nonsense.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Yegorushka, for some reason, longed to think of nothing but Varlamov and
+      the countess, particularly the latter. His drowsy brain utterly refused
+      ordinary thoughts, was in a cloud and retained only fantastic fairy-tale
+      images, which have the advantage of springing into the brain of themselves
+      without any effort on the part of the thinker, and completely vanishing of
+      themselves at a mere shake of the head; and, indeed, nothing that was
+      around him disposed to ordinary thoughts. On the right there were the dark
+      hills which seemed to be screening something unseen and terrible; on the
+      left the whole sky about the horizon was covered with a crimson glow, and
+      it was hard to tell whether there was a fire somewhere, or whether it was
+      the moon about to rise. As by day the distance could be seen, but its
+      tender lilac tint had gone, quenched by the evening darkness, in which the
+      whole steppe was hidden like Moisey Moisevitch&rsquo;s children under the quilt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Corncrakes and quails do not call in the July nights, the nightingale does
+      not sing in the woodland marsh, and there is no scent of flowers, but
+      still the steppe is lovely and full of life. As soon as the sun goes down
+      and the darkness enfolds the earth, the day&rsquo;s weariness is forgotten,
+      everything is forgiven, and the steppe breathes a light sigh from its
+      broad bosom. As though because the grass cannot see in the dark that it
+      has grown old, a gay youthful twitter rises up from it, such as is not
+      heard by day; chirruping, twittering, whistling, scratching, the basses,
+      tenors and sopranos of the steppe all mingle in an incessant, monotonous
+      roar of sound in which it is sweet to brood on memories and sorrows. The
+      monotonous twitter soothes to sleep like a lullaby; you drive and feel you
+      are falling asleep, but suddenly there comes the abrupt agitated cry of a
+      wakeful bird, or a vague sound like a voice crying out in wonder &ldquo;A-ah,
+      a-ah!&rdquo; and slumber closes one&rsquo;s eyelids again. Or you drive by a little
+      creek where there are bushes and hear the bird, called by the steppe
+      dwellers &ldquo;the sleeper,&rdquo; call &ldquo;Asleep, asleep, asleep!&rdquo; while another
+      laughs or breaks into trills of hysterical weeping&mdash;that is the owl.
+      For whom do they call and who hears them on that plain, God only knows,
+      but there is deep sadness and lamentation in their cry. . . . There is a
+      scent of hay and dry grass and belated flowers, but the scent is heavy,
+      sweetly mawkish and soft.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Everything can be seen through the mist, but it is hard to make out the
+      colours and the outlines of objects. Everything looks different from what
+      it is. You drive on and suddenly see standing before you right in the
+      roadway a dark figure like a monk; it stands motionless, waiting, holding
+      something in its hands. . . . Can it be a robber? The figure comes closer,
+      grows bigger; now it is on a level with the chaise, and you see it is not
+      a man, but a solitary bush or a great stone. Such motionless expectant
+      figures stand on the low hills, hide behind the old barrows, peep out from
+      the high grass, and they all look like human beings and arouse suspicion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And when the moon rises the night becomes pale and dim. The mist seems to
+      have passed away. The air is transparent, fresh and warm; one can see well
+      in all directions and even distinguish the separate stalks of grass by the
+      wayside. Stones and bits of pots can be seen at a long distance. The
+      suspicious figures like monks look blacker against the light background of
+      the night, and seem more sinister. More and more often in the midst of the
+      monotonous chirruping there comes the sound of the &ldquo;A-ah, a-ah!&rdquo; of
+      astonishment troubling the motionless air, and the cry of a sleepless or
+      delirious bird. Broad shadows move across the plain like clouds across the
+      sky, and in the inconceivable distance, if you look long and intently at
+      it, misty monstrous shapes rise up and huddle one against another. . . .
+      It is rather uncanny. One glances at the pale green, star-spangled sky on
+      which there is no cloudlet, no spot, and understands why the warm air is
+      motionless, why nature is on her guard, afraid to stir: she is afraid and
+      reluctant to lose one instant of life. Of the unfathomable depth and
+      infinity of the sky one can only form a conception at sea and on the
+      steppe by night when the moon is shining. It is terribly lonely and
+      caressing; it looks down languid and alluring, and its caressing sweetness
+      makes one giddy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      You drive on for one hour, for a second. . . . You meet upon the way a
+      silent old barrow or a stone figure put up God knows when and by whom; a
+      nightbird floats noiselessly over the earth, and little by little those
+      legends of the steppes, the tales of men you have met, the stories of some
+      old nurse from the steppe, and all the things you have managed to see and
+      treasure in your soul, come back to your mind. And then in the churring of
+      insects, in the sinister figures, in the ancient barrows, in the blue sky,
+      in the moonlight, in the flight of the nightbird, in everything you see
+      and hear, triumphant beauty, youth, the fulness of power, and the
+      passionate thirst for life begin to be apparent; the soul responds to the
+      call of her lovely austere fatherland, and longs to fly over the steppes
+      with the nightbird. And in the triumph of beauty, in the exuberance of
+      happiness you are conscious of yearning and grief, as though the steppe
+      knew she was solitary, knew that her wealth and her inspiration were
+      wasted for the world, not glorified in song, not wanted by anyone; and
+      through the joyful clamour one hears her mournful, hopeless call for
+      singers, singers!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Woa! Good-evening, Panteley! Is everything all right?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;First-rate, Ivan Ivanitch!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Haven&rsquo;t you seen Varlamov, lads?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, we haven&rsquo;t.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Yegorushka woke up and opened his eyes. The chaise had stopped. On the
+      right the train of waggons stretched for a long way ahead on the road, and
+      men were moving to and fro near them. All the waggons being loaded up with
+      great bales of wool looked very high and fat, while the horses looked
+      short-legged and little.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, then, we shall go on to the Molokans&rsquo;!&rdquo; Kuzmitchov said aloud. &ldquo;The
+      Jew told us that Varlamov was putting up for the night at the Molokans&rsquo;.
+      So good-bye, lads! Good luck to you!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good-bye, Ivan Ivanitch,&rdquo; several voices replied.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I say, lads,&rdquo; Kuzmitchov cried briskly, &ldquo;you take my little lad along
+      with you! Why should he go jolting off with us for nothing? You put him on
+      the bales, Panteley, and let him come on slowly, and we shall overtake
+      you. Get down, Yegor! Go on; it&rsquo;s all right. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Yegorushka got down from the box-seat. Several hands caught him, lifted
+      him high into the air, and he found himself on something big, soft, and
+      rather wet with dew. It seemed to him now as though the sky were quite
+      close and the earth far away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hey, take his little coat!&rdquo; Deniska shouted from somewhere far below.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His coat and bundle flung up from far below fell close to Yegorushka.
+      Anxious not to think of anything, he quickly put his bundle under his head
+      and covered himself with his coat, and stretching his legs out and
+      shrinking a little from the dew, he laughed with content.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sleep, sleep, sleep, . . .&rdquo; he thought.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t be unkind to him, you devils!&rdquo; he heard Deniska&rsquo;s voice below.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good-bye, lads; good luck to you,&rdquo; shouted Kuzmitchov. &ldquo;I rely upon you!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t you be uneasy, Ivan Ivanitch!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Deniska shouted to the horses, the chaise creaked and started, not along
+      the road, but somewhere off to the side. For two minutes there was
+      silence, as though the waggons were asleep and there was no sound except
+      the clanking of the pails tied on at the back of the chaise as it slowly
+      died away in the distance. Then someone at the head of the waggons
+      shouted:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Kiruha! Sta-art!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The foremost of the waggons creaked, then the second, then the third. . .
+      . Yegorushka felt the waggon he was on sway and creak also. The waggons
+      were moving. Yegorushka took a tighter hold of the cord with which the
+      bales were tied on, laughed again with content, shifted the cake in his
+      pocket, and fell asleep just as he did in his bed at home. . . .
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When he woke up the sun had risen, it was screened by an ancient barrow,
+      and, trying to shed its light upon the earth, it scattered its beams in
+      all directions and flooded the horizon with gold. It seemed to Yegorushka
+      that it was not in its proper place, as the day before it had risen behind
+      his back, and now it was much more to his left. . . . And the whole
+      landscape was different. There were no hills now, but on all sides,
+      wherever one looked, there stretched the brown cheerless plain; here and
+      there upon it small barrows rose up and rooks flew as they had done the
+      day before. The belfries and huts of some village showed white in the
+      distance ahead; as it was Sunday the Little Russians were at home baking
+      and cooking&mdash;that could be seen by the smoke which rose from every
+      chimney and hung, a dark blue transparent veil, over the village. In
+      between the huts and beyond the church there were blue glimpses of a
+      river, and beyond the river a misty distance. But nothing was so different
+      from yesterday as the road. Something extraordinarily broad, spread out
+      and titanic, stretched over the steppe by way of a road. It was a grey
+      streak well trodden down and covered with dust, like all roads. Its width
+      puzzled Yegorushka and brought thoughts of fairy tales to his mind. Who
+      travelled along that road? Who needed so much space? It was strange and
+      unintelligible. It might have been supposed that giants with immense
+      strides, such as Ilya Muromets and Solovy the Brigand, were still
+      surviving in Russia, and that their gigantic steeds were still alive.
+      Yegorushka, looking at the road, imagined some half a dozen high chariots
+      racing along side by side, like some he used to see in pictures in his
+      Scripture history; these chariots were each drawn by six wild furious
+      horses, and their great wheels raised a cloud of dust to the sky, while
+      the horses were driven by men such as one may see in one&rsquo;s dreams or in
+      imagination brooding over fairy tales. And if those figures had existed,
+      how perfectly in keeping with the steppe and the road they would have
+      been!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Telegraph-poles with two wires on them stretched along the right side of
+      the road to its furthermost limit. Growing smaller and smaller they
+      disappeared near the village behind the huts and green trees, and then
+      again came into sight in the lilac distance in the form of very small thin
+      sticks that looked like pencils stuck into the ground. Hawks, falcons, and
+      crows sat on the wires and looked indifferently at the moving waggons.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yegorushka was lying in the last of the waggons, and so could see the
+      whole string. There were about twenty waggons, and there was a driver to
+      every three waggons. By the last waggon, the one in which Yegorushka was,
+      there walked an old man with a grey beard, as short and lean as Father
+      Christopher, but with a sunburnt, stern and brooding face. It is very
+      possible that the old man was not stern and not brooding, but his red
+      eyelids and his sharp long nose gave his face a stern frigid expression
+      such as is common with people in the habit of continually thinking of
+      serious things in solitude. Like Father Christopher he was wearing a
+      wide-brimmed top-hat, not like a gentleman&rsquo;s, but made of brown felt, and
+      in shape more like a cone with the top cut off than a real top-hat.
+      Probably from a habit acquired in cold winters, when he must more than
+      once have been nearly frozen as he trudged beside the waggons, he kept
+      slapping his thighs and stamping with his feet as he walked. Noticing that
+      Yegorushka was awake, he looked at him and said, shrugging his shoulders
+      as though from the cold:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, you are awake, youngster! So you are the son of Ivan Ivanitch?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No; his nephew. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nephew of Ivan Ivanitch? Here I have taken off my boots and am hopping
+      along barefoot. My feet are bad; they are swollen, and it&rsquo;s easier without
+      my boots . . . easier, youngster . . . without boots, I mean. . . . So you
+      are his nephew? He is a good man; no harm in him. . . . God give him
+      health. . . . No harm in him . . . I mean Ivan Ivanitch. . . . He has gone
+      to the Molokans&rsquo;. . . . O Lord, have mercy upon us!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The old man talked, too, as though it were very cold, pausing and not
+      opening his mouth properly; and he mispronounced the labial consonants,
+      stuttering over them as though his lips were frozen. As he talked to
+      Yegorushka he did not once smile, and he seemed stern.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Two waggons ahead of them there walked a man wearing a long reddish-brown
+      coat, a cap and high boots with sagging bootlegs and carrying a whip in
+      his hand. This was not an old man, only about forty. When he looked round
+      Yegorushka saw a long red face with a scanty goat-beard and a spongy
+      looking swelling under his right eye. Apart from this very ugly swelling,
+      there was another peculiar thing about him which caught the eye at once:
+      in his left hand he carried a whip, while he waved the right as though he
+      were conducting an unseen choir; from time to time he put the whip under
+      his arm, and then he conducted with both hands and hummed something to
+      himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The next driver was a long rectilinear figure with extremely sloping
+      shoulders and a back as flat as a board. He held himself as stiffly erect
+      as though he were marching or had swallowed a yard measure. His hands did
+      not swing as he walked, but hung down as if they were straight sticks, and
+      he strode along in a wooden way, after the manner of toy soldiers, almost
+      without bending his knees, and trying to take as long steps as possible.
+      While the old man or the owner of the spongy swelling were taking two
+      steps he succeeded in taking only one, and so it seemed as though he were
+      walking more slowly than any of them, and would drop behind. His face was
+      tied up in a rag, and on his head something stuck up that looked like a
+      monk&rsquo;s peaked cap; he was dressed in a short Little Russian coat, with
+      full dark blue trousers and bark shoes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yegorushka did not even distinguish those that were farther on. He lay on
+      his stomach, picked a little hole in the bale, and, having nothing better
+      to do, began twisting the wool into a thread. The old man trudging along
+      below him turned out not to be so stern as one might have supposed from
+      his face. Having begun a conversation, he did not let it drop.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where are you going?&rdquo; he asked, stamping with his feet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To school,&rdquo; answered Yegorushka.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To school? Aha! . . . Well, may the Queen of Heaven help you. Yes. One
+      brain is good, but two are better. To one man God gives one brain, to
+      another two brains, and to another three. . . . To another three, that is
+      true. . . . One brain you are born with, one you get from learning, and a
+      third with a good life. So you see, my lad, it is a good thing if a man
+      has three brains. Living is easier for him, and, what&rsquo;s more, dying is,
+      too. Dying is, too. . . . And we shall all die for sure.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The old man scratched his forehead, glanced upwards at Yegorushka with his
+      red eyes, and went on:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Maxim Nikolaitch, the gentleman from Slavyanoserbsk, brought a little lad
+      to school, too, last year. I don&rsquo;t know how he is getting on there in
+      studying the sciences, but he was a nice good little lad. . . . God give
+      them help, they are nice gentlemen. Yes, he, too, brought his boy to
+      school. . . . In Slavyanoserbsk there is no establishment, I suppose, for
+      study. No. . . . But it is a nice town. . . . There&rsquo;s an ordinary school
+      for simple folks, but for the higher studies there is nothing. No, that&rsquo;s
+      true. What&rsquo;s your name? . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yegorushka.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yegory, then. . . . The holy martyr Yegory, the Bearer of Victory, whose
+      day is the twenty-third of April. And my christian name is Panteley, . . .
+      Panteley Zaharov Holodov. . . . We are Holodovs . . . . I am a native of&mdash;maybe
+      you&rsquo;ve heard of it&mdash;Tim in the province of Kursk. My brothers are
+      artisans and work at trades in the town, but I am a peasant. . . . I have
+      remained a peasant. Seven years ago I went there&mdash;home, I mean. I
+      went to the village and to the town. . . . To Tim, I mean. Then, thank
+      God, they were all alive and well; . . . but now I don&rsquo;t know. . . . Maybe
+      some of them are dead. . . . And it&rsquo;s time they did die, for some of them
+      are older than I am. Death is all right; it is good so long, of course, as
+      one does not die without repentance. There is no worse evil than an
+      impenitent death; an impenitent death is a joy to the devil. And if you
+      want to die penitent, so that you may not be forbidden to enter the
+      mansions of the Lord, pray to the holy martyr Varvara. She is the
+      intercessor. She is, that&rsquo;s the truth. . . . For God has given her such a
+      place in the heavens that everyone has the right to pray to her for
+      penitence.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Panteley went on muttering, and apparently did not trouble whether
+      Yegorushka heard him or not. He talked listlessly, mumbling to himself,
+      without raising or dropping his voice, but succeeded in telling him a
+      great deal in a short time. All he said was made up of fragments that had
+      very little connection with one another, and quite uninteresting for
+      Yegorushka. Possibly he talked only in order to reckon over his thoughts
+      aloud after the night spent in silence, in order to see if they were all
+      there. After talking of repentance, he spoke about a certain Maxim
+      Nikolaitch from Slavyanoserbsk.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, he took his little lad; . . . he took him, that&rsquo;s true . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      One of the waggoners walking in front darted from his place, ran to one
+      side and began lashing on the ground with his whip. He was a stalwart,
+      broad-shouldered man of thirty, with curly flaxen hair and a look of great
+      health and vigour. Judging from the movements of his shoulders and the
+      whip, and the eagerness expressed in his attitude, he was beating
+      something alive. Another waggoner, a short stubby little man with a bushy
+      black beard, wearing a waistcoat and a shirt outside his trousers, ran up
+      to him. The latter broke into a deep guffaw of laughter and coughing and
+      said: &ldquo;I say, lads, Dymov has killed a snake!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There are people whose intelligence can be gauged at once by their voice
+      and laughter. The man with the black beard belonged to that class of
+      fortunate individuals; impenetrable stupidity could be felt in his voice
+      and laugh. The flaxen-headed Dymov had finished, and lifting from the
+      ground with his whip something like a cord, flung it with a laugh into the
+      cart.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s not a viper; it&rsquo;s a grass snake!&rdquo; shouted someone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The man with the wooden gait and the bandage round his face strode up
+      quickly to the dead snake, glanced at it and flung up his stick-like arms.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You jail-bird!&rdquo; he cried in a hollow wailing voice. &ldquo;What have you killed
+      a grass snake for? What had he done to you, you damned brute? Look, he has
+      killed a grass snake; how would you like to be treated so?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Grass snakes ought not to be killed, that&rsquo;s true,&rdquo; Panteley muttered
+      placidly, &ldquo;they ought not. . . They are not vipers; though it looks like a
+      snake, it is a gentle, innocent creature. . . . It&rsquo;s friendly to man, the
+      grass snake is.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Dymov and the man with the black beard were probably ashamed, for they
+      laughed loudly, and not answering, slouched lazily back to their waggons.
+      When the hindmost waggon was level with the spot where the dead snake lay,
+      the man with his face tied up standing over it turned to Panteley and
+      asked in a tearful voice:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Grandfather, what did he want to kill the grass snake for?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His eyes, as Yegorushka saw now, were small and dingy looking; his face
+      was grey, sickly and looked somehow dingy too while his chin was red and
+      seemed very much swollen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Grandfather, what did he kill it for?&rdquo; he repeated, striding along beside
+      Panteley.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A stupid fellow. His hands itch to kill, and that is why he does it,&rdquo;
+       answered the old man; &ldquo;but he oughtn&rsquo;t to kill a grass snake, that&rsquo;s true.
+      . . . Dymov is a ruffian, we all know, he kills everything he comes
+      across, and Kiruha did not interfere. He ought to have taken its part, but
+      instead of that, he goes off into &lsquo;Ha-ha-ha!&rsquo; and &lsquo;Ho-ho-ho!&rsquo; . . . But
+      don&rsquo;t be angry, Vassya. . . . Why be angry? They&rsquo;ve killed it&mdash;well,
+      never mind them. Dymov is a ruffian and Kiruha acted from foolishness&mdash;never
+      mind. . . . They are foolish people without understanding&mdash;but there,
+      don&rsquo;t mind them. Emelyan here never touches what he shouldn&rsquo;t; he never
+      does; . . . that is true, . . . because he is a man of education, while
+      they are stupid. . . . Emelyan, he doesn&rsquo;t touch things.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The waggoner in the reddish-brown coat and the spongy swelling on his
+      face, who was conducting an unseen choir, stopped. Hearing his name, and
+      waiting till Panteley and Vassya came up to him, he walked beside them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What are you talking about?&rdquo; he asked in a husky muffled voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, Vassya here is angry,&rdquo; said Panteley. &ldquo;So I have been saying things
+      to him to stop his being angry. . . . Oh, how my swollen feet hurt! Oh,
+      oh! They are more inflamed than ever for Sunday, God&rsquo;s holy day!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s from walking,&rdquo; observed Vassya.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, lad, no. It&rsquo;s not from walking. When I walk it seems easier; when I
+      lie down and get warm, . . . it&rsquo;s deadly. Walking is easier for me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Emelyan, in his reddish-brown coat, walked between Panteley and Vassya and
+      waved his arms, as though they were going to sing. After waving them a
+      little while he dropped them, and croaked out hopelessly:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have no voice. It&rsquo;s a real misfortune. All last night and this morning
+      I have been haunted by the trio &lsquo;Lord, have Mercy&rsquo; that we sang at the
+      wedding at Marionovsky&rsquo;s. It&rsquo;s in my head and in my throat. It seems as
+      though I could sing it, but I can&rsquo;t; I have no voice.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He paused for a minute, thinking, then went on:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;For fifteen years I was in the choir. In all the Lugansky works there
+      was, maybe, no one with a voice like mine. But, confound it, I bathed two
+      years ago in the Donets, and I can&rsquo;t get a single note true ever since. I
+      took cold in my throat. And without a voice I am like a workman without
+      hands.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s true,&rdquo; Panteley agreed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think of myself as a ruined man and nothing more.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At that moment Vassya chanced to catch sight of Yegorushka. His eyes grew
+      moist and smaller than ever.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There&rsquo;s a little gentleman driving with us,&rdquo; and he covered his nose with
+      his sleeve as though he were bashful. &ldquo;What a grand driver! Stay with us
+      and you shall drive the waggons and sell wool.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The incongruity of one person being at once a little gentleman and a
+      waggon driver seemed to strike him as very queer and funny, for he burst
+      into a loud guffaw, and went on enlarging upon the idea. Emelyan glanced
+      upwards at Yegorushka, too, but coldly and cursorily. He was absorbed in
+      his own thoughts, and had it not been for Vassya, would not have noticed
+      Yegorushka&rsquo;s presence. Before five minutes had passed he was waving his
+      arms again, then describing to his companions the beauties of the wedding
+      anthem, &ldquo;Lord, have Mercy,&rdquo; which he had remembered in the night. He put
+      the whip under his arm and waved both hands.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A mile from the village the waggons stopped by a well with a crane.
+      Letting his pail down into the well, black-bearded Kiruha lay on his
+      stomach on the framework and thrust his shaggy head, his shoulders, and
+      part of his chest into the black hole, so that Yegorushka could see
+      nothing but his short legs, which scarcely touched the ground. Seeing the
+      reflection of his head far down at the bottom of the well, he was
+      delighted and went off into his deep bass stupid laugh, and the echo from
+      the well answered him. When he got up his neck and face were as red as
+      beetroot. The first to run up and drink was Dymov. He drank laughing,
+      often turning from the pail to tell Kiruha something funny, then he turned
+      round, and uttered aloud, to be heard all over the steppe, five very bad
+      words. Yegorushka did not understand the meaning of such words, but he
+      knew very well they were bad words. He knew the repulsion his friends and
+      relations silently felt for such words. He himself, without knowing why,
+      shared that feeling and was accustomed to think that only drunk and
+      disorderly people enjoy the privilege of uttering such words aloud. He
+      remembered the murder of the grass snake, listened to Dymov&rsquo;s laughter,
+      and felt something like hatred for the man. And as ill-luck would have it,
+      Dymov at that moment caught sight of Yegorushka, who had climbed down from
+      the waggon and gone up to the well. He laughed aloud and shouted:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I say, lads, the old man has been brought to bed of a boy in the night!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Kiruha laughed his bass laugh till he coughed. Someone else laughed too,
+      while Yegorushka crimsoned and made up his mind finally that Dymov was a
+      very wicked man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With his curly flaxen head, with his shirt opened on his chest and no hat
+      on, Dymov looked handsome and exceptionally strong; in every movement he
+      made one could see the reckless dare-devil and athlete, knowing his value.
+      He shrugged his shoulders, put his arms akimbo, talked and laughed louder
+      than any of the rest, and looked as though he were going to lift up
+      something very heavy with one hand and astonish the whole world by doing
+      so. His mischievous mocking eyes glided over the road, the waggons, and
+      the sky without resting on anything, and seemed looking for someone to
+      kill, just as a pastime, and something to laugh at. Evidently he was
+      afraid of no one, would stick at nothing, and most likely was not in the
+      least interested in Yegorushka&rsquo;s opinion of him. . . . Yegorushka
+      meanwhile hated his flaxen head, his clear face, and his strength with his
+      whole heart, listened with fear and loathing to his laughter, and kept
+      thinking what word of abuse he could pay him out with.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Panteley, too, went up to the pail. He took out of his pocket a little
+      green glass of an ikon lamp, wiped it with a rag, filled it from the pail
+      and drank from it, then filled it again, wrapped the little glass in the
+      rag, and then put it back into his pocket.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Grandfather, why do you drink out of a lamp?&rdquo; Yegorushka asked him,
+      surprised.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;One man drinks out of a pail and another out of a lamp,&rdquo; the old man
+      answered evasively. &ldquo;Every man to his own taste. . . . You drink out of
+      the pail&mdash;well, drink, and may it do you good. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You darling, you beauty!&rdquo; Vassya said suddenly, in a caressing, plaintive
+      voice. &ldquo;You darling!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His eyes were fixed on the distance; they were moist and smiling, and his
+      face wore the same expression as when he had looked at Yegorushka.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who is it you are talking to?&rdquo; asked Kiruha.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A darling fox, . . . lying on her back, playing like a dog.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Everyone began staring into the distance, looking for the fox, but no one
+      could see it, only Vassya with his grey muddy-looking eyes, and he was
+      enchanted by it. His sight was extraordinarily keen, as Yegorushka learnt
+      afterwards. He was so long-sighted that the brown steppe was for him
+      always full of life and interest. He had only to look into the distance to
+      see a fox, a hare, a bustard, or some other animal keeping at a distance
+      from men. There was nothing strange in seeing a hare running away or a
+      flying bustard&mdash;everyone crossing the steppes could see them; but it
+      was not vouchsafed to everyone to see wild animals in their own haunts
+      when they were not running nor hiding, nor looking about them in alarm.
+      Yet Vassya saw foxes playing, hares washing themselves with their paws,
+      bustards preening their wings and hammering out their hollow nests. Thanks
+      to this keenness of sight, Vassya had, besides the world seen by everyone,
+      another world of his own, accessible to no one else, and probably a very
+      beautiful one, for when he saw something and was in raptures over it it
+      was impossible not to envy him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When the waggons set off again, the church bells were ringing for service.
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      V
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      The train of waggons drew up on the bank of a river on one side of a
+      village. The sun was blazing, as it had been the day before; the air was
+      stagnant and depressing. There were a few willows on the bank, but the
+      shade from them did not fall on the earth, but on the water, where it was
+      wasted; even in the shade under the waggon it was stifling and wearisome.
+      The water, blue from the reflection of the sky in it, was alluring.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Styopka, a waggoner whom Yegorushka noticed now for the first time, a
+      Little Russian lad of eighteen, in a long shirt without a belt, and full
+      trousers that flapped like flags as he walked, undressed quickly, ran
+      along the steep bank and plunged into the water. He dived three times,
+      then swam on his back and shut his eyes in his delight. His face was
+      smiling and wrinkled up as though he were being tickled, hurt and amused.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On a hot day when there is nowhere to escape from the sultry, stifling
+      heat, the splash of water and the loud breathing of a man bathing sounds
+      like good music to the ear. Dymov and Kiruha, looking at Styopka,
+      undressed quickly and one after the other, laughing loudly in eager
+      anticipation of their enjoyment, dropped into the water, and the quiet,
+      modest little river resounded with snorting and splashing and shouting.
+      Kiruha coughed, laughed and shouted as though they were trying to drown
+      him, while Dymov chased him and tried to catch him by the leg.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ha-ha-ha!&rdquo; he shouted. &ldquo;Catch him! Hold him!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Kiruha laughed and enjoyed himself, but his expression was the same as it
+      had been on dry land, stupid, with a look of astonishment on it as though
+      someone had, unnoticed, stolen up behind him and hit him on the head with
+      the butt-end of an axe. Yegorushka undressed, too, but did not let himself
+      down by the bank, but took a run and a flying leap from the height of
+      about ten feet. Describing an arc in the air, he fell into the water, sank
+      deep, but did not reach the bottom; some force, cold and pleasant to the
+      touch, seemed to hold him up and bring him back to the surface. He popped
+      out and, snorting and blowing bubbles, opened his eyes; but the sun was
+      reflected in the water quite close to his face. At first blinding spots of
+      light, then rainbow colours and dark patches, flitted before his eyes. He
+      made haste to dive again, opened his eyes in the water and saw something
+      cloudy-green like a sky on a moonlight night. Again the same force would
+      not let him touch the bottom and stay in the coolness, but lifted him to
+      the surface. He popped out and heaved a sigh so deep that he had a feeling
+      of space and freshness, not only in his chest, but in his stomach. Then,
+      to get from the water everything he possibly could get, he allowed himself
+      every luxury; he lay on his back and basked, splashed, frolicked, swam on
+      his face, on his side, on his back and standing up&mdash;just as he
+      pleased till he was exhausted. The other bank was thickly overgrown with
+      reeds; it was golden in the sun, and the flowers of the reeds hung
+      drooping to the water in lovely tassels. In one place the reeds were
+      shaking and nodding, with their flowers rustling&mdash; Styopka and Kiruha
+      were hunting crayfish.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A crayfish, look, lads! A crayfish!&rdquo; Kiruha cried triumphantly and
+      actually showed a crayfish.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yegorushka swam up to the reeds, dived, and began fumbling among their
+      roots. Burrowing in the slimy, liquid mud, he felt something sharp and
+      unpleasant&mdash;perhaps it really was a crayfish. But at that minute
+      someone seized him by the leg and pulled him to the surface. Spluttering
+      and coughing, Yegorushka opened his eyes and saw before him the wet
+      grinning face of the dare-devil Dymov. The impudent fellow was breathing
+      hard, and from a look in his eyes he seemed inclined for further mischief.
+      He held Yegorushka tight by the leg, and was lifting his hand to take hold
+      of his neck. But Yegorushka tore himself away with repulsion and terror,
+      as though disgusted at being touched and afraid that the bully would drown
+      him, and said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Fool! I&rsquo;ll punch you in the face.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Feeling that this was not sufficient to express his hatred, he thought a
+      minute and added:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You blackguard! You son of a bitch!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But Dymov, as though nothing were the matter, took no further notice of
+      Yegorushka, but swam off to Kiruha, shouting:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ha-ha-ha! Let us catch fish! Mates, let us catch fish.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To be sure,&rdquo; Kiruha agreed; &ldquo;there must be a lot of fish here.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Styopka, run to the village and ask the peasants for a net!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They won&rsquo;t give it to me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They will, you ask them. Tell them that they should give it to us for
+      Christ&rsquo;s sake, because we are just the same as pilgrims.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s true.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Styopka clambered out of the water, dressed quickly, and without a cap on
+      he ran, his full trousers flapping, to the village. The water lost all its
+      charm for Yegorushka after his encounter with Dymov. He got out and began
+      dressing. Panteley and Vassya were sitting on the steep bank, with their
+      legs hanging down, looking at the bathers. Emelyan was standing naked, up
+      to his knees in the water, holding on to the grass with one hand to
+      prevent himself from falling while the other stroked his body. With his
+      bony shoulder-blades, with the swelling under his eye, bending down and
+      evidently afraid of the water, he made a ludicrous figure. His face was
+      grave and severe. He looked angrily at the water, as though he were just
+      going to upbraid it for having given him cold in the Donets and robbed him
+      of his voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And why don&rsquo;t you bathe?&rdquo; Yegorushka asked Vassya.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, I don&rsquo;t care for it, . . .&rdquo; answered Vassya.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How is it your chin is swollen?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s bad. . . . I used to work at the match factory, little sir. . . .
+      The doctor used to say that it would make my jaw rot. The air is not
+      healthy there. There were three chaps beside me who had their jaws
+      swollen, and with one of them it rotted away altogether.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Styopka soon came back with the net. Dymov and Kiruha were already turning
+      blue and getting hoarse by being so long in the water, but they set about
+      fishing eagerly. First they went to a deep place beside the reeds; there
+      Dymov was up to his neck, while the water went over squat Kiruha&rsquo;s head.
+      The latter spluttered and blew bubbles, while Dymov stumbling on the
+      prickly roots, fell over and got caught in the net; both flopped about in
+      the water, and made a noise, and nothing but mischief came of their
+      fishing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s deep,&rdquo; croaked Kiruha. &ldquo;You won&rsquo;t catch anything.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t tug, you devil!&rdquo; shouted Dymov trying to put the net in the proper
+      position. &ldquo;Hold it up.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You won&rsquo;t catch anything here,&rdquo; Panteley shouted from the bank. &ldquo;You are
+      only frightening the fish, you stupids! Go more to the left! It&rsquo;s
+      shallower there!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Once a big fish gleamed above the net; they all drew a breath, and Dymov
+      struck the place where it had vanished with his fist, and his face
+      expressed vexation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ugh!&rdquo; cried Panteley, and he stamped his foot. &ldquo;You&rsquo;ve let the perch
+      slip! It&rsquo;s gone!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Moving more to the left, Dymov and Kiruha picked out a shallower place,
+      and then fishing began in earnest. They had wandered off some hundred
+      paces from the waggons; they could be seen silently trying to go as deep
+      as they could and as near the reeds, moving their legs a little at a time,
+      drawing out the nets, beating the water with their fists to drive them
+      towards the nets. From the reeds they got to the further bank; they drew
+      the net out, then, with a disappointed air, lifting their knees high as
+      they walked, went back into the reeds. They were talking about something,
+      but what it was no one could hear. The sun was scorching their backs, the
+      flies were stinging them, and their bodies had turned from purple to
+      crimson. Styopka was walking after them with a pail in his hands; he had
+      tucked his shirt right up under his armpits, and was holding it up by the
+      hem with his teeth. After every successful catch he lifted up some fish,
+      and letting it shine in the sun, shouted:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Look at this perch! We&rsquo;ve five like that!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Every time Dymov, Kiruha and Styopka pulled out the net they could be seen
+      fumbling about in the mud in it, putting some things into the pail and
+      throwing other things away; sometimes they passed something that was in
+      the net from hand to hand, examined it inquisitively, then threw that,
+      too, away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is it?&rdquo; they shouted to them from the bank.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Styopka made some answer, but it was hard to make out his words. Then he
+      climbed out of the water and, holding the pail in both hands, forgetting
+      to let his shirt drop, ran to the waggons.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s full!&rdquo; he shouted, breathing hard. &ldquo;Give us another!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Yegorushka looked into the pail: it was full. A young pike poked its ugly
+      nose out of the water, and there were swarms of crayfish and little fish
+      round about it. Yegorushka put his hand down to the bottom and stirred up
+      the water; the pike vanished under the crayfish and a perch and a tench
+      swam to the surface instead of it. Vassya, too, looked into the pail. His
+      eyes grew moist and his face looked as caressing as before when he saw the
+      fox. He took something out of the pail, put it to his mouth and began
+      chewing it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mates,&rdquo; said Styopka in amazement, &ldquo;Vassya is eating a live gudgeon!
+      Phoo!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s not a gudgeon, but a minnow,&rdquo; Vassya answered calmly, still
+      munching.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He took a fish&rsquo;s tail out of his mouth, looked at it caressingly, and put
+      it back again. While he was chewing and crunching with his teeth it seemed
+      to Yegorushka that he saw before him something not human. Vassya&rsquo;s swollen
+      chin, his lustreless eyes, his extraordinary sharp sight, the fish&rsquo;s tail
+      in his mouth, and the caressing friendliness with which he crunched the
+      gudgeon made him like an animal.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yegorushka felt dreary beside him. And the fishing was over, too. He
+      walked about beside the waggons, thought a little, and, feeling bored,
+      strolled off to the village.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Not long afterwards he was standing in the church, and with his forehead
+      leaning on somebody&rsquo;s back, listened to the singing of the choir. The
+      service was drawing to a close. Yegorushka did not understand church
+      singing and did not care for it. He listened a little, yawned, and began
+      looking at the backs and heads before him. In one head, red and wet from
+      his recent bathe, he recognized Emelyan. The back of his head had been
+      cropped in a straight line higher than is usual; the hair in front had
+      been cut unbecomingly high, and Emelyan&rsquo;s ears stood out like two dock
+      leaves, and seemed to feel themselves out of place. Looking at the back of
+      his head and his ears, Yegorushka, for some reason, thought that Emelyan
+      was probably very unhappy. He remembered the way he conducted with his
+      hands, his husky voice, his timid air when he was bathing, and felt
+      intense pity for him. He longed to say something friendly to him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am here, too,&rdquo; he said, putting out his hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      People who sing tenor or bass in the choir, especially those who have at
+      any time in their lives conducted, are accustomed to look with a stern and
+      unfriendly air at boys. They do not give up this habit, even when they
+      leave off being in a choir. Turning to Yegorushka, Emelyan looked at him
+      from under his brows and said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t play in church!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Then Yegorushka moved forwards nearer to the ikon-stand. Here he saw
+      interesting people. On the right side, in front of everyone, a lady and a
+      gentleman were standing on a carpet. There were chairs behind them. The
+      gentleman was wearing newly ironed shantung trousers; he stood as
+      motionless as a soldier saluting, and held high his bluish shaven chin.
+      There was a very great air of dignity in his stand-up collar, in his blue
+      chin, in his small bald patch and his cane. His neck was so strained from
+      excess of dignity, and his chin was drawn up so tensely, that it looked as
+      though his head were ready to fly off and soar upwards any minute. The
+      lady, who was stout and elderly and wore a white silk shawl, held her head
+      on one side and looked as though she had done someone a favour, and wanted
+      to say: &ldquo;Oh, don&rsquo;t trouble yourself to thank me; I don&rsquo;t like it . . . .&rdquo;
+       A thick wall of Little Russian heads stood all round the carpet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yegorushka went up to the ikon-stand and began kissing the local ikons.
+      Before each image he slowly bowed down to the ground, without getting up,
+      looked round at the congregation, then got up and kissed the ikon. The
+      contact of his forehead with the cold floor afforded him great
+      satisfaction. When the beadle came from the altar with a pair of long
+      snuffers to put out the candles, Yegorushka jumped up quickly from the
+      floor and ran up to him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Have they given out the holy bread?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There is none; there is none,&rdquo; the beadle muttered gruffly. &ldquo;It is no use
+      your. . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The service was over; Yegorushka walked out of the church in a leisurely
+      way, and began strolling about the market-place. He had seen a good many
+      villages, market-places, and peasants in his time, and everything that met
+      his eyes was entirely without interest for him. At a loss for something to
+      do, he went into a shop over the door of which hung a wide strip of red
+      cotton. The shop consisted of two roomy, badly lighted parts; in one half
+      they sold drapery and groceries, in the other there were tubs of tar, and
+      there were horse-collars hanging from the ceiling; from both came the
+      savoury smell of leather and tar. The floor of the shop had been watered;
+      the man who watered it must have been a very whimsical and original
+      person, for it was sprinkled in patterns and mysterious symbols. The
+      shopkeeper, an overfed-looking man with a broad face and round beard,
+      apparently a Great Russian, was standing, leaning his person over the
+      counter. He was nibbling a piece of sugar as he drank his tea, and heaved
+      a deep sigh at every sip. His face expressed complete indifference, but
+      each sigh seemed to be saying:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Just wait a minute; I will give it you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Give me a farthing&rsquo;s worth of sunflower seeds,&rdquo; Yegorushka said,
+      addressing him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The shopkeeper raised his eyebrows, came out from behind the counter, and
+      poured a farthing&rsquo;s worth of sunflower seeds into Yegorushka&rsquo;s pocket,
+      using an empty pomatum pot as a measure. Yegorushka did not want to go
+      away. He spent a long time in examining the box of cakes, thought a little
+      and asked, pointing to some little cakes covered with the mildew of age:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How much are these cakes?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Two for a farthing.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Yegorushka took out of his pocket the cake given him the day before by the
+      Jewess, and asked him:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And how much do you charge for cakes like this?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The shopman took the cake in his hands, looked at it from all sides, and
+      raised one eyebrow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Like that?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then he raised the other eyebrow, thought a minute, and answered:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Two for three farthings. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A silence followed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Whose boy are you?&rdquo; the shopman asked, pouring himself out some tea from
+      a red copper teapot.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The nephew of Ivan Ivanitch.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There are all sorts of Ivan Ivanitchs,&rdquo; the shopkeeper sighed. He looked
+      over Yegorushka&rsquo;s head towards the door, paused a minute and asked:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Would you like some tea?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Please. . . .&rdquo; Yegorushka assented not very readily, though he felt an
+      intense longing for his usual morning tea.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The shopkeeper poured him out a glass and gave him with it a bit of sugar
+      that looked as though it had been nibbled. Yegorushka sat down on the
+      folding chair and began drinking it. He wanted to ask the price of a pound
+      of sugar almonds, and had just broached the subject when a customer walked
+      in, and the shopkeeper, leaving his glass of tea, attended to his
+      business. He led the customer into the other half, where there was a smell
+      of tar, and was there a long time discussing something with him. The
+      customer, a man apparently very obstinate and pig-headed, was continually
+      shaking his head to signify his disapproval, and retreating towards the
+      door. The shopkeeper tried to persuade him of something and began pouring
+      some oats into a big sack for him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you call those oats?&rdquo; the customer said gloomily. &ldquo;Those are not oats,
+      but chaff. It&rsquo;s a mockery to give that to the hens; enough to make the
+      hens laugh. . . . No, I will go to Bondarenko.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      When Yegorushka went back to the river a small camp fire was smoking on
+      the bank. The waggoners were cooking their dinner. Styopka was standing in
+      the smoke, stirring the cauldron with a big notched spoon. A little on one
+      side Kiruha and Vassya, with eyes reddened from the smoke, were sitting
+      cleaning the fish. Before them lay the net covered with slime and water
+      weeds, and on it lay gleaming fish and crawling crayfish.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Emelyan, who had not long been back from the church, was sitting beside
+      Panteley, waving his arm and humming just audibly in a husky voice: &ldquo;To
+      Thee we sing. . . .&rdquo; Dymov was moving about by the horses.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When they had finished cleaning them, Kiruha and Vassya put the fish and
+      the living crayfish together in the pail, rinsed them, and from the pail
+      poured them all into the boiling water.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Shall I put in some fat?&rdquo; asked Styopka, skimming off the froth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No need. The fish will make its own gravy,&rdquo; answered Kiruha.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Before taking the cauldron off the fire Styopka scattered into the water
+      three big handfuls of millet and a spoonful of salt; finally he tried it,
+      smacked his lips, licked the spoon, and gave a self-satisfied grunt, which
+      meant that the grain was done.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All except Panteley sat down near the cauldron and set to work with their
+      spoons.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You there! Give the little lad a spoon!&rdquo; Panteley observed sternly. &ldquo;I
+      dare say he is hungry too!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ours is peasant fare,&rdquo; sighed Kiruha.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Peasant fare is welcome, too, when one is hungry.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They gave Yegorushka a spoon. He began eating, not sitting, but standing
+      close to the cauldron and looking down into it as in a hole. The grain
+      smelt of fish and fish-scales were mixed up with the millet. The crayfish
+      could not be hooked out with a spoon, and the men simply picked them out
+      of the cauldron with their hands; Vassya did so particularly freely, and
+      wetted his sleeves as well as his hands in the mess. But yet the stew
+      seemed to Yegorushka very nice, and reminded him of the crayfish soup
+      which his mother used to make at home on fast-days. Panteley was sitting
+      apart munching bread.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Grandfather, why aren&rsquo;t you eating?&rdquo; Emelyan asked him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t eat crayfish. . . . Nasty things,&rdquo; the old man said, and turned
+      away with disgust.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While they were eating they all talked. From this conversation Yegorushka
+      gathered that all his new acquaintances, in spite of the differences of
+      their ages and their characters, had one point in common which made them
+      all alike: they were all people with a splendid past and a very poor
+      present. Of their past they all&mdash; every one of them&mdash;spoke with
+      enthusiasm; their attitude to the present was almost one of contempt. The
+      Russian loves recalling life, but he does not love living. Yegorushka did
+      not yet know that, and before the stew had been all eaten he firmly
+      believed that the men sitting round the cauldron were the injured victims
+      of fate. Panteley told them that in the past, before there were railways,
+      he used to go with trains of waggons to Moscow and to Nizhni, and used to
+      earn so much that he did not know what to do with his money; and what
+      merchants there used to be in those days! what fish! how cheap everything
+      was! Now the roads were shorter, the merchants were stingier, the peasants
+      were poorer, the bread was dearer, everything had shrunk and was on a
+      smaller scale. Emelyan told them that in old days he had been in the choir
+      in the Lugansky works, and that he had a remarkable voice and read music
+      splendidly, while now he had become a peasant and lived on the charity of
+      his brother, who sent him out with his horses and took half his earnings.
+      Vassya had once worked in a match factory; Kiruha had been a coachman in a
+      good family, and had been reckoned the smartest driver of a three-in-hand
+      in the whole district. Dymov, the son of a well-to-do peasant, lived at
+      ease, enjoyed himself and had known no trouble till he was twenty, when
+      his stern harsh father, anxious to train him to work, and afraid he would
+      be spoiled at home, had sent him to a carrier&rsquo;s to work as a hired
+      labourer. Styopka was the only one who said nothing, but from his
+      beardless face it was evident that his life had been a much better one in
+      the past.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thinking of his father, Dymov frowned and left off eating. Sullenly from
+      under his brows he looked round at his companions and his eye rested upon
+      Yegorushka.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You heathen, take off your cap,&rdquo; he said rudely. &ldquo;You can&rsquo;t eat with your
+      cap on, and you a gentleman too!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Yegorushka took off his hat and did not say a word, but the stew lost all
+      savour for him, and he did not hear Panteley and Vassya intervening on his
+      behalf. A feeling of anger with the insulting fellow was rankling
+      oppressively in his breast, and he made up his mind that he would do him
+      some injury, whatever it cost him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After dinner everyone sauntered to the waggons and lay down in the shade.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are we going to start soon, grandfather?&rdquo; Yegorushka asked Panteley.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In God&rsquo;s good time we shall set off. There&rsquo;s no starting yet; it is too
+      hot. . . . O Lord, Thy will be done. Holy Mother. . . Lie down, little
+      lad.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Soon there was a sound of snoring from under the waggons. Yegorushka meant
+      to go back to the village, but on consideration, yawned and lay down by
+      the old man.
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      VI
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      The waggons remained by the river the whole day, and set off again when
+      the sun was setting.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yegorushka was lying on the bales again; the waggon creaked softly and
+      swayed from side to side. Panteley walked below, stamping his feet,
+      slapping himself on his thighs and muttering. The air was full of the
+      churring music of the steppes, as it had been the day before.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yegorushka lay on his back, and, putting his hands under his head, gazed
+      upwards at the sky. He watched the glow of sunset kindle, then fade away;
+      guardian angels covering the horizon with their gold wings disposed
+      themselves to slumber. The day had passed peacefully; the quiet peaceful
+      night had come, and they could stay tranquilly at home in heaven. . . .
+      Yegorushka saw the sky by degrees grow dark and the mist fall over the
+      earth&mdash;saw the stars light up, one after the other. . . .
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When you gaze a long while fixedly at the deep sky thoughts and feelings
+      for some reason merge in a sense of loneliness. One begins to feel
+      hopelessly solitary, and everything one used to look upon as near and akin
+      becomes infinitely remote and valueless; the stars that have looked down
+      from the sky thousands of years already, the mists and the
+      incomprehensible sky itself, indifferent to the brief life of man, oppress
+      the soul with their silence when one is left face to face with them and
+      tries to grasp their significance. One is reminded of the solitude
+      awaiting each one of us in the grave, and the reality of life seems awful
+      . . . full of despair. . . .
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yegorushka thought of his grandmother, who was sleeping now under the
+      cherry-trees in the cemetery. He remembered how she lay in her coffin with
+      pennies on her eyes, how afterwards she was shut in and let down into the
+      grave; he even recalled the hollow sound of the clods of earth on the
+      coffin lid. . . . He pictured his granny in the dark and narrow coffin,
+      helpless and deserted by everyone. His imagination pictured his granny
+      suddenly awakening, not understanding where she was, knocking upon the lid
+      and calling for help, and in the end swooning with horror and dying again.
+      He imagined his mother dead, Father Christopher, Countess Dranitsky,
+      Solomon. But however much he tried to imagine himself in the dark tomb,
+      far from home, outcast, helpless and dead, he could not succeed; for
+      himself personally he could not admit the possibility of death, and felt
+      that he would never die. . . .
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Panteley, for whom death could not be far away, walked below and went on
+      reckoning up his thoughts.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All right. . . . Nice gentlefolk, . . .&rdquo; he muttered. &ldquo;Took his little
+      lad to school&mdash;but how he is doing now I haven&rsquo;t heard say &mdash;in
+      Slavyanoserbsk. I say there is no establishment for teaching them to be
+      very clever. . . . No, that&rsquo;s true&mdash;a nice little lad, no harm in
+      him. . . . He&rsquo;ll grow up and be a help to his father . . . . You, Yegory,
+      are little now, but you&rsquo;ll grow big and will keep your father and mother.
+      . . . So it is ordained of God, &lsquo;Honour your father and your mother.&rsquo; . .
+      . I had children myself, but they were burnt. . . . My wife was burnt and
+      my children, . . . that&rsquo;s true. . . . The hut caught fire on the night of
+      Epiphany. . . . I was not at home, I was driving in Oryol. In Oryol. . . .
+      Marya dashed out into the street, but remembering that the children were
+      asleep in the hut, ran back and was burnt with her children. . . . Next
+      day they found nothing but bones.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      About midnight Yegorushka and the waggoners were again sitting round a
+      small camp fire. While the dry twigs and stems were burning up, Kiruha and
+      Vassya went off somewhere to get water from a creek; they vanished into
+      the darkness, but could be heard all the time talking and clinking their
+      pails; so the creek was not far away. The light from the fire lay a great
+      flickering patch on the earth; though the moon was bright, yet everything
+      seemed impenetrably black beyond that red patch. The light was in the
+      waggoners&rsquo; eyes, and they saw only part of the great road; almost unseen
+      in the darkness the waggons with the bales and the horses looked like a
+      mountain of undefined shape. Twenty paces from the camp fire at the edge
+      of the road stood a wooden cross that had fallen aslant. Before the camp
+      fire had been lighted, when he could still see things at a distance,
+      Yegorushka had noticed that there was a similar old slanting cross on the
+      other side of the great road.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Coming back with the water, Kiruha and Vassya filled the cauldron and
+      fixed it over the fire. Styopka, with the notched spoon in his hand, took
+      his place in the smoke by the cauldron, gazing dreamily into the water for
+      the scum to rise. Panteley and Emelyan were sitting side by side in
+      silence, brooding over something. Dymov was lying on his stomach, with his
+      head propped on his fists, looking into the fire. . . . Styopka&rsquo;s shadow
+      was dancing over him, so that his handsome face was at one minute covered
+      with darkness, at the next lighted up. . . . Kiruha and Vassya were
+      wandering about at a little distance gathering dry grass and bark for the
+      fire. Yegorushka, with his hands in his pockets, was standing by Panteley,
+      watching how the fire devoured the grass.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All were resting, musing on something, and they glanced cursorily at the
+      cross over which patches of red light were dancing. There is something
+      melancholy, pensive, and extremely poetical about a solitary tomb; one
+      feels its silence, and the silence gives one the sense of the presence of
+      the soul of the unknown man who lies under the cross. Is that soul at
+      peace on the steppe? Does it grieve in the moonlight? Near the tomb the
+      steppe seems melancholy, dreary and mournful; the grass seems more
+      sorrowful, and one fancies the grasshoppers chirrup less freely, and there
+      is no passer-by who would not remember that lonely soul and keep looking
+      back at the tomb, till it was left far behind and hidden in the mists. . .
+      .
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Grandfather, what is that cross for?&rdquo; asked Yegorushka.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Panteley looked at the cross and then at Dymov and asked:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nikola, isn&rsquo;t this the place where the mowers killed the merchants?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Dymov not very readily raised himself on his elbow, looked at the road and
+      said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, it is. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A silence followed. Kiruha broke up some dry stalks, crushed them up
+      together and thrust them under the cauldron. The fire flared up brightly;
+      Styopka was enveloped in black smoke, and the shadow cast by the cross
+      danced along the road in the dusk beside the waggons.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, they were killed,&rdquo; Dymov said reluctantly. &ldquo;Two merchants, father
+      and son, were travelling, selling holy images. They put up in the inn not
+      far from here that is now kept by Ignat Fomin. The old man had a drop too
+      much, and began boasting that he had a lot of money with him. We all know
+      merchants are a boastful set, God preserve us. . . . They can&rsquo;t resist
+      showing off before the likes of us. And at the time some mowers were
+      staying the night at the inn. So they overheard what the merchants said
+      and took note of it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;O Lord! . . . Holy Mother!&rdquo; sighed Panteley.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Next day, as soon as it was light,&rdquo; Dymov went on, &ldquo;the merchants were
+      preparing to set off and the mowers tried to join them. &lsquo;Let us go
+      together, your worships. It will be more cheerful and there will be less
+      danger, for this is an out-of-the-way place. . . .&rsquo; The merchants had to
+      travel at a walking pace to avoid breaking the images, and that just
+      suited the mowers. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Dymov rose into a kneeling position and stretched.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; he went on, yawning. &ldquo;Everything went all right till they reached
+      this spot, and then the mowers let fly at them with their scythes. The
+      son, he was a fine young fellow, snatched the scythe from one of them, and
+      he used it, too. . . . Well, of course, they got the best of it because
+      there were eight of them. They hacked at the merchants so that there was
+      not a sound place left on their bodies; when they had finished they
+      dragged both of them off the road, the father to one side and the son to
+      the other. Opposite that cross there is another cross on this side. . . .
+      Whether it is still standing, I don&rsquo;t know. . . . I can&rsquo;t see from here. .
+      . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is,&rdquo; said Kiruha.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They say they did not find much money afterwards.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; Panteley confirmed; &ldquo;they only found a hundred roubles.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And three of them died afterwards, for the merchant had cut them badly
+      with the scythe, too. They died from loss of blood. One had his hand cut
+      off, so that they say he ran three miles without his hand, and they found
+      him on a mound close to Kurikovo. He was squatting on his heels, with his
+      head on his knees, as though he were lost in thought, but when they looked
+      at him there was no life in him and he was dead. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They found him by the track of blood,&rdquo; said Panteley.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Everyone looked at the cross, and again there was a hush. From somewhere,
+      most likely from the creek, floated the mournful cry of the bird: &ldquo;Sleep!
+      sleep! sleep!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There are a great many wicked people in the world,&rdquo; said Emelyan.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A great many,&rdquo; assented Panteley, and he moved up closer to the fire as
+      though he were frightened. &ldquo;A great many,&rdquo; he went on in a low voice.
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve seen lots and lots of them. . . . Wicked people! . . . I have seen a
+      great many holy and just, too. . . . Queen of Heaven, save us and have
+      mercy on us. I remember once thirty years ago, or maybe more, I was
+      driving a merchant from Morshansk. The merchant was a jolly handsome
+      fellow, with money, too . . . the merchant was . . . a nice man, no harm
+      in him. . . . So we put up for the night at an inn. And in Russia the inns
+      are not what they are in these parts. There the yards are roofed in and
+      look like the ground floor, or let us say like barns in good farms. Only a
+      barn would be a bit higher. So we put up there and were all right. My
+      merchant was in a room, while I was with the horses, and everything was as
+      it should be. So, lads, I said my prayers before going to sleep and began
+      walking about the yard. And it was a dark night, I couldn&rsquo;t see anything;
+      it was no good trying. So I walked about a bit up to the waggons, or
+      nearly, when I saw a light gleaming. What could it mean? I thought the
+      people of the inn had gone to bed long ago, and besides the merchant and
+      me there were no other guests in the inn. . . . Where could the light have
+      come from? I felt suspicious. . . . I went closer . . . towards the light.
+      . . . The Lord have mercy upon me! and save me, Queen of Heaven! I looked
+      and there was a little window with a grating, . . . close to the ground,
+      in the house. . . I lay down on the ground and looked in; as soon as I
+      looked in a cold chill ran all down me. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Kiruha, trying not to make a noise, thrust a handful of twigs into the
+      fire. After waiting for it to leave off crackling and hissing, the old man
+      went on:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I looked in and there was a big cellar, black and dark. . . . There was a
+      lighted lantern on a tub. In the middle of the cellar were about a dozen
+      men in red shirts with their sleeves turned up, sharpening long knives. .
+      . . Ugh! So we had fallen into a nest of robbers. . . . What&rsquo;s to be done?
+      I ran to the merchant, waked him up quietly, and said: &lsquo;Don&rsquo;t be
+      frightened, merchant,&rsquo; said I, &lsquo;but we are in a bad way. We have fallen
+      into a nest of robbers,&rsquo; I said. He turned pale and asked: &lsquo;What are we to
+      do now, Panteley? I have a lot of money that belongs to orphans. As for my
+      life,&rsquo; he said, &lsquo;that&rsquo;s in God&rsquo;s hands. I am not afraid to die, but it&rsquo;s
+      dreadful to lose the orphans&rsquo; money,&rsquo; said he. . . . What were we to do?
+      The gates were locked; there was no getting out. If there had been a fence
+      one could have climbed over it, but with the yard shut up! . . . &lsquo;Come,
+      don&rsquo;t be frightened, merchant,&rsquo; said I; &lsquo;but pray to God. Maybe the Lord
+      will not let the orphans suffer. Stay still.&rsquo; said I, &lsquo;and make no sign,
+      and meanwhile, maybe, I shall think of something. . . .&rsquo; Right! . . . I
+      prayed to God and the Lord put the thought into my mind. . . . I clambered
+      up on my chaise and softly, . . . softly so that no one should hear, began
+      pulling out the straw in the thatch, made a hole and crept out, crept out.
+      . . . Then I jumped off the roof and ran along the road as fast as I
+      could. I ran and ran till I was nearly dead. . . . I ran maybe four miles
+      without taking breath, if not more. Thank God I saw a village. I ran up to
+      a hut and began tapping at a window. &lsquo;Good Christian people,&rsquo; I said, and
+      told them all about it, &lsquo;do not let a Christian soul perish. . . .&rsquo; I
+      waked them all up. . . . The peasants gathered together and went with me,
+      . . one with a cord, one with an oakstick, others with pitchforks. . . .
+      We broke in the gates of the inn-yard and went straight to the cellar. . .
+      . And the robbers had just finished sharpening their knives and were going
+      to kill the merchant. The peasants took them, every one of them, bound
+      them and carried them to the police. The merchant gave them three hundred
+      roubles in his joy, and gave me five gold pieces and put my name down.
+      They said that they found human bones in the cellar afterwards, heaps and
+      heaps of them. . . . Bones! . . . So they robbed people and then buried
+      them, so that there should be no traces. . . . Well, afterwards they were
+      punished at Morshansk.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Panteley had finished his story, and he looked round at his listeners.
+      They were gazing at him in silence. The water was boiling by now and
+      Styopka was skimming off the froth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is the fat ready?&rdquo; Kiruha asked him in a whisper.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wait a little. . . . Directly.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Styopka, his eyes fixed on Panteley as though he were afraid that the
+      latter might begin some story before he was back, ran to the waggons; soon
+      he came back with a little wooden bowl and began pounding some lard in it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I went another journey with a merchant, too, . . .&rdquo; Panteley went on
+      again, speaking as before in a low voice and with fixed unblinking eyes.
+      &ldquo;His name, as I remember now, was Pyotr Grigoritch. He was a nice man, . .
+      . the merchant was. We stopped in the same way at an inn. . . . He indoors
+      and me with the horses. . . . The people of the house, the innkeeper and
+      his wife, seemed friendly good sort of people; the labourers, too, seemed
+      all right; but yet, lads, I couldn&rsquo;t sleep. I had a queer feeling in my
+      heart, . . . a queer feeling, that was just it. The gates were open and
+      there were plenty of people about, and yet I felt afraid and not myself.
+      Everyone had been asleep long ago. It was the middle of the night; it
+      would soon be time to get up, and I was lying alone in my chaise and could
+      not close my eyes, as though I were some owl. And then, lads, I heard this
+      sound, &lsquo;Toop! toop! toop!&rsquo; Someone was creeping up to the chaise. I poke
+      my head out, and there was a peasant woman in nothing but her shift and
+      with her feet bare. . . . &lsquo;What do you want, good woman?&rsquo; I asked. And she
+      was all of a tremble; her face was terror-stricken. . . &lsquo;Get up, good
+      man,&rsquo; said she; &lsquo;the people are plotting evil. . . . They mean to kill
+      your merchant. With my own ears I heard the master whispering with his
+      wife. . . .&rsquo; So it was not for nothing, the foreboding of my heart! &lsquo;And
+      who are you?&rsquo; I asked. &lsquo;I am their cook,&rsquo; she said. . . . Right! . . . So
+      I got out of the chaise and went to the merchant. I waked him up and said:
+      &lsquo;Things aren&rsquo;t quite right, Pyotr Grigoritch. . . . Make haste and rouse
+      yourself from sleep, your worship, and dress now while there is still
+      time,&rsquo; I said; &lsquo;and to save our skins, let us get away from trouble.&rsquo; He
+      had no sooner begun dressing when the door opened and, mercy on us! I saw,
+      Holy Mother! the innkeeper and his wife come into the room with three
+      labourers. . . . So they had persuaded the labourers to join them. &lsquo;The
+      merchant has a lot of money, and we&rsquo;ll go shares,&rsquo; they told them. Every
+      one of the five had a long knife in their hand each a knife. The innkeeper
+      locked the door and said: &lsquo;Say your prayers, travellers, . . . and if you
+      begin screaming,&rsquo; they said, &lsquo;we won&rsquo;t let you say your prayers before you
+      die. . . .&rsquo; As though we could scream! I had such a lump in my throat I
+      could not cry out. . . . The merchant wept and said: &lsquo;Good Christian
+      people! you have resolved to kill me because my money tempts you. Well, so
+      be it; I shall not be the first nor shall I be the last. Many of us
+      merchants have been murdered at inns. But why, good Christian brothers,&rsquo;
+      says he, &lsquo;murder my driver? Why should he have to suffer for my money?&rsquo;
+      And he said that so pitifully! And the innkeeper answered him: &lsquo;If we
+      leave him alive,&rsquo; said he, &lsquo;he will be the first to bear witness against
+      us. One may just as well kill two as one. You can but answer once for
+      seven misdeeds. . . Say your prayers, that&rsquo;s all you can do, and it is no
+      good talking!&rsquo; The merchant and I knelt down side by side and wept and
+      said our prayers. He thought of his children. I was young in those days; I
+      wanted to live. . . . We looked at the images and prayed, and so pitifully
+      that it brings a tear even now. . . . And the innkeeper&rsquo;s wife looks at us
+      and says: &lsquo;Good people,&rsquo; said she, &lsquo;don&rsquo;t bear a grudge against us in the
+      other world and pray to God for our punishment, for it is want that drives
+      us to it.&rsquo; We prayed and wept and prayed and wept, and God heard us. He
+      had pity on us, I suppose. . . . At the very minute when the innkeeper had
+      taken the merchant by the beard to rip open his throat with his knife
+      suddenly someone seemed to tap at the window from the yard! We all
+      started, and the innkeeper&rsquo;s hands dropped. . . . Someone was tapping at
+      the window and shouting: &lsquo;Pyotr Grigoritch,&rsquo; he shouted, &lsquo;are you here?
+      Get ready and let&rsquo;s go!&rsquo; The people saw that someone had come for the
+      merchant; they were terrified and took to their heels. . . . And we made
+      haste into the yard, harnessed the horses, and were out of sight in a
+      minute. . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who was it knocked at the window?&rdquo; asked Dymov.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;At the window? It must have been a holy saint or angel, for there was no
+      one else. . . . When we drove out of the yard there wasn&rsquo;t a soul in the
+      street. . . . It was the Lord&rsquo;s doing.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Panteley told other stories, and in all of them &ldquo;long knives&rdquo; figured and
+      all alike sounded made up. Had he heard these stories from someone else,
+      or had he made them up himself in the remote past, and afterwards, as his
+      memory grew weaker, mixed up his experiences with his imaginations and
+      become unable to distinguish one from the other? Anything is possible, but
+      it is strange that on this occasion and for the rest of the journey,
+      whenever he happened to tell a story, he gave unmistakable preference to
+      fiction, and never told of what he really had experienced. At the time
+      Yegorushka took it all for the genuine thing, and believed every word;
+      later on it seemed to him strange that a man who in his day had travelled
+      all over Russia and seen and known so much, whose wife and children had
+      been burnt to death, so failed to appreciate the wealth of his life that
+      whenever he was sitting by the camp fire he was either silent or talked of
+      what had never been.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Over their porridge they were all silent, thinking of what they had just
+      heard. Life is terrible and marvellous, and so, however terrible a story
+      you tell in Russia, however you embroider it with nests of robbers, long
+      knives and such marvels, it always finds an echo of reality in the soul of
+      the listener, and only a man who has been a good deal affected by
+      education looks askance distrustfully, and even he will be silent. The
+      cross by the roadside, the dark bales of wool, the wide expanse of the
+      plain, and the lot of the men gathered together by the camp fire&mdash;all
+      this was of itself so marvellous and terrible that the fantastic colours
+      of legend and fairy-tale were pale and blended with life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All the others ate out of the cauldron, but Panteley sat apart and ate his
+      porridge out of a wooden bowl. His spoon was not like those the others
+      had, but was made of cypress wood, with a little cross on it. Yegorushka,
+      looking at him, thought of the little ikon glass and asked Styopka softly:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why does Grandfather sit apart?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He is an Old Believer,&rdquo; Styopka and Vassya answered in a whisper. And as
+      they said it they looked as though they were speaking of some secret vice
+      or weakness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All sat silent, thinking. After the terrible stories there was no
+      inclination to speak of ordinary things. All at once in the midst of the
+      silence Vassya drew himself up and, fixing his lustreless eyes on one
+      point, pricked up his ears.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is it?&rdquo; Dymov asked him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Someone is coming,&rdquo; answered Vassya.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where do you see him?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yo-on-der! There&rsquo;s something white. . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was nothing to be seen but darkness in the direction in which Vassya
+      was looking; everyone listened, but they could hear no sound of steps.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is he coming by the highroad?&rdquo; asked Dymov.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, over the open country. . . . He is coming this way.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A minute passed in silence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And maybe it&rsquo;s the merchant who was buried here walking over the steppe,&rdquo;
+       said Dymov.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All looked askance at the cross, exchanged glances and suddenly broke into
+      a laugh. They felt ashamed of their terror.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why should he walk?&rdquo; asked Panteley. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s only those walk at night whom
+      the earth will not take to herself. And the merchants were all right. . .
+      . The merchants have received the crown of martyrs.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But all at once they heard the sound of steps; someone was coming in
+      haste.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He&rsquo;s carrying something,&rdquo; said Vassya.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They could hear the grass rustling and the dry twigs crackling under the
+      feet of the approaching wayfarer. But from the glare of the camp fire
+      nothing could be seen. At last the steps sounded close by, and someone
+      coughed. The flickering light seemed to part; a veil dropped from the
+      waggoners&rsquo; eyes, and they saw a man facing them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Whether it was due to the flickering light or because everyone wanted to
+      make out the man&rsquo;s face first of all, it happened, strangely enough, that
+      at the first glance at him they all saw, first of all, not his face nor
+      his clothes, but his smile. It was an extraordinarily good-natured, broad,
+      soft smile, like that of a baby on waking, one of those infectious smiles
+      to which it is difficult not to respond by smiling too. The stranger, when
+      they did get a good look at him, turned out to be a man of thirty, ugly
+      and in no way remarkable. He was a tall Little Russian, with a long nose,
+      long arms and long legs; everything about him seemed long except his neck,
+      which was so short that it made him seem stooping. He was wearing a clean
+      white shirt with an embroidered collar, white trousers, and new high
+      boots, and in comparison with the waggoners he looked quite a dandy. In
+      his arms he was carrying something big, white, and at the first glance
+      strange-looking, and the stock of a gun also peeped out from behind his
+      shoulder.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Coming from the darkness into the circle of light, he stopped short as
+      though petrified, and for half a minute looked at the waggoners as though
+      he would have said: &ldquo;Just look what a smile I have!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Then he took a step towards the fire, smiled still more radiantly and
+      said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Bread and salt, friends!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are very welcome!&rdquo; Panteley answered for them all.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The stranger put down by the fire what he was carrying in his arms &mdash;it
+      was a dead bustard&mdash;and greeted them once more.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They all went up to the bustard and began examining it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A fine big bird; what did you kill it with?&rdquo; asked Dymov.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Grape-shot. You can&rsquo;t get him with small shot, he won&rsquo;t let you get near
+      enough. Buy it, friends! I will let you have it for twenty kopecks.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What use would it be to us? It&rsquo;s good roast, but I bet it would be tough
+      boiled; you could not get your teeth into it. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, what a pity! I would take it to the gentry at the farm; they would
+      give me half a rouble for it. But it&rsquo;s a long way to go&mdash; twelve
+      miles!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The stranger sat down, took off his gun and laid it beside him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He seemed sleepy and languid; he sat smiling, and, screwing up his eyes at
+      the firelight, apparently thinking of something very agreeable. They gave
+      him a spoon; he began eating.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who are you?&rdquo; Dymov asked him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The stranger did not hear the question; he made no answer, and did not
+      even glance at Dymov. Most likely this smiling man did not taste the
+      flavour of the porridge either, for he seemed to eat it mechanically,
+      lifting the spoon to his lips sometimes very full and sometimes quite
+      empty. He was not drunk, but he seemed to have something nonsensical in
+      his head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I ask you who you are?&rdquo; repeated Dymov.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I?&rdquo; said the unknown, starting. &ldquo;Konstantin Zvonik from Rovno. It&rsquo;s three
+      miles from here.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And anxious to show straight off that he was not quite an ordinary
+      peasant, but something better, Konstantin hastened to add:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We keep bees and fatten pigs.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you live with your father or in a house of your own?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No; now I am living in a house of my own. I have parted. This month, just
+      after St. Peter&rsquo;s Day, I got married. I am a married man now! . . . It&rsquo;s
+      eighteen days since the wedding.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s a good thing,&rdquo; said Panteley. &ldquo;Marriage is a good thing . . . .
+      God&rsquo;s blessing is on it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;His young wife sits at home while he rambles about the steppe,&rdquo; laughed
+      Kiruha. &ldquo;Queer chap!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      As though he had been pinched on the tenderest spot, Konstantin started,
+      laughed and flushed crimson.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But, Lord, she is not at home!&rdquo; he said quickly, taking the spoon out of
+      his mouth and looking round at everyone with an expression of delight and
+      wonder. &ldquo;She is not; she has gone to her mother&rsquo;s for three days! Yes,
+      indeed, she has gone away, and I feel as though I were not married. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Konstantin waved his hand and turned his head; he wanted to go on
+      thinking, but the joy which beamed in his face prevented him. As though he
+      were not comfortable, he changed his attitude, laughed, and again waved
+      his hand. He was ashamed to share his happy thoughts with strangers, but
+      at the same time he had an irresistible longing to communicate his joy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She has gone to Demidovo to see her mother,&rdquo; he said, blushing and moving
+      his gun. &ldquo;She&rsquo;ll be back to-morrow. . . . She said she would be back to
+      dinner.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And do you miss her?&rdquo; said Dymov.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, Lord, yes; I should think so. We have only been married such a little
+      while, and she has gone away. . . . Eh! Oh, but she is a tricky one, God
+      strike me dead! She is such a fine, splendid girl, such a one for laughing
+      and singing, full of life and fire! When she is there your brain is in a
+      whirl, and now she is away I wander about the steppe like a fool, as
+      though I had lost something. I have been walking since dinner.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Konstantin rubbed his eyes, looked at the fire and laughed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You love her, then, . . .&rdquo; said Panteley.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She is so fine and splendid,&rdquo; Konstantin repeated, not hearing him; &ldquo;such
+      a housewife, clever and sensible. You wouldn&rsquo;t find another like her among
+      simple folk in the whole province. She has gone away. . . . But she is
+      missing me, I kno-ow! I know the little magpie. She said she would be back
+      to-morrow by dinner-time. . . . And just think how queer!&rdquo; Konstantin
+      almost shouted, speaking a note higher and shifting his position. &ldquo;Now she
+      loves me and is sad without me, and yet she would not marry me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But eat,&rdquo; said Kiruha.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She would not marry me,&rdquo; Konstantin went on, not heeding him. &ldquo;I have
+      been struggling with her for three years! I saw her at the Kalatchik fair;
+      I fell madly in love with her, was ready to hang myself. . . . I live at
+      Rovno, she at Demidovo, more than twenty miles apart, and there was
+      nothing I could do. I sent match-makers to her, and all she said was: &lsquo;I
+      won&rsquo;t!&rsquo; Ah, the magpie! I sent her one thing and another, earrings and
+      cakes, and twenty pounds of honey&mdash;but still she said: &lsquo;I won&rsquo;t!&rsquo; And
+      there it was. If you come to think of it, I was not a match for her! She
+      was young and lovely, full of fire, while I am old: I shall soon be
+      thirty, and a regular beauty, too; a fine beard like a goat&rsquo;s, a clear
+      complexion all covered with pimples&mdash;how could I be compared with
+      her! The only thing to be said is that we are well off, but then the
+      Vahramenkys are well off, too. They&rsquo;ve six oxen, and they keep a couple of
+      labourers. I was in love, friends, as though I were plague-stricken. I
+      couldn&rsquo;t sleep or eat; my brain was full of thoughts, and in such a maze,
+      Lord preserve us! I longed to see her, and she was in Demidovo. What do
+      you think? God be my witness, I am not lying, three times a week I walked
+      over there on foot just to have a look at her. I gave up my work! I was so
+      frantic that I even wanted to get taken on as a labourer in Demidovo, so
+      as to be near her. I was in misery! My mother called in a witch a dozen
+      times; my father tried thrashing me. For three years I was in this
+      torment, and then I made up my mind. &lsquo;Damn my soul!&rsquo; I said. &lsquo;I will go to
+      the town and be a cabman. . . . It seems it is fated not to be.&rsquo; At Easter
+      I went to Demidovo to have a last look at her. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Konstantin threw back his head and went off into a mirthful tinkling
+      laugh, as though he had just taken someone in very cleverly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I saw her by the river with the lads,&rdquo; he went on. &ldquo;I was overcome with
+      anger. . . . I called her aside and maybe for a full hour I said all
+      manner of things to her. She fell in love with me! For three years she did
+      not like me! she fell in love with me for what I said to her. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What did you say to her?&rdquo; asked Dymov.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What did I say? I don&rsquo;t remember. . . How could one remember? My words
+      flowed at the time like water from a tap, without stopping to take breath.
+      Ta-ta-ta! And now I can&rsquo;t utter a word. . . . Well, so she married me. . .
+      . She&rsquo;s gone now to her mother&rsquo;s, the magpie, and while she is away here I
+      wander over the steppe. I can&rsquo;t stay at home. It&rsquo;s more than I can do!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Konstantin awkwardly released his feet, on which he was sitting, stretched
+      himself on the earth, and propped his head in his fists, then got up and
+      sat down again. Everyone by now thoroughly understood that he was in love
+      and happy, poignantly happy; his smile, his eyes, and every movement,
+      expressed fervent happiness. He could not find a place for himself, and
+      did not know what attitude to take to keep himself from being overwhelmed
+      by the multitude of his delightful thoughts. Having poured out his soul
+      before these strangers, he settled down quietly at last, and, looking at
+      the fire, sank into thought.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the sight of this happy man everyone felt depressed and longed to be
+      happy, too. Everyone was dreamy. Dymov got up, walked about softly by the
+      fire, and from his walk, from the movement of his shoulder-blades, it
+      could be seen that he was weighed down by depression and yearning. He
+      stood still for a moment, looked at Konstantin and sat down.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The camp fire had died down by now; there was no flicker, and the patch of
+      red had grown small and dim. . . . And as the fire went out the moonlight
+      grew clearer and clearer. Now they could see the full width of the road,
+      the bales of wool, the shafts of the waggons, the munching horses; on the
+      further side of the road there was the dim outline of the second cross. .
+      . .
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Dymov leaned his cheek on his hand and softly hummed some plaintive song.
+      Konstantin smiled drowsily and chimed in with a thin voice. They sang for
+      half a minute, then sank into silence. Emelyan started, jerked his elbows
+      and wriggled his fingers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Lads,&rdquo; he said in an imploring voice, &ldquo;let&rsquo;s sing something sacred!&rdquo;
+       Tears came into his eyes. &ldquo;Lads,&rdquo; he repeated, pressing his hands on his
+      heart, &ldquo;let&rsquo;s sing something sacred!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know anything,&rdquo; said Konstantin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Everyone refused, then Emelyan sang alone. He waved both arms, nodded his
+      head, opened his mouth, but nothing came from his throat but a discordant
+      gasp. He sang with his arms, with his head, with his eyes, even with the
+      swelling on his face; he sang passionately with anguish, and the more he
+      strained his chest to extract at least one note from it, the more
+      discordant were his gasps.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yegorushka, like the rest, was overcome with depression. He went to his
+      waggon, clambered up on the bales and lay down. He looked at the sky, and
+      thought of happy Konstantin and his wife. Why did people get married? What
+      were women in the world for? Yegorushka put the vague questions to
+      himself, and thought that a man would certainly be happy if he had an
+      affectionate, merry and beautiful woman continually living at his side.
+      For some reason he remembered the Countess Dranitsky, and thought it would
+      probably be very pleasant to live with a woman like that; he would perhaps
+      have married her with pleasure if that idea had not been so shameful. He
+      recalled her eyebrows, the pupils of her eyes, her carriage, the clock
+      with the horseman. . . . The soft warm night moved softly down upon him
+      and whispered something in his ear, and it seemed to him that it was that
+      lovely woman bending over him, looking at him with a smile and meaning to
+      kiss him. . . .
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nothing was left of the fire but two little red eyes, which kept on
+      growing smaller and smaller. Konstantin and the waggoners were sitting by
+      it, dark motionless figures, and it seemed as though there were many more
+      of them than before. The twin crosses were equally visible, and far, far
+      away, somewhere by the highroad there gleamed a red light&mdash;other
+      people cooking their porridge, most likely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Our Mother Russia is the he-ad of all the world!&rdquo; Kiruha sang out
+      suddenly in a harsh voice, choked and subsided. The steppe echo caught up
+      his voice, carried it on, and it seemed as though stupidity itself were
+      rolling on heavy wheels over the steppe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s time to go,&rdquo; said Panteley. &ldquo;Get up, lads.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      While they were putting the horses in, Konstantin walked by the waggons
+      and talked rapturously of his wife.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good-bye, mates!&rdquo; he cried when the waggons started. &ldquo;Thank you for your
+      hospitality. I shall go on again towards that light. It&rsquo;s more than I can
+      stand.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And he quickly vanished in the mist, and for a long time they could hear
+      him striding in the direction of the light to tell those other strangers
+      of his happiness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When Yegorushka woke up next day it was early morning; the sun had not yet
+      risen. The waggons were at a standstill. A man in a white cap and a suit
+      of cheap grey material, mounted on a little Cossack stallion, was talking
+      to Dymov and Kiruha beside the foremost waggon. A mile and a half ahead
+      there were long low white barns and little houses with tiled roofs; there
+      were neither yards nor trees to be seen beside the little houses.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What village is that, Grandfather?&rdquo; asked Yegorushka.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s the Armenian Settlement, youngster,&rdquo; answered Panteley. &ldquo;The
+      Armenians live there. They are a good sort of people, . . . the Arnienians
+      are.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The man in grey had finished talking to Dymov and Kiruha; he pulled up his
+      little stallion and looked across towards the settlement.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What a business, only think!&rdquo; sighed Panteley, looking towards the
+      settlement, too, and shuddering at the morning freshness. &ldquo;He has sent a
+      man to the settlement for some papers, and he doesn&rsquo;t come . . . . He
+      should have sent Styopka.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who is that, Grandfather?&rdquo; asked Yegorushka.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Varlamov.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      My goodness! Yegorushka jumped up quickly, getting upon his knees, and
+      looked at the white cap. It was hard to recognize the mysterious elusive
+      Varlamov, who was sought by everyone, who was always &ldquo;on his rounds,&rdquo; and
+      who had far more money than Countess Dranitsky, in the short, grey little
+      man in big boots, who was sitting on an ugly little nag and talking to
+      peasants at an hour when all decent people were asleep.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He is all right, a good man,&rdquo; said Panteley, looking towards the
+      settlement. &ldquo;God give him health&mdash;a splendid gentleman, Semyon
+      Alexandritch. . . . It&rsquo;s people like that the earth rests upon. That&rsquo;s
+      true. . . . The cocks are not crowing yet, and he is already up and about.
+      . . . Another man would be asleep, or gallivanting with visitors at home,
+      but he is on the steppe all day, . . . on his rounds. . . . He does not
+      let things slip. . . . No-o! He&rsquo;s a fine fellow. . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Varlamov was talking about something, while he kept his eyes fixed. The
+      little stallion shifted from one leg to another impatiently.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Semyon Alexandritch!&rdquo; cried Panteley, taking off his hat. &ldquo;Allow us to
+      send Styopka! Emelyan, call out that Styopka should be sent.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But now at last a man on horseback could be seen coming from the
+      settlement. Bending very much to one side and brandishing his whip above
+      his head like a gallant young Caucasian, and wanting to astonish everyone
+      by his horsemanship, he flew towards the waggons with the swiftness of a
+      bird.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That must be one of his circuit men,&rdquo; said Panteley. &ldquo;He must have a
+      hundred such horsemen or maybe more.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Reaching the first waggon, he pulled up his horse, and taking off his hat,
+      handed Varlamov a little book. Varlamov took several papers out of the
+      book, read them and cried:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And where is Ivantchuk&rsquo;s letter?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The horseman took the book back, looked at the papers and shrugged his
+      shoulders. He began saying something, probably justifying himself and
+      asking to be allowed to ride back to the settlement again. The little
+      stallion suddenly stirred as though Varlamov had grown heavier. Varlamov
+      stirred too.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Go along!&rdquo; he cried angrily, and he waved his whip at the man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then he turned his horse round and, looking through the papers in the
+      book, moved at a walking pace alongside the waggons. When he reached the
+      hindmost, Yegorushka strained his eyes to get a better look at him.
+      Varlamov was an elderly man. His face, a simple Russian sunburnt face with
+      a small grey beard, was red, wet with dew and covered with little blue
+      veins; it had the same expression of businesslike coldness as Ivan
+      Ivanitch&rsquo;s face, the same look of fanatical zeal for business. But yet
+      what a difference could be felt between him and Kuzmitchov! Uncle Ivan
+      Ivanitch always had on his face, together with his business-like reserve,
+      a look of anxiety and apprehension that he would not find Varlamov, that
+      he would be late, that he would miss a good price; nothing of that sort,
+      so characteristic of small and dependent persons, could be seen in the
+      face or figure of Varlamov. This man made the price himself, was not
+      looking for anyone, and did not depend on anyone; however ordinary his
+      exterior, yet in everything, even in the manner of holding his whip, there
+      was a sense of power and habitual authority over the steppe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As he rode by Yegorushka he did not glance at him. Only the little
+      stallion deigned to notice Yegorushka; he looked at him with his large
+      foolish eyes, and even he showed no interest. Panteley bowed to Varlamov;
+      the latter noticed it, and without taking his eyes off the sheets of
+      paper, said lisping:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How are you, old man?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Varlamov&rsquo;s conversation with the horseman and the way he had brandished
+      his whip had evidently made an overwhelming impression on the whole party.
+      Everyone looked grave. The man on horseback, cast down at the anger of the
+      great man, remained stationary, with his hat off, and the rein loose by
+      the foremost waggon; he was silent, and seemed unable to grasp that the
+      day had begun so badly for him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He is a harsh old man, . .&rdquo; muttered Panteley. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a pity he is so
+      harsh! But he is all right, a good man. . . . He doesn&rsquo;t abuse men for
+      nothing. . . . It&rsquo;s no matter. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      After examining the papers, Varlamov thrust the book into his pocket; the
+      little stallion, as though he knew what was in his mind, without waiting
+      for orders, started and dashed along the highroad.
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      VII
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      On the following night the waggoners had halted and were cooking their
+      porridge. On this occasion there was a sense of overwhelming oppression
+      over everyone. It was sultry; they all drank a great deal, but could not
+      quench their thirst. The moon was intensely crimson and sullen, as though
+      it were sick. The stars, too, were sullen, the mist was thicker, the
+      distance more clouded. Nature seemed as though languid and weighed down by
+      some foreboding.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was not the same liveliness and talk round the camp fire as there
+      had been the day before. All were dreary and spoke listlessly and without
+      interest. Panteley did nothing but sigh and complain of his feet, and
+      continually alluded to impenitent deathbeds.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Dymov was lying on his stomach, chewing a straw in silence; there was an
+      expression of disgust on his face as though the straw smelt unpleasant, a
+      spiteful and exhausted look. . . . Vassya complained that his jaw ached,
+      and prophesied bad weather; Emelyan was not waving his arms, but sitting
+      still and looking gloomily at the fire. Yegorushka, too, was weary. This
+      slow travelling exhausted him, and the sultriness of the day had given him
+      a headache.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While they were cooking the porridge, Dymov, to relieve his boredom, began
+      quarrelling with his companions.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Here he lolls, the lumpy face, and is the first to put his spoon in,&rdquo; he
+      said, looking spitefully at Emelyan. &ldquo;Greedy! always contrives to sit next
+      the cauldron. He&rsquo;s been a church-singer, so he thinks he is a gentleman!
+      There are a lot of singers like you begging along the highroad!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What are you pestering me for?&rdquo; asked Emelyan, looking at him angrily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To teach you not to be the first to dip into the cauldron. Don&rsquo;t think
+      too much of yourself!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are a fool, and that is all about it!&rdquo; wheezed out Emelyan.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Knowing by experience how such conversations usually ended, Panteley and
+      Vassya intervened and tried to persuade Dymov not to quarrel about
+      nothing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A church-singer!&rdquo; The bully would not desist, but laughed contemptuously.
+      &ldquo;Anyone can sing like that&mdash;sit in the church porch and sing &lsquo;Give me
+      alms, for Christ&rsquo;s sake!&rsquo; Ugh! you are a nice fellow!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Emelyan did not speak. His silence had an irritating effect on Dymov. He
+      looked with still greater hatred at the ex-singer and said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t care to have anything to do with you, or I would show you what to
+      think of yourself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But why are you pushing me, you Mazeppa?&rdquo; Emelyan cried, flaring up. &ldquo;Am
+      I interfering with you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What did you call me?&rdquo; asked Dymov, drawing himself up, and his eyes were
+      suffused with blood. &ldquo;Eh! I am a Mazeppa? Yes? Take that, then; go and
+      look for it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Dymov snatched the spoon out of Emelyan&rsquo;s hand and flung it far away.
+      Kiruha, Vassya, and Styopka ran to look for it, while Emelyan fixed an
+      imploring and questioning look on Panteley. His face suddenly became small
+      and wrinkled; it began twitching, and the ex-singer began to cry like a
+      child.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yegorushka, who had long hated Dymov, felt as though the air all at once
+      were unbearably stifling, as though the fire were scorching his face; he
+      longed to run quickly to the waggons in the darkness, but the bully&rsquo;s
+      angry bored eyes drew the boy to him. With a passionate desire to say
+      something extremely offensive, he took a step towards Dymov and brought
+      out, gasping for breath:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are the worst of the lot; I can&rsquo;t bear you!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      After this he ought to have run to the waggons, but he could not stir from
+      the spot and went on:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In the next world you will burn in hell! I&rsquo;ll complain to Ivan Ivanitch.
+      Don&rsquo;t you dare insult Emelyan!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Say this too, please,&rdquo; laughed Dyrnov: &ldquo;&lsquo;every little sucking-pig wants
+      to lay down the law.&rsquo; Shall I pull your ear?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Yegorushka felt that he could not breathe; and something which had never
+      happened to him before&mdash;he suddenly began shaking all over, stamping
+      his feet and crying shrilly:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Beat him, beat him!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Tears gushed from his eyes; he felt ashamed, and ran staggering back to
+      the waggon. The effect produced by his outburst he did not see. Lying on
+      the bales and twitching his arms and legs, he whispered:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mother, mother!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And these men and the shadows round the camp fire, and the dark bales and
+      the far-away lightning, which was flashing every minute in the distance&mdash;all
+      struck him now as terrible and unfriendly. He was overcome with terror and
+      asked himself in despair why and how he had come into this unknown land in
+      the company of terrible peasants? Where was his uncle now, where was
+      Father Christopher, where was Deniska? Why were they so long in coming?
+      Hadn&rsquo;t they forgotten him? At the thought that he was forgotten and cast
+      out to the mercy of fate, he felt such a cold chill of dread that he had
+      several times an impulse to jump off the bales of wool, and run back full
+      speed along the road; but the thought of the huge dark crosses, which
+      would certainly meet him on the way, and the lightning flashing in the
+      distance, stopped him. . . . And only when he whispered, &ldquo;Mother, mother!&rdquo;
+       he felt as it were a little better.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The waggoners must have been full of dread, too. After Yegorushka had run
+      away from the camp fire they sat at first for a long time in silence, then
+      they began speaking in hollow undertones about something, saying that it
+      was coming and that they must make haste and get away from it. . . . They
+      quickly finished supper, put out the fire and began harnessing the horses
+      in silence. From their fluster and the broken phrases they uttered it was
+      apparent they foresaw some trouble. Before they set off on their way,
+      Dymov went up to Panteley and asked softly:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What&rsquo;s his name?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yegory,&rdquo; answered Panteley.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Dymov put one foot on the wheel, caught hold of the cord which was tied
+      round the bales and pulled himself up. Yegorushka saw his face and curly
+      head. The face was pale and looked grave and exhausted, but there was no
+      expression of spite in it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yera!&rdquo; he said softly, &ldquo;here, hit me!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Yegorushka looked at him in surprise. At that instant there was a flash of
+      lightning.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s all right, hit me,&rdquo; repeated Dymov. And without waiting for
+      Yegorushka to hit him or to speak to him, he jumped down and said: &ldquo;How
+      dreary I am!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Then, swaying from one leg to the other and moving his shoulder-blades, he
+      sauntered lazily alongside the string of waggons and repeated in a voice
+      half weeping, half angry:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How dreary I am! O Lord! Don&rsquo;t you take offence, Emelyan,&rdquo; he said as he
+      passed Emelyan. &ldquo;Ours is a wretched cruel life!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a flash of lightning on the right, and, like a reflection in the
+      looking-glass, at once a second flash in the distance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yegory, take this,&rdquo; cried Panteley, throwing up something big and dark.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is it?&rdquo; asked Yegorushka.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A mat. There will be rain, so cover yourself up.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Yegorushka sat up and looked about him. The distance had grown perceptibly
+      blacker, and now oftener than every minute winked with a pale light. The
+      blackness was being bent towards the right as though by its own weight.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Will there be a storm, Grandfather?&rdquo; asked Yegorushka.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, my poor feet, how they ache!&rdquo; Panteley said in a high-pitched voice,
+      stamping his feet and not hearing the boy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the left someone seemed to strike a match in the sky; a pale
+      phosphorescent streak gleamed and went out. There was a sound as though
+      someone very far away were walking over an iron roof, probably barefoot,
+      for the iron gave a hollow rumble.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s set in!&rdquo; cried Kiruha.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Between the distance and the horizon on the right there was a flash of
+      lightning so vivid that it lighted up part of the steppe and the spot
+      where the clear sky met the blackness. A terrible cloud was swooping down,
+      without haste, a compact mass; big black shreds hung from its edge;
+      similar shreds pressing one upon another were piling up on the right and
+      left horizon. The tattered, ragged look of the storm-cloud gave it a
+      drunken disorderly air. There was a distinct, not smothered, growl of
+      thunder. Yegorushka crossed himself and began quickly putting on his
+      great-coat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am dreary!&rdquo; Dymov&rsquo;s shout floated from the foremost waggon, and it
+      could be told from his voice that he was beginning to be ill-humoured
+      again. &ldquo;I am so dreary!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      All at once there was a squall of wind, so violent that it almost snatched
+      away Yegorushka&rsquo;s bundle and mat; the mat fluttered in all directions and
+      flapped on the bale and on Yegorushka&rsquo;s face. The wind dashed whistling
+      over the steppe, whirled round in disorder and raised such an uproar from
+      the grass that neither the thunder nor the creaking of the wheels could be
+      heard; it blew from the black storm-cloud, carrying with it clouds of dust
+      and the scent of rain and wet earth. The moonlight grew mistier, as it
+      were dirtier; the stars were even more overcast; and clouds of dust could
+      be seen hurrying along the edge of the road, followed by their shadows. By
+      now, most likely, the whirlwind eddying round and lifting from the earth
+      dust, dry grass and feathers, was mounting to the very sky; uprooted
+      plants must have been flying by that very black storm-cloud, and how
+      frightened they must have been! But through the dust that clogged the eyes
+      nothing could be seen but the flash of lightning.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yegorushka, thinking it would pour with rain in a minute, knelt up and
+      covered himself with the mat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Panteley-ey!&rdquo; someone shouted in the front. &ldquo;A. . . a. . . va!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can&rsquo;t!&rdquo; Panteley answered in a loud high voice. &ldquo;A . . . a . . . va!
+      Arya . . . a!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was an angry clap of thunder, which rolled across the sky from right
+      to left, then back again, and died away near the foremost waggon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Holy, holy, holy, Lord of Sabaoth,&rdquo; whispered Yegorushka, crossing
+      himself. &ldquo;Fill heaven and earth with Thy glory.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The blackness in the sky yawned wide and breathed white fire. At once
+      there was another clap of thunder. It had scarcely ceased when there was a
+      flash of lightning so broad that Yegorushka suddenly saw through a slit in
+      the mat the whole highroad to the very horizon, all the waggoners and even
+      Kiruha&rsquo;s waistcoat. The black shreds had by now moved upwards from the
+      left, and one of them, a coarse, clumsy monster like a claw with fingers,
+      stretched to the moon. Yegorushka made up his mind to shut his eyes tight,
+      to pay no attention to it, and to wait till it was all over.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The rain was for some reason long in coming. Yegorushka peeped out from
+      the mat in the hope that perhaps the storm-cloud was passing over. It was
+      fearfully dark. Yegorushka could see neither Panteley, nor the bale of
+      wool, nor himself; he looked sideways towards the place where the moon had
+      lately been, but there was the same black darkness there as over the
+      waggons. And in the darkness the flashes of lightning seemed more violent
+      and blinding, so that they hurt his eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Panteley!&rdquo; called Yegorushka.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      No answer followed. But now a gust of wind for the last time flung up the
+      mat and hurried away. A quiet regular sound was heard. A big cold drop
+      fell on Yegorushka&rsquo;s knee, another trickled over his hand. He noticed that
+      his knees were not covered, and tried to rearrange the mat, but at that
+      moment something began pattering on the road, then on the shafts and the
+      bales. It was the rain. As though they understood one another, the rain
+      and the mat began prattling of something rapidly, gaily and most
+      annoyingly like two magpies.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yegorushka knelt up or rather squatted on his boots. While the rain was
+      pattering on the mat, he leaned forward to screen his knees, which were
+      suddenly wet. He succeeded in covering his knees, but in less than a
+      minute was aware of a penetrating, unpleasant dampness behind on his back
+      and the calves of his legs. He returned to his former position, exposing
+      his knees to the rain, and wondered what to do to rearrange the mat which
+      he could not see in the darkness. But his arms were already wet, the water
+      was trickling up his sleeves and down his collar, and his shoulder-blades
+      felt chilly. And he made up his mind to do nothing but sit motionless and
+      wait till it was all over.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Holy, holy, holy!&rdquo; he whispered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Suddenly, exactly over his head, the sky cracked with a fearful deafening
+      din; he huddled up and held his breath, waiting for the fragments to fall
+      upon his head and back. He inadvertently opened his eyes and saw a
+      blinding intense light flare out and flash five times on his fingers, his
+      wet sleeves, and on the trickles of water running from the mat upon the
+      bales and down to the ground. There was a fresh peal of thunder as violent
+      and awful; the sky was not growling and rumbling now, but uttering short
+      crashing sounds like the crackling of dry wood.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Trrah! tah! tah! tah!&rdquo; the thunder rang out distinctly, rolled over the
+      sky, seemed to stumble, and somewhere by the foremost waggons or far
+      behind to fall with an abrupt angry &ldquo;Trrra!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The flashes of lightning had at first been only terrible, but with such
+      thunder they seemed sinister and menacing. Their magic light pierced
+      through closed eyelids and sent a chill all over the body. What could he
+      do not to see them? Yegorushka made up his mind to turn over on his face.
+      Cautiously, as though afraid of being watched, he got on all fours, and
+      his hands slipping on the wet bale, he turned back again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Trrah! tah! tah!&rdquo; floated over his head, rolled under the waggons and
+      exploded &ldquo;Kraa!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Again he inadvertently opened his eyes and saw a new danger: three huge
+      giants with long pikes were following the waggon! A flash of lightning
+      gleamed on the points of their pikes and lighted up their figures very
+      distinctly. They were men of huge proportions, with covered faces, bowed
+      heads, and heavy footsteps. They seemed gloomy and dispirited and lost in
+      thought. Perhaps they were not following the waggons with any harmful
+      intent, and yet there was something awful in their proximity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yegorushka turned quickly forward, and trembling all over cried:
+      &ldquo;Panteley! Grandfather!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Trrah! tah! tah!&rdquo; the sky answered him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He opened his eyes to see if the waggoners were there. There were flashes
+      of lightning in two places, which lighted up the road to the far distance,
+      the whole string of waggons and all the waggoners. Streams of water were
+      flowing along the road and bubbles were dancing. Panteley was walking
+      beside the waggon; his tall hat and his shoulder were covered with a small
+      mat; his figure expressed neither terror nor uneasiness, as though he were
+      deafened by the thunder and blinded by the lightning.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Grandfather, the giants!&rdquo; Yegorushka shouted to him in tears.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But the old man did not hear. Further away walked Emelyan. He was covered
+      from head to foot with a big mat and was triangular in shape. Vassya,
+      without anything over him, was walking with the same wooden step as usual,
+      lifting his feet high and not bending his knees. In the flash of lightning
+      it seemed as though the waggons were not moving and the men were
+      motionless, that Vassya&rsquo;s lifted foot was rigid in the same position. . .
+      .
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yegorushka called the old man once more. Getting no answer, he sat
+      motionless, and no longer waited for it all to end. He was convinced that
+      the thunder would kill him in another minute, that he would accidentally
+      open his eyes and see the terrible giants, and he left off crossing
+      himself, calling the old man and thinking of his mother, and was simply
+      numb with cold and the conviction that the storm would never end.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But at last there was the sound of voices.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yegory, are you asleep?&rdquo; Panteley cried below. &ldquo;Get down! Is he deaf, the
+      silly little thing? . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Something like a storm!&rdquo; said an unfamiliar bass voice, and the stranger
+      cleared his throat as though he had just tossed off a good glass of vodka.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yegorushka opened his eyes. Close to the waggon stood Panteley, Emelyan,
+      looking like a triangle, and the giants. The latter were by now much
+      shorter, and when Yegorushka looked more closely at them they turned out
+      to be ordinary peasants, carrying on their shoulders not pikes but
+      pitchforks. In the space between Panteley and the triangular figure,
+      gleamed the window of a low-pitched hut. So the waggons were halting in
+      the village. Yegorushka flung off the mat, took his bundle and made haste
+      to get off the waggon. Now when close to him there were people talking and
+      a lighted window he no longer felt afraid, though the thunder was crashing
+      as before and the whole sky was streaked with lightning.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It was a good storm, all right, . . .&rdquo; Panteley was muttering. &ldquo;Thank
+      God, . . . my feet are a little softened by the rain. It was all right. .
+      . . Have you got down, Yegory? Well, go into the hut; it is all right. . .
+      .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Holy, holy, holy!&rdquo; wheezed Emelyan, &ldquo;it must have struck something . . .
+      . Are you of these parts?&rdquo; he asked the giants.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, from Glinovo. We belong to Glinovo. We are working at the Platers&rsquo;.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Threshing?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All sorts. Just now we are getting in the wheat. The lightning, the
+      lightning! It is long since we have had such a storm. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Yegorushka went into the hut. He was met by a lean hunchbacked old woman
+      with a sharp chin. She stood holding a tallow candle in her hands,
+      screwing up her eyes and heaving prolonged sighs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What a storm God has sent us!&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;And our lads are out for the
+      night on the steppe; they&rsquo;ll have a bad time, poor dears! Take off your
+      things, little sir, take off your things.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Shivering with cold and shrugging squeamishly, Yegorushka pulled off his
+      drenched overcoat, then stretched out his arms and straddled his legs, and
+      stood a long time without moving. The slightest movement caused an
+      unpleasant sensation of cold and wetness. His sleeves and the back of his
+      shirt were sopped, his trousers stuck to his legs, his head was dripping.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What&rsquo;s the use of standing there, with your legs apart, little lad?&rdquo; said
+      the old woman. &ldquo;Come, sit down.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Holding his legs wide apart, Yegorushka went up to the table and sat down
+      on a bench near somebody&rsquo;s head. The head moved, puffed a stream of air
+      through its nose, made a chewing sound and subsided. A mound covered with
+      a sheepskin stretched from the head along the bench; it was a peasant
+      woman asleep.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The old woman went out sighing, and came back with a big water melon and a
+      little sweet melon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Have something to eat, my dear! I have nothing else to offer you, . . .&rdquo;
+       she said, yawning. She rummaged in the table and took out a long sharp
+      knife, very much like the one with which the brigands killed the merchants
+      in the inn. &ldquo;Have some, my dear!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Yegorushka, shivering as though he were in a fever, ate a slice of sweet
+      melon with black bread and then a slice of water melon, and that made him
+      feel colder still.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Our lads are out on the steppe for the night, . . .&rdquo; sighed the old woman
+      while he was eating. &ldquo;The terror of the Lord! I&rsquo;d light the candle under
+      the ikon, but I don&rsquo;t know where Stepanida has put it. Have some more,
+      little sir, have some more. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The old woman gave a yawn and, putting her right hand behind her,
+      scratched her left shoulder.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It must be two o&rsquo;clock now,&rdquo; she said; &ldquo;it will soon be time to get up.
+      Our lads are out on the steppe for the night; they are all wet through for
+      sure. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Granny,&rdquo; said Yegorushka. &ldquo;I am sleepy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Lie down, my dear, lie down,&rdquo; the old woman sighed, yawning. &ldquo;Lord Jesus
+      Christ! I was asleep, when I heard a noise as though someone were
+      knocking. I woke up and looked, and it was the storm God had sent us. . .
+      . I&rsquo;d have lighted the candle, but I couldn&rsquo;t find it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Talking to herself, she pulled some rags, probably her own bed, off the
+      bench, took two sheepskins off a nail by the stove, and began laying them
+      out for a bed for Yegorushka. &ldquo;The storm doesn&rsquo;t grow less,&rdquo; she muttered.
+      &ldquo;If only nothing&rsquo;s struck in an unlucky hour. Our lads are out on the
+      steppe for the night. Lie down and sleep, my dear. . . . Christ be with
+      you, my child. . . . I won&rsquo;t take away the melon; maybe you&rsquo;ll have a bit
+      when you get up.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The sighs and yawns of the old woman, the even breathing of the sleeping
+      woman, the half-darkness of the hut, and the sound of the rain outside,
+      made one sleepy. Yegorushka was shy of undressing before the old woman. He
+      only took off his boots, lay down and covered himself with the sheepskin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is the little lad lying down?&rdquo; he heard Panteley whisper a little later.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; answered the old woman in a whisper. &ldquo;The terror of the Lord! It
+      thunders and thunders, and there is no end to it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It will soon be over,&rdquo; wheezed Panteley, sitting down; &ldquo;it&rsquo;s getting
+      quieter. . . . The lads have gone into the huts, and two have stayed with
+      the horses. The lads have. . . . They can&rsquo;t; . . . the horses would be
+      taken away. . . . I&rsquo;ll sit here a bit and then go and take my turn. . . .
+      We can&rsquo;t leave them; they would be taken. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Panteley and the old woman sat side by side at Yegorushka&rsquo;s feet, talking
+      in hissing whispers and interspersing their speech with sighs and yawns.
+      And Yegorushka could not get warm. The warm heavy sheepskin lay on him,
+      but he was trembling all over; his arms and legs were twitching, and his
+      whole inside was shivering. . . . He undressed under the sheepskin, but
+      that was no good. His shivering grew more and more acute.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Panteley went out to take his turn with the horses, and afterwards came
+      back again, and still Yegorushka was shivering all over and could not get
+      to sleep. Something weighed upon his head and chest and oppressed him, and
+      he did not know what it was, whether it was the old people whispering, or
+      the heavy smell of the sheepskin. The melon he had eaten had left an
+      unpleasant metallic taste in his mouth. Moreover he was being bitten by
+      fleas.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Grandfather, I am cold,&rdquo; he said, and did not know his own voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Go to sleep, my child, go to sleep,&rdquo; sighed the old woman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Tit came up to the bedside on his thin little legs and waved his arms,
+      then grew up to the ceiling and turned into a windmill. . . . Father
+      Christopher, not as he was in the chaise, but in his full vestments with
+      the sprinkler in his hand, walked round the mill, sprinkling it with holy
+      water, and it left off waving. Yegorushka, knowing this was delirium,
+      opened his eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Grandfather,&rdquo; he called, &ldquo;give me some water.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      No one answered. Yegorushka felt it insufferably stifling and
+      uncomfortable lying down. He got up, dressed, and went out of the hut.
+      Morning was beginning. The sky was overcast, but it was no longer raining.
+      Shivering and wrapping himself in his wet overcoat, Yegorushka walked
+      about the muddy yard and listened to the silence; he caught sight of a
+      little shed with a half-open door made of reeds. He looked into this shed,
+      went into it, and sat down in a dark corner on a heap of dry dung.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a tangle of thoughts in his heavy head; his mouth was dry and
+      unpleasant from the metallic taste. He looked at his hat, straightened the
+      peacock&rsquo;s feather on it, and thought how he had gone with his mother to
+      buy the hat. He put his hand into his pocket and took out a lump of
+      brownish sticky paste. How had that paste come into his pocket? He thought
+      a minute, smelt it; it smelt of honey. Aha! it was the Jewish cake! How
+      sopped it was, poor thing!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yegorushka examined his coat. It was a little grey overcoat with big bone
+      buttons, cut in the shape of a frock-coat. At home, being a new and
+      expensive article, it had not been hung in the hall, but with his mother&rsquo;s
+      dresses in her bedroom; he was only allowed to wear it on holidays.
+      Looking at it, Yegorushka felt sorry for it. He thought that he and the
+      great-coat were both abandoned to the mercy of destiny; he thought that he
+      would never get back home, and began sobbing so violently that he almost
+      fell off the heap of dung.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A big white dog with woolly tufts like curl-papers about its face, sopping
+      from the rain, came into the shed and stared with curiosity at Yegorushka.
+      It seemed to be hesitating whether to bark or not. Deciding that there was
+      no need to bark, it went cautiously up to Yegorushka, ate the sticky
+      plaster and went out again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There are Varlamov&rsquo;s men!&rdquo; someone shouted in the street.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After having his cry out, Yegorushka went out of the shed and, walking
+      round a big puddle, made his way towards the street. The waggons were
+      standing exactly opposite the gateway. The drenched waggoners, with their
+      muddy feet, were sauntering beside them or sitting on the shafts, as
+      listless and drowsy as flies in autumn. Yegorushka looked at them and
+      thought: &ldquo;How dreary and comfortless to be a peasant!&rdquo; He went up to
+      Panteley and sat down beside him on the shaft.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Grandfather, I&rsquo;m cold,&rdquo; he said, shivering and thrusting his hands up his
+      sleeves.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Never mind, we shall soon be there,&rdquo; yawned Panteley. &ldquo;Never mind, you
+      will get warm.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It must have been early when the waggons set off, for it was not hot.
+      Yegorushka lay on the bales of wool and shivered with cold, though the sun
+      soon came out and dried his clothes, the bales, and the earth. As soon as
+      he closed his eyes he saw Tit and the windmill again. Feeling a sickness
+      and heaviness all over, he did his utmost to drive away these images, but
+      as soon as they vanished the dare-devil Dymov, with red eyes and lifted
+      fists, rushed at Yegorushka with a roar, or there was the sound of his
+      complaint: &ldquo;I am so dreary!&rdquo; Varlamov rode by on his little Cossack
+      stallion; happy Konstantin passed, with a smile and the bustard in his
+      arms. And how tedious these people were, how sickening and unbearable!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Once&mdash;it was towards evening&mdash;he raised his head to ask for
+      water. The waggons were standing on a big bridge across a broad river.
+      There was black smoke below over the river, and through it could be seen a
+      steamer with a barge in tow. Ahead of them, beyond the river, was a huge
+      mountain dotted with houses and churches; at the foot of the mountain an
+      engine was being shunted along beside some goods trucks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yegorushka had never before seen steamers, nor engines, nor broad rivers.
+      Glancing at them now, he was not alarmed or surprised; there was not even
+      a look of anything like curiosity in his face. He merely felt sick, and
+      made haste to turn over to the edge of the bale. He was sick. Panteley,
+      seeing this, cleared his throat and shook his head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Our little lad&rsquo;s taken ill,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;He must have got a chill to the
+      stomach. The little lad must. . . away from home; it&rsquo;s a bad lookout!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <h3>
+      VIII
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      The waggons stopped at a big inn for merchants, not far from the quay. As
+      Yegorushka climbed down from the waggon he heard a very familiar voice.
+      Someone was helping him to get down, and saying:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We arrived yesterday evening. . . . We have been expecting you all day.
+      We meant to overtake you yesterday, but it was out of our way; we came by
+      the other road. I say, how you have crumpled your coat! You&rsquo;ll catch it
+      from your uncle!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Yegorushka looked into the speaker&rsquo;s mottled face and remembered that this
+      was Deniska.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your uncle and Father Christopher are in the inn now, drinking tea; come
+      along!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And he led Yegorushka to a big two-storied building, dark and gloomy like
+      the almshouse at N. After going across the entry, up a dark staircase and
+      through a narrow corridor, Yegorushka and Deniska reached a little room in
+      which Ivan Ivanitch and Father Christopher were sitting at the tea-table.
+      Seeing the boy, both the old men showed surprise and pleasure.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Aha! Yegor Ni-ko-la-aitch!&rdquo; chanted Father Christopher. &ldquo;Mr. Lomonosov!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, our gentleman that is to be,&rdquo; said Kuzmitchov, &ldquo;pleased to see you!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Yegorushka took off his great-coat, kissed his uncle&rsquo;s hand and Father
+      Christopher&rsquo;s, and sat down to the table.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, how did you like the journey, puer bone?&rdquo; Father Christopher pelted
+      him with questions as he poured him out some tea, with his radiant smile.
+      &ldquo;Sick of it, I&rsquo;ve no doubt? God save us all from having to travel by
+      waggon or with oxen. You go on and on, God forgive us; you look ahead and
+      the steppe is always lying stretched out the same as it was&mdash;you
+      can&rsquo;t see the end of it! It&rsquo;s not travelling but regular torture. Why
+      don&rsquo;t you drink your tea? Drink it up; and in your absence, while you have
+      been trailing along with the waggons, we have settled all our business
+      capitally. Thank God we have sold our wool to Tcherepahin, and no one
+      could wish to have done better. . . . We have made a good bargain.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At the first sight of his own people Yegorushka felt an overwhelming
+      desire to complain. He did not listen to Father Christopher, but thought
+      how to begin and what exactly to complain of. But Father Christopher&rsquo;s
+      voice, which seemed to him harsh and unpleasant, prevented him from
+      concentrating his attention and confused his thoughts. He had not sat at
+      the table five minutes before he got up, went to the sofa and lay down.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, well,&rdquo; said Father Christopher in surprise. &ldquo;What about your tea?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Still thinking what to complain of, Yegorushka leaned his head against the
+      wall and broke into sobs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, well!&rdquo; repeated Father Christopher, getting up and going to the
+      sofa. &ldquo;Yegory, what is the matter with you? Why are you crying?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;m . . . I&rsquo;m ill,&rdquo; Yegorushka brought out.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ill?&rdquo; said Father Christopher in amazement. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s not the right thing,
+      my boy. . . . One mustn&rsquo;t be ill on a journey. Aie, aie, what are you
+      thinking about, boy . . . eh?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He put his hand to Yegorushka&rsquo;s head, touched his cheek and said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, your head&rsquo;s feverish. . . . You must have caught cold or else have
+      eaten something. . . . Pray to God.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Should we give him quinine? . . .&rdquo; said Ivan Ivanitch, troubled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No; he ought to have something hot. . . . Yegory, have a little drop of
+      soup? Eh?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I . . . don&rsquo;t want any,&rdquo; said Yegorushka.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you feeling chilly?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I was chilly before, but now . . . now I am hot. And I ache all over. . .
+      .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ivan Ivanitch went up to the sofa, touched Yegorushka on the head, cleared
+      his throat with a perplexed air, and went back to the table.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I tell you what, you undress and go to bed,&rdquo; said Father Christopher.
+      &ldquo;What you want is sleep now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He helped Yegorushka to undress, gave him a pillow and covered him with a
+      quilt, and over that Ivan Ivanitch&rsquo;s great-coat. Then he walked away on
+      tiptoe and sat down to the table. Yegorushka shut his eyes, and at once it
+      seemed to him that he was not in the hotel room, but on the highroad
+      beside the camp fire. Emelyan waved his hands, and Dymov with red eyes lay
+      on his stomach and looked mockingly at Yegorushka.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Beat him, beat him!&rdquo; shouted Yegorushka.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He is delirious,&rdquo; said Father Christopher in an undertone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a nuisance!&rdquo; sighed Ivan Ivanitch.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He must be rubbed with oil and vinegar. Please God, he will be better
+      to-morrow.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      To be rid of bad dreams, Yegorushka opened his eyes and began looking
+      towards the fire. Father Christopher and Ivan Ivanitch had now finished
+      their tea and were talking in a whisper. The first was smiling with
+      delight, and evidently could not forget that he had made a good bargain
+      over his wool; what delighted him was not so much the actual profit he had
+      made as the thought that on getting home he would gather round him his big
+      family, wink slyly and go off into a chuckle; at first he would deceive
+      them all, and say that he had sold the wool at a price below its value,
+      then he would give his son-in-law, Mihail, a fat pocket-book and say:
+      &ldquo;Well, take it! that&rsquo;s the way to do business!&rdquo; Kuzmitchov did not seem
+      pleased; his face expressed, as before, a business-like reserve and
+      anxiety.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If I could have known that Tcherepahin would give such a price,&rdquo; he said
+      in a low voice, &ldquo;I wouldn&rsquo;t have sold Makarov those five tons at home. It
+      is vexatious! But who could have told that the price had gone up here?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A man in a white shirt cleared away the samovar and lighted the little
+      lamp before the ikon in the corner. Father Christopher whispered something
+      in his ear; the man looked, made a serious face like a conspirator, as
+      though to say, &ldquo;I understand,&rdquo; went out, and returned a little while
+      afterwards and put something under the sofa. Ivan Ivanitch made himself a
+      bed on the floor, yawned several times, said his prayers lazily, and lay
+      down.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think of going to the cathedral to-morrow,&rdquo; said Father Christopher. &ldquo;I
+      know the sacristan there. I ought to go and see the bishop after mass, but
+      they say he is ill.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He yawned and put out the lamp. Now there was no light in the room but the
+      little lamp before the ikon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They say he can&rsquo;t receive visitors,&rdquo; Father Christopher went on,
+      undressing. &ldquo;So I shall go away without seeing him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He took off his full coat, and Yegorushka saw Robinson Crusoe reappear.
+      Robinson stirred something in a saucer, went up to Yegorushka and
+      whispered:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Lomonosov, are you asleep? Sit up; I&rsquo;m going to rub you with oil and
+      vinegar. It&rsquo;s a good thing, only you must say a prayer.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Yegorushka roused himself quickly and sat up. Father Christopher pulled
+      down the boy&rsquo;s shirt, and shrinking and breathing jerkily, as though he
+      were being tickled himself, began rubbing Yegorushka&rsquo;s chest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost,&rdquo; he whispered,
+      &ldquo;lie with your back upwards&mdash;that&rsquo;s it. . . . You&rsquo;ll be all right
+      to-morrow, but don&rsquo;t do it again. . . . You are as hot as fire. I suppose
+      you were on the road in the storm.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You might well fall ill! In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy
+      Ghost, . . . you might well fall ill!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      After rubbing Yegorushka, Father Christopher put on his shirt again,
+      covered him, made the sign of the cross over him, and walked away. Then
+      Yegorushka saw him saying his prayers. Probably the old man knew a great
+      many prayers by heart, for he stood a long time before the ikon murmuring.
+      After saying his prayers he made the sign of the cross over the window,
+      the door, Yegorushka, and Ivan Ivanitch, lay down on the little sofa
+      without a pillow, and covered himself with his full coat. A clock in the
+      corridor struck ten. Yegorushka thought how long a time it would be before
+      morning; feeling miserable, he pressed his forehead against the back of
+      the sofa and left off trying to get rid of the oppressive misty dreams.
+      But morning came much sooner than he expected.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It seemed to him that he had not been lying long with his head pressed to
+      the back of the sofa, but when he opened his eyes slanting rays of
+      sunlight were already shining on the floor through the two windows of the
+      little hotel room. Father Christopher and Ivan Ivanitch were not in the
+      room. The room had been tidied; it was bright, snug, and smelt of Father
+      Christopher, who always smelt of cypress and dried cornflowers (at home he
+      used to make the holy-water sprinklers and decorations for the ikonstands
+      out of cornflowers, and so he was saturated with the smell of them).
+      Yegorushka looked at the pillow, at the slanting sunbeams, at his boots,
+      which had been cleaned and were standing side by side near the sofa, and
+      laughed. It seemed strange to him that he was not on the bales of wool,
+      that everything was dry around him, and that there was no thunder and
+      lightning on the ceiling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He jumped off the sofa and began dressing. He felt splendid; nothing was
+      left of his yesterday&rsquo;s illness but a slight weakness in his legs and
+      neck. So the vinegar and oil had done good. He remembered the steamer, the
+      railway engine, and the broad river, which he had dimly seen the day
+      before, and now he made haste to dress, to run to the quay and have a look
+      at them. When he had washed and was putting on his red shirt, the latch of
+      the door clicked, and Father Christopher appeared in the doorway, wearing
+      his top-hat and a brown silk cassock over his canvas coat and carrying his
+      staff in his hand. Smiling and radiant (old men are always radiant when
+      they come back from church), he put a roll of holy bread and a parcel of
+      some sort on the table, prayed before the ikon, and said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;God has sent us blessings&mdash;well, how are you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Quite well now,&rdquo; answered Yegorushka, kissing his hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thank God. . . . I have come from mass. I&rsquo;ve been to see a sacristan I
+      know. He invited me to breakfast with him, but I didn&rsquo;t go. I don&rsquo;t like
+      visiting people too early, God bless them!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He took off his cassock, stroked himself on the chest, and without haste
+      undid the parcel. Yegorushka saw a little tin of caviare, a piece of dry
+      sturgeon, and a French loaf.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;See; I passed a fish-shop and brought this,&rdquo; said Father Christopher.
+      &ldquo;There is no need to indulge in luxuries on an ordinary weekday; but I
+      thought, I&rsquo;ve an invalid at home, so it is excusable. And the caviare is
+      good, real sturgeon. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The man in the white shirt brought in the samovar and a tray with
+      tea-things.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Eat some,&rdquo; said Father Christopher, spreading the caviare on a slice of
+      bread and handing it to Yegorushka. &ldquo;Eat now and enjoy yourself, but the
+      time will soon come for you to be studying. Mind you study with attention
+      and application, so that good may come of it. What you have to learn by
+      heart, learn by heart, but when you have to tell the inner sense in your
+      own words, without regard to the outer form, then say it in your own
+      words. And try to master all subjects. One man knows mathematics
+      excellently, but has never heard of Pyotr Mogila; another knows about
+      Pyotr Mogila, but cannot explain about the moon. But you study so as to
+      understand everything. Study Latin, French, German, . . . geography, of
+      course, history, theology, philosophy, mathematics, . . . and when you
+      have mastered everything, not with haste but with prayer and with zeal,
+      then go into the service. When you know everything it will be easy for you
+      in any line of life. . . . You study and strive for the divine blessing,
+      and God will show you what to be. Whether a doctor, a judge or an
+      engineer. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Father Christopher spread a little caviare on a piece of bread, put it in
+      his mouth and said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The Apostle Paul says: &lsquo;Do not apply yourself to strange and diverse
+      studies.&rsquo; Of course, if it is black magic, unlawful arts, or calling up
+      spirits from the other world, like Saul, or studying subjects that can be
+      of no use to yourself or others, better not learn them. You must undertake
+      only what God has blessed. Take example . . . the Holy Apostles spoke in
+      all languages, so you study languages. Basil the Great studied mathematics
+      and philosophy&mdash;so you study them; St. Nestor wrote history&mdash;so
+      you study and write history. Take example from the saints.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Father Christopher sipped the tea from his saucer, wiped his moustaches,
+      and shook his head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good!&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I was educated in the old-fashioned way; I have
+      forgotten a great deal by now, but still I live differently from other
+      people. Indeed, there is no comparison. For instance, in company at a
+      dinner, or at an assembly, one says something in Latin, or makes some
+      allusion from history or philosophy, and it pleases people, and it pleases
+      me myself. . . . Or when the circuit court comes and one has to take the
+      oath, all the other priests are shy, but I am quite at home with the
+      judges, the prosecutors, and the lawyers. I talk intellectually, drink a
+      cup of tea with them, laugh, ask them what I don&rsquo;t know, . . . and they
+      like it. So that&rsquo;s how it is, my boy. Learning is light and ignorance is
+      darkness. Study! It&rsquo;s hard, of course; nowadays study is expensive. . . .
+      Your mother is a widow; she lives on her pension, but there, of course . .
+      .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Father Christopher glanced apprehensively towards the door, and went on in
+      a whisper:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ivan Ivanitch will assist. He won&rsquo;t desert you. He has no children of his
+      own, and he will help you. Don&rsquo;t be uneasy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He looked grave, and whispered still more softly:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Only mind, Yegory, don&rsquo;t forget your mother and Ivan Ivanitch, God
+      preserve you from it. The commandment bids you honour your mother, and
+      Ivan Ivanitch is your benefactor and takes the place of a father to you.
+      If you become learned, God forbid you should be impatient and scornful
+      with people because they are not so clever as you, then woe, woe to you!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Father Christopher raised his hand and repeated in a thin voice:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Woe to you! Woe to you!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Father Christopher&rsquo;s tongue was loosened, and he was, as they say, warming
+      to his subject; he would not have finished till dinnertime but the door
+      opened and Ivan Ivanitch walked in. He said good-morning hurriedly, sat
+      down to the table, and began rapidly swallowing his tea.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, I have settled all our business,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;We might have gone home
+      to-day, but we have still to think about Yegor. We must arrange for him.
+      My sister told me that Nastasya Petrovna, a friend of hers, lives
+      somewhere here, so perhaps she will take him in as a boarder.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He rummaged in his pocket-book, found a crumpled note and read:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;Little Lower Street: Nastasya Petrovna Toskunov, living in a house of
+      her own.&rsquo; We must go at once and try to find her. It&rsquo;s a nuisance!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Soon after breakfast Ivan Ivanitch and Yegorushka left the inn.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a nuisance,&rdquo; muttered his uncle. &ldquo;You are sticking to me like a
+      burr. You and your mother want education and gentlemanly breeding and I
+      have nothing but worry with you both. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      When they crossed the yard, the waggons and the drivers were not there.
+      They had all gone off to the quay early in the morning. In a far-off dark
+      corner of the yard stood the chaise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good-bye, chaise!&rdquo; thought Yegorushka.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At first they had to go a long way uphill by a broad street, then they had
+      to cross a big marketplace; here Ivan Ivanitch asked a policeman for
+      Little Lower Street.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I say,&rdquo; said the policeman, with a grin, &ldquo;it&rsquo;s a long way off, out that
+      way towards the town grazing ground.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They met several cabs but Ivan Ivanitch only permitted himself such a
+      weakness as taking a cab in exceptional cases and on great holidays.
+      Yegorushka and he walked for a long while through paved streets, then
+      along streets where there were only wooden planks at the sides and no
+      pavements, and in the end got to streets where there were neither planks
+      nor pavements. When their legs and their tongues had brought them to
+      Little Lower Street they were both red in the face, and taking off their
+      hats, wiped away the perspiration.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tell me, please,&rdquo; said Ivan Ivanitch, addressing an old man sitting on a
+      little bench by a gate, &ldquo;where is Nastasya Petrovna Toskunov&rsquo;s house?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There is no one called Toskunov here,&rdquo; said the old man, after pondering
+      a moment. &ldquo;Perhaps it&rsquo;s Timoshenko you want.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, Toskunov. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Excuse me, there&rsquo;s no one called Toskunov. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ivan Ivanitch shrugged his shoulders and trudged on farther.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You needn&rsquo;t look,&rdquo; the old man called after them. &ldquo;I tell you there
+      isn&rsquo;t, and there isn&rsquo;t.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Listen, auntie,&rdquo; said Ivan Ivanitch, addressing an old woman who was
+      sitting at a corner with a tray of pears and sunflower seeds, &ldquo;where is
+      Nastasya Petrovna Toskunov&rsquo;s house?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The old woman looked at him with surprise and laughed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, Nastasya Petrovna live in her own house now!&rdquo; she cried. &ldquo;Lord! it
+      is eight years since she married her daughter and gave up the house to her
+      son-in-law! It&rsquo;s her son-in-law lives there now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And her eyes expressed: &ldquo;How is it you didn&rsquo;t know a simple thing like
+      that, you fools?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And where does she live now?&rdquo; Ivan Ivanitch asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, Lord!&rdquo; cried the old woman, flinging up her hands in surprise. &ldquo;She
+      moved ever so long ago! It&rsquo;s eight years since she gave up her house to
+      her son-in-law! Upon my word!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She probably expected Ivan Ivanitch to be surprised, too, and to exclaim:
+      &ldquo;You don&rsquo;t say so,&rdquo; but Ivan Ivanitch asked very calmly:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where does she live now?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The old woman tucked up her sleeves and, stretching out her bare arm to
+      point, shouted in a shrill piercing voice:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Go straight on, straight on, straight on. You will pass a little red
+      house, then you will see a little alley on your left. Turn down that
+      little alley, and it will be the third gate on the right. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ivan Ivanitch and Yegorushka reached the little red house, turned to the
+      left down the little alley, and made for the third gate on the right. On
+      both sides of this very old grey gate there was a grey fence with big gaps
+      in it. The first part of the fence was tilting forwards and threatened to
+      fall, while on the left of the gate it sloped backwards towards the yard.
+      The gate itself stood upright and seemed to be still undecided which would
+      suit it best &mdash;to fall forwards or backwards. Ivan Ivanitch opened
+      the little gate at the side, and he and Yegorushka saw a big yard
+      overgrown with weeds and burdocks. A hundred paces from the gate stood a
+      little house with a red roof and green shutters. A stout woman with her
+      sleeves tucked up and her apron held out was standing in the middle of the
+      yard, scattering something on the ground and shouting in a voice as shrill
+      as that of the woman selling fruit:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Chick! . . . Chick! . . . Chick!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Behind her sat a red dog with pointed ears. Seeing the strangers, he ran
+      to the little gate and broke into a tenor bark (all red dogs have a tenor
+      bark).
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Whom do you want?&rdquo; asked the woman, putting up her hand to shade her eyes
+      from the sun.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good-morning!&rdquo; Ivan Ivanitch shouted, too, waving off the red dog with
+      his stick. &ldquo;Tell me, please, does Nastasya Petrovna Toskunov live here?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes! But what do you want with her?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps you are Nastasya Petrovna?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, yes, I am!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very pleased to see you. . . . You see, your old friend Olga Ivanovna
+      Knyasev sends her love to you. This is her little son. And I, perhaps you
+      remember, am her brother Ivan Ivanitch. . . . You are one of us from N. .
+      . . You were born among us and married there. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A silence followed. The stout woman stared blankly at Ivan Ivanitch, as
+      though not believing or not understanding him, then she flushed all over,
+      and flung up her hands; the oats were scattered out of her apron and tears
+      spurted from her eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Olga Ivanovna!&rdquo; she screamed, breathless with excitement. &ldquo;My own
+      darling! Ah, holy saints, why am I standing here like a fool? My pretty
+      little angel. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She embraced Yegorushka, wetted his face with her tears, and broke down
+      completely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Heavens!&rdquo; she said, wringing her hands, &ldquo;Olga&rsquo;s little boy! How
+      delightful! He is his mother all over! The image of his mother! But why
+      are you standing in the yard? Come indoors.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Crying, gasping for breath and talking as she went, she hurried towards
+      the house. Her visitors trudged after her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The room has not been done yet,&rdquo; she said, ushering the visitors into a
+      stuffy little drawing-room adorned with many ikons and pots of flowers.
+      &ldquo;Oh, Mother of God! Vassilisa, go and open the shutters anyway! My little
+      angel! My little beauty! I did not know that Olitchka had a boy like
+      that!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      When she had calmed down and got over her first surprise Ivan Ivanitch
+      asked to speak to her alone. Yegorushka went into another room; there was
+      a sewing-machine; in the window was a cage with a starling in it, and
+      there were as many ikons and flowers as in the drawing-room. Near the
+      machine stood a little girl with a sunburnt face and chubby cheeks like
+      Tit&rsquo;s, and a clean cotton dress. She stared at Yegorushka without
+      blinking, and apparently felt very awkward. Yegorushka looked at her and
+      after a pause asked:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What&rsquo;s your name?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The little girl moved her lips, looked as if she were going to cry, and
+      answered softly:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Atka. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This meant Katka.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He will live with you,&rdquo; Ivan Ivanitch was whispering in the drawing-room,
+      &ldquo;if you will be so kind, and we will pay ten roubles a month for his keep.
+      He is not a spoilt boy; he is quiet. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I really don&rsquo;t know what to say, Ivan Ivanitch!&rdquo; Nastasya Petrovna sighed
+      tearfully. &ldquo;Ten roubles a month is very good, but it is a dreadful thing
+      to take another person&rsquo;s child! He may fall ill or something. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      When Yegorushka was summoned back to the drawing-room Ivan Ivanitch was
+      standing with his hat in his hands, saying good-bye.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, let him stay with you now, then,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Good-bye! You stay,
+      Yegor!&rdquo; he said, addressing his nephew. &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t be troublesome; mind you
+      obey Nastasya Petrovna. . . . Good-bye; I am coming again to-morrow.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And he went away. Nastasya once more embraced Yegorushka, called him a
+      little angel, and with a tear-stained face began preparing for dinner.
+      Three minutes later Yegorushka was sitting beside her, answering her
+      endless questions and eating hot savoury cabbage soup.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the evening he sat again at the same table and, resting his head on his
+      hand, listened to Nastasya Petrovna. Alternately laughing and crying, she
+      talked of his mother&rsquo;s young days, her own marriage, her children. . . . A
+      cricket chirruped in the stove, and there was a faint humming from the
+      burner of the lamp. Nastasya Petrovna talked in a low voice, and was
+      continually dropping her thimble in her excitement; and Katka her
+      granddaughter, crawled under the table after it and each time sat a long
+      while under the table, probably examining Yegorushka&rsquo;s feet; and
+      Yegorushka listened, half dozing and looking at the old woman&rsquo;s face, her
+      wart with hairs on it, and the stains of tears, and he felt sad, very sad.
+      He was put to sleep on a chest and told that if he were hungry in the
+      night he must go out into the little passage and take some chicken, put
+      there under a plate in the window.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Next morning Ivan Ivanitch and Father Christopher came to say good-bye.
+      Nastasya Petrovna was delighted to see them, and was about to set the
+      samovar; but Ivan Ivanitch, who was in a great hurry, waved his hands and
+      said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We have no time for tea! We are just setting off.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Before parting they all sat down and were silent for a minute. Nastasya
+      Petrovna heaved a deep sigh and looked towards the ikon with tear-stained
+      eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; began Ivan Ivanitch, getting up, &ldquo;so you will stay. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      All at once the look of business-like reserve vanished from his face; he
+      flushed a little and said with a mournful smile:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mind you work hard. . . . Don&rsquo;t forget your mother, and obey Nastasya
+      Petrovna. . . . If you are diligent at school, Yegor, I&rsquo;ll stand by you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He took his purse out of his pocket, turned his back to Yegorushka,
+      fumbled for a long time among the smaller coins, and, finding a ten-kopeck
+      piece, gave it to Yegorushka.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Father Christopher, without haste, blessed Yegorushka.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. . . . Study,&rdquo; he
+      said. &ldquo;Work hard, my lad. If I die, remember me in your prayers. Here is a
+      ten-kopeck piece from me, too. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Yegorushka kissed his hand, and shed tears; something whispered in his
+      heart that he would never see the old man again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have applied at the high school already,&rdquo; said Ivan Ivanitch in a voice
+      as though there were a corpse in the room. &ldquo;You will take him for the
+      entrance examination on the seventh of August. . . . Well, good-bye; God
+      bless you, good-bye, Yegor!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You might at least have had a cup of tea,&rdquo; wailed Nastasya Petrovna.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Through the tears that filled his eyes Yegorushka could not see his uncle
+      and Father Christopher go out. He rushed to the window, but they were not
+      in the yard, and the red dog, who had just been barking, was running back
+      from the gate with the air of having done his duty. When Yegorushka ran
+      out of the gate Ivan Ivanitch and Father Christopher, the former waving
+      his stick with the crook, the latter his staff, were just turning the
+      corner. Yegorushka felt that with these people all that he had known till
+      then had vanished from him for ever. He sank helplessly on to the little
+      bench, and with bitter tears greeted the new unknown life that was
+      beginning for him now. . . .
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What would that life be like?
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 6em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+
+  <div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 13419 ***</div>
+</body>
+</html>
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+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #13419 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/13419)
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Bishop and Other Stories, by Anton Chekhov
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Bishop and Other Stories
+
+Author: Anton Chekhov
+
+Release Date: September 9, 2004 [EBook #13419]
+[Last updated: January 25, 2014]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BISHOP AND OTHER STORIES ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by James Rusk
+
+
+
+
+
+THE TALES OF CHEKHOV
+
+VOLUME 7
+
+THE BISHOP AND OTHER STORIES
+
+BY
+
+ANTON TCHEKHOV
+
+Translated by CONSTANCE GARNETT
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+THE BISHOP
+THE LETTER
+EASTER EVE
+A NIGHTMARE
+THE MURDER
+UPROOTED
+THE STEPPE
+
+
+
+
+THE BISHOP
+
+I
+
+THE evening service was being celebrated on the eve of Palm Sunday
+in the Old Petrovsky Convent. When they began distributing the palm
+it was close upon ten o'clock, the candles were burning dimly, the
+wicks wanted snuffing; it was all in a sort of mist. In the twilight
+of the church the crowd seemed heaving like the sea, and to Bishop
+Pyotr, who had been unwell for the last three days, it seemed that
+all the faces--old and young, men's and women's--were alike,
+that everyone who came up for the palm had the same expression in
+his eyes. In the mist he could not see the doors; the crowd kept
+moving and looked as though there were no end to it. The female
+choir was singing, a nun was reading the prayers for the day.
+
+How stifling, how hot it was! How long the service went on! Bishop
+Pyotr was tired. His breathing was laboured and rapid, his throat
+was parched, his shoulders ached with weariness, his legs were
+trembling. And it disturbed him unpleasantly when a religious maniac
+uttered occasional shrieks in the gallery. And then all of a sudden,
+as though in a dream or delirium, it seemed to the bishop as though
+his own mother Marya Timofyevna, whom he had not seen for nine
+years, or some old woman just like his mother, came up to him out
+of the crowd, and, after taking a palm branch from him, walked away
+looking at him all the while good-humouredly with a kind, joyful
+smile until she was lost in the crowd. And for some reason tears
+flowed down his face. There was peace in his heart, everything was
+well, yet he kept gazing fixedly towards the left choir, where the
+prayers were being read, where in the dusk of evening you could not
+recognize anyone, and--wept. Tears glistened on his face and on
+his beard. Here someone close at hand was weeping, then someone
+else farther away, then others and still others, and little by
+little the church was filled with soft weeping. And a little later,
+within five minutes, the nuns' choir was singing; no one was weeping
+and everything was as before.
+
+Soon the service was over. When the bishop got into his carriage
+to drive home, the gay, melodious chime of the heavy, costly bells
+was filling the whole garden in the moonlight. The white walls, the
+white crosses on the tombs, the white birch-trees and black shadows,
+and the far-away moon in the sky exactly over the convent, seemed
+now living their own life, apart and incomprehensible, yet very
+near to man. It was the beginning of April, and after the warm
+spring day it turned cool; there was a faint touch of frost, and
+the breath of spring could be felt in the soft, chilly air. The
+road from the convent to the town was sandy, the horses had to go
+at a walking pace, and on both sides of the carriage in the brilliant,
+peaceful moonlight there were people trudging along home from church
+through the sand. And all was silent, sunk in thought; everything
+around seemed kindly, youthful, akin, everything--trees and sky
+and even the moon, and one longed to think that so it would be
+always.
+
+At last the carriage drove into the town and rumbled along the
+principal street. The shops were already shut, but at Erakin's, the
+millionaire shopkeeper's, they were trying the new electric lights,
+which flickered brightly, and a crowd of people were gathered round.
+Then came wide, dark, deserted streets, one after another; then the
+highroad, the open country, the fragrance of pines. And suddenly
+there rose up before the bishop's eyes a white turreted wall, and
+behind it a tall belfry in the full moonlight, and beside it five
+shining, golden cupolas: this was the Pankratievsky Monastery, in
+which Bishop Pyotr lived. And here, too, high above the monastery,
+was the silent, dreamy moon. The carriage drove in at the gate,
+crunching over the sand; here and there in the moonlight there were
+glimpses of dark monastic figures, and there was the sound of
+footsteps on the flag-stones. . . .
+
+"You know, your holiness, your mamma arrived while you were away,"
+the lay brother informed the bishop as he went into his cell.
+
+"My mother? When did she come?"
+
+"Before the evening service. She asked first where you were and
+then she went to the convent."
+
+"Then it was her I saw in the church, just now! Oh, Lord!"
+
+And the bishop laughed with joy.
+
+"She bade me tell your holiness," the lay brother went on, "that
+she would come to-morrow. She had a little girl with her--her
+grandchild, I suppose. They are staying at Ovsyannikov's inn."
+
+"What time is it now?"
+
+"A little after eleven."
+
+"Oh, how vexing!"
+
+The bishop sat for a little while in the parlour, hesitating, and
+as it were refusing to believe it was so late. His arms and legs
+were stiff, his head ached. He was hot and uncomfortable. After
+resting a little he went into his bedroom, and there, too, he sat
+a little, still thinking of his mother; he could hear the lay brother
+going away, and Father Sisoy coughing the other side of the wall.
+The monastery clock struck a quarter.
+
+The bishop changed his clothes and began reading the prayers before
+sleep. He read attentively those old, long familiar prayers, and
+at the same time thought about his mother. She had nine children
+and about forty grandchildren. At one time, she had lived with her
+husband, the deacon, in a poor village; she had lived there a very
+long time from the age of seventeen to sixty. The bishop remembered
+her from early childhood, almost from the age of three, and--how
+he had loved her! Sweet, precious childhood, always fondly remembered!
+Why did it, that long-past time that could never return, why did
+it seem brighter, fuller, and more festive than it had really been?
+When in his childhood or youth he had been ill, how tender and
+sympathetic his mother had been! And now his prayers mingled with
+the memories, which gleamed more and more brightly like a flame,
+and the prayers did not hinder his thinking of his mother.
+
+When he had finished his prayers he undressed and lay down, and at
+once, as soon as it was dark, there rose before his mind his dead
+father, his mother, his native village Lesopolye . . . the creak
+of wheels, the bleat of sheep, the church bells on bright summer
+mornings, the gypsies under the window--oh, how sweet to think
+of it! He remembered the priest of Lesopolye, Father Simeon--mild,
+gentle, kindly; he was a lean little man, while his son, a divinity
+student, was a huge fellow and talked in a roaring bass voice. The
+priest's son had flown into a rage with the cook and abused her:
+"Ah, you Jehud's ass!" and Father Simeon overhearing it, said not
+a word, and was only ashamed because he could not remember where
+such an ass was mentioned in the Bible. After him the priest at
+Lesopolye had been Father Demyan, who used to drink heavily, and
+at times drank till he saw green snakes, and was even nicknamed
+Demyan Snakeseer. The schoolmaster at Lesopolye was Matvey Nikolaitch,
+who had been a divinity student, a kind and intelligent man, but
+he, too, was a drunkard; he never beat the schoolchildren, but for
+some reason he always had hanging on his wall a bunch of birch-twigs,
+and below it an utterly meaningless inscription in Latin: "Betula
+kinderbalsamica secuta." He had a shaggy black dog whom he called
+Syntax.
+
+And his holiness laughed. Six miles from Lesopolye was the village
+Obnino with a wonder-working ikon. In the summer they used to carry
+the ikon in procession about the neighbouring villages and ring the
+bells the whole day long; first in one village and then in another,
+and it used to seem to the bishop then that joy was quivering in
+the air, and he (in those days his name was Pavlusha) used to follow
+the ikon, bareheaded and barefoot, with naïve faith, with a naïve
+smile, infinitely happy. In Obnino, he remembered now, there were
+always a lot of people, and the priest there, Father Alexey, to
+save time during mass, used to make his deaf nephew Ilarion read
+the names of those for whose health or whose souls' peace prayers
+were asked. Ilarion used to read them, now and then getting a five
+or ten kopeck piece for the service, and only when he was grey and
+bald, when life was nearly over, he suddenly saw written on one of
+the pieces of paper: "What a fool you are, Ilarion." Up to fifteen
+at least Pavlusha was undeveloped and idle at his lessons, so much
+so that they thought of taking him away from the clerical school
+and putting him into a shop; one day, going to the post at Obnino
+for letters, he had stared a long time at the post-office clerks
+and asked: "Allow me to ask, how do you get your salary, every month
+or every day?"
+
+His holiness crossed himself and turned over on the other side,
+trying to stop thinking and go to sleep.
+
+"My mother has come," he remembered and laughed.
+
+The moon peeped in at the window, the floor was lighted up, and
+there were shadows on it. A cricket was chirping. Through the wall
+Father Sisoy was snoring in the next room, and his aged snore had
+a sound that suggested loneliness, forlornness, even vagrancy. Sisoy
+had once been housekeeper to the bishop of the diocese, and was
+called now "the former Father Housekeeper"; he was seventy years
+old, he lived in a monastery twelve miles from the town and stayed
+sometimes in the town, too. He had come to the Pankratievsky Monastery
+three days before, and the bishop had kept him that he might talk
+to him at his leisure about matters of business, about the arrangements
+here. . . .
+
+At half-past one they began ringing for matins. Father Sisoy could
+be heard coughing, muttering something in a discontented voice,
+then he got up and walked barefoot about the rooms.
+
+"Father Sisoy," the bishop called.
+
+Sisoy went back to his room and a little later made his appearance
+in his boots, with a candle; he had on his cassock over his
+underclothes and on his head was an old faded skull-cap.
+
+"I can't sleep," said the bishop, sitting up. "I must be unwell.
+And what it is I don't know. Fever!"
+
+"You must have caught cold, your holiness. You must be rubbed with
+tallow." Sisoy stood a little and yawned. "O Lord, forgive me, a
+sinner."
+
+"They had the electric lights on at Erakin's today," he said; "I
+don't like it!"
+
+Father Sisoy was old, lean, bent, always dissatisfied with something,
+and his eyes were angry-looking and prominent as a crab's.
+
+"I don't like it," he said, going away. "I don't like it. Bother
+it!"
+
+II
+
+Next day, Palm Sunday, the bishop took the service in the cathedral
+in the town, then he visited the bishop of the diocese, then visited
+a very sick old lady, the widow of a general, and at last drove
+home. Between one and two o'clock he had welcome visitors dining
+with him--his mother and his niece Katya, a child of eight years
+old. All dinner-time the spring sunshine was streaming in at the
+windows, throwing bright light on the white tablecloth and on Katya's
+red hair. Through the double windows they could hear the noise of
+the rooks and the notes of the starlings in the garden.
+
+"It is nine years since we have met," said the old lady. "And when
+I looked at you in the monastery yesterday, good Lord! you've not
+changed a bit, except maybe you are thinner and your beard is a
+little longer. Holy Mother, Queen of Heaven! Yesterday at the evening
+service no one could help crying. I, too, as I looked at you,
+suddenly began crying, though I couldn't say why. His Holy Will!"
+
+And in spite of the affectionate tone in which she said this, he
+could see she was constrained as though she were uncertain whether
+to address him formally or familiarly, to laugh or not, and that
+she felt herself more a deacon's widow than his mother. And Katya
+gazed without blinking at her uncle, his holiness, as though trying
+to discover what sort of a person he was. Her hair sprang up from
+under the comb and the velvet ribbon and stood out like a halo; she
+had a turned-up nose and sly eyes. The child had broken a glass
+before sitting down to dinner, and now her grandmother, as she
+talked, moved away from Katya first a wineglass and then a tumbler.
+The bishop listened to his mother and remembered how many, many
+years ago she used to take him and his brothers and sisters to
+relations whom she considered rich; in those days she was taken up
+with the care of her children, now with her grandchildren, and she
+had brought Katya. . . .
+
+"Your sister, Varenka, has four children," she told him; "Katya,
+here, is the eldest. And your brother-in-law Father Ivan fell sick,
+God knows of what, and died three days before the Assumption; and
+my poor Varenka is left a beggar."
+
+"And how is Nikanor getting on?" the bishop asked about his eldest
+brother.
+
+"He is all right, thank God. Though he has nothing much, yet he can
+live. Only there is one thing: his son, my grandson Nikolasha, did
+not want to go into the Church; he has gone to the university to
+be a doctor. He thinks it is better; but who knows! His Holy Will!"
+
+"Nikolasha cuts up dead people," said Katya, spilling water over
+her knees.
+
+"Sit still, child," her grandmother observed calmly, and took the
+glass out of her hand. "Say a prayer, and go on eating."
+
+"How long it is since we have seen each other!" said the bishop,
+and he tenderly stroked his mother's hand and shoulder; "and I
+missed you abroad, mother, I missed you dreadfully."
+
+"Thank you."
+
+"I used to sit in the evenings at the open window, lonely and alone;
+often there was music playing, and all at once I used to be overcome
+with homesickness and felt as though I would give everything only
+to be at home and see you."
+
+His mother smiled, beamed, but at once she made a grave face and
+said:
+
+"Thank you."
+
+His mood suddenly changed. He looked at his mother and could not
+understand how she had come by that respectfulness, that timid
+expression of face: what was it for? And he did not recognize her.
+He felt sad and vexed. And then his head ached just as it had the
+day before; his legs felt fearfully tired, and the fish seemed to
+him stale and tasteless; he felt thirsty all the time. . . .
+
+After dinner two rich ladies, landowners, arrived and sat for an
+hour and a half in silence with rigid countenances; the archimandrite,
+a silent, rather deaf man, came to see him about business. Then
+they began ringing for vespers; the sun was setting behind the wood
+and the day was over. When he returned from church, he hurriedly
+said his prayers, got into bed, and wrapped himself up as warm as
+possible.
+
+It was disagreeable to remember the fish he had eaten at dinner.
+The moonlight worried him, and then he heard talking. In an adjoining
+room, probably in the parlour, Father Sisoy was talking politics:
+
+"There's war among the Japanese now. They are fighting. The Japanese,
+my good soul, are the same as the Montenegrins; they are the same
+race. They were under the Turkish yoke together."
+
+And then he heard the voice of Marya Timofyevna:
+
+"So, having said our prayers and drunk tea, we went, you know, to
+Father Yegor at Novokatnoye, so. . ."
+
+And she kept on saying, "having had tea" or "having drunk tea," and
+it seemed as though the only thing she had done in her life was to
+drink tea.
+
+The bishop slowly, languidly, recalled the seminary, the academy.
+For three years he had been Greek teacher in the seminary: by that
+time he could not read without spectacles. Then he had become a
+monk; he had been made a school inspector. Then he had defended his
+thesis for his degree. When he was thirty-two he had been made
+rector of the seminary, and consecrated archimandrite: and then his
+life had been so easy, so pleasant; it seemed so long, so long, no
+end was in sight. Then he had begun to be ill, had grown very thin
+and almost blind, and by the advice of the doctors had to give up
+everything and go abroad.
+
+"And what then?" asked Sisoy in the next room.
+
+"Then we drank tea . . ." answered Marya Timofyevna.
+
+"Good gracious, you've got a green beard," said Katya suddenly in
+surprise, and she laughed.
+
+The bishop remembered that the grey-headed Father Sisoy's beard
+really had a shade of green in it, and he laughed.
+
+"God have mercy upon us, what we have to put up with with this
+girl!" said Sisoy, aloud, getting angry. "Spoilt child! Sit quiet!"
+
+The bishop remembered the perfectly new white church in which he
+had conducted the services while living abroad, he remembered the
+sound of the warm sea. In his flat he had five lofty light rooms;
+in his study he had a new writing-table, lots of books. He had read
+a great deal and often written. And he remembered how he had pined
+for his native land, how a blind beggar woman had played the guitar
+under his window every day and sung of love, and how, as he listened,
+he had always for some reason thought of the past. But eight years
+had passed and he had been called back to Russia, and now he was a
+suffragan bishop, and all the past had retreated far away into the
+mist as though it were a dream. . . .
+
+Father Sisoy came into the bedroom with a candle.
+
+"I say!" he said, wondering, "are you asleep already, your holiness?"
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"Why, it's still early, ten o'clock or less. I bought a candle
+to-day; I wanted to rub you with tallow."
+
+"I am in a fever . . ." said the bishop, and he sat up. "I really
+ought to have something. My head is bad. . . ."
+
+Sisoy took off the bishop's shirt and began rubbing his chest and
+back with tallow.
+
+"That's the way . . . that's the way . . ." he said. "Lord Jesus
+Christ . . . that's the way. I walked to the town to-day; I was at
+what's-his-name's--the chief priest Sidonsky's. . . . I had tea
+with him. I don't like him. Lord Jesus Christ. . . . That's the
+way. I don't like him."
+
+III
+
+The bishop of the diocese, a very fat old man, was ill with rheumatism
+or gout, and had been in bed for over a month. Bishop Pyotr went
+to see him almost every day, and saw all who came to ask his help.
+And now that he was unwell he was struck by the emptiness, the
+triviality of everything which they asked and for which they wept;
+he was vexed at their ignorance, their timidity; and all this
+useless, petty business oppressed him by the mass of it, and it
+seemed to him that now he understood the diocesan bishop, who had
+once in his young days written on "The Doctrines of the Freedom of
+the Will," and now seemed to be all lost in trivialities, to have
+forgotten everything, and to have no thoughts of religion. The
+bishop must have lost touch with Russian life while he was abroad;
+he did not find it easy; the peasants seemed to him coarse, the
+women who sought his help dull and stupid, the seminarists and their
+teachers uncultivated and at times savage. And the documents coming
+in and going out were reckoned by tens of thousands; and what
+documents they were! The higher clergy in the whole diocese gave
+the priests, young and old, and even their wives and children, marks
+for their behaviour--a five, a four, and sometimes even a three;
+and about this he had to talk and to read and write serious reports.
+And there was positively not one minute to spare; his soul was
+troubled all day long, and the bishop was only at peace when he was
+in church.
+
+He could not get used, either, to the awe which, through no wish
+of his own, he inspired in people in spite of his quiet, modest
+disposition. All the people in the province seemed to him little,
+scared, and guilty when he looked at them. Everyone was timid in
+his presence, even the old chief priests; everyone "flopped" at his
+feet, and not long previously an old lady, a village priest's wife
+who had come to consult him, was so overcome by awe that she could
+not utter a single word, and went empty away. And he, who could
+never in his sermons bring himself to speak ill of people, never
+reproached anyone because he was so sorry for them, was moved to
+fury with the people who came to consult him, lost his temper and
+flung their petitions on the floor. The whole time he had been here,
+not one person had spoken to him genuinely, simply, as to a human
+being; even his old mother seemed now not the same! And why, he
+wondered, did she chatter away to Sisoy and laugh so much; while
+with him, her son, she was grave and usually silent and constrained,
+which did not suit her at all. The only person who behaved freely
+with him and said what he meant was old Sisoy, who had spent his
+whole life in the presence of bishops and had outlived eleven of
+them. And so the bishop was at ease with him, although, of course,
+he was a tedious and nonsensical man.
+
+After the service on Tuesday, his holiness Pyotr was in the diocesan
+bishop's house receiving petitions there; he got excited and angry,
+and then drove home. He was as unwell as before; he longed to be
+in bed, but he had hardly reached home when he was informed that a
+young merchant called Erakin, who subscribed liberally to charities,
+had come to see him about a very important matter. The bishop had
+to see him. Erakin stayed about an hour, talked very loud, almost
+shouted, and it was difficult to understand what he said.
+
+"God grant it may," he said as he went away. "Most essential!
+According to circumstances, your holiness! I trust it may!"
+
+After him came the Mother Superior from a distant convent. And when
+she had gone they began ringing for vespers. He had to go to church.
+
+In the evening the monks sang harmoniously, with inspiration. A
+young priest with a black beard conducted the service; and the
+bishop, hearing of the Bridegroom who comes at midnight and of the
+Heavenly Mansion adorned for the festival, felt no repentance for
+his sins, no tribulation, but peace at heart and tranquillity. And
+he was carried back in thought to the distant past, to his childhood
+and youth, when, too, they used to sing of the Bridegroom and of
+the Heavenly Mansion; and now that past rose up before him--living,
+fair, and joyful as in all likelihood it never had been. And perhaps
+in the other world, in the life to come, we shall think of the
+distant past, of our life here, with the same feeling. Who knows?
+The bishop was sitting near the altar. It was dark; tears flowed
+down his face. He thought that here he had attained everything a
+man in his position could attain; he had faith and yet everything
+was not clear, something was lacking still. He did not want to die;
+and he still felt that he had missed what was most important,
+something of which he had dimly dreamed in the past; and he was
+troubled by the same hopes for the future as he had felt in childhood,
+at the academy and abroad.
+
+"How well they sing to-day!" he thought, listening to the singing.
+"How nice it is!"
+
+IV
+
+On Thursday he celebrated mass in the cathedral; it was the Washing
+of Feet. When the service was over and the people were going home,
+it was sunny, warm; the water gurgled in the gutters, and the
+unceasing trilling of the larks, tender, telling of peace, rose
+from the fields outside the town. The trees were already awakening
+and smiling a welcome, while above them the infinite, fathomless
+blue sky stretched into the distance, God knows whither.
+
+On reaching home his holiness drank some tea, then changed his
+clothes, lay down on his bed, and told the lay brother to close the
+shutters on the windows. The bedroom was darkened. But what weariness,
+what pain in his legs and his back, a chill heavy pain, what a noise
+in his ears! He had not slept for a long time--for a very long
+time, as it seemed to him now, and some trifling detail which haunted
+his brain as soon as his eyes were closed prevented him from sleeping.
+As on the day before, sounds reached him from the adjoining rooms
+through the walls, voices, the jingle of glasses and teaspoons. . . .
+Marya Timofyevna was gaily telling Father Sisoy some story with
+quaint turns of speech, while the latter answered in a grumpy,
+ill-humoured voice: "Bother them! Not likely! What next!" And the
+bishop again felt vexed and then hurt that with other people his
+old mother behaved in a simple, ordinary way, while with him, her
+son, she was shy, spoke little, and did not say what she meant, and
+even, as he fancied, had during all those three days kept trying
+in his presence to find an excuse for standing up, because she was
+embarrassed at sitting before him. And his father? He, too, probably,
+if he had been living, would not have been able to utter a word in
+the bishop's presence. . . .
+
+Something fell down on the floor in the adjoining room and was
+broken; Katya must have dropped a cup or a saucer, for Father Sisoy
+suddenly spat and said angrily:
+
+"What a regular nuisance the child is! Lord forgive my transgressions!
+One can't provide enough for her."
+
+Then all was quiet, the only sounds came from outside. And when the
+bishop opened his eyes he saw Katya in his room, standing motionless,
+staring at him. Her red hair, as usual, stood up from under the
+comb like a halo.
+
+"Is that you, Katya?" he asked. "Who is it downstairs who keeps
+opening and shutting a door?"
+
+"I don't hear it," answered Katya; and she listened.
+
+"There, someone has just passed by."
+
+"But that was a noise in your stomach, uncle."
+
+He laughed and stroked her on the head.
+
+"So you say Cousin Nikolasha cuts up dead people?" he asked after
+a pause.
+
+"Yes, he is studying."
+
+"And is he kind?"
+
+"Oh, yes, he's kind. But he drinks vodka awfully."
+
+"And what was it your father died of?"
+
+"Papa was weak and very, very thin, and all at once his throat was
+bad. I was ill then, too, and brother Fedya; we all had bad throats.
+Papa died, uncle, and we got well."
+
+Her chin began quivering, and tears gleamed in her eyes and trickled
+down her cheeks.
+
+"Your holiness," she said in a shrill voice, by now weeping bitterly,
+"uncle, mother and all of us are left very wretched. . . . Give us
+a little money . . . do be kind . . . uncle darling. . . ."
+
+He, too, was moved to tears, and for a long time was too much touched
+to speak. Then he stroked her on the head, patted her on the shoulder
+and said:
+
+"Very good, very good, my child. When the holy Easter comes, we
+will talk it over. . . . I will help you. . . . I will help you. . . ."
+
+His mother came in quietly, timidly, and prayed before the ikon.
+Noticing that he was not sleeping, she said:
+
+"Won't you have a drop of soup?"
+
+"No, thank you," he answered, "I am not hungry."
+
+"You seem to be unwell, now I look at you. I should think so; you
+may well be ill! The whole day on your legs, the whole day. . . .
+And, my goodness, it makes one's heart ache even to look at you!
+Well, Easter is not far off; you will rest then, please God. Then
+we will have a talk, too, but now I'm not going to disturb you with
+my chatter. Come along, Katya; let his holiness sleep a little."
+
+And he remembered how once very long ago, when he was a boy, she
+had spoken exactly like that, in the same jestingly respectful tone,
+with a Church dignitary. . . . Only from her extraordinarily kind
+eyes and the timid, anxious glance she stole at him as she went out
+of the room could one have guessed that this was his mother. He
+shut his eyes and seemed to sleep, but twice heard the clock strike
+and Father Sisoy coughing the other side of the wall. And once more
+his mother came in and looked timidly at him for a minute. Someone
+drove up to the steps, as he could hear, in a coach or in a chaise.
+Suddenly a knock, the door slammed, the lay brother came into the
+bedroom.
+
+"Your holiness," he called.
+
+"Well?"
+
+"The horses are here; it's time for the evening service."
+
+"What o'clock is it?"
+
+"A quarter past seven."
+
+He dressed and drove to the cathedral. During all the "Twelve
+Gospels" he had to stand in the middle of the church without moving,
+and the first gospel, the longest and the most beautiful, he read
+himself. A mood of confidence and courage came over him. That first
+gospel, "Now is the Son of Man glorified," he knew by heart; and
+as he read he raised his eyes from time to time, and saw on both
+sides a perfect sea of lights and heard the splutter of candles,
+but, as in past years, he could not see the people, and it seemed
+as though these were all the same people as had been round him in
+those days, in his childhood and his youth; that they would always
+be the same every year and till such time as God only knew.
+
+His father had been a deacon, his grandfather a priest, his
+great-grandfather a deacon, and his whole family, perhaps from the
+days when Christianity had been accepted in Russia, had belonged
+to the priesthood; and his love for the Church services, for the
+priesthood, for the peal of the bells, was deep in him, ineradicable,
+innate. In church, particularly when he took part in the service,
+he felt vigorous, of good cheer, happy. So it was now. Only when
+the eighth gospel had been read, he felt that his voice had grown
+weak, even his cough was inaudible. His head had begun to ache
+intensely, and he was troubled by a fear that he might fall down.
+And his legs were indeed quite numb, so that by degrees he ceased
+to feel them and could not understand how or on what he was standing,
+and why he did not fall. . . .
+
+It was a quarter to twelve when the service was over. When he reached
+home, the bishop undressed and went to bed at once without even
+saying his prayers. He could not speak and felt that he could not
+have stood up. When he had covered his head with the quilt he felt
+a sudden longing to be abroad, an insufferable longing! He felt
+that he would give his life not to see those pitiful cheap shutters,
+those low ceilings, not to smell that heavy monastery smell. If
+only there were one person to whom he could have talked, have opened
+his heart!
+
+For a long while he heard footsteps in the next room and could not
+tell whose they were. At last the door opened, and Sisoy came in
+with a candle and a tea-cup in his hand.
+
+"You are in bed already, your holiness?" he asked. "Here I have
+come to rub you with spirit and vinegar. A thorough rubbing does a
+great deal of good. Lord Jesus Christ! . . . That's the way . . .
+that's the way. . . . I've just been in our monastery. . . . I don't
+like it. I'm going away from here to-morrow, your holiness; I don't
+want to stay longer. Lord Jesus Christ. . . . That's the way. . . ."
+
+Sisoy could never stay long in the same place, and he felt as though
+he had been a whole year in the Pankratievsky Monastery. Above all,
+listening to him it was difficult to understand where his home was,
+whether he cared for anyone or anything, whether he believed in
+God. . . . He did not know himself why he was a monk, and, indeed,
+he did not think about it, and the time when he had become a monk
+had long passed out of his memory; it seemed as though he had been
+born a monk.
+
+"I'm going away to-morrow; God be with them all."
+
+"I should like to talk to you. . . . I can't find the time," said
+the bishop softly with an effort. "I don't know anything or anybody
+here. . . ."
+
+"I'll stay till Sunday if you like; so be it, but I don't want to
+stay longer. I am sick of them!"
+
+"I ought not to be a bishop," said the bishop softly. "I ought to
+have been a village priest, a deacon . . . or simply a monk. . . .
+All this oppresses me . . . oppresses me."
+
+"What? Lord Jesus Christ. . . . That's the way. Come, sleep well,
+your holiness! . . . What's the good of talking? It's no use.
+Good-night!"
+
+The bishop did not sleep all night. And at eight o'clock in the
+morning he began to have hemorrhage from the bowels. The lay brother
+was alarmed, and ran first to the archimandrite, then for the
+monastery doctor, Ivan Andreyitch, who lived in the town. The doctor,
+a stout old man with a long grey beard, made a prolonged examination
+of the bishop, and kept shaking his head and frowning, then said:
+
+"Do you know, your holiness, you have got typhoid?"
+
+After an hour or so of hemorrhage the bishop looked much thinner,
+paler, and wasted; his face looked wrinkled, his eyes looked bigger,
+and he seemed older, shorter, and it seemed to him that he was
+thinner, weaker, more insignificant than any one, that everything
+that had been had retreated far, far away and would never go on
+again or be repeated.
+
+"How good," he thought, "how good!"
+
+His old mother came. Seeing his wrinkled face and his big eyes, she
+was frightened, she fell on her knees by the bed and began kissing
+his face, his shoulders, his hands. And to her, too, it seemed that
+he was thinner, weaker, and more insignificant than anyone, and now
+she forgot that he was a bishop, and kissed him as though he were
+a child very near and very dear to her.
+
+"Pavlusha, darling," she said; "my own, my darling son! . . . Why
+are you like this? Pavlusha, answer me!"
+
+Katya, pale and severe, stood beside her, unable to understand what
+was the matter with her uncle, why there was such a look of suffering
+on her grandmother's face, why she was saying such sad and touching
+things. By now he could not utter a word, he could understand
+nothing, and he imagined he was a simple ordinary man, that he was
+walking quickly, cheerfully through the fields, tapping with his
+stick, while above him was the open sky bathed in sunshine, and
+that he was free now as a bird and could go where he liked!
+
+"Pavlusha, my darling son, answer me," the old woman was saying.
+"What is it? My own!"
+
+"Don't disturb his holiness," Sisoy said angrily, walking about the
+room. "Let him sleep . . . what's the use . . . it's no good. . . ."
+
+Three doctors arrived, consulted together, and went away again. The
+day was long, incredibly long, then the night came on and passed
+slowly, slowly, and towards morning on Saturday the lay brother
+went in to the old mother who was lying on the sofa in the parlour,
+and asked her to go into the bedroom: the bishop had just breathed
+his last.
+
+Next day was Easter Sunday. There were forty-two churches and six
+monasteries in the town; the sonorous, joyful clang of the bells
+hung over the town from morning till night unceasingly, setting the
+spring air aquiver; the birds were singing, the sun was shining
+brightly. The big market square was noisy, swings were going, barrel
+organs were playing, accordions were squeaking, drunken voices were
+shouting. After midday people began driving up and down the principal
+street.
+
+In short, all was merriment, everything was satisfactory, just as
+it had been the year before, and as it will be in all likelihood
+next year.
+
+A month later a new suffragan bishop was appointed, and no one
+thought anything more of Bishop Pyotr, and afterwards he was
+completely forgotten. And only the dead man's old mother, who is
+living to-day with her son-in-law the deacon in a remote little
+district town, when she goes out at night to bring her cow in and
+meets other women at the pasture, begins talking of her children
+and her grandchildren, and says that she had a son a bishop, and
+this she says timidly, afraid that she may not be believed. . . .
+
+And, indeed, there are some who do not believe her.
+
+
+THE LETTER
+
+The clerical superintendent of the district, his Reverence Father
+Fyodor Orlov, a handsome, well-nourished man of fifty, grave and
+important as he always was, with an habitual expression of dignity
+that never left his face, was walking to and fro in his little
+drawing-room, extremely exhausted, and thinking intensely about the
+same thing: "When would his visitor go?" The thought worried him
+and did not leave him for a minute. The visitor, Father Anastasy,
+the priest of one of the villages near the town, had come to him
+three hours before on some very unpleasant and dreary business of
+his own, had stayed on and on, was now sitting in the corner at a
+little round table with his elbow on a thick account book, and
+apparently had no thought of going, though it was getting on for
+nine o'clock in the evening.
+
+Not everyone knows when to be silent and when to go. It not
+infrequently happens that even diplomatic persons of good worldly
+breeding fail to observe that their presence is arousing a feeling
+akin to hatred in their exhausted or busy host, and that this feeling
+is being concealed with an effort and disguised with a lie. But
+Father Anastasy perceived it clearly, and realized that his presence
+was burdensome and inappropriate, that his Reverence, who had taken
+an early morning service in the night and a long mass at midday,
+was exhausted and longing for repose; every minute he was meaning
+to get up and go, but he did not get up, he sat on as though he
+were waiting for something. He was an old man of sixty-five,
+prematurely aged, with a bent and bony figure, with a sunken face
+and the dark skin of old age, with red eyelids and a long narrow
+back like a fish's; he was dressed in a smart cassock of a light
+lilac colour, but too big for him (presented to him by the widow
+of a young priest lately deceased), a full cloth coat with a broad
+leather belt, and clumsy high boots the size and hue of which showed
+clearly that Father Anastasy dispensed with goloshes. In spite of
+his position and his venerable age, there was something pitiful,
+crushed and humiliated in his lustreless red eyes, in the strands
+of grey hair with a shade of green in it on the nape of his neck,
+and in the big shoulder-blades on his lean back. . . . He sat without
+speaking or moving, and coughed with circumspection, as though
+afraid that the sound of his coughing might make his presence more
+noticeable.
+
+The old man had come to see his Reverence on business. Two months
+before he had been prohibited from officiating till further notice,
+and his case was being inquired into. His shortcomings were numerous.
+He was intemperate in his habits, fell out with the other clergy
+and the commune, kept the church records and accounts carelessly
+--these were the formal charges against him; but besides all that,
+there had been rumours for a long time past that he celebrated
+unlawful marriages for money and sold certificates of having fasted
+and taken the sacrament to officials and officers who came to him
+from the town. These rumours were maintained the more persistently
+that he was poor and had nine children to keep, who were as incompetent
+and unsuccessful as himself. The sons were spoilt and uneducated,
+and stayed at home doing nothing, while the daughters were ugly and
+did not get married.
+
+Not having the moral force to be open, his Reverence walked up and
+down the room and said nothing or spoke in hints.
+
+"So you are not going home to-night?" he asked, stopping near the
+dark window and poking with his little finger into the cage where
+a canary was asleep with its feathers puffed out.
+
+Father Anastasy started, coughed cautiously and said rapidly:
+
+"Home? I don't care to, Fyodor Ilyitch. I cannot officiate, as you
+know, so what am I to do there? I came away on purpose that I might
+not have to look the people in the face. One is ashamed not to
+officiate, as you know. Besides, I have business here, Fyodor
+Ilyitch. To-morrow after breaking the fast I want to talk things
+over thoroughly with the Father charged with the inquiry."
+
+"Ah! . . ." yawned his Reverence, "and where are you staying?"
+
+"At Zyavkin's."
+
+Father Anastasy suddenly remembered that within two hours his
+Reverence had to take the Easter-night service, and he felt so
+ashamed of his unwelcome burdensome presence that he made up his
+mind to go away at once and let the exhausted man rest. And the old
+man got up to go. But before he began saying good-bye he stood
+clearing his throat for a minute and looking searchingly at his
+Reverence's back, still with the same expression of vague expectation
+in his whole figure; his face was working with shame, timidity, and
+a pitiful forced laugh such as one sees in people who do not respect
+themselves. Waving his hand as it were resolutely, he said with a
+husky quavering laugh:
+
+"Father Fyodor, do me one more kindness: bid them give me at
+leave-taking . . . one little glass of vodka."
+
+"It's not the time to drink vodka now," said his Reverence sternly.
+"One must have some regard for decency."
+
+Father Anastasy was still more overwhelmed by confusion; he laughed,
+and, forgetting his resolution to go away, he dropped back on his
+chair. His Reverence looked at his helpless, embarrassed face and
+his bent figure and he felt sorry for the old man.
+
+"Please God, we will have a drink to-morrow," he said, wishing to
+soften his stem refusal. "Everything is good in due season."
+
+His Reverence believed in people's reforming, but now when a feeling
+of pity had been kindled in him it seemed to him that this disgraced,
+worn-out old man, entangled in a network of sins and weaknesses,
+was hopelessly wrecked, that there was no power on earth that could
+straighten out his spine, give brightness to his eyes and restrain
+the unpleasant timid laugh which he laughed on purpose to smoothe
+over to some slight extent the repulsive impression he made on
+people.
+
+The old man seemed now to Father Fyodor not guilty and not vicious,
+but humiliated, insulted, unfortunate; his Reverence thought of his
+wife, his nine children, the dirty beggarly shelter at Zyavkin's;
+he thought for some reason of the people who are glad to see priests
+drunk and persons in authority detected in crimes; and thought that
+the very best thing Father Anastasy could do now would be to die
+as soon as possible and to depart from this world for ever.
+
+There were a sound of footsteps.
+
+"Father Fyodor, you are not resting?" a bass voice asked from the
+passage.
+
+"No, deacon; come in."
+
+Orlov's colleague, the deacon Liubimov, an elderly man with a big
+bald patch on the top of his head, though his hair was still black
+and he was still vigorous-looking, with thick black eyebrows like
+a Georgian's, walked in. He bowed to Father Anastasy and sat down.
+
+"What good news have you?" asked his Reverence.
+
+"What good news?" answered the deacon, and after a pause he went
+on with a smile: "When your children are little, your trouble is
+small; when your children are big, your trouble is great. Such
+goings on, Father Fyodor, that I don't know what to think of it.
+It's a regular farce, that's what it is."
+
+He paused again for a little, smiled still more broadly and said:
+
+"Nikolay Matveyitch came back from Harkov to-day. He has been telling
+me about my Pyotr. He has been to see him twice, he tells me."
+
+"What has he been telling you, then?"
+
+"He has upset me, God bless him. He meant to please me but when I
+came to think it over, it seems there is not much to be pleased at.
+I ought to grieve rather than be pleased. . . 'Your Petrushka,'
+said he, 'lives in fine style. He is far above us now,' said he.
+'Well thank God for that,' said I. 'I dined with him,' said he,
+'and saw his whole manner of life. He lives like a gentleman,' he
+said; 'you couldn't wish to live better.' I was naturally interested
+and I asked, 'And what did you have for dinner?' 'First,' he said,
+'a fish course something like fish soup, then tongue and peas,' and
+then he said, 'roast turkey.' 'Turkey in Lent? that is something
+to please me,' said I. 'Turkey in Lent? Eh?'"
+
+"Nothing marvellous in that," said his Reverence, screwing up his
+eyes ironically. And sticking both thumbs in his belt, he drew
+himself up and said in the tone in which he usually delivered
+discourses or gave his Scripture lessons to the pupils in the
+district school: "People who do not keep the fasts are divided into
+two different categories: some do not keep them through laxity,
+others through infidelity. Your Pyotr does not keep them through
+infidelity. Yes."
+
+The deacon looked timidly at Father Fyodor's stern face and said:
+
+"There is worse to follow. . . . We talked and discussed one thing
+and another, and it turned out that my infidel of a son is living
+with some madame, another man's wife. She takes the place of wife
+and hostess in his flat, pours out the tea, receives visitors and
+all the rest of it, as though she were his lawful wife. For over
+two years he has been keeping up this dance with this viper. It's
+a regular farce. They have been living together for three years and
+no children."
+
+"I suppose they have been living in chastity!" chuckled Father
+Anastasy, coughing huskily. "There are children, Father Deacon--
+there are, but they don't keep them at home! They send them to the
+Foundling! He-he-he! . . ." Anastasy went on coughing till he choked.
+
+"Don't interfere, Father Anastasy," said his Reverence sternly.
+
+"Nikolay Matveyitch asked him, 'What madame is this helping the
+soup at your table?'" the deacon went on, gloomily scanning
+Anastasy's bent figure. "'That is my wife,' said he. 'When was
+your wedding?' Nikolay Matveyitch asked him, and Pyotr answered,
+'We were married at Kulikov's restaurant.'"
+
+His Reverence's eyes flashed wrathfully and the colour came into
+his temples. Apart from his sinfulness, Pyotr was not a person he
+liked. Father Fyodor had, as they say, a grudge against him. He
+remembered him a boy at school--he remembered him distinctly,
+because even then the boy had seemed to him not normal. As a
+schoolboy, Petrushka had been ashamed to serve at the altar, had
+been offended at being addressed without ceremony, had not crossed
+himself on entering the room, and what was still more noteworthy,
+was fond of talking a great deal and with heat--and, in Father
+Fyodor's opinion, much talking was unseemly in children and pernicious
+to them; moreover Petrushka had taken up a contemptuous and critical
+attitude to fishing, a pursuit to which both his Reverence and the
+deacon were greatly addicted. As a student Pyotr had not gone to
+church at all, had slept till midday, had looked down on people,
+and had been given to raising delicate and insoluble questions with
+a peculiarly provoking zest.
+
+"What would you have?" his Reverence asked, going up to the deacon
+and looking at him angrily. "What would you have? This was to be
+expected! I always knew and was convinced that nothing good would
+come of your Pyotr! I told you so, and I tell you so now. What you
+have sown, that now you must reap! Reap it!"
+
+"But what have I sown, Father Fyodor?" the deacon asked softly,
+looking up at his Reverence.
+
+"Why, who is to blame if not you? You're his father, he is your
+offspring! You ought to have admonished him, have instilled the
+fear of God into him. A child must be taught! You have brought him
+into the world, but you haven't trained him up in the right way.
+It's a sin! It's wrong! It's a shame!"
+
+His Reverence forgot his exhaustion, paced to and fro and went on
+talking. Drops of perspiration came out on the deacon's bald head
+and forehead. He raised his eyes to his Reverence with a look of
+guilt, and said:
+
+"But didn't I train him, Father Fyodor? Lord have mercy on us,
+haven't I been a father to my children? You know yourself I spared
+nothing for his good; I have prayed and done my best all my life
+to give him a thorough education. He went to the high school and I
+got him tutors, and he took his degree at the University. And as
+to my not being able to influence his mind, Father Fyodor, why, you
+can judge for yourself that I am not qualified to do so! Sometimes
+when he used to come here as a student, I would begin admonishing
+him in my way, and he wouldn't heed me. I'd say to him, 'Go to
+church,' and he would answer, 'What for?' I would begin explaining,
+and he would say, 'Why? what for?' Or he would slap me on the
+shoulder and say, 'Everything in this world is relative, approximate
+and conditional. I don't know anything, and you don't know anything
+either, dad.'"
+
+Father Anastasy laughed huskily, cleared his throat and waved his
+fingers in the air as though preparing to say something. His Reverence
+glanced at him and said sternly:
+
+"Don't interfere, Father Anastasy."
+
+The old man laughed, beamed, and evidently listened with pleasure
+to the deacon as though he were glad there were other sinful persons
+in this world besides himself. The deacon spoke sincerely, with an
+aching heart, and tears actually came into his eyes. Father Fyodor
+felt sorry for him.
+
+"You are to blame, deacon, you are to blame," he said, but not so
+sternly and heatedly as before. "If you could beget him, you ought
+to know how to instruct him. You ought to have trained him in his
+childhood; it's no good trying to correct a student."
+
+A silence followed; the deacon clasped his hands and said with a
+sigh:
+
+"But you know I shall have to answer for him!"
+
+"To be sure you will!"
+
+After a brief silence his Reverence yawned and sighed at the same
+moment and asked:
+
+"Who is reading the 'Acts'?"
+
+"Yevstrat. Yevstrat always reads them."
+
+The deacon got up and, looking imploringly at his Reverence, asked:
+
+"Father Fyodor, what am I to do now?"
+
+"Do as you please; you are his father, not I. You ought to know
+best."
+
+"I don't know anything, Father Fyodor! Tell me what to do, for
+goodness' sake! Would you believe it, I am sick at heart! I can't
+sleep now, nor keep quiet, and the holiday will be no holiday to
+me. Tell me what to do, Father Fyodor!"
+
+"Write him a letter."
+
+"What am I to write to him?"
+
+"Write that he mustn't go on like that. Write shortly, but sternly
+and circumstantially, without softening or smoothing away his guilt.
+It is your parental duty; if you write, you will have done your
+duty and will be at peace."
+
+"That's true. But what am I to write to him, to what effect? If I
+write to him, he will answer, 'Why? what for? Why is it a sin?'"
+
+Father Anastasy laughed hoarsely again, and brandished his fingers.
+
+"Why? what for? why is it a sin?" he began shrilly. "I was once
+confessing a gentleman, and I told him that excessive confidence
+in the Divine Mercy is a sin; and he asked, 'Why?' I tried to answer
+him, but----" Anastasy slapped himself on the forehead. "I had
+nothing here. He-he-he-he! . . ."
+
+Anastasy's words, his hoarse jangling laugh at what was not laughable,
+had an unpleasant effect on his Reverence and on the deacon. The
+former was on the point of saying, "Don't interfere" again, but he
+did not say it, he only frowned.
+
+"I can't write to him," sighed the deacon.
+
+"If you can't, who can?"
+
+"Father Fyodor!" said the deacon, putting his head on one side and
+pressing his hand to his heart. "I am an uneducated slow-witted
+man, while the Lord has vouchsafed you judgment and wisdom. You
+know everything and understand everything. You can master anything,
+while I don't know how to put my words together sensibly. Be generous.
+Instruct me how to write the letter. Teach me what to say and how
+to say it. . . ."
+
+"What is there to teach? There is nothing to teach. Sit down and
+write."
+
+"Oh, do me the favour, Father Fyodor! I beseech you! I know he will
+be frightened and will attend to your letter, because, you see, you
+are a cultivated man too. Do be so good! I'll sit down, and you'll
+dictate to me. It will be a sin to write to-morrow, but now would
+be the very time; my mind would be set at rest."
+
+His Reverence looked at the deacon's imploring face, thought of the
+disagreeable Pyotr, and consented to dictate. He made the deacon
+sit down to his table and began.
+
+"Well, write . . . 'Christ is risen, dear son . . .' exclamation
+mark. 'Rumours have reached me, your father,' then in parenthesis,
+'from what source is no concern of yours . . .' close the parenthesis.
+. . . Have you written it? 'That you are leading a life inconsistent
+with the laws both of God and of man. Neither the luxurious comfort,
+nor the worldly splendour, nor the culture with which you seek
+outwardly to disguise it, can hide your heathen manner of life. In
+name you are a Christian, but in your real nature a heathen as
+pitiful and wretched as all other heathens--more wretched, indeed,
+seeing that those heathens who know not Christ are lost from
+ignorance, while you are lost in that, possessing a treasure, you
+neglect it. I will not enumerate here your vices, which you know
+well enough; I will say that I see the cause of your ruin in your
+infidelity. You imagine yourself to be wise, boast of your knowledge
+of science, but refuse to see that science without faith, far from
+elevating a man, actually degrades him to the level of a lower
+animal, inasmuch as. . .'" The whole letter was in this strain.
+
+When he had finished writing it the deacon read it aloud, beamed
+all over and jumped up.
+
+"It's a gift, it's really a gift!" he said, clasping his hands and
+looking enthusiastically at his Reverence. "To think of the Lord's
+bestowing a gift like that! Eh? Holy Mother! I do believe I couldn't
+write a letter like that in a hundred years. Lord save you!"
+
+Father Anastasy was enthusiastic too.
+
+"One couldn't write like that without a gift," he said, getting up
+and wagging his fingers--"that one couldn't! His rhetoric would
+trip any philosopher and shut him up. Intellect. Brilliant intellect!
+If you weren't married, Father Fyodor, you would have been a bishop
+long ago, you would really!"
+
+Having vented his wrath in a letter, his Reverence felt relieved;
+his fatigue and exhaustion came back to him. The deacon was an old
+friend, and his Reverence did not hesitate to say to him:
+
+"Well deacon, go, and God bless you. I'll have half an hour's nap
+on the sofa; I must rest."
+
+The deacon went away and took Anastasy with him. As is always the
+case on Easter Eve, it was dark in the street, but the whole sky
+was sparkling with bright luminous stars. There was a scent of
+spring and holiday in the soft still air.
+
+"How long was he dictating?" the deacon said admiringly. "Ten
+minutes, not more! It would have taken someone else a month to
+compose such a letter. Eh! What a mind! Such a mind that I don't
+know what to call it! It's a marvel! It's really a marvel!"
+
+"Education!" sighed Anastasy as he crossed the muddy street; holding
+up his cassock to his waist. "It's not for us to compare ourselves
+with him. We come of the sacristan class, while he has had a learned
+education. Yes, he's a real man, there is no denying that."
+
+"And you listen how he'll read the Gospel in Latin at mass to-day!
+He knows Latin and he knows Greek. . . . Ah Petrushka, Petrushka!"
+the deacon said, suddenly remembering. "Now that will make him
+scratch his head! That will shut his mouth, that will bring it home
+to him! Now he won't ask 'Why.' It is a case of one wit to outwit
+another! Haha-ha!"
+
+The deacon laughed gaily and loudly. Since the letter had been
+written to Pyotr he had become serene and more cheerful. The
+consciousness of having performed his duty as a father and his faith
+in the power of the letter had brought back his mirthfulness and
+good-humour.
+
+"Pyotr means a stone," said he, as he went into his house. "My Pyotr
+is not a stone, but a rag. A viper has fastened upon him and he
+pampers her, and hasn't the pluck to kick her out. Tfoo! To think
+there should be women like that, God forgive me! Eh? Has she no
+shame? She has fastened upon the lad, sticking to him, and keeps
+him tied to her apron strings. . . . Fie upon her!"
+
+"Perhaps it's not she keeps hold of him, but he of her?"
+
+"She is a shameless one anyway! Not that I am defending Pyotr. . . .
+He'll catch it. He'll read the letter and scratch his head! He'll
+burn with shame!"
+
+"It's a splendid letter, only you know I wouldn't send it, Father
+Deacon. Let him alone."
+
+"What?" said the deacon, disconcerted.
+
+"Why. . . . Don't send it, deacon! What's the sense of it? Suppose
+you send it; he reads it, and . . . and what then? You'll only upset
+him. Forgive him. Let him alone!"
+
+The deacon looked in surprise at Anastasy's dark face, at his
+unbuttoned cassock, which looked in the dusk like wings, and shrugged
+his shoulders.
+
+"How can I forgive him like that?" he asked. "Why I shall have to
+answer for him to God!"
+
+"Even so, forgive him all the same. Really! And God will forgive
+you for your kindness to him."
+
+"But he is my son, isn't he? Ought I not to teach him?"
+
+"Teach him? Of course--why not? You can teach him, but why call
+him a heathen? It will hurt his feelings, you know, deacon. . . ."
+
+The deacon was a widower, and lived in a little house with three
+windows. His elder sister, an old maid, looked after his house for
+him, though she had three years before lost the use of her legs and
+was confined to her bed; he was afraid of her, obeyed her, and did
+nothing without her advice. Father Anastasy went in with him. Seeing
+his table already laid with Easter cakes and red eggs, he began
+weeping for some reason, probably thinking of his own home, and to
+turn these tears into a jest, he at once laughed huskily.
+
+"Yes, we shall soon be breaking the fast," he said. "Yes . . . it
+wouldn't come amiss, deacon, to have a little glass now. Can we?
+I'll drink it so that the old lady does not hear," he whispered,
+glancing sideways towards the door.
+
+Without a word the deacon moved a decanter and wineglass towards
+him. He unfolded the letter and began reading it aloud. And now the
+letter pleased him just as much as when his Reverence had dictated
+it to him. He beamed with pleasure and wagged his head, as though
+he had been tasting something very sweet.
+
+"A-ah, what a letter!" he said. "Petrushka has never dreamt of such
+a letter. It's just what he wants, something to throw him into a
+fever. . ."
+
+"Do you know, deacon, don't send it!" said Anastasy, pouring himself
+out a second glass of vodka as though unconsciously. "Forgive him,
+let him alone! I am telling you . . . what I really think. If his
+own father can't forgive him, who will forgive him? And so he'll
+live without forgiveness. Think, deacon: there will be plenty to
+chastise him without you, but you should look out for some who will
+show mercy to your son! I'll . . . I'll . . . have just one more.
+The last, old man. . . . Just sit down and write straight off to
+him, 'I forgive you Pyotr!' He will under-sta-and! He will fe-el
+it! I understand it from myself, you see old man . . . deacon, I
+mean. When I lived like other people, I hadn't much to trouble
+about, but now since I lost the image and semblance, there is only
+one thing I care about, that good people should forgive me. And
+remember, too, it's not the righteous but sinners we must forgive.
+Why should you forgive your old woman if she is not sinful? No, you
+must forgive a man when he is a sad sight to look at . . . yes!"
+
+Anastasy leaned his head on his fist and sank into thought.
+
+"It's a terrible thing, deacon," he sighed, evidently struggling
+with the desire to take another glass--"a terrible thing! In sin
+my mother bore me, in sin I have lived, in sin I shall die. . . .
+God forgive me, a sinner! I have gone astray, deacon! There is no
+salvation for me! And it's not as though I had gone astray in my
+life, but in old age--at death's door . . . I . . ."
+
+The old man, with a hopeless gesture, drank off another glass, then
+got up and moved to another seat. The deacon, still keeping the
+letter in his hand, was walking up and down the room. He was thinking
+of his son. Displeasure, distress and anxiety no longer troubled
+him; all that had gone into the letter. Now he was simply picturing
+Pyotr; he imagined his face, he thought of the past years when his
+son used to come to stay with him for the holidays. His thoughts
+were only of what was good, warm, touching, of which one might think
+for a whole lifetime without wearying. Longing for his son, he read
+the letter through once more and looked questioningly at Anastasy.
+
+"Don't send it," said the latter, with a wave of his hand.
+
+"No, I must send it anyway; I must . . . bring him to his senses a
+little, all the same. It's just as well. . . ."
+
+The deacon took an envelope from the table, but before putting the
+letter into it he sat down to the table, smiled and added on his
+own account at the bottom of the letter:
+
+"They have sent us a new inspector. He's much friskier than the old
+one. He's a great one for dancing and talking, and there's nothing
+he can't do, so that all the Govorovsky girls are crazy over him.
+Our military chief, Kostyrev, will soon get the sack too, they say.
+High time he did!" And very well pleased, without the faintest idea
+that with this postscript he had completely spoiled the stern letter,
+the deacon addressed the envelope and laid it in the most conspicuous
+place on the table.
+
+
+EASTER EVE
+
+I was standing on the bank of the River Goltva, waiting for the
+ferry-boat from the other side. At ordinary times the Goltva is a
+humble stream of moderate size, silent and pensive, gently glimmering
+from behind thick reeds; but now a regular lake lay stretched out
+before me. The waters of spring, running riot, had overflowed both
+banks and flooded both sides of the river for a long distance,
+submerging vegetable gardens, hayfields and marshes, so that it was
+no unusual thing to meet poplars and bushes sticking out above the
+surface of the water and looking in the darkness like grim solitary
+crags.
+
+The weather seemed to me magnificent. It was dark, yet I could see
+the trees, the water and the people. . . . The world was lighted
+by the stars, which were scattered thickly all over the sky. I don't
+remember ever seeing so many stars. Literally one could not have
+put a finger in between them. There were some as big as a goose's
+egg, others tiny as hempseed. . . . They had come out for the
+festival procession, every one of them, little and big, washed,
+renewed and joyful, and everyone of them was softly twinkling its
+beams. The sky was reflected in the water; the stars were bathing
+in its dark depths and trembling with the quivering eddies. The air
+was warm and still. . . . Here and there, far away on the further
+bank in the impenetrable darkness, several bright red lights were
+gleaming. . . .
+
+A couple of paces from me I saw the dark silhouette of a peasant
+in a high hat, with a thick knotted stick in his hand.
+
+"How long the ferry-boat is in coming!" I said.
+
+"It is time it was here," the silhouette answered.
+
+"You are waiting for the ferry-boat, too?"
+
+"No I am not," yawned the peasant--"I am waiting for the illumination.
+I should have gone, but to tell you the truth, I haven't the five
+kopecks for the ferry."
+
+"I'll give you the five kopecks."
+
+"No; I humbly thank you. . . . With that five kopecks put up a
+candle for me over there in the monastery. . . . That will be more
+interesting, and I will stand here. What can it mean, no ferry-boat,
+as though it had sunk in the water!"
+
+The peasant went up to the water's edge, took the rope in his hands,
+and shouted; "Ieronim! Ieron--im!"
+
+As though in answer to his shout, the slow peal of a great bell
+floated across from the further bank. The note was deep and low,
+as from the thickest string of a double bass; it seemed as though
+the darkness itself had hoarsely uttered it. At once there was the
+sound of a cannon shot. It rolled away in the darkness and ended
+somewhere in the far distance behind me. The peasant took off his
+hat and crossed himself.
+
+'"Christ is risen," he said.
+
+Before the vibrations of the first peal of the bell had time to die
+away in the air a second sounded, after it at once a third, and the
+darkness was filled with an unbroken quivering clamour. Near the
+red lights fresh lights flashed, and all began moving together and
+twinkling restlessly.
+
+"Ieron--im!" we heard a hollow prolonged shout.
+
+"They are shouting from the other bank," said the peasant, "so there
+is no ferry there either. Our Ieronim has gone to sleep."
+
+The lights and the velvety chimes of the bell drew one towards them.
+. . . I was already beginning to lose patience and grow anxious,
+but behold at last, staring into the dark distance, I saw the outline
+of something very much like a gibbet. It was the long-expected
+ferry. It moved towards us with such deliberation that if it had
+not been that its lines grew gradually more definite, one might
+have supposed that it was standing still or moving to the other
+bank.
+
+"Make haste! Ieronim!" shouted my peasant. "The gentleman's tired
+of waiting!"
+
+The ferry crawled to the bank, gave a lurch and stopped with a
+creak. A tall man in a monk's cassock and a conical cap stood on
+it, holding the rope.
+
+"Why have you been so long?" I asked jumping upon the ferry.
+
+"Forgive me, for Christ's sake," Ieronim answered gently. "Is there
+no one else?"
+
+"No one. . . ."
+
+Ieronim took hold of the rope in both hands, bent himself to the
+figure of a mark of interrogation, and gasped. The ferry-boat creaked
+and gave a lurch. The outline of the peasant in the high hat began
+slowly retreating from me--so the ferry was moving off. Ieronim
+soon drew himself up and began working with one hand only. We were
+silent, gazing towards the bank to which we were floating. There
+the illumination for which the peasant was waiting had begun. At
+the water's edge barrels of tar were flaring like huge camp fires.
+Their reflections, crimson as the rising moon, crept to meet us in
+long broad streaks. The burning barrels lighted up their own smoke
+and the long shadows of men flitting about the fire; but further
+to one side and behind them from where the velvety chime floated
+there was still the same unbroken black gloom. All at once, cleaving
+the darkness, a rocket zigzagged in a golden ribbon up the sky; it
+described an arc and, as though broken to pieces against the sky,
+was scattered crackling into sparks. There was a roar from the bank
+like a far-away hurrah.
+
+"How beautiful!" I said.
+
+"Beautiful beyond words!" sighed Ieronim. "Such a night, sir! Another
+time one would pay no attention to the fireworks, but to-day one
+rejoices in every vanity. Where do you come from?"
+
+I told him where I came from.
+
+"To be sure . . . a joyful day to-day. . . ." Ieronim went on in a
+weak sighing tenor like the voice of a convalescent. "The sky is
+rejoicing and the earth and what is under the earth. All the creatures
+are keeping holiday. Only tell me kind sir, why, even in the time
+of great rejoicing, a man cannot forget his sorrows?"
+
+I fancied that this unexpected question was to draw me into one of
+those endless religious conversations which bored and idle monks
+are so fond of. I was not disposed to talk much, and so I only
+asked:
+
+"What sorrows have you, father?"
+
+"As a rule only the same as all men, kind sir, but to-day a special
+sorrow has happened in the monastery: at mass, during the reading
+of the Bible, the monk and deacon Nikolay died."
+
+"Well, it's God's will!" I said, falling into the monastic tone.
+"We must all die. To my mind, you ought to rejoice indeed. . . .
+They say if anyone dies at Easter he goes straight to the kingdom
+of heaven."
+
+"That's true."
+
+We sank into silence. The figure of the peasant in the high hat
+melted into the lines of the bank. The tar barrels were flaring up
+more and more.
+
+"The Holy Scripture points clearly to the vanity of sorrow and so
+does reflection," said Ieronim, breaking the silence, "but why does
+the heart grieve and refuse to listen to reason? Why does one want
+to weep bitterly?"
+
+Ieronim shrugged his shoulders, turned to me and said quickly:
+
+"If I died, or anyone else, it would not be worth notice perhaps;
+but, you see, Nikolay is dead! No one else but Nikolay! Indeed,
+it's hard to believe that he is no more! I stand here on my ferry-boat
+and every minute I keep fancying that he will lift up his voice
+from the bank. He always used to come to the bank and call to me
+that I might not be afraid on the ferry. He used to get up from his
+bed at night on purpose for that. He was a kind soul. My God! how
+kindly and gracious! Many a mother is not so good to her child as
+Nikolay was to me! Lord, save his soul!"
+
+Ieronim took hold of the rope, but turned to me again at once.
+
+"And such a lofty intelligence, your honour," he said in a vibrating
+voice. "Such a sweet and harmonious tongue! Just as they will sing
+immediately at early matins: 'Oh lovely! oh sweet is Thy Voice!'
+Besides all other human qualities, he had, too, an extraordinary
+gift!"
+
+"What gift?" I asked.
+
+The monk scrutinized me, and as though he had convinced himself
+that he could trust me with a secret, he laughed good-humouredly.
+
+"He had a gift for writing hymns of praise," he said. "It was a
+marvel, sir; you couldn't call it anything else! You would be amazed
+if I tell you about it. Our Father Archimandrite comes from Moscow,
+the Father Sub-Prior studied at the Kazan academy, we have wise
+monks and elders, but, would you believe it, no one could write
+them; while Nikolay, a simple monk, a deacon, had not studied
+anywhere, and had not even any outer appearance of it, but he wrote
+them! A marvel! A real marvel!" Ieronim clasped his hands and,
+completely forgetting the rope, went on eagerly:
+
+"The Father Sub-Prior has great difficulty in composing sermons;
+when he wrote the history of the monastery he worried all the
+brotherhood and drove a dozen times to town, while Nikolay wrote
+canticles! Hymns of praise! That's a very different thing from a
+sermon or a history!"
+
+"Is it difficult to write them?" I asked.
+
+"There's great difficulty!" Ieronim wagged his head. "You can do
+nothing by wisdom and holiness if God has not given you the gift.
+The monks who don't understand argue that you only need to know the
+life of the saint for whom you are writing the hymn, and to make
+it harmonize with the other hymns of praise. But that's a mistake,
+sir. Of course, anyone who writes canticles must know the life of
+the saint to perfection, to the least trivial detail. To be sure,
+one must make them harmonize with the other canticles and know where
+to begin and what to write about. To give you an instance, the first
+response begins everywhere with 'the chosen' or 'the elect.' . . .
+The first line must always begin with the 'angel.' In the canticle
+of praise to Jesus the Most Sweet, if you are interested in the
+subject, it begins like this: 'Of angels Creator and Lord of all
+powers!' In the canticle to the Holy Mother of God: 'Of angels the
+foremost sent down from on high,' to Nikolay, the Wonder-worker--
+'An angel in semblance, though in substance a man,' and so on.
+Everywhere you begin with the angel. Of course, it would be impossible
+without making them harmonize, but the lives of the saints and
+conformity with the others is not what matters; what matters is the
+beauty and sweetness of it. Everything must be harmonious, brief
+and complete. There must be in every line softness, graciousness
+and tenderness; not one word should be harsh or rough or unsuitable.
+It must be written so that the worshipper may rejoice at heart and
+weep, while his mind is stirred and he is thrown into a tremor. In
+the canticle to the Holy Mother are the words: 'Rejoice, O Thou too
+high for human thought to reach! Rejoice, O Thou too deep for angels'
+eyes to fathom!' In another place in the same canticle: 'Rejoice,
+O tree that bearest the fair fruit of light that is the food of the
+faithful! Rejoice, O tree of gracious spreading shade, under which
+there is shelter for multitudes!'"
+
+Ieronim hid his face in his hands, as though frightened at something
+or overcome with shame, and shook his head.
+
+"Tree that bearest the fair fruit of light . . . tree of gracious
+spreading shade. . . ." he muttered. "To think that a man should
+find words like those! Such a power is a gift from God! For brevity
+he packs many thoughts into one phrase, and how smooth and complete
+it all is! 'Light-radiating torch to all that be . . .' comes in
+the canticle to Jesus the Most Sweet. 'Light-radiating!' There is
+no such word in conversation or in books, but you see he invented
+it, he found it in his mind! Apart from the smoothness and grandeur
+of language, sir, every line must be beautified in every way, there
+must be flowers and lightning and wind and sun and all the objects
+of the visible world. And every exclamation ought to be put so as
+to be smooth and easy for the ear. 'Rejoice, thou flower of heavenly
+growth!' comes in the hymn to Nikolay the Wonder-worker. It's not
+simply 'heavenly flower,' but 'flower of heavenly growth.' It's
+smoother so and sweet to the ear. That was just as Nikolay wrote
+it! Exactly like that! I can't tell you how he used to write!"
+
+"Well, in that case it is a pity he is dead," I said; "but let us
+get on, father, or we shall be late."
+
+Ieronim started and ran to the rope; they were beginning to peal
+all the bells. Probably the procession was already going on near
+the monastery, for all the dark space behind the tar barrels was
+now dotted with moving lights.
+
+"Did Nikolay print his hymns?" I asked Ieronim.
+
+"How could he print them?" he sighed. "And indeed, it would be
+strange to print them. What would be the object? No one in the
+monastery takes any interest in them. They don't like them. They
+knew Nikolay wrote them, but they let it pass unnoticed. No one
+esteems new writings nowadays, sir!"
+
+"Were they prejudiced against him?"
+
+"Yes, indeed. If Nikolay had been an elder perhaps the brethren
+would have been interested, but he wasn't forty, you know. There
+were some who laughed and even thought his writing a sin."
+
+"What did he write them for?"
+
+"Chiefly for his own comfort. Of all the brotherhood, I was the
+only one who read his hymns. I used to go to him in secret, that
+no one else might know of it, and he was glad that I took an interest
+in them. He would embrace me, stroke my head, speak to me in caressing
+words as to a little child. He would shut his cell, make me sit
+down beside him, and begin to read. . . ."
+
+Ieronim left the rope and came up to me.
+
+"We were dear friends in a way," he whispered, looking at me with
+shining eyes. "Where he went I would go. If I were not there he
+would miss me. And he cared more for me than for anyone, and all
+because I used to weep over his hymns. It makes me sad to remember.
+Now I feel just like an orphan or a widow. You know, in our monastery
+they are all good people, kind and pious, but . . . there is no one
+with softness and refinement, they are just like peasants. They all
+speak loudly, and tramp heavily when they walk; they are noisy,
+they clear their throats, but Nikolay always talked softly,
+caressingly, and if he noticed that anyone was asleep or praying
+he would slip by like a fly or a gnat. His face was tender,
+compassionate. . . ."
+
+Ieronim heaved a deep sigh and took hold of the rope again. We were
+by now approaching the bank. We floated straight out of the darkness
+and stillness of the river into an enchanted realm, full of stifling
+smoke, crackling lights and uproar. By now one could distinctly see
+people moving near the tar barrels. The flickering of the lights
+gave a strange, almost fantastic, expression to their figures and
+red faces. From time to time one caught among the heads and faces
+a glimpse of a horse's head motionless as though cast in copper.
+
+"They'll begin singing the Easter hymn directly, . . ." said Ieronim,
+"and Nikolay is gone; there is no one to appreciate it. . . . There
+was nothing written dearer to him than that hymn. He used to take
+in every word! You'll be there, sir, so notice what is sung; it
+takes your breath away!"
+
+"Won't you be in church, then?"
+
+"I can't; . . . I have to work the ferry. . . ."
+
+"But won't they relieve you?"
+
+"I don't know. . . . I ought to have been relieved at eight; but,
+as you see, they don't come! . . . And I must own I should have liked
+to be in the church. . . ."
+
+"Are you a monk?"
+
+"Yes . . . that is, I am a lay-brother."
+
+The ferry ran into the bank and stopped. I thrust a five-kopeck
+piece into Ieronim's hand for taking me across and jumped on land.
+Immediately a cart with a boy and a sleeping woman in it drove
+creaking onto the ferry. Ieronim, with a faint glow from the lights
+on his figure, pressed on the rope, bent down to it, and started
+the ferry back. . . .
+
+I took a few steps through mud, but a little farther walked on a
+soft freshly trodden path. This path led to the dark monastery
+gates, that looked like a cavern through a cloud of smoke, through
+a disorderly crowd of people, unharnessed horses, carts and chaises.
+All this crowd was rattling, snorting, laughing, and the crimson
+light and wavering shadows from the smoke flickered over it all
+. . . . A perfect chaos! And in this hubbub the people yet found room
+to load a little cannon and to sell cakes. There was no less commotion
+on the other side of the wall in the monastery precincts, but there
+was more regard for decorum and order. Here there was a smell of
+juniper and incense. They talked loudly, but there was no sound of
+laughter or snorting. Near the tombstones and crosses people pressed
+close to one another with Easter cakes and bundles in their arms.
+Apparently many had come from a long distance for their cakes to
+be blessed and now were exhausted. Young lay brothers, making a
+metallic sound with their boots, ran busily along the iron slabs
+that paved the way from the monastery gates to the church door.
+They were busy and shouting on the belfry, too.
+
+"What a restless night!" I thought. "How nice!"
+
+One was tempted to see the same unrest and sleeplessness in all
+nature, from the night darkness to the iron slabs, the crosses on
+the tombs and the trees under which the people were moving to and
+fro. But nowhere was the excitement and restlessness so marked as
+in the church. An unceasing struggle was going on in the entrance
+between the inflowing stream and the outflowing stream. Some were
+going in, others going out and soon coming back again to stand still
+for a little and begin moving again. People were scurrying from
+place to place, lounging about as though they were looking for
+something. The stream flowed from the entrance all round the church,
+disturbing even the front rows, where persons of weight and dignity
+were standing. There could be no thought of concentrated prayer.
+There were no prayers at all, but a sort of continuous, childishly
+irresponsible joy, seeking a pretext to break out and vent itself
+in some movement, even in senseless jostling and shoving.
+
+The same unaccustomed movement is striking in the Easter service
+itself. The altar gates are flung wide open, thick clouds of incense
+float in the air near the candelabra; wherever one looks there are
+lights, the gleam and splutter of candles. . . . There is no reading;
+restless and lighthearted singing goes on to the end without ceasing.
+After each hymn the clergy change their vestments and come out to
+burn the incense, which is repeated every ten minutes.
+
+I had no sooner taken a place, when a wave rushed from in front and
+forced me back. A tall thick-set deacon walked before me with a
+long red candle; the grey-headed archimandrite in his golden mitre
+hurried after him with the censer. When they had vanished from sight
+the crowd squeezed me back to my former position. But ten minutes
+had not passed before a new wave burst on me, and again the deacon
+appeared. This time he was followed by the Father Sub-Prior, the
+man who, as Ieronim had told me, was writing the history of the
+monastery.
+
+As I mingled with the crowd and caught the infection of the universal
+joyful excitement, I felt unbearably sore on Ieronim's account. Why
+did they not send someone to relieve him? Why could not someone of
+less feeling and less susceptibility go on the ferry? 'Lift up thine
+eyes, O Sion, and look around,' they sang in the choir, 'for thy
+children have come to thee as to a beacon of divine light from north
+and south, and from east and from the sea. . . .'
+
+I looked at the faces; they all had a lively expression of triumph,
+but not one was listening to what was being sung and taking it in,
+and not one was 'holding his breath.' Why was not Ieronim released?
+I could fancy Ieronim standing meekly somewhere by the wall, bending
+forward and hungrily drinking in the beauty of the holy phrase. All
+this that glided by the ears of the people standing by me he would
+have eagerly drunk in with his delicately sensitive soul, and would
+have been spell-bound to ecstasy, to holding his breath, and there
+would not have been a man happier than he in all the church. Now
+he was plying to and fro over the dark river and grieving for his
+dead friend and brother.
+
+The wave surged back. A stout smiling monk, playing with his rosary
+and looking round behind him, squeezed sideways by me, making way
+for a lady in a hat and velvet cloak. A monastery servant hurried
+after the lady, holding a chair over our heads.
+
+I came out of the church. I wanted to have a look at the dead
+Nikolay, the unknown canticle writer. I walked about the monastery
+wall, where there was a row of cells, peeped into several windows,
+and, seeing nothing, came back again. I do not regret now that I
+did not see Nikolay; God knows, perhaps if I had seen him I should
+have lost the picture my imagination paints for me now. I imagine
+the lovable poetical figure solitary and not understood, who went
+out at nights to call to Ieronim over the water, and filled his
+hymns with flowers, stars and sunbeams, as a pale timid man with
+soft mild melancholy features. His eyes must have shone, not only
+with intelligence, but with kindly tenderness and that hardly
+restrained childlike enthusiasm which I could hear in Ieronim's
+voice when he quoted to me passages from the hymns.
+
+When we came out of church after mass it was no longer night. The
+morning was beginning. The stars had gone out and the sky was a
+morose greyish blue. The iron slabs, the tombstones and the buds
+on the trees were covered with dew There was a sharp freshness in
+the air. Outside the precincts I did not find the same animated
+scene as I had beheld in the night. Horses and men looked exhausted,
+drowsy, scarcely moved, while nothing was left of the tar barrels
+but heaps of black ash. When anyone is exhausted and sleepy he
+fancies that nature, too, is in the same condition. It seemed to
+me that the trees and the young grass were asleep. It seemed as
+though even the bells were not pealing so loudly and gaily as at
+night. The restlessness was over, and of the excitement nothing was
+left but a pleasant weariness, a longing for sleep and warmth.
+
+Now I could see both banks of the river; a faint mist hovered over
+it in shifting masses. There was a harsh cold breath from the water.
+When I jumped on to the ferry, a chaise and some two dozen men and
+women were standing on it already. The rope, wet and as I fancied
+drowsy, stretched far away across the broad river and in places
+disappeared in the white mist.
+
+"Christ is risen! Is there no one else?" asked a soft voice.
+
+I recognized the voice of Ieronim. There was no darkness now to
+hinder me from seeing the monk. He was a tall narrow-shouldered man
+of five-and-thirty, with large rounded features, with half-closed
+listless-looking eyes and an unkempt wedge-shaped beard. He had an
+extraordinarily sad and exhausted look.
+
+"They have not relieved you yet?" I asked in surprise.
+
+"Me?" he answered, turning to me his chilled and dewy face with a
+smile. "There is no one to take my place now till morning. They'll
+all be going to the Father Archimandrite's to break the fast
+directly."
+
+With the help of a little peasant in a hat of reddish fur that
+looked like the little wooden tubs in which honey is sold, he threw
+his weight on the rope; they gasped simultaneously, and the ferry
+started.
+
+We floated across, disturbing on the way the lazily rising mist.
+Everyone was silent. Ieronim worked mechanically with one hand. He
+slowly passed his mild lustreless eyes over us; then his glance
+rested on the rosy face of a young merchant's wife with black
+eyebrows, who was standing on the ferry beside me silently shrinking
+from the mist that wrapped her about. He did not take his eyes off
+her face all the way.
+
+There was little that was masculine in that prolonged gaze. It
+seemed to me that Ieronim was looking in the woman's face for the
+soft and tender features of his dead friend.
+
+
+A NIGHTMARE
+
+Kunin, a young man of thirty, who was a permanent member of the
+Rural Board, on returning from Petersburg to his district, Borisovo,
+immediately sent a mounted messenger to Sinkino, for the priest
+there, Father Yakov Smirnov.
+
+Five hours later Father Yakov appeared.
+
+"Very glad to make your acquaintance," said Kunin, meeting him in
+the entry. "I've been living and serving here for a year; it seems
+as though we ought to have been acquainted before. You are very
+welcome! But . . . how young you are!" Kunin added in surprise.
+"What is your age?"
+
+"Twenty-eight, . . ." said Father Yakov, faintly pressing Kunin's
+outstretched hand, and for some reason turning crimson.
+
+Kunin led his visitor into his study and began looking at him more
+attentively.
+
+"What an uncouth womanish face!" he thought.
+
+There certainly was a good deal that was womanish in Father Yakov's
+face: the turned-up nose, the bright red cheeks, and the large
+grey-blue eyes with scanty, scarcely perceptible eyebrows. His long
+reddish hair, smooth and dry, hung down in straight tails on to his
+shoulders. The hair on his upper lip was only just beginning to
+form into a real masculine moustache, while his little beard belonged
+to that class of good-for-nothing beards which among divinity
+students are for some reason called "ticklers." It was scanty and
+extremely transparent; it could not have been stroked or combed,
+it could only have been pinched. . . . All these scanty decorations
+were put on unevenly in tufts, as though Father Yakov, thinking to
+dress up as a priest and beginning to gum on the beard, had been
+interrupted halfway through. He had on a cassock, the colour of
+weak coffee with chicory in it, with big patches on both elbows.
+
+"A queer type," thought Kunin, looking at his muddy skirts. "Comes
+to the house for the first time and can't dress decently.
+
+"Sit down, Father," he began more carelessly than cordially, as he
+moved an easy-chair to the table. "Sit down, I beg you."
+
+Father Yakov coughed into his fist, sank awkwardly on to the edge
+of the chair, and laid his open hands on his knees. With his short
+figure, his narrow chest, his red and perspiring face, he made from
+the first moment a most unpleasant impression on Kunin. The latter
+could never have imagined that there were such undignified and
+pitiful-looking priests in Russia; and in Father Yakov's attitude,
+in the way he held his hands on his knees and sat on the very edge
+of his chair, he saw a lack of dignity and even a shade of servility.
+
+"I have invited you on business, Father. . . ." Kunin began, sinking
+back in his low chair. "It has fallen to my lot to perform the
+agreeable duty of helping you in one of your useful undertakings.
+. . . On coming back from Petersburg, I found on my table a letter
+from the Marshal of Nobility. Yegor Dmitrevitch suggests that I
+should take under my supervision the church parish school which is
+being opened in Sinkino. I shall be very glad to, Father, with all
+my heart. . . . More than that, I accept the proposition with
+enthusiasm."
+
+Kunin got up and walked about the study.
+
+"Of course, both Yegor Dmitrevitch and probably you, too, are aware
+that I have not great funds at my disposal. My estate is mortgaged,
+and I live exclusively on my salary as the permanent member. So
+that you cannot reckon on very much assistance, but I will do all
+that is in my power. . . . And when are you thinking of opening the
+school Father?"
+
+"When we have the money, . . ." answered Father Yakov.
+
+"You have some funds at your disposal already?"
+
+"Scarcely any. . . . The peasants settled at their meeting that
+they would pay, every man of them, thirty kopecks a year; but that's
+only a promise, you know! And for the first beginning we should
+need at least two hundred roubles. . . ."
+
+"M'yes. . . . Unhappily, I have not that sum now," said Kunin with
+a sigh. "I spent all I had on my tour and got into debt, too. Let
+us try and think of some plan together."
+
+Kunin began planning aloud. He explained his views and watched
+Father Yakov's face, seeking signs of agreement or approval in it.
+But the face was apathetic and immobile, and expressed nothing but
+constrained shyness and uneasiness. Looking at it, one might have
+supposed that Kunin was talking of matters so abstruse that Father
+Yakov did not understand and only listened from good manners, and
+was at the same time afraid of being detected in his failure to
+understand.
+
+"The fellow is not one of the brightest, that's evident . . ."
+thought Kunin. "He's rather shy and much too stupid."
+
+Father Yakov revived somewhat and even smiled only when the footman
+came into the study bringing in two glasses of tea on a tray and a
+cake-basket full of biscuits. He took his glass and began drinking
+at once.
+
+"Shouldn't we write at once to the bishop?" Kunin went on, meditating
+aloud. "To be precise, you know, it is not we, not the Zemstvo, but
+the higher ecclesiastical authorities, who have raised the question
+of the church parish schools. They ought really to apportion the
+funds. I remember I read that a sum of money had been set aside for
+the purpose. Do you know nothing about it?"
+
+Father Yakov was so absorbed in drinking tea that he did not answer
+this question at once. He lifted his grey-blue eyes to Kunin, thought
+a moment, and as though recalling his question, he shook his head
+in the negative. An expression of pleasure and of the most ordinary
+prosaic appetite overspread his face from ear to ear. He drank and
+smacked his lips over every gulp. When he had drunk it to the very
+last drop, he put his glass on the table, then took his glass back
+again, looked at the bottom of it, then put it back again. The
+expression of pleasure faded from his face. . . . Then Kunin saw
+his visitor take a biscuit from the cake-basket, nibble a little
+bit off it, then turn it over in his hand and hurriedly stick it
+in his pocket.
+
+"Well, that's not at all clerical!" thought Kunin, shrugging his
+shoulders contemptuously. "What is it, priestly greed or childishness?"
+
+After giving his visitor another glass of tea and seeing him to the
+entry, Kunin lay down on the sofa and abandoned himself to the
+unpleasant feeling induced in him by the visit of Father Yakov.
+
+"What a strange wild creature!" he thought. "Dirty, untidy, coarse,
+stupid, and probably he drinks. . . . My God, and that's a priest,
+a spiritual father! That's a teacher of the people! I can fancy the
+irony there must be in the deacon's face when before every mass he
+booms out: 'Thy blessing, Reverend Father!' A fine reverend Father!
+A reverend Father without a grain of dignity or breeding, hiding
+biscuits in his pocket like a schoolboy. . . . Fie! Good Lord, where
+were the bishop's eyes when he ordained a man like that? What can
+he think of the people if he gives them a teacher like that? One
+wants people here who . . ."
+
+And Kunin thought what Russian priests ought to be like.
+
+"If I were a priest, for instance. . . . An educated priest fond
+of his work might do a great deal. . . . I should have had the
+school opened long ago. And the sermons? If the priest is sincere
+and is inspired by love for his work, what wonderful rousing sermons
+he might give!"
+
+Kunin shut his eyes and began mentally composing a sermon. A little
+later he sat down to the table and rapidly began writing.
+
+"I'll give it to that red-haired fellow, let him read it in church,
+. . ." he thought.
+
+The following Sunday Kunin drove over to Sinkino in the morning to
+settle the question of the school, and while he was there to make
+acquaintance with the church of which he was a parishioner. In spite
+of the awful state of the roads, it was a glorious morning. The sun
+was shining brightly and cleaving with its rays the layers of white
+snow still lingering here and there. The snow as it took leave of
+the earth glittered with such diamonds that it hurt the eyes to
+look, while the young winter corn was hastily thrusting up its green
+beside it. The rooks floated with dignity over the fields. A rook
+would fly, drop to earth, and give several hops before standing
+firmly on its feet. . . .
+
+The wooden church up to which Kunin drove was old and grey; the
+columns of the porch had once been painted white, but the colour
+had now completely peeled off, and they looked like two ungainly
+shafts. The ikon over the door looked like a dark smudged blur. But
+its poverty touched and softened Kunin. Modestly dropping his eyes,
+he went into the church and stood by the door. The service had only
+just begun. An old sacristan, bent into a bow, was reading the
+"Hours" in a hollow indistinct tenor. Father Yakov, who conducted
+the service without a deacon, was walking about the church, burning
+incense. Had it not been for the softened mood in which Kunin found
+himself on entering the poverty-stricken church, he certainly would
+have smiled at the sight of Father Yakov. The short priest was
+wearing a crumpled and extremely long robe of some shabby yellow
+material; the hem of the robe trailed on the ground.
+
+The church was not full. Looking at the parishioners, Kunin was
+struck at the first glance by one strange circumstance: he saw
+nothing but old people and children. . . . Where were the men of
+working age? Where was the youth and manhood? But after he had stood
+there a little and looked more attentively at the aged-looking
+faces, Kunin saw that he had mistaken young people for old. He did
+not, however, attach any significance to this little optical illusion.
+
+The church was as cold and grey inside as outside. There was not
+one spot on the ikons nor on the dark brown walls which was not
+begrimed and defaced by time. There were many windows, but the
+general effect of colour was grey, and so it was twilight in the
+church.
+
+"Anyone pure in soul can pray here very well," thought Kunin. "Just
+as in St. Peter's in Rome one is impressed by grandeur, here one
+is touched by the lowliness and simplicity."
+
+But his devout mood vanished like smoke as soon as Father Yakov
+went up to the altar and began mass. Being still young and having
+come straight from the seminary bench to the priesthood, Father
+Yakov had not yet formed a set manner of celebrating the service.
+As he read he seemed to be vacillating between a high tenor and a
+thin bass; he bowed clumsily, walked quickly, and opened and shut
+the gates abruptly. . . . The old sacristan, evidently deaf and
+ailing, did not hear the prayers very distinctly, and this very
+often led to slight misunderstandings. Before Father Yakov had time
+to finish what he had to say, the sacristan began chanting his
+response, or else long after Father Yakov had finished the old man
+would be straining his ears, listening in the direction of the altar
+and saying nothing till his skirt was pulled. The old man had a
+sickly hollow voice and an asthmatic quavering lisp. . . . The
+complete lack of dignity and decorum was emphasized by a very small
+boy who seconded the sacristan and whose head was hardly visible
+over the railing of the choir. The boy sang in a shrill falsetto
+and seemed to be trying to avoid singing in tune. Kunin stayed a
+little while, listened and went out for a smoke. He was disappointed,
+and looked at the grey church almost with dislike.
+
+"They complain of the decline of religious feeling among the people
+. . ." he sighed. "I should rather think so! They'd better foist a
+few more priests like this one on them!"
+
+Kunin went back into the church three times, and each time he felt
+a great temptation to get out into the open air again. Waiting till
+the end of the mass, he went to Father Yakov's. The priest's house
+did not differ outwardly from the peasants' huts, but the thatch
+lay more smoothly on the roof and there were little white curtains
+in the windows. Father Yakov led Kunin into a light little room
+with a clay floor and walls covered with cheap paper; in spite of
+some painful efforts towards luxury in the way of photographs in
+frames and a clock with a pair of scissors hanging on the weight
+the furnishing of the room impressed him by its scantiness. Looking
+at the furniture, one might have supposed that Father Yakov had
+gone from house to house and collected it in bits; in one place
+they had given him a round three-legged table, in another a stool,
+in a third a chair with a back bent violently backwards; in a fourth
+a chair with an upright back, but the seat smashed in; while in a
+fifth they had been liberal and given him a semblance of a sofa
+with a flat back and a lattice-work seat. This semblance had been
+painted dark red and smelt strongly of paint. Kunin meant at first
+to sit down on one of the chairs, but on second thoughts he sat
+down on the stool.
+
+"This is the first time you have been to our church?" asked Father
+Yakov, hanging his hat on a huge misshapen nail.
+
+"Yes it is. I tell you what, Father, before we begin on business,
+will you give me some tea? My soul is parched."
+
+Father Yakov blinked, gasped, and went behind the partition wall.
+There was a sound of whispering.
+
+"With his wife, I suppose," thought Kunin; "it would be interesting
+to see what the red-headed fellow's wife is like."
+
+A little later Father Yakov came back, red and perspiring and with
+an effort to smile, sat down on the edge of the sofa.
+
+"They will heat the samovar directly," he said, without looking at
+his visitor.
+
+"My goodness, they have not heated the samovar yet!" Kunin thought
+with horror. "A nice time we shall have to wait."
+
+"I have brought you," he said, "the rough draft of the letter I
+have written to the bishop. I'll read it after tea; perhaps you may
+find something to add. . . ."
+
+"Very well."
+
+A silence followed. Father Yakov threw furtive glances at the
+partition wall, smoothed his hair, and blew his nose.
+
+"It's wonderful weather, . . ." he said.
+
+"Yes. I read an interesting thing yesterday. . . . the Volsky Zemstvo
+have decided to give their schools to the clergy, that's typical."
+
+Kunin got up, and pacing up and down the clay floor, began to give
+expression to his reflections.
+
+"That would be all right," he said, "if only the clergy were equal
+to their high calling and recognized their tasks. I am so unfortunate
+as to know priests whose standard of culture and whose moral qualities
+make them hardly fit to be army secretaries, much less priests. You
+will agree that a bad teacher does far less harm than a bad priest."
+
+Kunin glanced at Father Yakov; he was sitting bent up, thinking
+intently about something and apparently not listening to his visitor.
+
+"Yasha, come here!" a woman's voice called from behind the partition.
+Father Yakov started and went out. Again a whispering began.
+
+Kunin felt a pang of longing for tea.
+
+"No; it's no use my waiting for tea here," he thought, looking at
+his watch. "Besides I fancy I am not altogether a welcome visitor.
+My host has not deigned to say one word to me; he simply sits and
+blinks."
+
+Kunin took up his hat, waited for Father Yakov to return, and said
+good-bye to him.
+
+"I have simply wasted the morning," he thought wrathfully on the
+way home. "The blockhead! The dummy! He cares no more about the
+school than I about last year's snow. . . . No, I shall never get
+anything done with him! We are bound to fail! If the Marshal knew
+what the priest here was like, he wouldn't be in such a hurry to
+talk about a school. We ought first to try and get a decent priest,
+and then think about the school."
+
+By now Kunin almost hated Father Yakov. The man, his pitiful,
+grotesque figure in the long crumpled robe, his womanish face, his
+manner of officiating, his way of life and his formal restrained
+respectfulness, wounded the tiny relic of religious feeling which
+was stored away in a warm corner of Kunin's heart together with his
+nurse's other fairy tales. The coldness and lack of attention with
+which Father Yakov had met Kunin's warm and sincere interest in
+what was the priest's own work was hard for the former's vanity to
+endure. . . .
+
+On the evening of the same day Kunin spent a long time walking about
+his rooms and thinking. Then he sat down to the table resolutely
+and wrote a letter to the bishop. After asking for money and a
+blessing for the school, he set forth genuinely, like a son, his
+opinion of the priest at Sinkino.
+
+"He is young," he wrote, "insufficiently educated, leads, I fancy,
+an intemperate life, and altogether fails to satisfy the ideals
+which the Russian people have in the course of centuries formed of
+what a pastor should be."
+
+After writing this letter Kunin heaved a deep sigh, and went to bed
+with the consciousness that he had done a good deed.
+
+On Monday morning, while he was still in bed, he was informed that
+Father Yakov had arrived. He did not want to get up, and instructed
+the servant to say he was not at home. On Tuesday he went away to
+a sitting of the Board, and when he returned on Saturday he was
+told by the servants that Father Yakov had called every day in his
+absence.
+
+"He liked my biscuits, it seems," he thought.
+
+Towards evening on Sunday Father Yakov arrived. This time not only
+his skirts, but even his hat, was bespattered with mud. Just as on
+his first visit, he was hot and perspiring, and sat down on the
+edge of his chair as he had done then. Kunin determined not to talk
+about the school--not to cast pearls.
+
+"I have brought you a list of books for the school, Pavel Mihailovitch,
+. . ." Father Yakov began.
+
+"Thank you."
+
+But everything showed that Father Yakov had come for something else
+besides the list. Has whole figure was expressive of extreme
+embarrassment, and at the same time there was a look of determination
+upon his face, as on the face of a man suddenly inspired by an idea.
+He struggled to say something important, absolutely necessary, and
+strove to overcome his timidity.
+
+"Why is he dumb?" Kunin thought wrathfully. "He's settled himself
+comfortably! I haven't time to be bothered with him."
+
+To smoothe over the awkwardness of his silence and to conceal the
+struggle going on within him, the priest began to smile constrainedly,
+and this slow smile, wrung out on his red perspiring face, and out
+of keeping with the fixed look in his grey-blue eyes, made Kunin
+turn away. He felt moved to repulsion.
+
+"Excuse me, Father, I have to go out," he said.
+
+Father Yakov started like a man asleep who has been struck a blow,
+and, still smiling, began in his confusion wrapping round him the
+skirts of his cassock. In spite of his repulsion for the man, Kunin
+felt suddenly sorry for him, and he wanted to soften his cruelty.
+
+"Please come another time, Father," he said, "and before we part I
+want to ask you a favour. I was somehow inspired to write two sermons
+the other day. . . . I will give them to you to look at. If they
+are suitable, use them."
+
+"Very good," said Father Yakov, laying his open hand on Kunin's
+sermons which were lying on the table. "I will take them."
+
+After standing a little, hesitating and still wrapping his cassock
+round him, he suddenly gave up the effort to smile and lifted his
+head resolutely.
+
+"Pavel Mihailovitch," he said, evidently trying to speak loudly and
+distinctly.
+
+"What can I do for you?"
+
+"I have heard that you . . . er . . . have dismissed your secretary,
+and . . . and are looking for a new one. . . ."
+
+"Yes, I am. . . . Why, have you someone to recommend?"
+
+"I. . . er . . . you see . . . I . . . Could you not give the post
+to me?"
+
+"Why, are you giving up the Church?" said Kunin in amazement.
+
+"No, no," Father Yakov brought out quickly, for some reason turning
+pale and trembling all over. "God forbid! If you feel doubtful,
+then never mind, never mind. You see, I could do the work between
+whiles, . . so as to increase my income. . . . Never mind, don't
+disturb yourself!"
+
+"H'm! . . . your income. . . . But you know, I only pay my secretary
+twenty roubles a month."
+
+"Good heavens! I would take ten," whispered Father Yakov, looking
+about him. "Ten would be enough! You . . . you are astonished, and
+everyone is astonished. The greedy priest, the grasping priest,
+what does he do with his money? I feel myself I am greedy, . . .
+and I blame myself, I condemn myself. . . . I am ashamed to look
+people in the face. . . . I tell you on my conscience, Pavel
+Mihailovitch. . . . I call the God of truth to witness. . . ."
+
+Father Yakov took breath and went on:
+
+"On the way here I prepared a regular confession to make you, but
+. . . I've forgotten it all; I cannot find a word now. I get a
+hundred and fifty roubles a year from my parish, and everyone wonders
+what I do with the money. . . . But I'll explain it all truly. . . .
+I pay forty roubles a year to the clerical school for my brother
+Pyotr. He has everything found there, except that I have to provide
+pens and paper."
+
+"Oh, I believe you; I believe you! But what's the object of all
+this?" said Kunin, with a wave of the hand, feeling terribly oppressed
+by this outburst of confidence on the part of his visitor, and not
+knowing how to get away from the tearful gleam in his eyes.
+
+"Then I have not yet paid up all that I owe to the consistory for
+my place here. They charged me two hundred roubles for the living,
+and I was to pay ten roubles a month. . . . You can judge what is
+left! And, besides, I must allow Father Avraamy at least three
+roubles a month."
+
+"What Father Avraamy?"
+
+"Father Avraamy who was priest at Sinkino before I came. He was
+deprived of the living on account of . . . his failing, but you
+know, he is still living at Sinkino! He has nowhere to go. There
+is no one to keep him. Though he is old, he must have a corner, and
+food and clothing--I can't let him go begging on the roads in his
+position! It would be on my conscience if anything happened! It
+would be my fault! He is. . . in debt all round; but, you see, I
+am to blame for not paying for him."
+
+Father Yakov started up from his seat and, looking frantically at
+the floor, strode up and down the room.
+
+"My God, my God!" he muttered, raising his hands and dropping them
+again. "Lord, save us and have mercy upon us! Why did you take such
+a calling on yourself if you have so little faith and no strength?
+There is no end to my despair! Save me, Queen of Heaven!"
+
+"Calm yourself, Father," said Kunin.
+
+"I am worn out with hunger, Pavel Mihailovitch," Father Yakov went
+on. "Generously forgive me, but I am at the end of my strength
+. . . . I know if I were to beg and to bow down, everyone would help,
+but . . . I cannot! I am ashamed. How can I beg of the peasants?
+You are on the Board here, so you know. . . . How can one beg of a
+beggar? And to beg of richer people, of landowners, I cannot! I
+have pride! I am ashamed!"
+
+Father Yakov waved his hand, and nervously scratched his head with
+both hands.
+
+"I am ashamed! My God, I am ashamed! I am proud and can't bear
+people to see my poverty! When you visited me, Pavel Mihailovitch,
+I had no tea in the house! There wasn't a pinch of it, and you know
+it was pride prevented me from telling you! I am ashamed of my
+clothes, of these patches here. . . . I am ashamed of my vestments,
+of being hungry. . . . And is it seemly for a priest to be proud?"
+
+Father Yakov stood still in the middle of the study, and, as though
+he did not notice Kunin's presence, began reasoning with himself.
+
+"Well, supposing I endure hunger and disgrace--but, my God, I
+have a wife! I took her from a good home! She is not used to hard
+work; she is soft; she is used to tea and white bread and sheets
+on her bed. . . . At home she used to play the piano. . . . She is
+young, not twenty yet. . . . She would like, to be sure, to be
+smart, to have fun, go out to see people. . . . And she is worse
+off with me than any cook; she is ashamed to show herself in the
+street. My God, my God! Her only treat is when I bring an apple or
+some biscuit from a visit. . . ."
+
+Father Yakov scratched his head again with both hands.
+
+"And it makes us feel not love but pity for each other. . . . I
+cannot look at her without compassion! And the things that happen
+in this life, O Lord! Such things that people would not believe
+them if they saw them in the newspaper. . . . And when will there
+be an end to it all!"
+
+"Hush, Father!" Kunin almost shouted, frightened at his tone. "Why
+take such a gloomy view of life?"
+
+"Generously forgive me, Pavel Mihailovitch . . ." muttered Father
+Yakov as though he were drunk, "Forgive me, all this . . . doesn't
+matter, and don't take any notice of it. . . . Only I do blame
+myself, and always shall blame myself . . . always."
+
+Father Yakov looked about him and began whispering:
+
+"One morning early I was going from Sinkino to Lutchkovo; I saw a
+woman standing on the river bank, doing something. . . . I went up
+close and could not believe my eyes. . . . It was horrible! The
+wife of the doctor, Ivan Sergeitch, was sitting there washing her
+linen. . . . A doctor's wife, brought up at a select boarding-school!
+She had got up you see, early and gone half a mile from the village
+that people should not see her. . . . She couldn't get over her
+pride! When she saw that I was near her and noticed her poverty,
+she turned red all over. . . . I was flustered--I was frightened,
+and ran up to help her, but she hid her linen from me; she was
+afraid I should see her ragged chemises. . . ."
+
+"All this is positively incredible," said Kunin, sitting down and
+looking almost with horror at Father Yakov's pale face.
+
+"Incredible it is! It's a thing that has never been! Pavel Mihailovitch,
+that a doctor's wife should be rinsing the linen in the river! Such
+a thing does not happen in any country! As her pastor and spiritual
+father, I ought not to allow it, but what can I do? What? Why, I
+am always trying to get treated by her husband for nothing myself!
+It is true that, as you say, it is all incredible! One can hardly
+believe one's eyes. During Mass, you know, when I look out from the
+altar and see my congregation, Avraamy starving, and my wife, and
+think of the doctor's wife--how blue her hands were from the cold
+water--would you believe it, I forget myself and stand senseless
+like a fool, until the sacristan calls to me. . . . It's awful!"
+
+Father Yakov began walking about again.
+
+"Lord Jesus!" he said, waving his hands, "holy Saints! I can't
+officiate properly. . . . Here you talk to me about the school, and
+I sit like a dummy and don't understand a word, and think of nothing
+but food. . . . Even before the altar. . . . But . . . what am I
+doing?" Father Yakov pulled himself up suddenly. "You want to go
+out. Forgive me, I meant nothing. . . . Excuse . . ."
+
+Kunin shook hands with Father Yakov without speaking, saw him into
+the hall, and going back into his study, stood at the window. He
+saw Father Yakov go out of the house, pull his wide-brimmed
+rusty-looking hat over his eyes, and slowly, bowing his head, as
+though ashamed of his outburst, walk along the road.
+
+"I don't see his horse," thought Kunin.
+
+Kunin did not dare to think that the priest had come on foot every
+day to see him; it was five or six miles to Sinkino, and the mud
+on the road was impassable. Further on he saw the coachman Andrey
+and the boy Paramon, jumping over the puddles and splashing Father
+Yakov with mud, run up to him for his blessing. Father Yakov took
+off his hat and slowly blessed Andrey, then blessed the boy and
+stroked his head.
+
+Kunin passed his hand over his eyes, and it seemed to him that his
+hand was moist. He walked away from the window and with dim eyes
+looked round the room in which he still seemed to hear the timid
+droning voice. He glanced at the table. Luckily, Father Yakov, in
+his haste, had forgotten to take the sermons. Kunin rushed up to
+them, tore them into pieces, and with loathing thrust them under
+the table.
+
+"And I did not know!" he moaned, sinking on to the sofa. "After
+being here over a year as member of the Rural Board, Honorary Justice
+of the Peace, member of the School Committee! Blind puppet, egregious
+idiot! I must make haste and help them, I must make haste!"
+
+He turned from side to side uneasily, pressed his temples and racked
+his brains.
+
+"On the twentieth I shall get my salary, two hundred roubles. . . .
+On some good pretext I will give him some, and some to the doctor's
+wife. . . . I will ask them to perform a special service here, and
+will get up an illness for the doctor. . . . In that way I shan't
+wound their pride. And I'll help Father Avraamy too. . . ."
+
+He reckoned his money on his fingers, and was afraid to own to
+himself that those two hundred roubles would hardly be enough for
+him to pay his steward, his servants, the peasant who brought the
+meat. . . . He could not help remembering the recent past when he
+was senselessly squandering his father's fortune, when as a puppy
+of twenty he had given expensive fans to prostitutes, had paid ten
+roubles a day to Kuzma, his cab-driver, and in his vanity had made
+presents to actresses. Oh, how useful those wasted rouble, three-rouble,
+ten-rouble notes would have been now!
+
+"Father Avraamy lives on three roubles a month!" thought Kunin.
+"For a rouble the priest's wife could get herself a chemise, and
+the doctor's wife could hire a washerwoman. But I'll help them,
+anyway! I must help them."
+
+Here Kunin suddenly recalled the private information he had sent
+to the bishop, and he writhed as from a sudden draught of cold air.
+This remembrance filled him with overwhelming shame before his inner
+self and before the unseen truth.
+
+So had begun and had ended a sincere effort to be of public service
+on the part of a well-intentioned but unreflecting and over-comfortable
+person.
+
+
+THE MURDER
+
+I
+
+The evening service was being celebrated at Progonnaya Station.
+Before the great ikon, painted in glaring colours on a background
+of gold, stood the crowd of railway servants with their wives and
+children, and also of the timbermen and sawyers who worked close
+to the railway line. All stood in silence, fascinated by the glare
+of the lights and the howling of the snow-storm which was aimlessly
+disporting itself outside, regardless of the fact that it was the
+Eve of the Annunciation. The old priest from Vedenyapino conducted
+the service; the sacristan and Matvey Terehov were singing.
+
+Matvey's face was beaming with delight; he sang stretching out his
+neck as though he wanted to soar upwards. He sang tenor and chanted
+the "Praises" too in a tenor voice with honied sweetness and
+persuasiveness. When he sang "Archangel Voices" he waved his arms
+like a conductor, and trying to second the sacristan's hollow bass
+with his tenor, achieved something extremely complex, and from his
+face it could be seen that he was experiencing great pleasure.
+
+At last the service was over, and they all quietly dispersed, and
+it was dark and empty again, and there followed that hush which is
+only known in stations that stand solitary in the open country or
+in the forest when the wind howls and nothing else is heard and
+when all the emptiness around, all the dreariness of life slowly
+ebbing away is felt.
+
+Matvey lived not far from the station at his cousin's tavern. But
+he did not want to go home. He sat down at the refreshment bar and
+began talking to the waiter in a low voice.
+
+"We had our own choir in the tile factory. And I must tell you that
+though we were only workmen, our singing was first-rate, splendid.
+We were often invited to the town, and when the Deputy Bishop,
+Father Ivan, took the service at Trinity Church, the bishop's singers
+sang in the right choir and we in the left. Only they complained
+in the town that we kept the singing on too long: 'the factory choir
+drag it out,' they used to say. It is true we began St. Andrey's
+prayers and the Praises between six and seven, and it was past
+eleven when we finished, so that it was sometimes after midnight
+when we got home to the factory. It was good," sighed Matvey. "Very
+good it was, indeed, Sergey Nikanoritch! But here in my father's
+house it is anything but joyful. The nearest church is four miles
+away; with my weak health I can't get so far; there are no singers
+there. And there is no peace or quiet in our family; day in day
+out, there is an uproar, scolding, uncleanliness; we all eat out
+of one bowl like peasants; and there are beetles in the cabbage
+soup. . . . God has not given me health, else I would have gone
+away long ago, Sergey Nikanoritch."
+
+Matvey Terehov was a middle-aged man about forty-five, but he had
+a look of ill-health; his face was wrinkled and his lank, scanty
+beard was quite grey, and that made him seem many years older. He
+spoke in a weak voice, circumspectly, and held his chest when he
+coughed, while his eyes assumed the uneasy and anxious look one
+sees in very apprehensive people. He never said definitely what was
+wrong with him, but he was fond of describing at length how once
+at the factory he had lifted a heavy box and had ruptured himself,
+and how this had led to "the gripes," and had forced him to give
+up his work in the tile factory and come back to his native place;
+but he could not explain what he meant by "the gripes."
+
+"I must own I am not fond of my cousin," he went on, pouring himself
+out some tea. "He is my elder; it is a sin to censure him, and I
+fear the Lord, but I cannot bear it in patience. He is a haughty,
+surly, abusive man; he is the torment of his relations and workmen,
+and constantly out of humour. Last Sunday I asked him in an amiable
+way, 'Brother, let us go to Pahomovo for the Mass!' but he said 'I
+am not going; the priest there is a gambler;' and he would not come
+here to-day because, he said, the priest from Vedenyapino smokes
+and drinks vodka. He doesn't like the clergy! He reads Mass himself
+and the Hours and the Vespers, while his sister acts as sacristan;
+he says, 'Let us pray unto the Lord'! and she, in a thin little
+voice like a turkey-hen, 'Lord, have mercy upon us! . . .' It's a
+sin, that's what it is. Every day I say to him, 'Think what you are
+doing, brother! Repent, brother!' and he takes no notice."
+
+Sergey Nikanoritch, the waiter, poured out five glasses of tea and
+carried them on a tray to the waiting-room. He had scarcely gone
+in when there was a shout:
+
+"Is that the way to serve it, pig's face? You don't know how to
+wait!"
+
+It was the voice of the station-master. There was a timid mutter,
+then again a harsh and angry shout:
+
+"Get along!"
+
+The waiter came back greatly crestfallen.
+
+"There was a time when I gave satisfaction to counts and princes,"
+he said in a low voice; "but now I don't know how to serve tea. . . .
+He called me names before the priest and the ladies!"
+
+The waiter, Sergey Nikanoritch, had once had money of his own, and
+had kept a buffet at a first-class station, which was a junction,
+in the principal town of a province. There he had worn a swallow-tail
+coat and a gold chain. But things had gone ill with him; he had
+squandered all his own money over expensive fittings and service;
+he had been robbed by his staff, and getting gradually into
+difficulties, had moved to another station less bustling. Here his
+wife had left him, taking with her all the silver, and he moved to
+a third station of a still lower class, where no hot dishes were
+served. Then to a fourth. Frequently changing his situation and
+sinking lower and lower, he had at last come to Progonnaya, and
+here he used to sell nothing but tea and cheap vodka, and for lunch
+hard-boiled eggs and dry sausages, which smelt of tar, and which
+he himself sarcastically said were only fit for the orchestra. He
+was bald all over the top of his head, and had prominent blue eyes
+and thick bushy whiskers, which he often combed out, looking into
+the little looking-glass. Memories of the past haunted him continually;
+he could never get used to sausage "only fit for the orchestra,"
+to the rudeness of the station-master, and to the peasants who used
+to haggle over the prices, and in his opinion it was as unseemly
+to haggle over prices in a refreshment room as in a chemist's shop.
+He was ashamed of his poverty and degradation, and that shame was
+now the leading interest of his life.
+
+"Spring is late this year," said Matvey, listening. "It's a good
+job; I don't like spring. In spring it is very muddy, Sergey
+Nikanoritch. In books they write: Spring, the birds sing, the sun
+is setting, but what is there pleasant in that? A bird is a bird,
+and nothing more. I am fond of good company, of listening to folks,
+of talking of religion or singing something agreeable in chorus;
+but as for nightingales and flowers--bless them, I say!"
+
+He began again about the tile factory, about the choir, but Sergey
+Nikanoritch could not get over his mortification, and kept shrugging
+his shoulders and muttering. Matvey said good-bye and went home.
+
+There was no frost, and the snow was already melting on the roofs,
+though it was still falling in big flakes; they were whirling rapidly
+round and round in the air and chasing one another in white clouds
+along the railway line. And the oak forest on both sides of the
+line, in the dim light of the moon which was hidden somewhere high
+up in the clouds, resounded with a prolonged sullen murmur. When a
+violent storm shakes the trees, how terrible they are! Matvey walked
+along the causeway beside the line, covering his face and his hands,
+while the wind beat on his back. All at once a little nag, plastered
+all over with snow, came into sight; a sledge scraped along the
+bare stones of the causeway, and a peasant, white all over, too,
+with his head muffled up, cracked his whip. Matvey looked round
+after him, but at once, as though it had been a vision, there was
+neither sledge nor peasant to be seen, and he hastened his steps,
+suddenly scared, though he did not know why.
+
+Here was the crossing and the dark little house where the signalman
+lived. The barrier was raised, and by it perfect mountains had
+drifted and clouds of snow were whirling round like witches on
+broomsticks. At that point the line was crossed by an old highroad,
+which was still called "the track." On the right, not far from the
+crossing, by the roadside stood Terehov's tavern, which had been a
+posting inn. Here there was always a light twinkling at night.
+
+When Matvey reached home there was a strong smell of incense in all
+the rooms and even in the entry. His cousin Yakov Ivanitch was still
+reading the evening service. In the prayer-room where this was going
+on, in the corner opposite the door, there stood a shrine of
+old-fashioned ancestral ikons in gilt settings, and both walls to
+right and to left were decorated with ikons of ancient and modern
+fashion, in shrines and without them. On the table, which was draped
+to the floor, stood an ikon of the Annunciation, and close by a
+cyprus-wood cross and the censer; wax candles were burning. Beside
+the table was a reading desk. As he passed by the prayer-room,
+Matvey stopped and glanced in at the door. Yakov Ivanitch was reading
+at the desk at that moment, his sister Aglaia, a tall lean old woman
+in a dark-blue dress and white kerchief, was praying with him. Yakov
+Ivanitch's daughter Dashutka, an ugly freckled girl of eighteen,
+was there, too, barefoot as usual, and wearing the dress in which
+she had at nightfall taken water to the cattle.
+
+"Glory to Thee Who hast shown us the light!" Yakov Ivanitch boomed
+out in a chant, bowing low.
+
+Aglaia propped her chin on her hand and chanted in a thin, shrill,
+drawling voice. And upstairs, above the ceiling, there was the sound
+of vague voices which seemed menacing or ominous of evil. No one
+had lived on the storey above since a fire there a long time ago.
+The windows were boarded up, and empty bottles lay about on the
+floor between the beams. Now the wind was banging and droning, and
+it seemed as though someone were running and stumbling over the
+beams.
+
+Half of the lower storey was used as a tavern, while Terehov's
+family lived in the other half, so that when drunken visitors were
+noisy in the tavern every word they said could be heard in the
+rooms. Matvey lived in a room next to the kitchen, with a big stove,
+in which, in old days, when this had been a posting inn, bread had
+been baked every day. Dashutka, who had no room of her own, lived
+in the same room behind the stove. A cricket chirped there always
+at night and mice ran in and out.
+
+Matvey lighted a candle and began reading a book which he had
+borrowed from the station policeman. While he was sitting over it
+the service ended, and they all went to bed. Dashutka lay down,
+too. She began snoring at once, but soon woke up and said, yawning:
+
+"You shouldn't burn a candle for nothing, Uncle Matvey."
+
+"It's my candle," answered Matvey; "I bought it with my own money."
+
+Dashutka turned over a little and fell asleep again. Matvey sat up
+a good time longer--he was not sleepy--and when he had finished
+the last page he took a pencil out of a box and wrote on the book:
+
+"I, Matvey Terehov, have read this book, and think it the very best
+of all the books I have read, for which I express my gratitude to
+the non-commissioned officer of the Police Department of Railways,
+Kuzma Nikolaev Zhukov, as the possessor of this priceless book."
+
+He considered it an obligation of politeness to make such inscriptions
+in other people's books.
+
+II
+
+On Annunciation Day, after the mail train had been sent off, Matvey
+was sitting in the refreshment bar, talking and drinking tea with
+lemon in it.
+
+The waiter and Zhukov the policeman were listening to him.
+
+"I was, I must tell you," Matvey was saying, "inclined to religion
+from my earliest childhood. I was only twelve years old when I used
+to read the epistle in church, and my parents were greatly delighted,
+and every summer I used to go on a pilgrimage with my dear mother.
+Sometimes other lads would be singing songs and catching crayfish,
+while I would be all the time with my mother. My elders commended
+me, and, indeed, I was pleased myself that I was of such good
+behaviour. And when my mother sent me with her blessing to the
+factory, I used between working hours to sing tenor there in our
+choir, and nothing gave me greater pleasure. I needn't say, I drank
+no vodka, I smoked no tobacco, and lived in chastity; but we all
+know such a mode of life is displeasing to the enemy of mankind,
+and he, the unclean spirit, once tried to ruin me and began to
+darken my mind, just as now with my cousin. First of all, I took a
+vow to fast every Monday and not to eat meat any day, and as time
+went on all sorts of fancies came over me. For the first week of
+Lent down to Saturday the holy fathers have ordained a diet of dry
+food, but it is no sin for the weak or those who work hard even to
+drink tea, yet not a crumb passed into my mouth till the Sunday,
+and afterwards all through Lent I did not allow myself a drop of
+oil, and on Wednesdays and Fridays I did not touch a morsel at all.
+It was the same in the lesser fasts. Sometimes in St. Peter's fast
+our factory lads would have fish soup, while I would sit a little
+apart from them and suck a dry crust. Different people have different
+powers, of course, but I can say of myself I did not find fast days
+hard, and, indeed, the greater the zeal the easier it seems. You
+are only hungry on the first days of the fast, and then you get
+used to it; it goes on getting easier, and by the end of a week you
+don't mind it at all, and there is a numb feeling in your legs as
+though you were not on earth, but in the clouds. And, besides that,
+I laid all sorts of penances on myself; I used to get up in the
+night and pray, bowing down to the ground, used to drag heavy stones
+from place to place, used to go out barefoot in the snow, and I
+even wore chains, too. Only, as time went on, you know, I was
+confessing one day to the priest and suddenly this reflection
+occurred to me: why, this priest, I thought, is married, he eats
+meat and smokes tobacco--how can he confess me, and what power
+has he to absolve my sins if he is more sinful that I? I even scruple
+to eat Lenten oil, while he eats sturgeon, I dare say. I went to
+another priest, and he, as ill luck would have it, was a fat fleshy
+man, in a silk cassock; he rustled like a lady, and he smelt of
+tobacco too. I went to fast and confess in the monastery, and my
+heart was not at ease even there; I kept fancying the monks were
+not living according to their rules. And after that I could not
+find a service to my mind: in one place they read the service too
+fast, in another they sang the wrong prayer, in a third the sacristan
+stammered. Sometimes, the Lord forgive me a sinner, I would stand
+in church and my heart would throb with anger. How could one pray,
+feeling like that? And I fancied that the people in the church did
+not cross themselves properly, did not listen properly; wherever I
+looked it seemed to me that they were all drunkards, that they broke
+the fast, smoked, lived loose lives and played cards. I was the
+only one who lived according to the commandments. The wily spirit
+did not slumber; it got worse as it went on. I gave up singing in
+the choir and I did not go to church at all; since my notion was
+that I was a righteous man and that the church did not suit me owing
+to its imperfections--that is, indeed, like a fallen angel, I was
+puffed up in my pride beyond all belief. After this I began attempting
+to make a church for myself. I hired from a deaf woman a tiny little
+room, a long way out of town near the cemetery, and made a prayer-room
+like my cousin's, only I had big church candlesticks, too, and a
+real censer. In this prayer-room of mine I kept the rules of holy
+Mount Athos--that is, every day my matins began at midnight without
+fail, and on the eve of the chief of the twelve great holy days my
+midnight service lasted ten hours and sometimes even twelve. Monks
+are allowed by rule to sit during the singing of the Psalter and
+the reading of the Bible, but I wanted to be better than the monks,
+and so I used to stand all through. I used to read and sing slowly,
+with tears and sighing, lifting up my hands, and I used to go
+straight from prayer to work without sleeping; and, indeed, I was
+always praying at my work, too. Well, it got all over the town
+'Matvey is a saint; Matvey heals the sick and senseless.' I never
+had healed anyone, of course, but we all know wherever any heresy
+or false doctrine springs up there's no keeping the female sex away.
+They are just like flies on the honey. Old maids and females of all
+sorts came trailing to me, bowing down to my feet, kissing my hands
+and crying out I was a saint and all the rest of it, and one even
+saw a halo round my head. It was too crowded in the prayer-room. I
+took a bigger room, and then we had a regular tower of Babel. The
+devil got hold of me completely and screened the light from my eyes
+with his unclean hoofs. We all behaved as though we were frantic.
+I read, while the old maids and other females sang, and then after
+standing on their legs for twenty-four hours or longer without
+eating or drinking, suddenly a trembling would come over them as
+though they were in a fever; after that, one would begin screaming
+and then another--it was horrible! I, too, would shiver all over
+like a Jew in a frying-pan, I don't know myself why, and our legs
+began to prance about. It's a strange thing, indeed: you don't want
+to, but you prance about and waggle your arms; and after that,
+screaming and shrieking, we all danced and ran after one another
+--ran till we dropped; and in that way, in wild frenzy, I fell
+into fornication."
+
+The policeman laughed, but, noticing that no one else was laughing,
+became serious and said:
+
+"That's Molokanism. I have heard they are all like that in the
+Caucasus."
+
+"But I was not killed by a thunderbolt," Matvey went on, crossing
+himself before the ikon and moving his lips. "My dead mother must
+have been praying for me in the other world. When everyone in the
+town looked upon me as a saint, and even the ladies and gentlemen
+of good family used to come to me in secret for consolation, I
+happened to go into our landlord, Osip Varlamitch, to ask forgiveness
+--it was the Day of Forgiveness--and he fastened the door with
+the hook, and we were left alone face to face. And he began to
+reprove me, and I must tell you Osip Varlamitch was a man of brains,
+though without education, and everyone respected and feared him,
+for he was a man of stern, God-fearing life and worked hard. He had
+been the mayor of the town, and a warden of the church for twenty
+years maybe, and had done a great deal of good; he had covered all
+the New Moscow Road with gravel, had painted the church, and had
+decorated the columns to look like malachite. Well, he fastened the
+door, and--'I have been wanting to get at you for a long time,
+you rascal, . . .' he said. 'You think you are a saint,' he said.
+'No you are not a saint, but a backslider from God, a heretic and
+an evildoer! . . .' And he went on and on. . . . I can't tell you
+how he said it, so eloquently and cleverly, as though it were all
+written down, and so touchingly. He talked for two hours. His words
+penetrated my soul; my eyes were opened. I listened, listened and
+--burst into sobs! 'Be an ordinary man,' he said, 'eat and drink,
+dress and pray like everyone else. All that is above the ordinary
+is of the devil. Your chains,' he said, 'are of the devil; your
+fasting is of the devil; your prayer-room is of the devil. It is
+all pride,' he said. Next day, on Monday in Holy Week, it pleased
+God I should fall ill. I ruptured myself and was taken to the
+hospital. I was terribly worried, and wept bitterly and trembled.
+I thought there was a straight road before me from the hospital to
+hell, and I almost died. I was in misery on a bed of sickness for
+six months, and when I was discharged the first thing I did I
+confessed, and took the sacrament in the regular way and became a
+man again. Osip Varlamitch saw me off home and exhorted me: 'Remember,
+Matvey, that anything above the ordinary is of the devil.' And now
+I eat and drink like everyone else and pray like everyone else
+. . . . If it happens now that the priest smells of tobacco or vodka I
+don't venture to blame him, because the priest, too, of course, is
+an ordinary man. But as soon as I am told that in the town or in
+the village a saint has set up who does not eat for weeks, and makes
+rules of his own, I know whose work it is. So that is how I carried
+on in the past, gentlemen. Now, like Osip Varlamitch, I am continually
+exhorting my cousins and reproaching them, but I am a voice crying
+in the wilderness. God has not vouchsafed me the gift."
+
+Matvey's story evidently made no impression whatever. Sergey
+Nikanoritch said nothing, but began clearing the refreshments off
+the counter, while the policeman began talking of how rich Matvey's
+cousin was.
+
+"He must have thirty thousand at least," he said.
+
+Zhukov the policeman, a sturdy, well-fed, red-haired man with a
+full face (his cheeks quivered when he walked), usually sat lolling
+and crossing his legs when not in the presence of his superiors.
+As he talked he swayed to and fro and whistled carelessly, while
+his face had a self-satisfied replete air, as though he had just
+had dinner. He was making money, and he always talked of it with
+the air of a connoisseur. He undertook jobs as an agent, and when
+anyone wanted to sell an estate, a horse or a carriage, they applied
+to him.
+
+"Yes, it will be thirty thousand, I dare say," Sergey Nikanoritch
+assented. "Your grandfather had an immense fortune," he said,
+addressing Matvey. "Immense it was; all left to your father and
+your uncle. Your father died as a young man and your uncle got hold
+of it all, and afterwards, of course, Yakov Ivanitch. While you
+were going pilgrimages with your mama and singing tenor in the
+factory, they didn't let the grass grow under their feet."
+
+"Fifteen thousand comes to your share," said the policeman swaying
+from side to side. "The tavern belongs to you in common, so the
+capital is in common. Yes. If I were in your place I should have
+taken it into court long ago. I would have taken it into court for
+one thing, and while the case was going on I'd have knocked his
+face to a jelly."
+
+Yakov Ivanitch was disliked because, when anyone believes differently
+from others, it upsets even people who are indifferent to religion.
+The policeman disliked him also because he, too, sold horses and
+carriages.
+
+"You don't care about going to law with your cousin because you
+have plenty of money of your own," said the waiter to Matvey, looking
+at him with envy. "It is all very well for anyone who has means,
+but here I shall die in this position, I suppose. . . ."
+
+Matvey began declaring that he hadn't any money at all, but Sergey
+Nikanoritch was not listening. Memories of the past and of the
+insults which he endured every day came showering upon him. His
+bald head began to perspire; he flushed and blinked.
+
+"A cursed life!" he said with vexation, and he banged the sausage
+on the floor.
+
+III
+
+The story ran that the tavern had been built in the time of Alexander
+I, by a widow who had settled here with her son; her name was Avdotya
+Terehov. The dark roofed-in courtyard and the gates always kept
+locked excited, especially on moonlight nights, a feeling of
+depression and unaccountable uneasiness in people who drove by with
+posting-horses, as though sorcerers or robbers were living in it;
+and the driver always looked back after he passed, and whipped up
+his horses. Travellers did not care to put up here, as the people
+of the house were always unfriendly and charged heavily. The yard
+was muddy even in summer; huge fat pigs used to lie there in the
+mud, and the horses in which the Terehovs dealt wandered about
+untethered, and often it happened that they ran out of the yard and
+dashed along the road like mad creatures, terrifying the pilgrim
+women. At that time there was a great deal of traffic on the road;
+long trains of loaded waggons trailed by, and all sorts of adventures
+happened, such as, for instance, that thirty years ago some waggoners
+got up a quarrel with a passing merchant and killed him, and a
+slanting cross is standing to this day half a mile from the tavern;
+posting-chaises with bells and the heavy _dormeuses_ of country
+gentlemen drove by; and herds of horned cattle passed bellowing and
+stirring up clouds of dust.
+
+When the railway came there was at first at this place only a
+platform, which was called simply a halt; ten years afterwards the
+present station, Progonnaya, was built. The traffic on the old
+posting-road almost ceased, and only local landowners and peasants
+drove along it now, but the working people walked there in crowds
+in spring and autumn. The posting-inn was transformed into a
+restaurant; the upper storey was destroyed by fire, the roof had
+grown yellow with rust, the roof over the yard had fallen by degrees,
+but huge fat pigs, pink and revolting, still wallowed in the mud
+in the yard. As before, the horses sometimes ran away and, lashing
+their tails dashed madly along the road. In the tavern they sold
+tea, hay oats and flour, as well as vodka and beer, to be drunk on
+the premises and also to be taken away; they sold spirituous liquors
+warily, for they had never taken out a licence.
+
+The Terehovs had always been distinguished by their piety, so much
+so that they had even been given the nickname of the "Godlies." But
+perhaps because they lived apart like bears, avoided people and
+thought out all their ideas for themselves, they were given to
+dreams and to doubts and to changes of faith and almost each
+generation had a peculiar faith of its own. The grandmother Avdotya,
+who had built the inn, was an Old Believer; her son and both her
+grandsons (the fathers of Matvey and Yakov) went to the Orthodox
+church, entertained the clergy, and worshipped before the new ikons
+as devoutly as they had done before the old. The son in old age
+refused to eat meat and imposed upon himself the rule of silence,
+considering all conversation as sin; it was the peculiarity of the
+grandsons that they interpreted the Scripture not simply, but sought
+in it a hidden meaning, declaring that every sacred word must contain
+a mystery.
+
+Avdotya's great-grandson Matvey had struggled from early childhood
+with all sorts of dreams and fancies and had been almost ruined by
+it; the other great-grandson, Yakov Ivanitch, was orthodox, but
+after his wife's death he gave up going to church and prayed at
+home. Following his example, his sister Aglaia had turned, too; she
+did not go to church herself, and did not let Dashutka go. Of Aglaia
+it was told that in her youth she used to attend the Flagellant
+meetings in Vedenyapino, and that she was still a Flagellant in
+secret, and that was why she wore a white kerchief.
+
+Yakov Ivanitch was ten years older than Matvey--he was a very
+handsome tall old man with a big grey beard almost to his waist,
+and bushy eyebrows which gave his face a stern, even ill-natured
+expression. He wore a long jerkin of good cloth or a black sheepskin
+coat, and altogether tried to be clean and neat in dress; he wore
+goloshes even in dry weather. He did not go to church, because, to
+his thinking, the services were not properly celebrated and because
+the priests drank wine at unlawful times and smoked tobacco. Every
+day he read and sang the service at home with Aglaia. At Vedenyapino
+they left out the "Praises" at early matins, and had no evening
+service even on great holidays, but he used to read through at home
+everything that was laid down for every day, without hurrying or
+leaving out a single line, and even in his spare time read aloud
+the Lives of the Saints. And in everyday life he adhered strictly
+to the rules of the church; thus, if wine were allowed on some day
+in Lent "for the sake of the vigil," then he never failed to drink
+wine, even if he were not inclined.
+
+He read, sang, burned incense and fasted, not for the sake of
+receiving blessings of some sort from God, but for the sake of good
+order. Man cannot live without religion, and religion ought to be
+expressed from year to year and from day to day in a certain order,
+so that every morning and every evening a man might turn to God
+with exactly those words and thoughts that were befitting that
+special day and hour. One must live, and, therefore, also pray as
+is pleasing to God, and so every day one must read and sing what
+is pleasing to God--that is, what is laid down in the rule of the
+church. Thus the first chapter of St. John must only be read on
+Easter Day, and "It is most meet" must not be sung from Easter to
+Ascension, and so on. The consciousness of this order and its
+importance afforded Yakov Ivanitch great gratification during his
+religious exercises. When he was forced to break this order by some
+necessity--to drive to town or to the bank, for instance his
+conscience was uneasy and he felt miserable.
+
+When his cousin Matvey had returned unexpectedly from the factory
+and settled in the tavern as though it were his home, he had from
+the very first day disturbed his settled order. He refused to pray
+with them, had meals and drank tea at wrong times, got up late,
+drank milk on Wednesdays and Fridays on the pretext of weak health;
+almost every day he went into the prayer-room while they were at
+prayers and cried: "Think what you are doing, brother! Repent,
+brother!" These words threw Yakov into a fury, while Aglaia could
+not refrain from beginning to scold; or at night Matvey would steal
+into the prayer-room and say softly: "Cousin, your prayer is not
+pleasing to God. For it is written, First be reconciled with thy
+brother and then offer thy gift. You lend money at usury, you deal
+in vodka--repent!"
+
+In Matvey's words Yakov saw nothing but the usual evasions of
+empty-headed and careless people who talk of loving your neighbour,
+of being reconciled with your brother, and so on, simply to avoid
+praying, fasting and reading holy books, and who talk contemptuously
+of profit and interest simply because they don't like working. Of
+course, to be poor, save nothing, and put by nothing was a great
+deal easier than being rich.
+
+But yet he was troubled and could not pray as before. As soon as
+he went into the prayer-room and opened the book he began to be
+afraid his cousin would come in and hinder him; and, in fact, Matvey
+did soon appear and cry in a trembling voice: "Think what you are
+doing, brother! Repent, brother!" Aglaia stormed and Yakov, too,
+flew into a passion and shouted: "Go out of my house!" while Matvey
+answered him: "The house belongs to both of us."
+
+Yakov would begin singing and reading again, but he could not regain
+his calm, and unconsciously fell to dreaming over his book. Though
+he regarded his cousin's words as nonsense, yet for some reason it
+had of late haunted his memory that it is hard for a rich man to
+enter the kingdom of heaven, that the year before last he had made
+a very good bargain over buying a stolen horse, that one day when
+his wife was alive a drunkard had died of vodka in his tavern. . . .
+
+He slept badly at nights now and woke easily, and he could hear
+that Matvey, too, was awake, and continually sighing and pining for
+his tile factory. And while Yakov turned over from one side to
+another at night he thought of the stolen horse and the drunken
+man, and what was said in the gospels about the camel.
+
+It looked as though his dreaminess were coming over him again. And
+as ill-luck would have it, although it was the end of March, every
+day it kept snowing, and the forest roared as though it were winter,
+and there was no believing that spring would ever come. The weather
+disposed one to depression, and to quarrelling and to hatred and
+in the night, when the wind droned over the ceiling, it seemed as
+though someone were living overhead in the empty storey; little by
+little the broodings settled like a burden on his mind, his head
+burned and he could not sleep.
+
+IV
+
+On the morning of the Monday before Good Friday, Matvey heard from
+his room Dashutka say to Aglaia:
+
+"Uncle Matvey said, the other day, that there is no need to fast."
+
+Matvey remembered the whole conversation he had had the evening
+before with Dashutka, and he felt hurt all at once.
+
+"Girl, don't do wrong!" he said in a moaning voice, like a sick
+man. "You can't do without fasting; our Lord Himself fasted forty
+days. I only explained that fasting does a bad man no good."
+
+"You should just listen to the factory hands; they can teach you
+goodness," Aglaia said sarcastically as she washed the floor (she
+usually washed the floors on working days and was always angry with
+everyone when she did it). "We know how they keep the fasts in the
+factory. You had better ask that uncle of yours--ask him about
+his 'Darling,' how he used to guzzle milk on fast days with her,
+the viper. He teaches others; he forgets about his viper. But ask
+him who was it he left his money with--who was it?"
+
+Matvey had carefully concealed from everyone, as though it were a
+foul sore, that during that period of his life when old women and
+unmarried girls had danced and run about with him at their prayers
+he had formed a connection with a working woman and had had a child
+by her. When he went home he had given this woman all he had saved
+at the factory, and had borrowed from his landlord for his journey,
+and now he had only a few roubles which he spent on tea and candles.
+The "Darling" had informed him later on that the child was dead,
+and asked him in a letter what she should do with the money. This
+letter was brought from the station by the labourer. Aglaia intercepted
+it and read it, and had reproached Matvey with his "Darling" every
+day since.
+
+"Just fancy, nine hundred roubles," Aglaia went on. "You gave nine
+hundred roubles to a viper, no relation, a factory jade, blast you!"
+She had flown into a passion by now and was shouting shrilly: "Can't
+you speak? I could tear you to pieces, wretched creature! Nine
+hundred roubles as though it were a farthing. You might have left
+it to Dashutka--she is a relation, not a stranger--or else have
+it sent to Byelev for Marya's poor orphans. And your viper did not
+choke, may she be thrice accursed, the she-devil! May she never
+look upon the light of day!"
+
+Yakov Ivanitch called to her: it was time to begin the "Hours." She
+washed, put on a white kerchief, and by now quiet and meek, went
+into the prayer-room to the brother she loved. When she spoke to
+Matvey or served peasants in the tavern with tea she was a gaunt,
+keen-eyed, ill-humoured old woman; in the prayer-room her face was
+serene and softened, she looked younger altogether, she curtsied
+affectedly, and even pursed up her lips.
+
+Yakov Ivanitch began reading the service softly and dolefully, as
+he always did in Lent. After he had read a little he stopped to
+listen to the stillness that reigned through the house, and then
+went on reading again, with a feeling of gratification; he folded
+his hands in supplication, rolled his eyes, shook his head, sighed.
+But all at once there was the sound of voices. The policeman and
+Sergey Nikanoritch had come to see Matvey. Yakov Ivanitch was
+embarrassed at reading aloud and singing when there were strangers
+in the house, and now, hearing voices, he began reading in a whisper
+and slowly. He could hear in the prayer-room the waiter say:
+
+"The Tatar at Shtchepovo is selling his business for fifteen hundred.
+He'll take five hundred down and an I.O.U. for the rest. And so,
+Matvey Vassilitch, be so kind as to lend me that five hundred
+roubles. I will pay you two per cent a month."
+
+"What money have I got?" cried Matvey, amazed. "I have no money!"
+
+"Two per cent a month will be a godsend to you," the policeman
+explained. "While lying by, your money is simply eaten by the moth,
+and that's all that you get from it."
+
+Afterwards the visitors went out and a silence followed. But Yakov
+Ivanitch had hardly begun reading and singing again when a voice
+was heard outside the door:
+
+"Brother, let me have a horse to drive to Vedenyapino."
+
+It was Matvey. And Yakov was troubled again. "Which can you go
+with?" he asked after a moment's thought. "The man has gone with
+the sorrel to take the pig, and I am going with the little stallion
+to Shuteykino as soon as I have finished."
+
+"Brother, why is it you can dispose of the horses and not I?" Matvey
+asked with irritation.
+
+"Because I am not taking them for pleasure, but for work."
+
+"Our property is in common, so the horses are in common, too, and
+you ought to understand that, brother."
+
+A silence followed. Yakov did not go on praying, but waited for
+Matvey to go away from the door.
+
+"Brother," said Matvey, "I am a sick man. I don't want possession
+--let them go; you have them, but give me a small share to keep
+me in my illness. Give it me and I'll go away."
+
+Yakov did not speak. He longed to be rid of Matvey, but he could
+not give him money, since all the money was in the business; besides,
+there had never been a case of the family dividing in the whole
+history of the Terehovs. Division means ruin.
+
+Yakov said nothing, but still waited for Matvey to go away, and
+kept looking at his sister, afraid that she would interfere, and
+that there would be a storm of abuse again, as there had been in
+the morning. When at last Matvey did go Yakov went on reading, but
+now he had no pleasure in it. There was a heaviness in his head and
+a darkness before his eyes from continually bowing down to the
+ground, and he was weary of the sound of his soft dejected voice.
+When such a depression of spirit came over him at night, he put it
+down to not being able to sleep; by day it frightened him, and he
+began to feel as though devils were sitting on his head and shoulders.
+
+Finishing the service after a fashion, dissatisfied and ill-humoured,
+he set off for Shuteykino. In the previous autumn a gang of navvies
+had dug a boundary ditch near Progonnaya, and had run up a bill at
+the tavern for eighteen roubles, and now he had to find their foreman
+in Shuteykino and get the money from him. The road had been spoilt
+by the thaw and the snowstorm; it was of a dark colour and full of
+holes, and in parts it had given way altogether. The snow had sunk
+away at the sides below the road, so that he had to drive, as it
+were, upon a narrow causeway, and it was very difficult to turn off
+it when he met anything. The sky had been overcast ever since the
+morning and a damp wind was blowing. . . .
+
+A long train of sledges met him; peasant women were carting bricks.
+Yakov had to turn off the road. His horse sank into the snow up to
+its belly; the sledge lurched over to the right, and to avoid falling
+out he bent over to the left, and sat so all the time the sledges
+moved slowly by him. Through the wind he heard the creaking of the
+sledge poles and the breathing of the gaunt horses, and the women
+saying about him, "There's Godly coming," while one, gazing with
+compassion at his horse, said quickly:
+
+"It looks as though the snow will be lying till Yegory's Day! They
+are worn out with it!"
+
+Yakov sat uncomfortably huddled up, screwing up his eyes on account
+of the wind, while horses and red bricks kept passing before him.
+And perhaps because he was uncomfortable and his side ached, he
+felt all at once annoyed, and the business he was going about seemed
+to him unimportant, and he reflected that he might send the labourer
+next day to Shuteykino. Again, as in the previous sleepless night,
+he thought of the saying about the camel, and then memories of all
+sorts crept into his mind; of the peasant who had sold him the
+stolen horse, of the drunken man, of the peasant women who had
+brought their samovars to him to pawn. Of course, every merchant
+tries to get as much as he can, but Yakov felt depressed that he
+was in trade; he longed to get somewhere far away from this routine,
+and he felt dreary at the thought that he would have to read the
+evening service that day. The wind blew straight into his face and
+soughed in his collar; and it seemed as though it were whispering
+to him all these thoughts, bringing them from the broad white plain
+. . . . Looking at that plain, familiar to him from childhood, Yakov
+remembered that he had had just this same trouble and these same
+thoughts in his young days when dreams and imaginings had come upon
+him and his faith had wavered.
+
+He felt miserable at being alone in the open country; he turned
+back and drove slowly after the sledges, and the women laughed and
+said:
+
+"Godly has turned back."
+
+At home nothing had been cooked and the samovar was not heated on
+account of the fast, and this made the day seem very long. Yakov
+Ivanitch had long ago taken the horse to the stable, dispatched the
+flour to the station, and twice taken up the Psalms to read, and
+yet the evening was still far off. Aglaia has already washed all
+the floors, and, having nothing to do, was tidying up her chest,
+the lid of which was pasted over on the inside with labels off
+bottles. Matvey, hungry and melancholy, sat reading, or went up to
+the Dutch stove and slowly scrutinized the tiles which reminded him
+of the factory. Dashutka was asleep; then, waking up, she went to
+take water to the cattle. When she was getting water from the well
+the cord broke and the pail fell in. The labourer began looking for
+a boathook to get the pail out, and Dashutka, barefooted, with legs
+as red as a goose's, followed him about in the muddy snow, repeating:
+"It's too far!" She meant to say that the well was too deep for the
+hook to reach the bottom, but the labourer did not understand her,
+and evidently she bothered him, so that he suddenly turned around
+and abused her in unseemly language. Yakov Ivanitch, coming out
+that moment into the yard, heard Dashutka answer the labourer in a
+long rapid stream of choice abuse, which she could only have learned
+from drunken peasants in the tavern.
+
+"What are you saying, shameless girl!" he cried to her, and he was
+positively aghast. "What language!"
+
+And she looked at her father in perplexity, dully, not understanding
+why she should not use those words. He would have admonished her,
+but she struck him as so savage and benighted; and for the first
+time he realized that she had no religion. And all this life in the
+forest, in the snow, with drunken peasants, with coarse oaths,
+seemed to him as savage and benighted as this girl, and instead of
+giving her a lecture he only waved his hand and went back into the
+room.
+
+At that moment the policeman and Sergey Nikanoritch came in again
+to see Matvey. Yakov Ivanitch thought that these people, too, had
+no religion, and that that did not trouble them in the least; and
+human life began to seem to him as strange, senseless and unenlightened
+as a dog's. Bareheaded he walked about the yard, then he went out
+on to the road, clenching his fists. Snow was falling in big flakes
+at the time. His beard was blown about in the wind. He kept shaking
+his head, as though there were something weighing upon his head and
+shoulders, as though devils were sitting on them; and it seemed to
+him that it was not himself walking about, but some wild beast, a
+huge terrible beast, and that if he were to cry out his voice would
+be a roar that would sound all over the forest and the plain, and
+would frighten everyone. . . .
+
+V
+
+When he went back into the house the policeman was no longer there,
+but the waiter was sitting with Matvey, counting something on the
+reckoning beads. He was in the habit of coming often, almost every
+day, to the tavern; in old days he had come to see Yakov Ivanitch,
+now he came to see Matvey. He was continually reckoning on the
+beads, while his face perspired and looked strained, or he would
+ask for money or, stroking his whiskers, would describe how he had
+once been in a first-class station and used to prepare champagne-punch
+for officers, and at grand dinners served the sturgeon-soup with
+his own hands. Nothing in this world interested him but refreshment
+bars, and he could only talk about things to eat, about wines and
+the paraphernalia of the dinner-table. On one occasion, handing a
+cup of tea to a young woman who was nursing her baby and wishing
+to say something agreeable to her, he expressed himself in this
+way:
+
+"The mother's breast is the baby's refreshment bar."
+
+Reckoning with the beads in Matvey's room, he asked for money; said
+he could not go on living at Progonnaya, and several times repeated
+in a tone of voice that sounded as though he were just going to
+cry:
+
+"Where am I to go? Where am I to go now? Tell me that, please."
+
+Then Matvey went into the kitchen and began peeling some boiled
+potatoes which he had probably put away from the day before. It was
+quiet, and it seemed to Yakov Ivanitch that the waiter was gone.
+It was past the time for evening service; he called Aglaia, and,
+thinking there was no one else in the house sang out aloud without
+embarrassment. He sang and read, but was inwardly pronouncing other
+words, "Lord, forgive me! Lord, save me!" and, one after another,
+without ceasing, he made low bows to the ground as though he wanted
+to exhaust himself, and he kept shaking his head, so that Aglaia
+looked at him with wonder. He was afraid Matvey would come in, and
+was certain that he would come in, and felt an anger against him
+which he could overcome neither by prayer nor by continually bowing
+down to the ground.
+
+Matvey opened the door very softly and went into the prayer-room.
+
+"It's a sin, such a sin!" he said reproachfully, and heaved a sigh.
+"Repent! Think what you are doing, brother!"
+
+Yakov Ivanitch, clenching his fists and not looking at him for fear
+of striking him, went quickly out of the room. Feeling himself a
+huge terrible wild beast, just as he had done before on the road,
+he crossed the passage into the grey, dirty room, reeking with smoke
+and fog, in which the peasants usually drank tea, and there he spent
+a long time walking from one corner to the other, treading heavily,
+so that the crockery jingled on the shelves and the tables shook.
+It was clear to him now that he was himself dissatisfied with his
+religion, and could not pray as he used to do. He must repent, he
+must think things over, reconsider, live and pray in some other
+way. But how pray? And perhaps all this was a temptation of the
+devil, and nothing of this was necessary? . . . How was it to be?
+What was he to do? Who could guide him? What helplessness! He stopped
+and, clutching at his head, began to think, but Matvey's being near
+him prevented him from reflecting calmly. And he went rapidly into
+the room.
+
+Matvey was sitting in the kitchen before a bowl of potato, eating.
+Close by, near the stove, Aglaia and Dashutka were sitting facing
+one another, spinning yarn. Between the stove and the table at which
+Matvey was sitting was stretched an ironing-board; on it stood a
+cold iron.
+
+"Sister," Matvey asked, "let me have a little oil!"
+
+"Who eats oil on a day like this?" asked Aglaia.
+
+"I am not a monk, sister, but a layman. And in my weak health I may
+take not only oil but milk."
+
+"Yes, at the factory you may have anything."
+
+Aglaia took a bottle of Lenten oil from the shelf and banged it
+angrily down before Matvey, with a malignant smile evidently pleased
+that he was such a sinner.
+
+"But I tell you, you can't eat oil!" shouted Yakov.
+
+Aglaia and Dashutka started, but Matvey poured the oil into the
+bowl and went on eating as though he had not heard.
+
+"I tell you, you can't eat oil!" Yakov shouted still more loudly;
+he turned red all over, snatched up the bowl, lifted it higher than
+his head, and dashed it with all his force to the ground, so that
+it flew into fragments. "Don't dare to speak!" he cried in a furious
+voice, though Matvey had not said a word. "Don't dare!" he repeated,
+and struck his fist on the table.
+
+Matvey turned pale and got up.
+
+"Brother!" he said, still munching--"brother, think what you are
+about!"
+
+"Out of my house this minute!" shouted Yakov; he loathed Matvey's
+wrinkled face, and his voice, and the crumbs on his moustache, and
+the fact that he was munching. "Out, I tell you!"
+
+"Brother, calm yourself! The pride of hell has confounded you!"
+
+"Hold your tongue!" (Yakov stamped.) "Go away, you devil!"
+
+"If you care to know," Matvey went on in a loud voice, as he, too,
+began to get angry, "you are a backslider from God and a heretic.
+The accursed spirits have hidden the true light from you; your
+prayer is not acceptable to God. Repent before it is too late! The
+deathbed of the sinner is terrible! Repent, brother!"
+
+Yakov seized him by the shoulders and dragged him away from the
+table, while he turned whiter than ever, and frightened and bewildered,
+began muttering, "What is it? What's the matter?" and, struggling
+and making efforts to free himself from Yakov's hands, he accidentally
+caught hold of his shirt near the neck and tore the collar; and it
+seemed to Aglaia that he was trying to beat Yakov. She uttered a
+shriek, snatched up the bottle of Lenten oil and with all her force
+brought it down straight on the skull of the cousin she hated.
+Matvey reeled, and in one instant his face became calm and indifferent.
+Yakov, breathing heavily, excited, and feeling pleasure at the
+gurgle the bottle had made, like a living thing, when it had struck
+the head, kept him from falling and several times (he remembered
+this very distinctly) motioned Aglaia towards the iron with his
+finger; and only when the blood began trickling through his hands
+and he heard Dashutka's loud wail, and when the ironing-board fell
+with a crash, and Matvey rolled heavily on it, Yakov left off feeling
+anger and understood what had happened.
+
+"Let him rot, the factory buck!" Aglaia brought out with repulsion,
+still keeping the iron in her hand. The white bloodstained kerchief
+slipped on to her shoulders and her grey hair fell in disorder.
+"He's got what he deserved!"
+
+Everything was terrible. Dashutka sat on the floor near the stove
+with the yarn in her hands, sobbing, and continually bowing down,
+uttering at each bow a gasping sound. But nothing was so terrible
+to Yakov as the potato in the blood, on which he was afraid of
+stepping, and there was something else terrible which weighed upon
+him like a bad dream and seemed the worst danger, though he could
+not take it in for the first minute. This was the waiter, Sergey
+Nikanoritch, who was standing in the doorway with the reckoning
+beads in his hands, very pale, looking with horror at what was
+happening in the kitchen. Only when he turned and went quickly into
+the passage and from there outside, Yakov grasped who it was and
+followed him.
+
+Wiping his hands on the snow as he went, he reflected. The idea
+flashed through his mind that their labourer had gone away long
+before and had asked leave to stay the night at home in the village;
+the day before they had killed a pig, and there were huge bloodstains
+in the snow and on the sledge, and even one side of the top of the
+well was splattered with blood, so that it could not have seemed
+suspicious even if the whole of Yakov's family had been stained
+with blood. To conceal the murder would be agonizing, but for the
+policeman, who would whistle and smile ironically, to come from the
+station, for the peasants to arrive and bind Yakov's and Aglaia's
+hands, and take them solemnly to the district courthouse and from
+there to the town, while everyone on the way would point at them
+and say mirthfully, "They are taking the Godlies!"--this seemed
+to Yakov more agonizing than anything, and he longed to lengthen
+out the time somehow, so as to endure this shame not now, but later,
+in the future.
+
+"I can lend you a thousand roubles, . . ." he said, overtaking
+Sergey Nikanoritch. "If you tell anyone, it will do no good. . . .
+There's no bringing the man back, anyway;" and with difficulty
+keeping up with the waiter, who did not look round, but tried to
+walk away faster than ever, he went on: "I can give you fifteen
+hundred. . . ."
+
+He stopped because he was out of breath, while Sergey Nikanoritch
+walked on as quickly as ever, probably afraid that he would be
+killed, too. Only after passing the railway crossing and going half
+the way from the crossing to the station, he furtively looked round
+and walked more slowly. Lights, red and green, were already gleaming
+in the station and along the line; the wind had fallen, but flakes
+of snow were still coming down and the road had turned white again.
+But just at the station Sergey Nikanoritch stopped, thought a minute,
+and turned resolutely back. It was growing dark.
+
+"Oblige me with the fifteen hundred, Yakov Ivanitch," he said,
+trembling all over. "I agree."
+
+VI
+
+Yakov Ivanitch's money was in the bank of the town and was invested
+in second mortgages; he only kept a little at home, Just what was
+wanted for necessary expenses. Going into the kitchen he felt for
+the matchbox, and while the sulphur was burning with a blue light
+he had time to make out the figure of Matvey, which was still lying
+on the floor near the table, but now it was covered with a white
+sheet, and nothing could be seen but his boots. A cricket was
+chirruping. Aglaia and Dashutka were not in the room, they were
+both sitting behind the counter in the tea-room, spinning yarn in
+silence. Yakov Ivanitch crossed to his own room with a little lamp
+in his hand, and pulled from under the bed a little box in which
+he kept his money. This time there were in it four hundred and
+twenty one-rouble notes and silver to the amount of thirty-five
+roubles; the notes had an unpleasant heavy smell. Putting the money
+together in his cap, Yakov Ivanitch went out into the yard and then
+out of the gate. He walked, looking from side to side, but there
+was no sign of the waiter.
+
+"Hi!" cried Yakov.
+
+A dark figure stepped out from the barrier at the railway crossing
+and came irresolutely towards him.
+
+"Why do you keep walking about?" said Yakov with vexation, as he
+recognized the waiter. "Here you are; there is a little less than
+five hundred. . . . I've no more in the house."
+
+"Very well; . . . very grateful to you," muttered Sergey Nikanoritch,
+taking the money greedily and stuffing it into his pockets. He was
+trembling all over, and that was perceptible in spite of the darkness.
+"Don't worry yourself, Yakov Ivanitch. . . . What should I chatter
+for: I came and went away, that's all I've had to do with it. As
+the saying is, I know nothing and I can tell nothing . . ." And at
+once he added with a sigh "Cursed life!"
+
+For a minute they stood in silence, without looking at each other.
+
+"So it all came from a trifle, goodness knows how, . . ." said the
+waiter, trembling. "I was sitting counting to myself when all at
+once a noise. . . . I looked through the door, and just on account
+of Lenten oil you. . . . Where is he now?"
+
+"Lying there in the kitchen."
+
+"You ought to take him somewhere. . . . Why put it off?"
+
+Yakov accompanied him to the station without a word, then went home
+again and harnessed the horse to take Matvey to Limarovo. He had
+decided to take him to the forest of Limarovo, and to leave him
+there on the road, and then he would tell everyone that Matvey had
+gone off to Vedenyapino and had not come back, and then everyone
+would think that he had been killed by someone on the road. He knew
+there was no deceiving anyone by this, but to move, to do something,
+to be active, was not as agonizing as to sit still and wait. He
+called Dashutka, and with her carried Matvey out. Aglaia stayed
+behind to clean up the kitchen.
+
+When Yakov and Dashutka turned back they were detained at the railway
+crossing by the barrier being let down. A long goods train was
+passing, dragged by two engines, breathing heavily, and flinging
+puffs of crimson fire out of their funnels.
+
+The foremost engine uttered a piercing whistle at the crossing in
+sight of the station.
+
+"It's whistling, . . ." said Dashutka.
+
+The train had passed at last, and the signalman lifted the barrier
+without haste.
+
+"Is that you, Yakov Ivanitch? I didn't know you, so you'll be rich."
+
+And then when they had reached home they had to go to bed.
+
+Aglaia and Dashutka made themselves a bed in the tea-room and lay
+down side by side, while Yakov stretched himself on the counter.
+They neither said their prayers nor lighted the ikon lamp before
+lying down to sleep. All three lay awake till morning, but did not
+utter a single word, and it seemed to them that all night someone
+was walking about in the empty storey overhead.
+
+Two days later a police inspector and the examining magistrate came
+from the town and made a search, first in Matvey's room and then
+in the whole tavern. They questioned Yakov first of all, and he
+testified that on the Monday Matvey had gone to Vedenyapino to
+confess, and that he must have been killed by the sawyers who were
+working on the line.
+
+And when the examining magistrate had asked him how it had happened
+that Matvey was found on the road, while his cap had turned up at
+home--surely he had not gone to Vedenyapino without his cap?--
+and why they had not found a single drop of blood beside him in the
+snow on the road, though his head was smashed in and his face and
+chest were black with blood, Yakov was confused, lost his head and
+answered:
+
+"I cannot tell."
+
+And just what Yakov had so feared happened: the policeman came, the
+district police officer smoked in the prayer-room and Aglaia fell
+upon him with abuse and was rude to the police inspector; and
+afterwards when Yakov and Aglaia were led out to the yard, the
+peasants crowded at the gates and said, "They are taking the Godlies!"
+and it seemed that they were all glad.
+
+At the inquiry the policeman stated positively that Yakov and Aglaia
+had killed Matvey in order not to share with him, and that Matvey
+had money of his own, and that if it was not found at the search
+evidently Yakov and Aglaia had got hold of it. And Dashutka was
+questioned. She said that Uncle Matvey and Aunt Aglaia quarrelled
+and almost fought every day over money, and that Uncle Matvey was
+rich, so much so that he had given someone--"his Darling"--nine
+hundred roubles.
+
+Dashutka was left alone in the tavern. No one came now to drink tea
+or vodka, and she divided her time between cleaning up the rooms,
+drinking mead and eating rolls; but a few days later they questioned
+the signalman at the railway crossing, and he said that late on
+Monday evening he had seen Yakov and Dashutka driving from Limarovo.
+Dashutka, too, was arrested, taken to the town and put in prison.
+It soon became known, from what Aglaia said, that Sergey Nikanoritch
+had been present at the murder. A search was made in his room, and
+money was found in an unusual place, in his snowboots under the
+stove, and the money was all in small change, three hundred one-rouble
+notes. He swore he had made this money himself, and that he hadn't
+been in the tavern for a year, but witnesses testified that he was
+poor and had been in great want of money of late, and that he used
+to go every day to the tavern to borrow from Matvey; and the policeman
+described how on the day of the murder he had himself gone twice
+to the tavern with the waiter to help him to borrow. It was recalled
+at this juncture that on Monday evening Sergey Nikanoritch had not
+been there to meet the passenger train, but had gone off somewhere.
+And he, too, was arrested and taken to the town.
+
+The trial took place eleven months later.
+
+Yakov Ivanitch looked much older and much thinner, and spoke in a
+low voice like a sick man. He felt weak, pitiful, lower in stature
+that anyone else, and it seemed as though his soul, too, like his
+body, had grown older and wasted, from the pangs of his conscience
+and from the dreams and imaginings which never left him all the
+while he was in prison. When it came out that he did not go to
+church the president of the court asked him:
+
+"Are you a dissenter?"
+
+"I can't tell," he answered.
+
+He had no religion at all now; he knew nothing and understood
+nothing; and his old belief was hateful to him now, and seemed to
+him darkness and folly. Aglaia was not in the least subdued, and
+she still went on abusing the dead man, blaming him for all their
+misfortunes. Sergey Nikanoritch had grown a beard instead of whiskers.
+At the trial he was red and perspiring, and was evidently ashamed
+of his grey prison coat and of sitting on the same bench with humble
+peasants. He defended himself awkwardly, and, trying to prove that
+he had not been to the tavern for a whole year, got into an altercation
+with every witness, and the spectators laughed at him. Dashutka had
+grown fat in prison. At the trial she did not understand the questions
+put to her, and only said that when they killed Uncle Matvey she
+was dreadfully frightened, but afterwards she did not mind.
+
+All four were found guilty of murder with mercenary motives. Yakov
+Ivanitch was sentenced to penal servitude for twenty years; Aglaia
+for thirteen and a half; Sergey Nikanoritch to ten; Dashutka to
+six.
+
+VII
+
+Late one evening a foreign steamer stopped in the roads of Dué in
+Sahalin and asked for coal. The captain was asked to wait till
+morning, but he did not want to wait over an hour, saying that if
+the weather changed for the worse in the night there would be a
+risk of his having to go off without coal. In the Gulf of Tartary
+the weather is liable to violent changes in the course of half an
+hour, and then the shores of Sahalin are dangerous. And already it
+had turned fresh, and there was a considerable sea running.
+
+A gang of convicts were sent to the mine from the Voevodsky prison,
+the grimmest and most forbidding of all the prisons in Sahalin. The
+coal had to be loaded upon barges, and then they had to be towed
+by a steam-cutter alongside the steamer which was anchored more
+than a quarter of a mile from the coast, and then the unloading and
+reloading had to begin--an exhausting task when the barge kept
+rocking against the steamer and the men could scarcely keep on their
+legs for sea-sickness. The convicts, only just roused from their
+sleep, still drowsy, went along the shore, stumbling in the darkness
+and clanking their fetters. On the left, scarcely visible, was a
+tall, steep, extremely gloomy-looking cliff, while on the right
+there was a thick impenetrable mist, in which the sea moaned with
+a prolonged monotonous sound, "Ah! . . . ah! . . . ah! . . . ah!
+. . ." And it was only when the overseer was lighting his pipe,
+casting as he did so a passing ray of light on the escort with a
+gun and on the coarse faces of two or three of the nearest convicts,
+or when he went with his lantern close to the water that the white
+crests of the foremost waves could be discerned.
+
+One of this gang was Yakov Ivanitch, nicknamed among the convicts
+the "Brush," on account of his long beard. No one had addressed him
+by his name or his father's name for a long time now; they called
+him simply Yashka.
+
+He was here in disgrace, as, three months after coming to Siberia,
+feeling an intense irresistible longing for home, he had succumbed
+to temptation and run away; he had soon been caught, had been
+sentenced to penal servitude for life and given forty lashes. Then
+he was punished by flogging twice again for losing his prison
+clothes, though on each occasion they were stolen from him. The
+longing for home had begun from the very time he had been brought
+to Odessa, and the convict train had stopped in the night at
+Progonnaya; and Yakov, pressing to the window, had tried to see his
+own home, and could see nothing in the darkness. He had no one with
+whom to talk of home. His sister Aglaia had been sent right across
+Siberia, and he did not know where she was now. Dashutka was in
+Sahalin, but she had been sent to live with some ex-convict in a
+far away settlement; there was no news of her except that once a
+settler who had come to the Voevodsky Prison told Yakov that Dashutka
+had three children. Sergey Nikanoritch was serving as a footman at
+a government official's at Dué, but he could not reckon on ever
+seeing him, as he was ashamed of being acquainted with convicts of
+the peasant class.
+
+The gang reached the mine, and the men took their places on the
+quay. It was said there would not be any loading, as the weather
+kept getting worse and the steamer was meaning to set off. They
+could see three lights. One of them was moving: that was the
+steam-cutter going to the steamer, and it seemed to be coming back
+to tell them whether the work was to be done or not. Shivering with
+the autumn cold and the damp sea mist, wrapping himself in his short
+torn coat, Yakov Ivanitch looked intently without blinking in the
+direction in which lay his home. Ever since he had lived in prison
+together with men banished here from all ends of the earth--with
+Russians, Ukrainians, Tatars, Georgians, Chinese, Gypsies, Jews--
+and ever since he had listened to their talk and watched their
+sufferings, he had begun to turn again to God, and it seemed to him
+at last that he had learned the true faith for which all his family,
+from his grandmother Avdotya down, had so thirsted, which they had
+sought so long and which they had never found. He knew it all now
+and understood where God was, and how He was to be served, and the
+only thing he could not understand was why men's destinies were so
+diverse, why this simple faith which other men receive from God for
+nothing and together with their lives, had cost him such a price
+that his arms and legs trembled like a drunken man's from all the
+horrors and agonies which as far as he could see would go on without
+a break to the day of his death. He looked with strained eyes into
+the darkness, and it seemed to him that through the thousand miles
+of that mist he could see home, could see his native province, his
+district, Progonnaya, could see the darkness, the savagery, the
+heartlessness, and the dull, sullen, animal indifference of the men
+he had left there. His eyes were dimmed with tears; but still he
+gazed into the distance where the pale lights of the steamer faintly
+gleamed, and his heart ached with yearning for home, and he longed
+to live, to go back home to tell them there of his new faith and
+to save from ruin if only one man, and to live without suffering
+if only for one day.
+
+The cutter arrived, and the overseer announced in a loud voice that
+there would be no loading.
+
+"Back!" he commanded. "Steady!"
+
+They could hear the hoisting of the anchor chain on the steamer. A
+strong piercing wind was blowing by now; somewhere on the steep
+cliff overhead the trees were creaking. Most likely a storm was
+coming.
+
+
+UPROOTED
+
+_An Incident of My Travels_
+
+I WAS on my way back from evening service. The clock in the belfry
+of the Svyatogorsky Monastery pealed out its soft melodious chimes
+by way of prelude and then struck twelve. The great courtyard of
+the monastery stretched out at the foot of the Holy Mountains on
+the banks of the Donets, and, enclosed by the high hostel buildings
+as by a wall, seemed now in the night, when it was lighted up only
+by dim lanterns, lights in the windows, and the stars, a living
+hotch-potch full of movement, sound, and the most original confusion.
+From end to end, so far as the eye could see, it was all choked up
+with carts, old-fashioned coaches and chaises, vans, tilt-carts,
+about which stood crowds of horses, dark and white, and horned oxen,
+while people bustled about, and black long-skirted lay brothers
+threaded their way in and out in all directions. Shadows and streaks
+of light cast from the windows moved over the carts and the heads
+of men and horses, and in the dense twilight this all assumed the
+most monstrous capricious shapes: here the tilted shafts stretched
+upwards to the sky, here eyes of fire appeared in the face of a
+horse, there a lay brother grew a pair of black wings. . . . There
+was the noise of talk, the snorting and munching of horses, the
+creaking of carts, the whimpering of children. Fresh crowds kept
+walking in at the gate and belated carts drove up.
+
+The pines which were piled up on the overhanging mountain, one above
+another, and leaned towards the roof of the hostel, gazed into the
+courtyard as into a deep pit, and listened in wonder; in their dark
+thicket the cuckoos and nightingales never ceased calling. . . .
+Looking at the confusion, listening to the uproar, one fancied that
+in this living hotch-potch no one understood anyone, that everyone
+was looking for something and would not find it, and that this
+multitude of carts, chaises and human beings could not ever succeed
+in getting off.
+
+More than ten thousand people flocked to the Holy Mountains for the
+festivals of St. John the Divine and St. Nikolay the wonder-worker.
+Not only the hostel buildings, but even the bakehouse, the tailoring
+room, the carpenter's shop, the carriage house, were filled to
+overflowing. . . . Those who had arrived towards night clustered
+like flies in autumn, by the walls, round the wells in the yard,
+or in the narrow passages of the hostel, waiting to be shown a
+resting-place for the night. The lay brothers, young and old, were
+in an incessant movement, with no rest or hope of being relieved.
+By day or late at night they produced the same impression of men
+hastening somewhere and agitated by something, yet, in spite of
+their extreme exhaustion, their faces remained full of courage and
+kindly welcome, their voices friendly, their movements rapid. . . .
+For everyone who came they had to find a place to sleep, and to
+provide food and drink; to those who were deaf, slow to understand,
+or profuse in questions, they had to give long and wearisome
+explanations, to tell them why there were no empty rooms, at what
+o'clock the service was to be where holy bread was sold, and so on.
+They had to run, to carry, to talk incessantly, but more than that,
+they had to be polite, too, to be tactful, to try to arrange that
+the Greeks from Mariupol, accustomed to live more comfortably than
+the Little Russians, should be put with other Greeks, that some
+shopkeeper from Bahmut or Lisitchansk, dressed like a lady, should
+not be offended by being put with peasants. There were continual
+cries of: "Father, kindly give us some kvass! Kindly give us some
+hay!" or "Father, may I drink water after confession?" And the lay
+brother would have to give out kvass or hay or to answer: "Address
+yourself to the priest, my good woman, we have not the authority
+to give permission." Another question would follow, "Where is the
+priest then?" and the lay brother would have to explain where was
+the priest's cell. With all this bustling activity, he yet had to
+make time to go to service in the church, to serve in the part
+devoted to the gentry, and to give full answers to the mass of
+necessary and unnecessary questions which pilgrims of the educated
+class are fond of showering about them. Watching them during the
+course of twenty-four hours, I found it hard to imagine when these
+black moving figures sat down and when they slept.
+
+When, coming back from the evening service, I went to the hostel
+in which a place had been assigned me, the monk in charge of the
+sleeping quarters was standing in the doorway, and beside him, on
+the steps, was a group of several men and women dressed like
+townsfolk.
+
+"Sir," said the monk, stopping me, "will you be so good as to allow
+this young man to pass the night in your room? If you would do us
+the favour! There are so many people and no place left--it is
+really dreadful!"
+
+And he indicated a short figure in a light overcoat and a straw
+hat. I consented, and my chance companion followed me. Unlocking
+the little padlock on my door, I was always, whether I wanted to
+or not, obliged to look at the picture that hung on the doorpost
+on a level with my face. This picture with the title, "A Meditation
+on Death," depicted a monk on his knees, gazing at a coffin and at
+a skeleton laying in it. Behind the man's back stood another skeleton,
+somewhat more solid and carrying a scythe.
+
+"There are no bones like that," said my companion, pointing to the
+place in the skeleton where there ought to have been a pelvis.
+"Speaking generally, you know, the spiritual fare provided for the
+people is not of the first quality," he added, and heaved through
+his nose a long and very melancholy sigh, meant to show me that I
+had to do with a man who really knew something about spiritual fare.
+
+While I was looking for the matches to light a candle he sighed
+once more and said:
+
+"When I was in Harkov I went several times to the anatomy theatre
+and saw the bones there; I have even been in the mortuary. Am I not
+in your way?"
+
+My room was small and poky, with neither table nor chairs in it,
+but quite filled up with a chest of drawers by the window, the stove
+and two little wooden sofas which stood against the walls, facing
+one another, leaving a narrow space to walk between them. Thin
+rusty-looking little mattresses lay on the little sofas, as well
+as my belongings. There were two sofas, so this room was evidently
+intended for two, and I pointed out the fact to my companion.
+
+"They will soon be ringing for mass, though," he said, "and I shan't
+have to be in your way very long."
+
+Still under the impression that he was in my way and feeling awkward,
+he moved with a guilty step to his little sofa, sighed guiltily and
+sat down. When the tallow candle with its dim, dilatory flame had
+left off flickering and burned up sufficiently to make us both
+visible, I could make out what he was like. He was a young man of
+two-and-twenty, with a round and pleasing face, dark childlike eyes,
+dressed like a townsman in grey cheap clothes, and as one could
+judge from his complexion and narrow shoulders, not used to manual
+labour. He was of a very indefinite type; one could take him neither
+for a student nor for a man in trade, still less for a workman. But
+looking at his attractive face and childlike friendly eyes, I was
+unwilling to believe he was one of those vagabond impostors with
+whom every conventual establishment where they give food and lodging
+is flooded, and who give themselves out as divinity students,
+expelled for standing up for justice, or for church singers who
+have lost their voice. . . . There was something characteristic,
+typical, very familiar in his face, but what exactly, I could not
+remember nor make out.
+
+For a long time he sat silent, pondering. Probably because I had
+not shown appreciation of his remarks about bones and the mortuary,
+he thought that I was ill-humoured and displeased at his presence.
+Pulling a sausage out of his pocket, he turned it about before his
+eyes and said irresolutely:
+
+"Excuse my troubling you, . . . have you a knife?"
+
+I gave him a knife.
+
+"The sausage is disgusting," he said, frowning and cutting himself
+off a little bit. "In the shop here they sell you rubbish and fleece
+you horribly. . . . I would offer you a piece, but you would scarcely
+care to consume it. Will you have some?"
+
+In his language, too, there was something typical that had a very
+great deal in common with what was characteristic in his face, but
+what it was exactly I still could not decide. To inspire confidence
+and to show that I was not ill-humoured, I took some of the proffered
+sausage. It certainly was horrible; one needed the teeth of a good
+house-dog to deal with it. As we worked our jaws we got into
+conversation; we began complaining to each other of the lengthiness
+of the service.
+
+"The rule here approaches that of Mount Athos," I said; "but at
+Athos the night services last ten hours, and on great feast-days
+--fourteen! You should go there for prayers!"
+
+"Yes," answered my companion, and he wagged his head, "I have been
+here for three weeks. And you know, every day services, every day
+services. On ordinary days at midnight they ring for matins, at
+five o'clock for early mass, at nine o'clock for late mass. Sleep
+is utterly out of the question. In the daytime there are hymns of
+praise, special prayers, vespers. . . . And when I was preparing
+for the sacrament I was simply dropping from exhaustion." He sighed
+and went on: "And it's awkward not to go to church. . . . The monks
+give one a room, feed one, and, you know, one is ashamed not to go.
+One wouldn't mind standing it for a day or two, perhaps, but three
+weeks is too much--much too much! Are you here for long?"
+
+"I am going to-morrow evening."
+
+"But I am staying another fortnight."
+
+"But I thought it was not the rule to stay for so long here?" I
+said.
+
+"Yes, that's true: if anyone stays too long, sponging on the monks,
+he is asked to go. Judge for yourself, if the proletariat were
+allowed to stay on here as long as they liked there would never be
+a room vacant, and they would eat up the whole monastery. That's
+true. But the monks make an exception for me, and I hope they won't
+turn me out for some time. You know I am a convert."
+
+"You mean?"
+
+"I am a Jew baptized. . . . Only lately I have embraced orthodoxy."
+
+Now I understood what I had before been utterly unable to understand
+from his face: his thick lips, and his way of twitching up the right
+corner of his mouth and his right eyebrow, when he was talking, and
+that peculiar oily brilliance of his eyes which is only found in
+Jews. I understood, too, his phraseology. . . . From further
+conversation I learned that his name was Alexandr Ivanitch, and had
+in the past been Isaac, that he was a native of the Mogilev province,
+and that he had come to the Holy Mountains from Novotcherkassk,
+where he had adopted the orthodox faith.
+
+Having finished his sausage, Alexandr Ivanitch got up, and, raising
+his right eyebrow, said his prayer before the ikon. The eyebrow
+remained up when he sat down again on the little sofa and began
+giving me a brief account of his long biography.
+
+"From early childhood I cherished a love for learning," he began
+in a tone which suggested he was not speaking of himself, but of
+some great man of the past. "My parents were poor Hebrews; they
+exist by buying and selling in a small way; they live like beggars,
+you know, in filth. In fact, all the people there are poor and
+superstitious; they don't like education, because education, very
+naturally, turns a man away from religion. . . . They are fearful
+fanatics. . . . Nothing would induce my parents to let me be educated,
+and they wanted me to take to trade, too, and to know nothing but
+the Talmud. . . . But you will agree, it is not everyone who can
+spend his whole life struggling for a crust of bread, wallowing in
+filth, and mumbling the Talmud. At times officers and country
+gentlemen would put up at papa's inn, and they used to talk a great
+deal of things which in those days I had never dreamed of; and, of
+course, it was alluring and moved me to envy. I used to cry and
+entreat them to send me to school, but they taught me to read Hebrew
+and nothing more. Once I found a Russian newspaper, and took it
+home with me to make a kite of it. I was beaten for it, though I
+couldn't read Russian. Of course, fanaticism is inevitable, for
+every people instinctively strives to preserve its nationality, but
+I did not know that then and was very indignant. . . ."
+
+Having made such an intellectual observation, Isaac, as he had been,
+raised his right eyebrow higher than ever in his satisfaction and
+looked at me, as it were, sideways, like a cock at a grain of corn,
+with an air as though he would say: "Now at last you see for certain
+that I am an intellectual man, don't you?" After saying something
+more about fanaticism and his irresistible yearning for enlightenment,
+he went on:
+
+"What could I do? I ran away to Smolensk. And there I had a cousin
+who relined saucepans and made tins. Of course, I was glad to work
+under him, as I had nothing to live upon; I was barefoot and in
+rags. . . . I thought I could work by day and study at night and
+on Saturdays. And so I did, but the police found out I had no
+passport and sent me back by stages to my father. . . ."
+
+Alexandr Ivanitch shrugged one shoulder and sighed.
+
+"What was one to do?" he went on, and the more vividly the past
+rose up before his mind, the more marked his Jewish accent became.
+"My parents punished me and handed me over to my grandfather, a
+fanatical old Jew, to be reformed. But I went off at night to Shklov.
+And when my uncle tried to catch me in Shklov, I went off to Mogilev;
+there I stayed two days and then I went off to Starodub with a
+comrade."
+
+Later on he mentioned in his story Gonel, Kiev, Byelaya, Tserkov,
+Uman, Balt, Bendery and at last reached Odessa.
+
+"In Odessa I wandered about for a whole week, out of work and hungry,
+till I was taken in by some Jews who went about the town buying
+second-hand clothes. I knew how to read and write by then, and had
+done arithmetic up to fractions, and I wanted to go to study
+somewhere, but I had not the means. What was I to do? For six months
+I went about Odessa buying old clothes, but the Jews paid me no
+wages, the rascals. I resented it and left them. Then I went by
+steamer to Perekop."
+
+"What for?"
+
+"Oh, nothing. A Greek promised me a job there. In short, till I was
+sixteen I wandered about like that with no definite work and no
+roots till I got to Poltava. There a student, a Jew, found out that
+I wanted to study, and gave me a letter to the Harkov students. Of
+course, I went to Harkov. The students consulted together and began
+to prepare me for the technical school. And, you know, I must say
+the students that I met there were such that I shall never forget
+them to the day of my death. To say nothing of their giving me food
+and lodging, they set me on the right path, they made me think,
+showed me the object of life. Among them were intellectual remarkable
+people who by now are celebrated. For instance, you have heard of
+Grumaher, haven't you?"
+
+"No, I haven't."
+
+"You haven't! He wrote very clever articles in the _Harkov Gazette_,
+and was preparing to be a professor. Well, I read a great deal and
+attended the student's societies, where you hear nothing that is
+commonplace. I was working up for six months, but as one has to
+have been through the whole high-school course of mathematics to
+enter the technical school, Grumaher advised me to try for the
+veterinary institute, where they admit high-school boys from the
+sixth form. Of course, I began working for it. I did not want to
+be a veterinary surgeon but they told me that after finishing the
+course at the veterinary institute I should be admitted to the
+faculty of medicine without examination. I learnt all Kühner; I
+could read Cornelius Nepos, _à livre ouvert_; and in Greek I read
+through almost all Curtius. But, you know, one thing and another,
+. . . the students leaving and the uncertainty of my position, and
+then I heard that my mamma had come and was looking for me all over
+Harkov. Then I went away. What was I to do? But luckily I learned
+that there was a school of mines here on the Donets line. Why should
+I not enter that? You know the school of mines qualifies one as a
+mining foreman--a splendid berth. I know of mines where the foremen
+get a salary of fifteen hundred a year. Capital. . . . I entered
+it. . . ."
+
+With an expression of reverent awe on his face Alexandr Ivanitch
+enumerated some two dozen abstruse sciences in which instruction
+was given at the school of mines; he described the school itself,
+the construction of the shafts, and the condition of the miners. . . .
+Then he told me a terrible story which sounded like an invention,
+though I could not help believing it, for his tone in telling it
+was too genuine and the expression of horror on his Semitic face
+was too evidently sincere.
+
+"While I was doing the practical work, I had such an accident one
+day!" he said, raising both eyebrows. "I was at a mine here in the
+Donets district. You have seen, I dare say, how people are let down
+into the mine. You remember when they start the horse and set the
+gates moving one bucket on the pulley goes down into the mine, while
+the other comes up; when the first begins to come up, then the
+second goes down--exactly like a well with two pails. Well, one
+day I got into the bucket, began going down, and can you fancy, all
+at once I heard, Trrr! The chain had broken and I flew to the devil
+together with the bucket and the broken bit of chain. . . . I fell
+from a height of twenty feet, flat on my chest and stomach, while
+the bucket, being heavier, reached the bottom before me, and I hit
+this shoulder here against its edge. I lay, you know, stunned. I
+thought I was killed, and all at once I saw a fresh calamity: the
+other bucket, which was going up, having lost the counter-balancing
+weight, was coming down with a crash straight upon me. . . . What
+was I to do? Seeing the position, I squeezed closer to the wall,
+crouching and waiting for the bucket to come full crush next minute
+on my head. I thought of papa and mamma and Mogilev and Grumaher.
+. . . I prayed. . . . But happily . . . it frightens me even to
+think of it. . . ."
+
+Alexandr Ivanitch gave a constrained smile and rubbed his forehead
+with his hand.
+
+"But happily it fell beside me and only caught this side a little.
+. . . It tore off coat, shirt and skin, you know, from this side.
+. . . The force of it was terrific. I was unconscious after it.
+They got me out and sent me to the hospital. I was there four months,
+and the doctors there said I should go into consumption. I always
+have a cough now and a pain in my chest. And my psychic condition
+is terrible. . . . When I am alone in a room I feel overcome with
+terror. Of course, with my health in that state, to be a mining
+foreman is out of the question. I had to give up the school of
+mines. . . ."
+
+"And what are you doing now?" I asked.
+
+"I have passed my examination as a village schoolmaster. Now I
+belong to the orthodox church, and I have a right to be a teacher.
+In Novotcherkassk, where I was baptized, they took a great interest
+in me and promised me a place in a church parish school. I am going
+there in a fortnight, and shall ask again."
+
+Alexandr Ivanitch took off his overcoat and remained in a shirt
+with an embroidered Russian collar and a worsted belt.
+
+"It is time for bed," he said, folding his overcoat for a pillow,
+and yawning. "Till lately, you know, I had no knowledge of God at
+all. I was an atheist. When I was lying in the hospital I thought
+of religion, and began reflecting on that subject. In my opinion,
+there is only one religion possible for a thinking man, and that
+is the Christian religion. If you don't believe in Christ, then
+there is nothing else to believe in, . . . is there? Judaism has
+outlived its day, and is preserved only owing to the peculiarities
+of the Jewish race. When civilization reaches the Jews there will
+not be a trace of Judaism left. All young Jews are atheists now,
+observe. The New Testament is the natural continuation of the Old,
+isn't it?"
+
+I began trying to find out the reasons which had led him to take
+so grave and bold a step as the change of religion, but he kept
+repeating the same, "The New Testament is the natural continuation
+of the Old"--a formula obviously not his own, but acquired--
+which did not explain the question in the least. In spite of my
+efforts and artifices, the reasons remained obscure. If one could
+believe that he had embraced Orthodoxy from conviction, as he said
+he had done, what was the nature and foundation of this conviction
+it was impossible to grasp from his words. It was equally impossible
+to assume that he had changed his religion from interested motives:
+his cheap shabby clothes, his going on living at the expense of the
+convent, and the uncertainty of his future, did not look like
+interested motives. There was nothing for it but to accept the idea
+that my companion had been impelled to change his religion by the
+same restless spirit which had flung him like a chip of wood from
+town to town, and which he, using the generally accepted formula,
+called the craving for enlightenment.
+
+Before going to bed I went into the corridor to get a drink of
+water. When I came back my companion was standing in the middle of
+the room, and he looked at me with a scared expression. His face
+looked a greyish white, and there were drops of perspiration on his
+forehead.
+
+"My nerves are in an awful state," he muttered with a sickly smile,"
+awful! It's acute psychological disturbance. But that's of no
+consequence."
+
+And he began reasoning again that the New Testament was a natural
+continuation of the Old, that Judaism has outlived its day. . . .
+Picking out his phrases, he seemed to be trying to put together the
+forces of his conviction and to smother with them the uneasiness
+of his soul, and to prove to himself that in giving up the religion
+of his fathers he had done nothing dreadful or peculiar, but had
+acted as a thinking man free from prejudice, and that therefore he
+could boldly remain in a room all alone with his conscience. He was
+trying to convince himself, and with his eyes besought my assistance.
+
+Meanwhile a big clumsy wick had burned up on our tallow candle. It
+was by now getting light. At the gloomy little window, which was
+turning blue, we could distinctly see both banks of the Donets River
+and the oak copse beyond the river. It was time to sleep.
+
+"It will be very interesting here to-morrow," said my companion
+when I put out the candle and went to bed. "After early mass, the
+procession will go in boats from the Monastery to the Hermitage."
+
+Raising his right eyebrow and putting his head on one side, he
+prayed before the ikons, and, without undressing, lay down on his
+little sofa.
+
+"Yes," he said, turning over on the other side.
+
+"Why yes?" I asked.
+
+"When I accepted orthodoxy in Novotcherkassk my mother was looking
+for me in Rostov. She felt that I meant to change my religion," he
+sighed, and went on: "It is six years since I was there in the
+province of Mogilev. My sister must be married by now."
+
+After a short silence, seeing that I was still awake, he began
+talking quietly of how they soon, thank God, would give him a job,
+and that at last he would have a home of his own, a settled position,
+his daily bread secure. . . . And I was thinking that this man would
+never have a home of his own, nor a settled position, nor his daily
+bread secure. He dreamed aloud of a village school as of the Promised
+Land; like the majority of people, he had a prejudice against a
+wandering life, and regarded it as something exceptional, abnormal
+and accidental, like an illness, and was looking for salvation in
+ordinary workaday life. The tone of his voice betrayed that he was
+conscious of his abnormal position and regretted it. He seemed as
+it were apologizing and justifying himself.
+
+Not more than a yard from me lay a homeless wanderer; in the rooms
+of the hostels and by the carts in the courtyard among the pilgrims
+some hundreds of such homeless wanderers were waiting for the
+morning, and further away, if one could picture to oneself the whole
+of Russia, a vast multitude of such uprooted creatures was pacing
+at that moment along highroads and side-tracks, seeking something
+better, or were waiting for the dawn, asleep in wayside inns and
+little taverns, or on the grass under the open sky. . . . As I fell
+asleep I imagined how amazed and perhaps even overjoyed all these
+people would have been if reasoning and words could be found to
+prove to them that their life was as little in need of justification
+as any other. In my sleep I heard a bell ring outside as plaintively
+as though shedding bitter tears, and the lay brother calling out
+several times:
+
+"Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy upon us! Come to mass!"
+
+When I woke up my companion was not in the room. It was sunny and
+there was a murmur of the crowds through the window. Going out, I
+learned that mass was over and that the procession had set off for
+the Hermitage some time before. The people were wandering in crowds
+upon the river bank and, feeling at liberty, did not know what to
+do with themselves: they could not eat or drink, as the late mass
+was not yet over at the Hermitage; the Monastery shops where pilgrims
+are so fond of crowding and asking prices were still shut. In spite
+of their exhaustion, many of them from sheer boredom were trudging
+to the Hermitage. The path from the Monastery to the Hermitage,
+towards which I directed my steps, twined like a snake along the
+high steep bank, going up and down and threading in and out among
+the oaks and pines. Below, the Donets gleamed, reflecting the sun;
+above, the rugged chalk cliff stood up white with bright green on
+the top from the young foliage of oaks and pines, which, hanging
+one above another, managed somehow to grow on the vertical cliff
+without falling. The pilgrims trailed along the path in single file,
+one behind another. The majority of them were Little Russians from
+the neighbouring districts, but there were many from a distance,
+too, who had come on foot from the provinces of Kursk and Orel; in
+the long string of varied colours there were Greek settlers, too,
+from Mariupol, strongly built, sedate and friendly people, utterly
+unlike their weakly and degenerate compatriots who fill our southern
+seaside towns. There were men from the Donets, too, with red stripes
+on their breeches, and emigrants from the Tavritchesky province.
+There were a good many pilgrims of a nondescript class, like my
+Alexandr Ivanitch; what sort of people they were and where they
+came from it was impossible to tell from their faces, from their
+clothes, or from their speech. The path ended at the little
+landing-stage, from which a narrow road went to the left to the
+Hermitage, cutting its way through the mountain. At the landing-stage
+stood two heavy big boats of a forbidding aspect, like the New
+Zealand pirogues which one may see in the works of Jules Verne. One
+boat with rugs on the seats was destined for the clergy and the
+singers, the other without rugs for the public. When the procession
+was returning I found myself among the elect who had succeeded in
+squeezing themselves into the second. There were so many of the
+elect that the boat scarcely moved, and one had to stand all the
+way without stirring and to be careful that one's hat was not
+crushed. The route was lovely. Both banks--one high, steep and
+white, with overhanging pines and oaks, with the crowds hurrying
+back along the path, and the other shelving, with green meadows and
+an oak copse bathed in sunshine--looked as happy and rapturous
+as though the May morning owed its charm only to them. The reflection
+of the sun in the rapidly flowing Donets quivered and raced away
+in all directions, and its long rays played on the chasubles, on
+the banners and on the drops splashed up by the oars. The singing
+of the Easter hymns, the ringing of the bells, the splash of the
+oars in the water, the calls of the birds, all mingled in the air
+into something tender and harmonious. The boat with the priests and
+the banners led the way; at its helm the black figure of a lay
+brother stood motionless as a statue.
+
+When the procession was getting near the Monastery, I noticed
+Alexandr Ivanitch among the elect. He was standing in front of them
+all, and, his mouth wide open with pleasure and his right eyebrow
+cocked up, was gazing at the procession. His face was beaming;
+probably at such moments, when there were so many people round him
+and it was so bright, he was satisfied with himself, his new religion,
+and his conscience.
+
+When a little later we were sitting in our room, drinking tea, he
+still beamed with satisfaction; his face showed that he was satisfied
+both with the tea and with me, that he fully appreciated my being
+an intellectual, but that he would know how to play his part with
+credit if any intellectual topic turned up. . . .
+
+"Tell me, what psychology ought I to read?" he began an intellectual
+conversation, wrinkling up his nose.
+
+"Why, what do you want it for?"
+
+"One cannot be a teacher without a knowledge of psychology. Before
+teaching a boy I ought to understand his soul."
+
+I told him that psychology alone would not be enough to make one
+understand a boy's soul, and moreover psychology for a teacher who
+had not yet mastered the technical methods of instruction in reading,
+writing, and arithmetic would be a luxury as superfluous as the
+higher mathematics. He readily agreed with me, and began describing
+how hard and responsible was the task of a teacher, how hard it was
+to eradicate in the boy the habitual tendency to evil and superstition,
+to make him think honestly and independently, to instil into him
+true religion, the ideas of personal dignity, of freedom, and so
+on. In answer to this I said something to him. He agreed again. He
+agreed very readily, in fact. Obviously his brain had not a very
+firm grasp of all these "intellectual subjects."
+
+Up to the time of my departure we strolled together about the
+Monastery, whiling away the long hot day. He never left my side a
+minute; whether he had taken a fancy to me or was afraid of solitude,
+God only knows! I remember we sat together under a clump of yellow
+acacia in one of the little gardens that are scattered on the
+mountain side.
+
+"I am leaving here in a fortnight," he said; "it is high time."
+
+"Are you going on foot?"
+
+"From here to Slavyansk I shall walk, then by railway to Nikitovka;
+from Nikitovka the Donets line branches off, and along that branch
+line I shall walk as far as Hatsepetovka, and there a railway guard,
+I know, will help me on my way."
+
+I thought of the bare, deserted steppe between Nikitovka and
+Hatsepetovka, and pictured to myself Alexandr Ivanitch striding
+along it, with his doubts, his homesickness, and his fear of solitude
+. . . . He read boredom in my face, and sighed.
+
+"And my sister must be married by now," he said, thinking aloud,
+and at once, to shake off melancholy thoughts, pointed to the top
+of the rock and said:
+
+"From that mountain one can see Izyum."
+
+As we were walking up the mountain he had a little misfortune. I
+suppose he stumbled, for he slit his cotton trousers and tore the
+sole of his shoe.
+
+"Tss!" he said, frowning as he took off a shoe and exposed a bare
+foot without a stocking. "How unpleasant! . . . That's a complication,
+you know, which . . . Yes!"
+
+Turning the shoe over and over before his eyes, as though unable
+to believe that the sole was ruined for ever, he spent a long time
+frowning, sighing, and clicking with his tongue.
+
+I had in my trunk a pair of boots, old but fashionable, with pointed
+toes and laces. I had brought them with me in case of need, and
+only wore them in wet weather. When we got back to our room I made
+up a phrase as diplomatic as I could and offered him these boots.
+He accepted them and said with dignity:
+
+"I should thank you, but I know that you consider thanks a convention."
+
+He was pleased as a child with the pointed toes and the laces, and
+even changed his plans.
+
+"Now I shall go to Novotcherkassk in a week, and not in a fortnight,"
+he said, thinking aloud. "In shoes like these I shall not be ashamed
+to show myself to my godfather. I was not going away from here just
+because I hadn't any decent clothes. . . ."
+
+When the coachman was carrying out my trunk, a lay brother with a
+good ironical face came in to sweep out the room. Alexandr Ivanitch
+seemed flustered and embarrassed and asked him timidly:
+
+"Am I to stay here or go somewhere else?"
+
+He could not make up his mind to occupy a whole room to himself,
+and evidently by now was feeling ashamed of living at the expense
+of the Monastery. He was very reluctant to part from me; to put off
+being lonely as long as possible, he asked leave to see me on my
+way.
+
+The road from the Monastery, which had been excavated at the cost
+of no little labour in the chalk mountain, moved upwards, going
+almost like a spiral round the mountain, over roots and under sullen
+overhanging pines. . . .
+
+The Donets was the first to vanish from our sight, after it the
+Monastery yard with its thousands of people, and then the green
+roofs. . . . Since I was mounting upwards everything seemed vanishing
+into a pit. The cross on the church, burnished by the rays of the
+setting sun, gleamed brightly in the abyss and vanished. Nothing
+was left but the oaks, the pines, and the white road. But then our
+carriage came out on a level country, and that was all left below
+and behind us. Alexandr Ivanitch jumped out and, smiling mournfully,
+glanced at me for the last time with his childish eyes, and vanished
+from me for ever. . . .
+
+The impressions of the Holy Mountains had already become memories,
+and I saw something new: the level plain, the whitish-brown distance,
+the way side copse, and beyond it a windmill which stood with out
+moving, and seemed bored at not being allowed to wave its sails
+because it was a holiday.
+
+
+THE STEPPE
+
+_The Story of a Journey_
+
+I
+
+EARLY one morning in July a shabby covered chaise, one of those
+antediluvian chaises without springs in which no one travels in
+Russia nowadays, except merchant's clerks, dealers and the less
+well-to-do among priests, drove out of N., the principal town of
+the province of Z., and rumbled noisily along the posting-track.
+It rattled and creaked at every movement; the pail, hanging on
+behind, chimed in gruffly, and from these sounds alone and from the
+wretched rags of leather hanging loose about its peeling body one
+could judge of its decrepit age and readiness to drop to pieces.
+
+Two of the inhabitants of N. were sitting in the chaise; they were
+a merchant of N. called Ivan Ivanitch Kuzmitchov, a man with a
+shaven face wearing glasses and a straw hat, more like a government
+clerk than a merchant, and Father Christopher Sireysky, the priest
+of the Church of St. Nikolay at N., a little old man with long hair,
+in a grey canvas cassock, a wide-brimmed top-hat and a coloured
+embroidered girdle. The former was absorbed in thought, and kept
+tossing his head to shake off drowsiness; in his countenance an
+habitual business-like reserve was struggling with the genial
+expression of a man who has just said good-bye to his relatives and
+has had a good drink at parting. The latter gazed with moist eyes
+wonderingly at God's world, and his smile was so broad that it
+seemed to embrace even the brim of his hat; his face was red and
+looked frozen. Both of them, Father Christopher as well as Kuzmitchov,
+were going to sell wool. At parting with their families they had
+just eaten heartily of pastry puffs and cream, and although it was
+so early in the morning had had a glass or two. . . . Both were in
+the best of humours.
+
+Apart from the two persons described above and the coachman Deniska,
+who lashed the pair of frisky bay horses, there was another figure
+in the chaise--a boy of nine with a sunburnt face, wet with tears.
+This was Yegorushka, Kuzmitchov's nephew. With the sanction of his
+uncle and the blessing of Father Christopher, he was now on his way
+to go to school. His mother, Olga Ivanovna, the widow of a collegiate
+secretary, and Kuzmitchov's sister, who was fond of educated people
+and refined society, had entreated her brother to take Yegorushka
+with him when he went to sell wool and to put him to school; and
+now the boy was sitting on the box beside the coachman Deniska,
+holding on to his elbow to keep from falling off, and dancing up
+and down like a kettle on the hob, with no notion where he was going
+or what he was going for. The rapid motion through the air blew out
+his red shirt like a balloon on his back and made his new hat with
+a peacock's feather in it, like a coachman's, keep slipping on to
+the back of his head. He felt himself an intensely unfortunate
+person, and had an inclination to cry.
+
+When the chaise drove past the prison, Yegorushka glanced at the
+sentinels pacing slowly by the high white walls, at the little
+barred windows, at the cross shining on the roof, and remembered
+how the week before, on the day of the Holy Mother of Kazan, he had
+been with his mother to the prison church for the Dedication Feast,
+and how before that, at Easter, he had gone to the prison with
+Deniska and Ludmila the cook, and had taken the prisoners Easter
+bread, eggs, cakes and roast beef. The prisoners had thanked them
+and made the sign of the cross, and one of them had given Yegorushka
+a pewter buckle of his own making.
+
+The boy gazed at the familiar places, while the hateful chaise flew
+by and left them all behind. After the prison he caught glimpses
+of black grimy foundries, followed by the snug green cemetery
+surrounded by a wall of cobblestones; white crosses and tombstones,
+nestling among green cherry-trees and looking in the distance like
+patches of white, peeped out gaily from behind the wall. Yegorushka
+remembered that when the cherries were in blossom those white patches
+melted with the flowers into a sea of white; and that when the
+cherries were ripe the white tombstones and crosses were dotted
+with splashes of red like bloodstains. Under the cherry trees in
+the cemetery Yegorushka's father and granny, Zinaida Danilovna, lay
+sleeping day and night. When Granny had died she had been put in a
+long narrow coffin and two pennies had been put upon her eyes, which
+would not keep shut. Up to the time of her death she had been brisk,
+and used to bring soft rolls covered with poppy seeds from the
+market. Now she did nothing but sleep and sleep. . . .
+
+Beyond the cemetery came the smoking brickyards. From under the
+long roofs of reeds that looked as though pressed flat to the ground,
+a thick black smoke rose in great clouds and floated lazily upwards.
+The sky was murky above the brickyards and the cemetery, and great
+shadows from the clouds of smoke crept over the fields and across
+the roads. Men and horses covered with red dust were moving about
+in the smoke near the roofs.
+
+The town ended with the brickyards and the open country began.
+Yegorushka looked at the town for the last time, pressed his face
+against Deniska's elbow, and wept bitterly.
+
+"Come, not done howling yet, cry-baby!" cried Kuzmitchov. "You are
+blubbering again, little milksop! If you don't want to go, stay
+behind; no one is taking you by force!
+
+"Never mind, never mind, Yegor boy, never mind," Father Christopher
+muttered rapidly--"never mind, my boy. . . . Call upon God. . . .
+You are not going for your harm, but for your good. Learning is
+light, as the saying is, and ignorance is darkness. . . . That is
+so, truly."
+
+"Do you want to go back?" asked Kuzmitchov.
+
+"Yes, . . . yes, . . ." answered Yegorushka, sobbing.
+
+"Well, you'd better go back then. Anyway, you are going for nothing;
+it's a day's journey for a spoonful of porridge."
+
+"Never mind, never mind, my boy," Father Christopher went on. "Call
+upon God. . . . Lomonosov set off with the fishermen in the same
+way, and he became a man famous all over Europe. Learning in
+conjunction with faith brings forth fruit pleasing to God. What are
+the words of the prayer? For the glory of our Maker, for the comfort
+of our parents, for the benefit of our Church and our country. . . .
+Yes, indeed!"
+
+"The benefit is not the same in all cases," said Kuzmitchov, lighting
+a cheap cigar; "some will study twenty years and get no sense from
+it."
+
+"That does happen."
+
+"Learning is a benefit to some, but others only muddle their brains.
+My sister is a woman who does not understand; she is set upon
+refinement, and wants to turn Yegorka into a learned man, and she
+does not understand that with my business I could settle Yegorka
+happily for the rest of his life. I tell you this, that if everyone
+were to go in for being learned and refined there would be no one
+to sow the corn and do the trading; they would all die of hunger."
+
+"And if all go in for trading and sowing corn there will be no one
+to acquire learning."
+
+And considering that each of them had said something weighty and
+convincing, Kuzmitchov and Father Christopher both looked serious
+and cleared their throats simultaneously.
+
+Deniska, who had been listening to their conversation without
+understanding a word of it, shook his head and, rising in his seat,
+lashed at both the bays. A silence followed.
+
+Meanwhile a wide boundless plain encircled by a chain of low hills
+lay stretched before the travellers' eyes. Huddling together and
+peeping out from behind one another, these hills melted together
+into rising ground, which stretched right to the very horizon and
+disappeared into the lilac distance; one drives on and on and cannot
+discern where it begins or where it ends. . . . The sun had already
+peeped out from beyond the town behind them, and quietly, without
+fuss, set to its accustomed task. At first in the distance before
+them a broad, bright, yellow streak of light crept over the ground
+where the earth met the sky, near the little barrows and the
+windmills, which in the distance looked like tiny men waving their
+arms. A minute later a similar streak gleamed a little nearer, crept
+to the right and embraced the hills. Something warm touched
+Yegorushka's spine; the streak of light, stealing up from behind,
+darted between the chaise and the horses, moved to meet the other
+streak, and soon the whole wide steppe flung off the twilight of
+early morning, and was smiling and sparkling with dew.
+
+The cut rye, the coarse steppe grass, the milkwort, the wild hemp,
+all withered from the sultry heat, turned brown and half dead, now
+washed by the dew and caressed by the sun, revived, to fade again.
+Arctic petrels flew across the road with joyful cries; marmots
+called to one another in the grass. Somewhere, far away to the left,
+lapwings uttered their plaintive notes. A covey of partridges,
+scared by the chaise, fluttered up and with their soft "trrrr!"
+flew off to the hills. In the grass crickets, locusts and grasshoppers
+kept up their churring, monotonous music.
+
+But a little time passed, the dew evaporated, the air grew stagnant,
+and the disillusioned steppe began to wear its jaded July aspect.
+The grass drooped, everything living was hushed. The sun-baked
+hills, brownish-green and lilac in the distance, with their quiet
+shadowy tones, the plain with the misty distance and, arched above
+them, the sky, which seems terribly deep and transparent in the
+steppes, where there are no woods or high hills, seemed now endless,
+petrified with dreariness. . . .
+
+How stifling and oppressive it was! The chaise raced along, while
+Yegorushka saw always the same--the sky, the plain, the low hills
+. . . . The music in the grass was hushed, the petrels had flown away,
+the partridges were out of sight, rooks hovered idly over the
+withered grass; they were all alike and made the steppe even more
+monotonous.
+
+A hawk flew just above the ground, with an even sweep of its wings,
+suddenly halted in the air as though pondering on the dreariness
+of life, then fluttered its wings and flew like an arrow over the
+steppe, and there was no telling why it flew off and what it wanted.
+In the distance a windmill waved its sails. . . .
+
+Now and then a glimpse of a white potsherd or a heap of stones broke
+the monotony; a grey stone stood out for an instant or a parched
+willow with a blue crow on its top branch; a marmot would run across
+the road and--again there flitted before the eyes only the high
+grass, the low hills, the rooks. . . .
+
+But at last, thank God, a waggon loaded with sheaves came to meet
+them; a peasant wench was lying on the very top. Sleepy, exhausted
+by the heat, she lifted her head and looked at the travellers.
+Deniska gaped, looking at her; the horses stretched out their noses
+towards the sheaves; the chaise, squeaking, kissed the waggon, and
+the pointed ears passed over Father Christopher's hat like a brush.
+
+"You are driving over folks, fatty!" cried Deniska. "What a swollen
+lump of a face, as though a bumble-bee had stung it!"
+
+The girl smiled drowsily, and moving her lips lay down again; then
+a solitary poplar came into sight on the low hill. Someone had
+planted it, and God only knows why it was there. It was hard to
+tear the eyes away from its graceful figure and green drapery. Was
+that lovely creature happy? Sultry heat in summer, in winter frost
+and snowstorms, terrible nights in autumn when nothing is to be
+seen but darkness and nothing is to be heard but the senseless angry
+howling wind, and, worst of all, alone, alone for the whole of life
+. . . . Beyond the poplar stretches of wheat extended like a bright
+yellow carpet from the road to the top of the hills. On the hills
+the corn was already cut and laid up in sheaves, while at the bottom
+they were still cutting. . . . Six mowers were standing in a row
+swinging their scythes, and the scythes gleamed gaily and uttered
+in unison together "Vzhee, vzhee!" From the movements of the peasant
+women binding the sheaves, from the faces of the mowers, from the
+glitter of the scythes, it could be seen that the sultry heat was
+baking and stifling. A black dog with its tongue hanging out ran
+from the mowers to meet the chaise, probably with the intention of
+barking, but stopped halfway and stared indifferently at Deniska,
+who shook his whip at him; it was too hot to bark! One peasant woman
+got up and, putting both hands to her aching back, followed
+Yegorushka's red shirt with her eyes. Whether it was that the colour
+pleased her or that he reminded her of her children, she stood a
+long time motionless staring after him.
+
+But now the wheat, too, had flashed by; again the parched plain,
+the sunburnt hills, the sultry sky stretched before them; again a
+hawk hovered over the earth. In the distance, as before, a windmill
+whirled its sails, and still it looked like a little man waving his
+arms. It was wearisome to watch, and it seemed as though one would
+never reach it, as though it were running away from the chaise.
+
+Father Christopher and Kuzmitchov were silent. Deniska lashed the
+horses and kept shouting to them, while Yegorushka had left off
+crying, and gazed about him listlessly. The heat and the tedium of
+the steppes overpowered him. He felt as though he had been travelling
+and jolting up and down for a very long time, that the sun had been
+baking his back a long time. Before they had gone eight miles he
+began to feel "It must be time to rest." The geniality gradually
+faded out of his uncle's face and nothing else was left but the air
+of business reserve; and to a gaunt shaven face, especially when
+it is adorned with spectacles and the nose and temples are covered
+with dust, this reserve gives a relentless, inquisitorial appearance.
+Father Christopher never left off gazing with wonder at God's world,
+and smiling. Without speaking, he brooded over something pleasant
+and nice, and a kindly, genial smile remained imprinted on his face.
+It seemed as though some nice and pleasant thought were imprinted
+on his brain by the heat.
+
+"Well, Deniska, shall we overtake the waggons to-day?" asked
+Kuzmitchov.
+
+Deniska looked at the sky, rose in his seat, lashed at his horses
+and then answered:
+
+"By nightfall, please God, we shall overtake them."
+
+There was a sound of dogs barking. Half a dozen steppe sheep-dogs,
+suddenly leaping out as though from ambush, with ferocious howling
+barks, flew to meet the chaise. All of them, extraordinarily furious,
+surrounded the chaise, with their shaggy spider-like muzzles and
+their eyes red with anger, and jostling against one another in their
+anger, raised a hoarse howl. They were filled with passionate hatred
+of the horses, of the chaise, and of the human beings, and seemed
+ready to tear them into pieces. Deniska, who was fond of teasing
+and beating, was delighted at the chance of it, and with a malignant
+expression bent over and lashed at the sheep-dogs with his whip.
+The brutes growled more than ever, the horses flew on; and Yegorushka,
+who had difficulty in keeping his seat on the box, realized, looking
+at the dogs' eyes and teeth, that if he fell down they would instantly
+tear him to bits; but he felt no fear and looked at them as malignantly
+as Deniska, and regretted that he had no whip in his hand.
+
+The chaise came upon a flock of sheep.
+
+"Stop!" cried Kuzmitchov. "Pull up! Woa!"
+
+Deniska threw his whole body backwards and pulled up the horses.
+
+"Come here!" Kuzmitchov shouted to the shepherd. "Call off the dogs,
+curse them!"
+
+The old shepherd, tattered and barefoot, wearing a fur cap, with a
+dirty sack round his loins and a long crook in his hand--a regular
+figure from the Old Testament--called off the dogs, and taking
+off his cap, went up to the chaise. Another similar Old Testament
+figure was standing motionless at the other end of the flock, staring
+without interest at the travellers.
+
+"Whose sheep are these?" asked Kuzmitchov.
+
+"Varlamov's," the old man answered in a loud voice.
+
+"Varlamov's," repeated the shepherd standing at the other end of
+the flock.
+
+"Did Varlamov come this way yesterday or not?"
+
+"He did not; his clerk came. . . ."
+
+"Drive on!"
+
+The chaise rolled on and the shepherds, with their angry dogs, were
+left behind. Yegorushka gazed listlessly at the lilac distance in
+front, and it began to seem as though the windmill, waving its
+sails, were getting nearer. It became bigger and bigger, grew quite
+large, and now he could distinguish clearly its two sails. One sail
+was old and patched, the other had only lately been made of new
+wood and glistened in the sun. The chaise drove straight on, while
+the windmill, for some reason, began retreating to the left. They
+drove on and on, and the windmill kept moving away to the left, and
+still did not disappear.
+
+"A fine windmill Boltva has put up for his son," observed Deniska.
+
+"And how is it we don't see his farm?"
+
+"It is that way, beyond the creek."
+
+Boltva's farm, too, soon came into sight, but yet the windmill did
+not retreat, did not drop behind; it still watched Yegorushka with
+its shining sail and waved. What a sorcerer!
+
+II
+
+Towards midday the chaise turned off the road to the right; it went
+on a little way at walking pace and then stopped. Yegorushka heard
+a soft, very caressing gurgle, and felt a different air breathe on
+his face with a cool velvety touch. Through a little pipe of hemlock
+stuck there by some unknown benefactor, water was running in a thin
+trickle from a low hill, put together by nature of huge monstrous
+stones. It fell to the ground, and limpid, sparkling gaily in the
+sun, and softly murmuring as though fancying itself a great tempestuous
+torrent, flowed swiftly away to the left. Not far from its source
+the little stream spread itself out into a pool; the burning sunbeams
+and the parched soil greedily drank it up and sucked away its
+strength; but a little further on it must have mingled with another
+rivulet, for a hundred paces away thick reeds showed green and
+luxuriant along its course, and three snipe flew up from them with
+a loud cry as the chaise drove by.
+
+The travellers got out to rest by the stream and feed the horses.
+Kuzmitchov, Father Christopher and Yegorushka sat down on a mat in
+the narrow strip of shade cast by the chaise and the unharnessed
+horses. The nice pleasant thought that the heat had imprinted in
+Father Christopher's brain craved expression after he had had a
+drink of water and eaten a hard-boiled egg. He bent a friendly look
+upon Yegorushka, munched, and began:
+
+"I studied too, my boy; from the earliest age God instilled into
+me good sense and understanding, so that while I was just such a
+lad as you I was beyond others, a comfort to my parents and preceptors
+by my good sense. Before I was fifteen I could speak and make verses
+in Latin, just as in Russian. I was the crosier-bearer to his
+Holiness Bishop Christopher. After mass one day, as I remember it
+was the patron saint's day of His Majesty Tsar Alexandr Pavlovitch
+of blessed memory, he unrobed at the altar, looked kindly at me and
+asked, 'Puer bone, quam appelaris?' And I answered, 'Christopherus
+sum;' and he said, 'Ergo connominati sumus'--that is, that we
+were namesakes. . . Then he asked in Latin, 'Whose son are you?'
+To which I answered, also in Latin, that I was the son of deacon
+Sireysky of the village of Lebedinskoe. Seeing my readiness and the
+clearness of my answers, his Holiness blessed me and said, 'Write
+to your father that I will not forget him, and that I will keep you
+in view.' The holy priests and fathers who were standing round the
+altar, hearing our discussion in Latin, were not a little surprised,
+and everyone expressed his pleasure in praise of me. Before I had
+moustaches, my boy, I could read Latin, Greek, and French; I knew
+philosophy, mathematics, secular history, and all the sciences. The
+Lord gave me a marvellous memory. Sometimes, if I read a thing once
+or twice, I knew it by heart. My preceptors and patrons were amazed,
+and so they expected I should make a learned man, a luminary of the
+Church. I did think of going to Kiev to continue my studies, but
+my parents did not approve. 'You'll be studying all your life,'
+said my father; 'when shall we see you finished?' Hearing such
+words, I gave up study and took a post. . . . Of course, I did not
+become a learned man, but then I did not disobey my parents; I was
+a comfort to them in their old age and gave them a creditable
+funeral. Obedience is more than fasting and prayer.
+
+"I suppose you have forgotten all your learning?" observed Kuzmitchov.
+
+"I should think so! Thank God, I have reached my eightieth year!
+Something of philosophy and rhetoric I do remember, but languages
+and mathematics I have quite forgotten."
+
+Father Christopher screwed up his eyes, thought a minute and said
+in an undertone:
+
+"What is a substance? A creature is a self-existing object, not
+requiring anything else for its completion."
+
+He shook his head and laughed with feeling.
+
+"Spiritual nourishment!" he said. "Of a truth matter nourishes the
+flesh and spiritual nourishment the soul!"
+
+"Learning is all very well," sighed Kuzmitchov, "but if we don't
+overtake Varlamov, learning won't do much for us."
+
+"A man isn't a needle--we shall find him. He must be going his
+rounds in these parts."
+
+Among the sedge were flying the three snipe they had seen before,
+and in their plaintive cries there was a note of alarm and vexation
+at having been driven away from the stream. The horses were steadily
+munching and snorting. Deniska walked about by them and, trying to
+appear indifferent to the cucumbers, pies, and eggs that the gentry
+were eating, he concentrated himself on the gadflies and horseflies
+that were fastening upon the horses' backs and bellies; he squashed
+his victims apathetically, emitting a peculiar, fiendishly triumphant,
+guttural sound, and when he missed them cleared his throat with an
+air of vexation and looked after every lucky one that escaped death.
+
+"Deniska, where are you? Come and eat," said Kuzmitchov, heaving a
+deep sigh, a sign that he had had enough.
+
+Deniska diffidently approached the mat and picked out five thick
+and yellow cucumbers (he did not venture to take the smaller and
+fresher ones), took two hard-boiled eggs that looked dark and were
+cracked, then irresolutely, as though afraid he might get a blow
+on his outstretched hand, touched a pie with his finger.
+
+"Take them, take them," Kuzmitchov urged him on.
+
+Deniska took the pies resolutely, and, moving some distance away,
+sat down on the grass with his back to the chaise. At once there
+was such a sound of loud munching that even the horses turned round
+to look suspiciously at Deniska.
+
+After his meal Kuzmitchov took a sack containing something out of
+the chaise and said to Yegorushka:
+
+"I am going to sleep, and you mind that no one takes the sack from
+under my head."
+
+Father Christopher took off his cassock, his girdle, and his full
+coat, and Yegorushka, looking at him, was dumb with astonishment.
+He had never imagined that priests wore trousers, and Father
+Christopher had on real canvas trousers thrust into high boots, and
+a short striped jacket. Looking at him, Yegorushka thought that in
+this costume, so unsuitable to his dignified position, he looked
+with his long hair and beard very much like Robinson Crusoe. After
+taking off their outer garments Kuzmitchov and Father Christopher
+lay down in the shade under the chaise, facing one another, and
+closed their eyes. Deniska, who had finished munching, stretched
+himself out on his back and also closed his eyes.
+
+"You look out that no one takes away the horses!" he said to
+Yegorushka, and at once fell asleep.
+
+Stillness reigned. There was no sound except the munching and
+snorting of the horses and the snoring of the sleepers; somewhere
+far away a lapwing wailed, and from time to time there sounded the
+shrill cries of the three snipe who had flown up to see whether
+their uninvited visitors had gone away; the rivulet babbled, lisping
+softly, but all these sounds did not break the stillness, did not
+stir the stagnation, but, on the contrary, lulled all nature to
+slumber.
+
+Yegorushka, gasping with the heat, which was particularly oppressive
+after a meal, ran to the sedge and from there surveyed the country.
+He saw exactly the same as he had in the morning: the plain, the
+low hills, the sky, the lilac distance; only the hills stood nearer;
+and he could not see the windmill, which had been left far behind.
+From behind the rocky hill from which the stream flowed rose another,
+smoother and broader; a little hamlet of five or six homesteads
+clung to it. No people, no trees, no shade were to be seen about
+the huts; it looked as though the hamlet had expired in the burning
+air and was dried up. To while away the time Yegorushka caught a
+grasshopper in the grass, held it in his closed hand to his ear,
+and spent a long time listening to the creature playing on its
+instrument. When he was weary of its music he ran after a flock of
+yellow butterflies who were flying towards the sedge on the
+watercourse, and found himself again beside the chaise, without
+noticing how he came there. His uncle and Father Christopher were
+sound asleep; their sleep would be sure to last two or three hours
+till the horses had rested. . . . How was he to get through that
+long time, and where was he to get away from the heat? A hard
+problem. . . . Mechanically Yegorushka put his lips to the trickle
+that ran from the waterpipe; there was a chilliness in his mouth
+and there was the smell of hemlock. He drank at first eagerly, then
+went on with effort till the sharp cold had run from his mouth all
+over his body and the water was spilt on his shirt. Then he went
+up to the chaise and began looking at the sleeping figures. His
+uncle's face wore, as before, an expression of business-like reserve.
+Fanatically devoted to his work, Kuzmitchov always, even in his
+sleep and at church when they were singing, "Like the cherubim,"
+thought about his business and could never forget it for a moment;
+and now he was probably dreaming about bales of wool, waggons,
+prices, Varlamov. . . . Father Christopher, now, a soft, frivolous
+and absurd person, had never all his life been conscious of anything
+which could, like a boa-constrictor, coil about his soul and hold
+it tight. In all the numerous enterprises he had undertaken in his
+day what attracted him was not so much the business itself, but the
+bustle and the contact with other people involved in every undertaking.
+Thus, in the present expedition, he was not so much interested in
+wool, in Varlamov, and in prices, as in the long journey, the
+conversations on the way, the sleeping under a chaise, and the meals
+at odd times. . . . And now, judging from his face, he must have
+been dreaming of Bishop Christopher, of the Latin discussion, of
+his wife, of puffs and cream and all sorts of things that Kuzmitchov
+could not possibly dream of.
+
+While Yegorushka was watching their sleeping faces he suddenly heard
+a soft singing; somewhere at a distance a woman was singing, and
+it was difficult to tell where and in what direction. The song was
+subdued, dreary and melancholy, like a dirge, and hardly audible,
+and seemed to come first from the right, then from the left, then
+from above, and then from underground, as though an unseen spirit
+were hovering over the steppe and singing. Yegorushka looked about
+him, and could not make out where the strange song came from. Then
+as he listened he began to fancy that the grass was singing; in its
+song, withered and half-dead, it was without words, but plaintively
+and passionately, urging that it was not to blame, that the sun was
+burning it for no fault of its own; it urged that it ardently longed
+to live, that it was young and might have been beautiful but for
+the heat and the drought; it was guiltless, but yet it prayed
+forgiveness and protested that it was in anguish, sad and sorry for
+itself. . . .
+
+Yegorushka listened for a little, and it began to seem as though
+this dreary, mournful song made the air hotter, more suffocating
+and more stagnant. . . . To drown the singing he ran to the sedge,
+humming to himself and trying to make a noise with his feet. From
+there he looked about in all directions and found out who was
+singing. Near the furthest hut in the hamlet stood a peasant woman
+in a short petticoat, with long thin legs like a heron. She was
+sowing something. A white dust floated languidly from her sieve
+down the hillock. Now it was evident that she was singing. A couple
+of yards from her a little bare-headed boy in nothing but a smock
+was standing motionless. As though fascinated by the song, he stood
+stock-still, staring away into the distance, probably at Yegorushka's
+crimson shirt.
+
+The song ceased. Yegorushka sauntered back to the chaise, and to
+while away the time went again to the trickle of water.
+
+And again there was the sound of the dreary song. It was the same
+long-legged peasant woman in the hamlet over the hill. Yegorushka's
+boredom came back again. He left the pipe and looked upwards. What
+he saw was so unexpected that he was a little frightened. Just above
+his head on one of the big clumsy stones stood a chubby little boy,
+wearing nothing but a shirt, with a prominent stomach and thin legs,
+the same boy who had been standing before by the peasant woman. He
+was gazing with open mouth and unblinking eyes at Yegorushka's
+crimson shirt and at the chaise, with a look of blank astonishment
+and even fear, as though he saw before him creatures of another
+world. The red colour of the shirt charmed and allured him. But the
+chaise and the men sleeping under it excited his curiosity; perhaps
+he had not noticed how the agreeable red colour and curiosity had
+attracted him down from the hamlet, and now probably he was surprised
+at his own boldness. For a long while Yegorushka stared at him, and
+he at Yegorushka. Both were silent and conscious of some awkwardness.
+After a long silence Yegorushka asked:
+
+"What's your name?"
+
+The stranger's cheeks puffed out more than ever; he pressed his
+back against the rock, opened his eyes wide, moved his lips, and
+answered in a husky bass: "Tit!"
+
+The boys said not another word to each other; after a brief silence,
+still keeping his eyes fixed on Yegorushka, the mysterious Tit
+kicked up one leg, felt with his heel for a niche and clambered up
+the rock; from that point he ascended to the next rock, staggering
+backwards and looking intently at Yegorushka, as though afraid he
+might hit him from behind, and so made his way upwards till he
+disappeared altogether behind the crest of the hill.
+
+After watching him out of sight, Yegorushka put his arms round his
+knees and leaned his head on them. . . . The burning sun scorched
+the back of his head, his neck, and his spine. The melancholy song
+died away, then floated again on the stagnant stifling air. The
+rivulet gurgled monotonously, the horses munched, and time dragged
+on endlessly, as though it, too, were stagnant and had come to a
+standstill. It seemed as though a hundred years had passed since
+the morning. Could it be that God's world, the chaise and the horses
+would come to a standstill in that air, and, like the hills, turn
+to stone and remain for ever in one spot? Yegorushka raised his
+head, and with smarting eyes looked before him; the lilac distance,
+which till then had been motionless, began heaving, and with the
+sky floated away into the distance. . . . It drew after it the brown
+grass, the sedge, and with extraordinary swiftness Yegorushka floated
+after the flying distance. Some force noiselessly drew him onwards,
+and the heat and the wearisome song flew after in pursuit. Yegorushka
+bent his head and shut his eyes. . . .
+
+Deniska was the first to wake up. Something must have bitten him,
+for he jumped up, quickly scratched his shoulder and said:
+
+"Plague take you, cursed idolater!"
+
+Then he went to the brook, had a drink and slowly washed. His
+splashing and puffing roused Yegorushka from his lethargy. The boy
+looked at his wet face with drops of water and big freckles which
+made it look like marble, and asked:
+
+"Shall we soon be going?"
+
+Deniska looked at the height of the sun and answered:
+
+"I expect so."
+
+He dried himself with the tail of his shirt and, making a very
+serious face, hopped on one leg.
+
+"I say, which of us will get to the sedge first?" he said.
+
+Yegorushka was exhausted by the heat and drowsiness, but he raced
+off after him all the same. Deniska was in his twentieth year, was
+a coachman and going to be married, but he had not left off being
+a boy. He was very fond of flying kites, chasing pigeons, playing
+knuckle-bones, running races, and always took part in children's
+games and disputes. No sooner had his master turned his back or
+gone to sleep than Deniska would begin doing something such as
+hopping on one leg or throwing stones. It was hard for any grown-up
+person, seeing the genuine enthusiasm with which he frolicked about
+in the society of children, to resist saying, "What a baby!" Children,
+on the other hand, saw nothing strange in the invasion of their
+domain by the big coachman. "Let him play," they thought, "as long
+as he doesn't fight!" In the same way little dogs see nothing strange
+in it when a simple-hearted big dog joins their company uninvited
+and begins playing with them.
+
+Deniska outstripped Yegorushka, and was evidently very much pleased
+at having done so. He winked at him, and to show that he could hop
+on one leg any distance, suggested to Yegorushka that he should hop
+with him along the road and from there, without resting, back to
+the chaise. Yegorushka declined this suggestion, for he was very
+much out of breath and exhausted.
+
+All at once Deniska looked very grave, as he did not look even when
+Kuzmitchov gave him a scolding or threatened him with a stick;
+listening intently, he dropped quietly on one knee and an expression
+of sternness and alarm came into his face, such as one sees in
+people who hear heretical talk. He fixed his eyes on one spot,
+raised his hand curved into a hollow, and suddenly fell on his
+stomach on the ground and slapped the hollow of his hand down upon
+the grass.
+
+"Caught!" he wheezed triumphantly, and, getting up, lifted a big
+grasshopper to Yegorushka's eyes.
+
+The two boys stroked the grasshopper's broad green back with their
+fingers and touched his antenna, supposing that this would please
+the creature. Then Deniska caught a fat fly that had been sucking
+blood and offered it to the grasshopper. The latter moved his huge
+jaws, that were like the visor of a helmet, with the utmost unconcern,
+as though he had been long acquainted with Deniska, and bit off the
+fly's stomach. They let him go. With a flash of the pink lining of
+his wings, he flew down into the grass and at once began his churring
+notes again. They let the fly go, too. It preened its wings, and
+without its stomach flew off to the horses.
+
+A loud sigh was heard from under the chaise. It was Kuzmitchov
+waking up. He quickly raised his head, looked uneasily into the
+distance, and from that look, which passed by Yegorushka and Deniska
+without sympathy or interest, it could be seen that his thought on
+awaking was of the wool and of Varlamov.
+
+"Father Christopher, get up; it is time to start," he said anxiously.
+"Wake up; we've slept too long as it is! Deniska, put the horses
+in."
+
+Father Christopher woke up with the same smile with which he had
+fallen asleep; his face looked creased and wrinkled from sleep, and
+seemed only half the size. After washing and dressing, he proceeded
+without haste to take out of his pocket a little greasy psalter;
+and standing with his face towards the east, began in a whisper
+repeating the psalms of the day and crossing himself.
+
+"Father Christopher," said Kuzmitchov reproachfully, "it's time to
+start; the horses are ready, and here are you, . . . upon my word."
+
+"In a minute, in a minute," muttered Father Christopher. "I must
+read the psalms. . . . I haven't read them to-day."
+
+"The psalms can wait."
+
+"Ivan Ivanitch, that is my rule every day. . . . I can't . . ."
+
+"God will overlook it."
+
+For a full quarter of an hour Father Christopher stood facing the
+east and moving his lips, while Kuzmitchov looked at him almost
+with hatred and impatiently shrugged his shoulders. He was particularly
+irritated when, after every "Hallelujah," Father Christopher drew
+a long breath, rapidly crossed himself and repeated three times,
+intentionally raising his voice so that the others might cross
+themselves, "Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah! Glory be to Thee,
+O Lord!" At last he smiled, looked upwards at the sky, and, putting
+the psalter in his pocket, said:
+
+"Finis!"
+
+A minute later the chaise had started on the road. As though it
+were going backwards and not forwards, the travellers saw the same
+scene as they had before midday.
+
+The low hills were still plunged in the lilac distance, and no end
+could be seen to them. There were glimpses of high grass and heaps
+of stones; strips of stubble land passed by them and still the same
+rooks, the same hawk, moving its wings with slow dignity, moved
+over the steppe. The air was more sultry than ever; from the sultry
+heat and the stillness submissive nature was spellbound into silence
+. . . . No wind, no fresh cheering sound, no cloud.
+
+But at last, when the sun was beginning to sink into the west, the
+steppe, the hills and the air could bear the oppression no longer,
+and, driven out of all patience, exhausted, tried to fling off the
+yoke. A fleecy ashen-grey cloud unexpectedly appeared behind the
+hills. It exchanged glances with the steppe, as though to say, "Here
+I am," and frowned. Suddenly something burst in the stagnant air;
+there was a violent squall of wind which whirled round and round,
+roaring and whistling over the steppe. At once a murmur rose from
+the grass and last year's dry herbage, the dust curled in spiral
+eddies over the road, raced over the steppe, and carrying with it
+straws, dragon flies and feathers, rose up in a whirling black
+column towards the sky and darkened the sun. Prickly uprooted plants
+ran stumbling and leaping in all directions over the steppe, and
+one of them got caught in the whirlwind, turned round and round
+like a bird, flew towards the sky, and turning into a little black
+speck, vanished from sight. After it flew another, and then a third,
+and Yegorushka saw two of them meet in the blue height and clutch
+at one another as though they were wrestling.
+
+A bustard flew up by the very road. Fluttering his wings and his
+tail, he looked, bathed in the sunshine, like an angler's glittering
+tin fish or a waterfly flashing so swiftly over the water that its
+wings cannot be told from its antenna, which seem to be growing
+before, behind and on all sides. . . . Quivering in the air like
+an insect with a shimmer of bright colours, the bustard flew high
+up in a straight line, then, probably frightened by a cloud of dust,
+swerved to one side, and for a long time the gleam of his wings
+could be seen. . . .
+
+Then a corncrake flew up from the grass, alarmed by the hurricane
+and not knowing what was the matter. It flew with the wind and not
+against it, like all the other birds, so that all its feathers were
+ruffled up and it was puffed out to the size of a hen and looked
+very angry and impressive. Only the rooks who had grown old on the
+steppe and were accustomed to its vagaries hovered calmly over the
+grass, or taking no notice of anything, went on unconcernedly pecking
+with their stout beaks at the hard earth.
+
+There was a dull roll of thunder beyond the hills; there came a
+whiff of fresh air. Deniska gave a cheerful whistle and lashed his
+horses. Father Christopher and Kuzmitchov held their hats and looked
+intently towards the hills. . . . How pleasant a shower of rain
+would have been!
+
+One effort, one struggle more, and it seemed the steppe would have
+got the upper hand. But the unseen oppressive force gradually riveted
+its fetters on the wind and the air, laid the dust, and the stillness
+came back again as though nothing had happened, the cloud hid, the
+sun-baked hills frowned submissively, the air grew calm, and only
+somewhere the troubled lapwings wailed and lamented their destiny. . . .
+
+Soon after that the evening came on.
+
+III
+
+In the dusk of evening a big house of one storey, with a rusty iron
+roof and with dark windows, came into sight. This house was called
+a posting-inn, though it had nothing like a stableyard, and it stood
+in the middle of the steppe, with no kind of enclosure round it. A
+little to one side of it a wretched little cherry orchard shut in
+by a hurdle fence made a dark patch, and under the windows stood
+sleepy sunflowers drooping their heavy heads. From the orchard came
+the clatter of a little toy windmill, set there to frighten away
+hares by the rattle. Nothing more could be seen near the house, and
+nothing could be heard but the steppe. The chaise had scarcely
+stopped at the porch with an awning over it, when from the house
+there came the sound of cheerful voices, one a man's, another a
+woman's; there was the creak of a swing-door, and in a flash a tall
+gaunt figure, swinging its arms and fluttering its coat, was standing
+by the chaise. This was the innkeeper, Moisey Moisevitch, a man no
+longer young, with a very pale face and a handsome beard as black
+as charcoal. He was wearing a threadbare black coat, which hung
+flapping on his narrow shoulders as though on a hatstand, and
+fluttered its skirts like wings every time Moisey Moisevitch flung
+up his hands in delight or horror. Besides his coat the innkeeper
+was wearing full white trousers, not stuck into his boots, and a
+velvet waistcoat with brown flowers on it that looked like gigantic
+bugs.
+
+Moisey Moisevitch was at first dumb with excess of feeling on
+recognizing the travellers, then he clasped his hands and uttered
+a moan. His coat swung its skirts, his back bent into a bow, and
+his pale face twisted into a smile that suggested that to see the
+chaise was not merely a pleasure to him, but actually a joy so sweet
+as to be painful.
+
+"Oh dear! oh dear!" he began in a thin sing-song voice, breathless,
+fussing about and preventing the travellers from getting out of the
+chaise by his antics. "What a happy day for me! Oh, what am I to
+do now? Ivan Ivanitch! Father Christopher! What a pretty little
+gentleman sitting on the box, God strike me dead! Oh, my goodness!
+why am I standing here instead of asking the visitors indoors?
+Please walk in, I humbly beg you. . . . You are kindly welcome!
+Give me all your things. . . . Oh, my goodness me!"
+
+Moisey Moisevitch, who was rummaging in the chaise and assisting
+the travellers to alight, suddenly turned back and shouted in a
+voice as frantic and choking as though he were drowning and calling
+for help:
+
+"Solomon! Solomon!"
+
+"Solomon! Solomon!" a woman's voice repeated indoors.
+
+The swing-door creaked, and in the doorway appeared a rather short
+young Jew with a big beak-like nose, with a bald patch surrounded
+by rough red curly hair; he was dressed in a short and very shabby
+reefer jacket, with rounded lappets and short sleeves, and in short
+serge trousers, so that he looked skimpy and short-tailed like an
+unfledged bird. This was Solomon, the brother of Moisey Moisevitch.
+He went up to the chaise, smiling rather queerly, and did not speak
+or greet the travellers.
+
+"Ivan Ivanitch and Father Christopher have come," said Moisey
+Moisevitch in a tone as though he were afraid his brother would not
+believe him. "Dear, dear! What a surprise! Such honoured guests to
+have come us so suddenly! Come, take their things, Solomon. Walk
+in, honoured guests."
+
+A little later Kuzmitchov, Father Christopher, and Yegorushka were
+sitting in a big gloomy empty room at an old oak table. The table
+was almost in solitude, for, except a wide sofa covered with torn
+American leather and three chairs, there was no other furniture in
+the room. And, indeed, not everybody would have given the chairs
+that name. They were a pitiful semblance of furniture, covered with
+American leather that had seen its best days, and with backs bent
+backwards at an unnaturally acute angle, so that they looked like
+children's sledges. It was hard to imagine what had been the unknown
+carpenter's object in bending the chairbacks so mercilessly, and
+one was tempted to imagine that it was not the carpenter's fault,
+but that some athletic visitor had bent the chairs like this as a
+feat, then had tried to bend them back again and had made them
+worse. The room looked gloomy, the walls were grey, the ceilings
+and the cornices were grimy; on the floor were chinks and yawning
+holes that were hard to account for (one might have fancied they
+were made by the heel of the same athlete), and it seemed as though
+the room would still have been dark if a dozen lamps had hung in
+it. There was nothing approaching an ornament on the walls or the
+windows. On one wall, however, there hung a list of regulations of
+some sort under a two-headed eagle in a grey wooden frame, and on
+another wall in the same sort of frame an engraving with the
+inscription, "The Indifference of Man." What it was to which men
+were indifferent it was impossible to make out, as the engraving
+was very dingy with age and was extensively flyblown. There was a
+smell of something decayed and sour in the room.
+
+As he led the visitors into the room, Moisey Moisevitch went on
+wriggling, gesticulating, shrugging and uttering joyful exclamations;
+he considered these antics necessary in order to seem polite and
+agreeable.
+
+"When did our waggons go by?" Kuzmitchov asked.
+
+"One party went by early this morning, and the other, Ivan Ivanitch,
+put up here for dinner and went on towards evening."
+
+"Ah! . . . Has Varlamov been by or not?"
+
+"No, Ivan Ivanitch. His clerk, Grigory Yegoritch, went by yesterday
+morning and said that he had to be to-day at the Molokans' farm."
+
+"Good! so we will go after the waggons directly and then on to the
+Molokans'."
+
+"Mercy on us, Ivan Ivanitch!" Moisey Moisevitch cried in horror,
+flinging up his hands. "Where are you going for the night? You will
+have a nice little supper and stay the night, and to-morrow morning,
+please God, you can go on and overtake anyone you like."
+
+"There is no time for that. . . . Excuse me, Moisey Moisevitch,
+another time; but now I must make haste. We'll stay a quarter of
+an hour and then go on; we can stay the night at the Molokans'."
+
+"A quarter of an hour!" squealed Moisey Moisevitch. "Have you no
+fear of God, Ivan Ivanitch? You will compel me to hide your caps
+and lock the door! You must have a cup of tea and a snack of
+something, anyway."
+
+"We have no time for tea," said Kuzmitchov.
+
+Moisey Moisevitch bent his head on one side, crooked his knees, and
+put his open hands before him as though warding off a blow, while
+with a smile of agonized sweetness he began imploring:
+
+"Ivan Ivanitch! Father Christopher! Do be so good as to take a cup
+of tea with me. Surely I am not such a bad man that you can't even
+drink tea in my house? Ivan Ivanitch!"
+
+"Well, we may just as well have a cup of tea," said Father Christopher,
+with a sympathetic smile; "that won't keep us long."
+
+"Very well," Kuzmitchov assented.
+
+Moisey Moisevitch, in a fluster uttered an exclamation of joy, and
+shrugging as though he had just stepped out of cold weather into
+warm, ran to the door and cried in the same frantic voice in which
+he had called Solomon:
+
+"Rosa! Rosa! Bring the samovar!"
+
+A minute later the door opened, and Solomon came into the room
+carrying a large tray in his hands. Setting the tray on the table,
+he looked away sarcastically with the same queer smile as before.
+Now, by the light of the lamp, it was possible to see his smile
+distinctly; it was very complex, and expressed a variety of emotions,
+but the predominant element in it was undisguised contempt. He
+seemed to be thinking of something ludicrous and silly, to be feeling
+contempt and dislike, to be pleased at something and waiting for
+the favourable moment to turn something into ridicule and to burst
+into laughter. His long nose, his thick lips, and his sly prominent
+eyes seemed tense with the desire to laugh. Looking at his face,
+Kuzmitchov smiled ironically and asked:
+
+"Solomon, why did you not come to our fair at N. this summer, and
+act some Jewish scenes?"
+
+Two years before, as Yegorushka remembered very well, at one of the
+booths at the fair at N., Solomon had performed some scenes of
+Jewish life, and his acting had been a great success. The allusion
+to this made no impression whatever upon Solomon. Making no answer,
+he went out and returned a little later with the samovar.
+
+When he had done what he had to do at the table he moved a little
+aside, and, folding his arms over his chest and thrusting out one
+leg, fixed his sarcastic eyes on Father Christopher. There was
+something defiant, haughty, and contemptuous in his attitude, and
+at the same time it was comic and pitiful in the extreme, because
+the more impressive his attitude the more vividly it showed up his
+short trousers, his bobtail coat, his caricature of a nose, and his
+bird-like plucked-looking little figure.
+
+Moisey Moisevitch brought a footstool from the other room and sat
+down a little way from the table.
+
+"I wish you a good appetite! Tea and sugar!" he began, trying to
+entertain his visitors. "I hope you will enjoy it. Such rare guests,
+such rare ones; it is years since I last saw Father Christopher.
+And will no one tell me who is this nice little gentleman?" he
+asked, looking tenderly at Yegorushka.
+
+"He is the son of my sister, Olga Ivanovna," answered Kuzmitchov.
+
+"And where is he going?"
+
+"To school. We are taking him to a high school."
+
+In his politeness, Moisey Moisevitch put on a look of wonder and
+wagged his head expressively.
+
+"Ah, that is a fine thing," he said, shaking his finger at the
+samovar. "That's a fine thing. You will come back from the high
+school such a gentleman that we shall all take off our hats to you.
+You will be wealthy and wise and so grand that your mamma will be
+delighted. Oh, that's a fine thing!"
+
+He paused a little, stroked his knees, and began again in a jocose
+and deferential tone.
+
+"You must excuse me, Father Christopher, but I am thinking of writing
+to the bishop to tell him you are robbing the merchants of their
+living. I shall take a sheet of stamped paper and write that I
+suppose Father Christopher is short of pence, as he has taken up
+with trade and begun selling wool."
+
+"H'm, yes . . . it's a queer notion in my old age," said Father
+Christopher, and he laughed. "I have turned from priest to merchant,
+brother. I ought to be at home now saying my prayers, instead of
+galloping about the country like a Pharaoh in his chariot. . . .
+Vanity!"
+
+"But it will mean a lot of pence!"
+
+"Oh, I dare say! More kicks than halfpence, and serve me right. The
+wool's not mine, but my son-in-law Mikhail's!"
+
+"Why doesn't he go himself?"
+
+"Why, because . . . His mother's milk is scarcely dry upon his lips.
+He can buy wool all right, but when it comes to selling, he has no
+sense; he is young yet. He has wasted all his money; he wanted to
+grow rich and cut a dash, but he tried here and there, and no one
+would give him his price. And so the lad went on like that for a
+year, and then he came to me and said, 'Daddy, you sell the wool
+for me; be kind and do it! I am no good at the business!' And that
+is true enough. As soon as there is anything wrong then it's 'Daddy,'
+but till then they could get on without their dad. When he was
+buying he did not consult me, but now when he is in difficulties
+it's Daddy's turn. And what does his dad know about it? If it were
+not for Ivan Ivanitch, his dad could do nothing. I have a lot of
+worry with them."
+
+"Yes; one has a lot of worry with one's children, I can tell you
+that," sighed Moisey Moisevitch. "I have six of my own. One needs
+schooling, another needs doctoring, and a third needs nursing, and
+when they grow up they are more trouble still. It is not only
+nowadays, it was the same in Holy Scripture. When Jacob had little
+children he wept, and when they grew up he wept still more bitterly."
+
+"H'm, yes . . ." Father Christopher assented pensively, looking at
+his glass. "I have no cause myself to rail against the Lord. I have
+lived to the end of my days as any man might be thankful to live.
+. . . I have married my daughters to good men, my sons I have set
+up in life, and now I am free; I have done my work and can go where
+I like. I live in peace with my wife. I eat and drink and sleep and
+rejoice in my grandchildren, and say my prayers and want nothing
+more. I live on the fat of the land, and don't need to curry favour
+with anyone. I have never had any trouble from childhood, and now
+suppose the Tsar were to ask me, 'What do you need? What would you
+like?' why, I don't need anything. I have everything I want and
+everything to be thankful for. In the whole town there is no happier
+man than I am. My only trouble is I have so many sins, but there
+--only God is without sin. That's right, isn't it?"
+
+"No doubt it is."
+
+"I have no teeth, of course; my poor old back aches; there is one
+thing and another, . . . asthma and that sort of thing. . . . I
+ache. . . . The flesh is weak, but then think of my age! I am in
+the eighties! One can't go on for ever; one mustn't outstay one's
+welcome."
+
+Father Christopher suddenly thought of something, spluttered into
+his glass and choked with laughter. Moisey Moisevitch laughed, too,
+from politeness, and he, too, cleared his throat.
+
+"So funny!" said Father Christopher, and he waved his hand. "My
+eldest son Gavrila came to pay me a visit. He is in the medical
+line, and is a district doctor in the province of Tchernigov. . . .
+'Very well . . .' I said to him, 'here I have asthma and one thing
+and another. . . . You are a doctor; cure your father!' He undressed
+me on the spot, tapped me, listened, and all sorts of tricks, . . .
+kneaded my stomach, and then he said, 'Dad, you ought to be treated
+with compressed air.'" Father Christopher laughed convulsively,
+till the tears came into his eyes, and got up.
+
+"And I said to him, 'God bless your compressed air!'" he brought
+out through his laughter, waving both hands. "God bless your
+compressed air!"
+
+Moisey Moisevitch got up, too, and with his hands on his stomach,
+went off into shrill laughter like the yap of a lap-dog.
+
+"God bless the compressed air!" repeated Father Christopher, laughing.
+
+Moisey Moisevitch laughed two notes higher and so violently that
+he could hardly stand on his feet.
+
+"Oh dear!" he moaned through his laughter. "Let me get my breath
+. . . . You'll be the death of me."
+
+He laughed and talked, though at the same time he was casting
+timorous and suspicious looks at Solomon. The latter was standing
+in the same attitude and still smiling. To judge from his eyes and
+his smile, his contempt and hatred were genuine, but that was so
+out of keeping with his plucked-looking figure that it seemed to
+Yegorushka as though he were putting on his defiant attitude and
+biting sarcastic smile to play the fool for the entertainment of
+their honoured guests.
+
+After drinking six glasses of tea in silence, Kuzmitchov cleared a
+space before him on the table, took his bag, the one which he kept
+under his head when he slept under the chaise, untied the string
+and shook it. Rolls of paper notes were scattered out of the bag
+on the table.
+
+"While we have the time, Father Christopher, let us reckon up,"
+said Kuzmitchov.
+
+Moisey Moisevitch was embarrassed at the sight of the money. He got
+up, and, as a man of delicate feeling unwilling to pry into other
+people's secrets, he went out of the room on tiptoe, swaying his
+arms. Solomon remained where he was.
+
+"How many are there in the rolls of roubles?" Father Christopher
+began.
+
+"The rouble notes are done up in fifties, . . . the three-rouble
+notes in nineties, the twenty-five and hundred roubles in thousands.
+You count out seven thousand eight hundred for Varlamov, and I will
+count out for Gusevitch. And mind you don't make a mistake. . ."
+
+Yegorushka had never in his life seen so much money as was lying
+on the table before him. There must have been a great deal of money,
+for the roll of seven thousand eight hundred, which Father Christopher
+put aside for Varlamov, seemed very small compared with the whole
+heap. At any other time such a mass of money would have impressed
+Yegorushka, and would have moved him to reflect how many cracknels,
+buns and poppy-cakes could be bought for that money. Now he looked
+at it listlessly, only conscious of the disgusting smell of kerosene
+and rotten apples that came from the heap of notes. He was exhausted
+by the jolting ride in the chaise, tired out and sleepy. His head
+was heavy, his eyes would hardly keep open and his thoughts were
+tangled like threads. If it had been possible he would have been
+relieved to lay his head on the table, so as not to see the lamp
+and the fingers moving over the heaps of notes, and to have let his
+tired sleepy thoughts go still more at random. When he tried to
+keep awake, the light of the lamp, the cups and the fingers grew
+double, the samovar heaved and the smell of rotten apples seemed
+even more acrid and disgusting.
+
+"Ah, money, money!" sighed Father Christopher, smiling. "You bring
+trouble! Now I expect my Mihailo is asleep and dreaming that I am
+going to bring him a heap of money like this."
+
+"Your Mihailo Timofevitch is a man who doesn't understand business,"
+said Kuzmitchov in an undertone; "he undertakes what isn't his work,
+but you understand and can judge. You had better hand over your
+wool to me, as I have said already, and I would give you half a
+rouble above my own price--yes, I would, simply out of regard for
+you. . . ."
+
+"No, Ivan Ivanitch." Father Christopher sighed. "I thank you for
+your kindness. . . . Of course, if it were for me to decide, I
+shouldn't think twice about it; but as it is, the wool is not mine,
+as you know. . . ."
+
+Moisey Moisevitch came in on tiptoe. Trying from delicacy not to
+look at the heaps of money, he stole up to Yegorushka and pulled
+at his shirt from behind.
+
+"Come along, little gentleman," he said in an undertone, "come and
+see the little bear I can show you! Such a queer, cross little bear.
+Oo-oo!"
+
+The sleepy boy got up and listlessly dragged himself after Moisey
+Moisevitch to see the bear. He went into a little room, where,
+before he saw anything, he felt he could not breathe from the smell
+of something sour and decaying, which was much stronger here than
+in the big room and probably spread from this room all over the
+house. One part of the room was occupied by a big bed, covered with
+a greasy quilt and another by a chest of drawers and heaps of rags
+of all kinds from a woman's stiff petticoat to children's little
+breeches and braces. A tallow candle stood on the chest of drawers.
+
+Instead of the promised bear, Yegorushka saw a big fat Jewess with
+her hair hanging loose, in a red flannel skirt with black sprigs
+on it; she turned with difficulty in the narrow space between the
+bed and the chest of drawers and uttered drawn-out moaning as though
+she had toothache. On seeing Yegorushka, she made a doleful,
+woe-begone face, heaved a long drawn-out sigh, and before he had
+time to look round, put to his lips a slice of bread smeared with
+honey.
+
+"Eat it, dearie, eat it!" she said. "You are here without your
+mamma, and no one to look after you. Eat it up."
+
+Yegorushka did eat it, though after the goodies and poppy-cakes he
+had every day at home, he did not think very much of the honey,
+which was mixed with wax and bees' wings. He ate while Moisey
+Moisevitch and the Jewess looked at him and sighed.
+
+"Where are you going, dearie?" asked the Jewess.
+
+"To school," answered Yegorushka.
+
+"And how many brothers and sisters have you got?"
+
+"I am the only one; there are no others."
+
+"O-oh!" sighed the Jewess, and turned her eyes upward. "Poor mamma,
+poor mamma! How she will weep and miss you! We are going to send
+our Nahum to school in a year. O-oh!"
+
+"Ah, Nahum, Nahum!" sighed Moisey Moisevitch, and the skin of his
+pale face twitched nervously. "And he is so delicate."
+
+The greasy quilt quivered, and from beneath it appeared a child's
+curly head on a very thin neck; two black eyes gleamed and stared
+with curiosity at Yegorushka. Still sighing, Moisey Moisevitch and
+the Jewess went to the chest of drawers and began talking in Yiddish.
+Moisey Moisevitch spoke in a low bass undertone, and altogether his
+talk in Yiddish was like a continual "ghaal-ghaal-ghaal-ghaal, . . ."
+while his wife answered him in a shrill voice like a turkeycock's,
+and the whole effect of her talk was something like "Too-too-too-too!"
+While they were consulting, another little curly head on a thin
+neck peeped out of the greasy quilt, then a third, then a fourth.
+. . . If Yegorushka had had a fertile imagination he might have
+imagined that the hundred-headed hydra was hiding under the quilt.
+
+"Ghaal-ghaal-ghaal-ghaal!" said Moisey Moisevitch.
+
+"Too-too-too-too!" answered the Jewess.
+
+The consultation ended in the Jewess's diving with a deep sigh into
+the chest of drawers, and, unwrapping some sort of green rag there,
+she took out a big rye cake made in the shape of a heart.
+
+"Take it, dearie," she said, giving Yegorushka the cake; "you have
+no mamma now--no one to give you nice things."
+
+Yegorushka stuck the cake in his pocket and staggered to the door,
+as he could not go on breathing the foul, sour air in which the
+innkeeper and his wife lived. Going back to the big room, he settled
+himself more comfortably on the sofa and gave up trying to check
+his straying thoughts.
+
+As soon as Kuzmitchov had finished counting out the notes he put
+them back into the bag. He did not treat them very respectfully and
+stuffed them into the dirty sack without ceremony, as indifferently
+as though they had not been money but waste paper.
+
+Father Christopher was talking to Solomon.
+
+"Well, Solomon the Wise!" he said, yawning and making the sign of
+the cross over his mouth. "How is business?"
+
+"What sort of business are you talking about?" asked Solomon, and
+he looked as fiendish, as though it were a hint of some crime on
+his part.
+
+"Oh, things in general. What are you doing?"
+
+"What am I doing?" Solomon repeated, and he shrugged his shoulders.
+"The same as everyone else. . . . You see, I am a menial, I am my
+brother's servant; my brother's the servant of the visitors; the
+visitors are Varlamov's servants; and if I had ten millions, Varlamov
+would be my servant."
+
+"Why would he be your servant?"
+
+"Why, because there isn't a gentleman or millionaire who isn't ready
+to lick the hand of a scabby Jew for the sake of making a kopeck.
+Now, I am a scabby Jew and a beggar. Everybody looks at me as though
+I were a dog, but if I had money Varlamov would play the fool before
+me just as Moisey does before you."
+
+Father Christopher and Kuzmitchov looked at each other. Neither of
+them understood Solomon. Kuzmitchov looked at him sternly and dryly,
+and asked:
+
+"How can you compare yourself with Varlamov, you blockhead?"
+
+"I am not such a fool as to put myself on a level with Varlamov,"
+answered Solomon, looking sarcastically at the speaker. "Though
+Varlamov is a Russian, he is at heart a scabby Jew; money and gain
+are all he lives for, but I threw my money in the stove! I don't
+want money, or land, or sheep, and there is no need for people to
+be afraid of me and to take off their hats when I pass. So I am
+wiser than your Varlamov and more like a man!"
+
+A little later Yegorushka, half asleep, heard Solomon in a hoarse
+hollow voice choked with hatred, in hurried stuttering phrases,
+talking about the Jews. At first he talked correctly in Russian,
+then he fell into the tone of a Jewish recitation, and began speaking
+as he had done at the fair with an exaggerated Jewish accent.
+
+"Stop! . . ." Father Christopher said to him. "If you don't like
+your religion you had better change it, but to laugh at it is a
+sin; it is only the lowest of the low who will make fun of his
+religion."
+
+"You don't understand," Solomon cut him short rudely. "I am talking
+of one thing and you are talking of something else. . . ."
+
+"One can see you are a foolish fellow," sighed Father Christopher.
+"I admonish you to the best of my ability, and you are angry. I
+speak to you like an old man quietly, and you answer like a turkeycock:
+'Bla---bla---bla!' You really are a queer fellow. . . ."
+
+Moisey Moisevitch came in. He looked anxiously at Solomon and at
+his visitors, and again the skin on his face quivered nervously.
+Yegorushka shook his head and looked about him; he caught a passing
+glimpse of Solomon's face at the very moment when it was turned
+three-quarters towards him and when the shadow of his long nose
+divided his left cheek in half; the contemptuous smile mingled with
+that shadow; the gleaming sarcastic eyes, the haughty expression,
+and the whole plucked-looking little figure, dancing and doubling
+itself before Yegorushka's eyes, made him now not like a buffoon,
+but like something one sometimes dreams of, like an evil spirit.
+
+"What a ferocious fellow you've got here, Moisey Moisevitch! God
+bless him!" said Father Christopher with a smile. "You ought to
+find him a place or a wife or something. . . . There's no knowing
+what to make of him. . . ."
+
+Kuzmitchov frowned angrily. Moisey Moisevitch looked uneasily and
+inquiringly at his brother and the visitors again.
+
+"Solomon, go away!" he said shortly. "Go away!" and he added something
+in Yiddish. Solomon gave an abrupt laugh and went out.
+
+"What was it?" Moisey Moisevitch asked Father Christopher anxiously.
+
+"He forgets himself," answered Kuzmitchov. "He's rude and thinks
+too much of himself."
+
+"I knew it!" Moisey Moisevitch cried in horror, clasping his hands.
+"Oh dear, oh dear!" he muttered in a low voice. "Be so kind as to
+excuse it, and don't be angry. He is such a queer fellow, such a
+queer fellow! Oh dear, oh dear! He is my own brother, but I have
+never had anything but trouble from him. You know he's. . ."
+
+Moisey Moisevitch crooked his finger by his forehead and went on:
+
+"He is not in his right mind; . . . he's hopeless. And I don't know
+what I am to do with him! He cares for nobody, he respects nobody,
+and is afraid of nobody. . . . You know he laughs at everybody, he
+says silly things, speaks familiarly to anyone. You wouldn't believe
+it, Varlamov came here one day and Solomon said such things to him
+that he gave us both a taste of his whip. . . . But why whip me?
+Was it my fault? God has robbed him of his wits, so it is God's
+will, and how am I to blame?"
+
+Ten minutes passed and Moisey Moisevitch was still muttering in an
+undertone and sighing:
+
+"He does not sleep at night, and is always thinking and thinking
+and thinking, and what he is thinking about God only knows. If you
+go to him at night he is angry and laughs. He doesn't like me either
+. . . . And there is nothing he wants! When our father died he left
+us each six thousand roubles. I bought myself an inn, married, and
+now I have children; and he burnt all his money in the stove. Such
+a pity, such a pity! Why burn it? If he didn't want it he could
+give it to me, but why burn it?"
+
+Suddenly the swing-door creaked and the floor shook under footsteps.
+Yegorushka felt a draught of cold air, and it seemed to him as
+though some big black bird had passed by him and had fluttered its
+wings close in his face. He opened his eyes. . . . His uncle was
+standing by the sofa with his sack in his hands ready for departure;
+Father Christopher, holding his broad-brimmed top-hat, was bowing
+to someone and smiling--not his usual soft kindly smile, but a
+respectful forced smile which did not suit his face at all--while
+Moisey Moisevitch looked as though his body had been broken into
+three parts, and he were balancing and doing his utmost not to drop
+to pieces. Only Solomon stood in the corner with his arms folded,
+as though nothing had happened, and smiled contemptuously as before.
+
+"Your Excellency must excuse us for not being tidy," moaned Moisey
+Moisevitch with the agonizingly sweet smile, taking no more notice
+of Kuzmitchov or Father Christopher, but swaying his whole person
+so as to avoid dropping to pieces. "We are plain folks, your
+Excellency."
+
+Yegorushka rubbed his eyes. In the middle of the room there really
+was standing an Excellency, in the form of a young plump and very
+beautiful woman in a black dress and a straw hat. Before Yegorushka
+had time to examine her features the image of the solitary graceful
+poplar he had seen that day on the hill for some reason came into
+his mind.
+
+"Has Varlamov been here to-day?" a woman's voice inquired.
+
+"No, your Excellency," said Moisey Moisevitch.
+
+"If you see him to-morrow, ask him to come and see me for a minute."
+
+All at once, quite unexpectedly, Yegorushka saw half an inch from
+his eyes velvety black eyebrows, big brown eyes, delicate feminine
+cheeks with dimples, from which smiles seemed radiating all over
+the face like sunbeams. There was a glorious scent.
+
+"What a pretty boy!" said the lady. "Whose boy is it? Kazimir
+Mihalovitch, look what a charming fellow! Good heavens, he is
+asleep!"
+
+And the lady kissed Yegorushka warmly on both cheeks, and he smiled
+and, thinking he was asleep, shut his eyes. The swing-door squeaked,
+and there was the sound of hurried footsteps, coming in and going
+out.
+
+"Yegorushka, Yegorushka!" he heard two bass voices whisper. "Get
+up; it is time to start."
+
+Somebody, it seemed to be Deniska, set him on his feet and led him
+by the arm. On the way he half-opened his eyes and once more saw
+the beautiful lady in the black dress who had kissed him. She was
+standing in the middle of the room and watched him go out, smiling
+at him and nodding her head in a friendly way. As he got near the
+door he saw a handsome, stoutly built, dark man in a bowler hat and
+in leather gaiters. This must have been the lady's escort.
+
+"Woa!" he heard from the yard.
+
+At the front door Yegorushka saw a splendid new carriage and a pair
+of black horses. On the box sat a groom in livery, with a long whip
+in his hands. No one but Solomon came to see the travellers off.
+His face was tense with a desire to laugh; he looked as though he
+were waiting impatiently for the visitors to be gone, so that he
+might laugh at them without restraint.
+
+"The Countess Dranitsky," whispered Father Christopher, clambering
+into the chaise.
+
+"Yes, Countess Dranitsky," repeated Kuzmitchov, also in a whisper.
+
+The impression made by the arrival of the countess was probably
+very great, for even Deniska spoke in a whisper, and only ventured
+to lash his bays and shout when the chaise had driven a quarter of
+a mile away and nothing could be seen of the inn but a dim light.
+
+IV
+
+Who was this elusive, mysterious Varlamov of whom people talked so
+much, whom Solomon despised, and whom even the beautiful countess
+needed? Sitting on the box beside Deniska, Yegorushka, half asleep,
+thought about this person. He had never seen him. But he had often
+heard of him and pictured him in his imagination. He knew that
+Varlamov possessed several tens of thousands of acres of land, about
+a hundred thousand sheep, and a great deal of money. Of his manner
+of life and occupation Yegorushka knew nothing, except that he was
+always "going his rounds in these parts," and he was always being
+looked for.
+
+At home Yegorushka had heard a great deal of the Countess Dranitsky,
+too. She, too, had some tens of thousands of acres, a great many
+sheep, a stud farm and a great deal of money, but she did not "go
+rounds," but lived at home in a splendid house and grounds, about
+which Ivan Ivanitch, who had been more than once at the countess's
+on business, and other acquaintances told many marvellous tales;
+thus, for instance, they said that in the countess's drawing-room,
+where the portraits of all the kings of Poland hung on the walls,
+there was a big table-clock in the form of a rock, on the rock a
+gold horse with diamond eyes, rearing, and on the horse the figure
+of a rider also of gold, who brandished his sword to right and to
+left whenever the clock struck. They said, too, that twice a year
+the countess used to give a ball, to which the gentry and officials
+of the whole province were invited, and to which even Varlamov used
+to come; all the visitors drank tea from silver samovars, ate all
+sorts of extraordinary things (they had strawberries and raspberries,
+for instance, in winter at Christmas), and danced to a band which
+played day and night. . . .
+
+"And how beautiful she is," thought Yegorushka, remembering her
+face and smile.
+
+Kuzmitchov, too, was probably thinking about the countess. For when
+the chaise had driven a mile and a half he said:
+
+"But doesn't that Kazimir Mihalovitch plunder her right and left!
+The year before last when, do you remember, I bought some wool from
+her, he made over three thousand from my purchase alone."
+
+"That is just what you would expect from a Pole," said Father
+Christopher.
+
+"And little does it trouble her. Young and foolish, as they say,
+her head is full of nonsense."
+
+Yegorushka, for some reason, longed to think of nothing but Varlamov
+and the countess, particularly the latter. His drowsy brain utterly
+refused ordinary thoughts, was in a cloud and retained only fantastic
+fairy-tale images, which have the advantage of springing into the
+brain of themselves without any effort on the part of the thinker,
+and completely vanishing of themselves at a mere shake of the head;
+and, indeed, nothing that was around him disposed to ordinary
+thoughts. On the right there were the dark hills which seemed to
+be screening something unseen and terrible; on the left the whole
+sky about the horizon was covered with a crimson glow, and it was
+hard to tell whether there was a fire somewhere, or whether it was
+the moon about to rise. As by day the distance could be seen, but
+its tender lilac tint had gone, quenched by the evening darkness,
+in which the whole steppe was hidden like Moisey Moisevitch's
+children under the quilt.
+
+Corncrakes and quails do not call in the July nights, the nightingale
+does not sing in the woodland marsh, and there is no scent of
+flowers, but still the steppe is lovely and full of life. As soon
+as the sun goes down and the darkness enfolds the earth, the day's
+weariness is forgotten, everything is forgiven, and the steppe
+breathes a light sigh from its broad bosom. As though because the
+grass cannot see in the dark that it has grown old, a gay youthful
+twitter rises up from it, such as is not heard by day; chirruping,
+twittering, whistling, scratching, the basses, tenors and sopranos
+of the steppe all mingle in an incessant, monotonous roar of sound
+in which it is sweet to brood on memories and sorrows. The monotonous
+twitter soothes to sleep like a lullaby; you drive and feel you are
+falling asleep, but suddenly there comes the abrupt agitated cry
+of a wakeful bird, or a vague sound like a voice crying out in
+wonder "A-ah, a-ah!" and slumber closes one's eyelids again. Or you
+drive by a little creek where there are bushes and hear the bird,
+called by the steppe dwellers "the sleeper," call "Asleep, asleep,
+asleep!" while another laughs or breaks into trills of hysterical
+weeping--that is the owl. For whom do they call and who hears
+them on that plain, God only knows, but there is deep sadness and
+lamentation in their cry. . . . There is a scent of hay and dry
+grass and belated flowers, but the scent is heavy, sweetly mawkish
+and soft.
+
+Everything can be seen through the mist, but it is hard to make out
+the colours and the outlines of objects. Everything looks different
+from what it is. You drive on and suddenly see standing before you
+right in the roadway a dark figure like a monk; it stands motionless,
+waiting, holding something in its hands. . . . Can it be a robber?
+The figure comes closer, grows bigger; now it is on a level with
+the chaise, and you see it is not a man, but a solitary bush or a
+great stone. Such motionless expectant figures stand on the low
+hills, hide behind the old barrows, peep out from the high grass,
+and they all look like human beings and arouse suspicion.
+
+And when the moon rises the night becomes pale and dim. The mist
+seems to have passed away. The air is transparent, fresh and warm;
+one can see well in all directions and even distinguish the separate
+stalks of grass by the wayside. Stones and bits of pots can be seen
+at a long distance. The suspicious figures like monks look blacker
+against the light background of the night, and seem more sinister.
+More and more often in the midst of the monotonous chirruping there
+comes the sound of the "A-ah, a-ah!" of astonishment troubling the
+motionless air, and the cry of a sleepless or delirious bird. Broad
+shadows move across the plain like clouds across the sky, and in
+the inconceivable distance, if you look long and intently at it,
+misty monstrous shapes rise up and huddle one against another. . . .
+It is rather uncanny. One glances at the pale green, star-spangled
+sky on which there is no cloudlet, no spot, and understands why the
+warm air is motionless, why nature is on her guard, afraid to stir:
+she is afraid and reluctant to lose one instant of life. Of the
+unfathomable depth and infinity of the sky one can only form a
+conception at sea and on the steppe by night when the moon is
+shining. It is terribly lonely and caressing; it looks down languid
+and alluring, and its caressing sweetness makes one giddy.
+
+You drive on for one hour, for a second. . . . You meet upon the
+way a silent old barrow or a stone figure put up God knows when and
+by whom; a nightbird floats noiselessly over the earth, and little
+by little those legends of the steppes, the tales of men you have
+met, the stories of some old nurse from the steppe, and all the
+things you have managed to see and treasure in your soul, come back
+to your mind. And then in the churring of insects, in the sinister
+figures, in the ancient barrows, in the blue sky, in the moonlight,
+in the flight of the nightbird, in everything you see and hear,
+triumphant beauty, youth, the fulness of power, and the passionate
+thirst for life begin to be apparent; the soul responds to the call
+of her lovely austere fatherland, and longs to fly over the steppes
+with the nightbird. And in the triumph of beauty, in the exuberance
+of happiness you are conscious of yearning and grief, as though the
+steppe knew she was solitary, knew that her wealth and her inspiration
+were wasted for the world, not glorified in song, not wanted by
+anyone; and through the joyful clamour one hears her mournful,
+hopeless call for singers, singers!
+
+"Woa! Good-evening, Panteley! Is everything all right?"
+
+"First-rate, Ivan Ivanitch!
+
+"Haven't you seen Varlamov, lads?"
+
+"No, we haven't."
+
+Yegorushka woke up and opened his eyes. The chaise had stopped. On
+the right the train of waggons stretched for a long way ahead on
+the road, and men were moving to and fro near them. All the waggons
+being loaded up with great bales of wool looked very high and fat,
+while the horses looked short-legged and little.
+
+"Well, then, we shall go on to the Molokans'!" Kuzmitchov said
+aloud. "The Jew told us that Varlamov was putting up for the night
+at the Molokans'. So good-bye, lads! Good luck to you!"
+
+"Good-bye, Ivan Ivanitch," several voices replied.
+
+"I say, lads," Kuzmitchov cried briskly, "you take my little lad
+along with you! Why should he go jolting off with us for nothing?
+You put him on the bales, Panteley, and let him come on slowly, and
+we shall overtake you. Get down, Yegor! Go on; it's all right. . . ."
+
+Yegorushka got down from the box-seat. Several hands caught him,
+lifted him high into the air, and he found himself on something
+big, soft, and rather wet with dew. It seemed to him now as though
+the sky were quite close and the earth far away.
+
+"Hey, take his little coat!" Deniska shouted from somewhere far
+below.
+
+His coat and bundle flung up from far below fell close to Yegorushka.
+Anxious not to think of anything, he quickly put his bundle under
+his head and covered himself with his coat, and stretching his legs
+out and shrinking a little from the dew, he laughed with content.
+
+"Sleep, sleep, sleep, . . ." he thought.
+
+"Don't be unkind to him, you devils!" he heard Deniska's voice
+below.
+
+"Good-bye, lads; good luck to you," shouted Kuzmitchov. "I rely
+upon you!"
+
+"Don't you be uneasy, Ivan Ivanitch!"
+
+Deniska shouted to the horses, the chaise creaked and started, not
+along the road, but somewhere off to the side. For two minutes there
+was silence, as though the waggons were asleep and there was no
+sound except the clanking of the pails tied on at the back of the
+chaise as it slowly died away in the distance. Then someone at the
+head of the waggons shouted:
+
+"Kiruha! Sta-art!"
+
+The foremost of the waggons creaked, then the second, then the
+third. . . . Yegorushka felt the waggon he was on sway and creak
+also. The waggons were moving. Yegorushka took a tighter hold of
+the cord with which the bales were tied on, laughed again with
+content, shifted the cake in his pocket, and fell asleep just as
+he did in his bed at home. . . .
+
+When he woke up the sun had risen, it was screened by an ancient
+barrow, and, trying to shed its light upon the earth, it scattered
+its beams in all directions and flooded the horizon with gold. It
+seemed to Yegorushka that it was not in its proper place, as the
+day before it had risen behind his back, and now it was much more
+to his left. . . . And the whole landscape was different. There
+were no hills now, but on all sides, wherever one looked, there
+stretched the brown cheerless plain; here and there upon it small
+barrows rose up and rooks flew as they had done the day before. The
+belfries and huts of some village showed white in the distance
+ahead; as it was Sunday the Little Russians were at home baking and
+cooking--that could be seen by the smoke which rose from every
+chimney and hung, a dark blue transparent veil, over the village.
+In between the huts and beyond the church there were blue glimpses
+of a river, and beyond the river a misty distance. But nothing was
+so different from yesterday as the road. Something extraordinarily
+broad, spread out and titanic, stretched over the steppe by way of
+a road. It was a grey streak well trodden down and covered with
+dust, like all roads. Its width puzzled Yegorushka and brought
+thoughts of fairy tales to his mind. Who travelled along that road?
+Who needed so much space? It was strange and unintelligible. It
+might have been supposed that giants with immense strides, such as
+Ilya Muromets and Solovy the Brigand, were still surviving in Russia,
+and that their gigantic steeds were still alive. Yegorushka, looking
+at the road, imagined some half a dozen high chariots racing along
+side by side, like some he used to see in pictures in his Scripture
+history; these chariots were each drawn by six wild furious horses,
+and their great wheels raised a cloud of dust to the sky, while the
+horses were driven by men such as one may see in one's dreams or
+in imagination brooding over fairy tales. And if those figures had
+existed, how perfectly in keeping with the steppe and the road they
+would have been!
+
+Telegraph-poles with two wires on them stretched along the right
+side of the road to its furthermost limit. Growing smaller and
+smaller they disappeared near the village behind the huts and green
+trees, and then again came into sight in the lilac distance in the
+form of very small thin sticks that looked like pencils stuck into
+the ground. Hawks, falcons, and crows sat on the wires and looked
+indifferently at the moving waggons.
+
+Yegorushka was lying in the last of the waggons, and so could see
+the whole string. There were about twenty waggons, and there was a
+driver to every three waggons. By the last waggon, the one in which
+Yegorushka was, there walked an old man with a grey beard, as short
+and lean as Father Christopher, but with a sunburnt, stern and
+brooding face. It is very possible that the old man was not stern
+and not brooding, but his red eyelids and his sharp long nose gave
+his face a stern frigid expression such as is common with people
+in the habit of continually thinking of serious things in solitude.
+Like Father Christopher he was wearing a wide-brimmed top-hat, not
+like a gentleman's, but made of brown felt, and in shape more like
+a cone with the top cut off than a real top-hat. Probably from a
+habit acquired in cold winters, when he must more than once have
+been nearly frozen as he trudged beside the waggons, he kept slapping
+his thighs and stamping with his feet as he walked. Noticing that
+Yegorushka was awake, he looked at him and said, shrugging his
+shoulders as though from the cold:
+
+"Ah, you are awake, youngster! So you are the son of Ivan Ivanitch?"
+
+"No; his nephew. . . ."
+
+"Nephew of Ivan Ivanitch? Here I have taken off my boots and am
+hopping along barefoot. My feet are bad; they are swollen, and it's
+easier without my boots . . . easier, youngster . . . without boots,
+I mean. . . . So you are his nephew? He is a good man; no harm in
+him. . . . God give him health. . . . No harm in him . . . I mean
+Ivan Ivanitch. . . . He has gone to the Molokans'. . . . O Lord,
+have mercy upon us!"
+
+The old man talked, too, as though it were very cold, pausing and
+not opening his mouth properly; and he mispronounced the labial
+consonants, stuttering over them as though his lips were frozen.
+As he talked to Yegorushka he did not once smile, and he seemed
+stern.
+
+Two waggons ahead of them there walked a man wearing a long
+reddish-brown coat, a cap and high boots with sagging bootlegs and
+carrying a whip in his hand. This was not an old man, only about
+forty. When he looked round Yegorushka saw a long red face with a
+scanty goat-beard and a spongy looking swelling under his right
+eye. Apart from this very ugly swelling, there was another peculiar
+thing about him which caught the eye at once: in his left hand he
+carried a whip, while he waved the right as though he were conducting
+an unseen choir; from time to time he put the whip under his arm,
+and then he conducted with both hands and hummed something to
+himself.
+
+The next driver was a long rectilinear figure with extremely sloping
+shoulders and a back as flat as a board. He held himself as stiffly
+erect as though he were marching or had swallowed a yard measure.
+His hands did not swing as he walked, but hung down as if they were
+straight sticks, and he strode along in a wooden way, after the
+manner of toy soldiers, almost without bending his knees, and trying
+to take as long steps as possible. While the old man or the owner
+of the spongy swelling were taking two steps he succeeded in taking
+only one, and so it seemed as though he were walking more slowly
+than any of them, and would drop behind. His face was tied up in a
+rag, and on his head something stuck up that looked like a monk's
+peaked cap; he was dressed in a short Little Russian coat, with
+full dark blue trousers and bark shoes.
+
+Yegorushka did not even distinguish those that were farther on. He
+lay on his stomach, picked a little hole in the bale, and, having
+nothing better to do, began twisting the wool into a thread. The
+old man trudging along below him turned out not to be so stern as
+one might have supposed from his face. Having begun a conversation,
+he did not let it drop.
+
+"Where are you going?" he asked, stamping with his feet.
+
+"To school," answered Yegorushka.
+
+"To school? Aha! . . . Well, may the Queen of Heaven help you. Yes.
+One brain is good, but two are better. To one man God gives one
+brain, to another two brains, and to another three. . . . To another
+three, that is true. . . . One brain you are born with, one you get
+from learning, and a third with a good life. So you see, my lad,
+it is a good thing if a man has three brains. Living is easier for
+him, and, what's more, dying is, too. Dying is, too. . . . And we
+shall all die for sure."
+
+The old man scratched his forehead, glanced upwards at Yegorushka
+with his red eyes, and went on:
+
+"Maxim Nikolaitch, the gentleman from Slavyanoserbsk, brought a
+little lad to school, too, last year. I don't know how he is getting
+on there in studying the sciences, but he was a nice good little
+lad. . . . God give them help, they are nice gentlemen. Yes, he,
+too, brought his boy to school. . . . In Slavyanoserbsk there is
+no establishment, I suppose, for study. No. . . . But it is a nice
+town. . . . There's an ordinary school for simple folks, but for
+the higher studies there is nothing. No, that's true. What's your
+name? . . ."
+
+"Yegorushka."
+
+"Yegory, then. . . . The holy martyr Yegory, the Bearer of Victory,
+whose day is the twenty-third of April. And my christian name is
+Panteley, . . . Panteley Zaharov Holodov. . . . We are Holodovs
+. . . . I am a native of--maybe you've heard of it--Tim in the
+province of Kursk. My brothers are artisans and work at trades in
+the town, but I am a peasant. . . . I have remained a peasant. Seven
+years ago I went there--home, I mean. I went to the village and
+to the town. . . . To Tim, I mean. Then, thank God, they were all
+alive and well; . . . but now I don't know. . . . Maybe some of
+them are dead. . . . And it's time they did die, for some of them
+are older than I am. Death is all right; it is good so long, of
+course, as one does not die without repentance. There is no worse
+evil than an impenitent death; an impenitent death is a joy to the
+devil. And if you want to die penitent, so that you may not be
+forbidden to enter the mansions of the Lord, pray to the holy martyr
+Varvara. She is the intercessor. She is, that's the truth. . . .
+For God has given her such a place in the heavens that everyone has
+the right to pray to her for penitence."
+
+Panteley went on muttering, and apparently did not trouble whether
+Yegorushka heard him or not. He talked listlessly, mumbling to
+himself, without raising or dropping his voice, but succeeded in
+telling him a great deal in a short time. All he said was made up
+of fragments that had very little connection with one another, and
+quite uninteresting for Yegorushka. Possibly he talked only in order
+to reckon over his thoughts aloud after the night spent in silence,
+in order to see if they were all there. After talking of repentance,
+he spoke about a certain Maxim Nikolaitch from Slavyanoserbsk.
+
+"Yes, he took his little lad; . . . he took him, that's true . . ."
+
+One of the waggoners walking in front darted from his place, ran
+to one side and began lashing on the ground with his whip. He was
+a stalwart, broad-shouldered man of thirty, with curly flaxen hair
+and a look of great health and vigour. Judging from the movements
+of his shoulders and the whip, and the eagerness expressed in his
+attitude, he was beating something alive. Another waggoner, a short
+stubby little man with a bushy black beard, wearing a waistcoat and
+a shirt outside his trousers, ran up to him. The latter broke into
+a deep guffaw of laughter and coughing and said: "I say, lads, Dymov
+has killed a snake!"
+
+There are people whose intelligence can be gauged at once by their
+voice and laughter. The man with the black beard belonged to that
+class of fortunate individuals; impenetrable stupidity could be
+felt in his voice and laugh. The flaxen-headed Dymov had finished,
+and lifting from the ground with his whip something like a cord,
+flung it with a laugh into the cart.
+
+"That's not a viper; it's a grass snake!" shouted someone.
+
+The man with the wooden gait and the bandage round his face strode
+up quickly to the dead snake, glanced at it and flung up his
+stick-like arms.
+
+"You jail-bird!" he cried in a hollow wailing voice. "What have you
+killed a grass snake for? What had he done to you, you damned brute?
+Look, he has killed a grass snake; how would you like to be treated
+so?"
+
+"Grass snakes ought not to be killed, that's true," Panteley muttered
+placidly, "they ought not. . . They are not vipers; though it looks
+like a snake, it is a gentle, innocent creature. . . . It's friendly
+to man, the grass snake is."
+
+Dymov and the man with the black beard were probably ashamed, for
+they laughed loudly, and not answering, slouched lazily back to
+their waggons. When the hindmost waggon was level with the spot
+where the dead snake lay, the man with his face tied up standing
+over it turned to Panteley and asked in a tearful voice:
+
+"Grandfather, what did he want to kill the grass snake for?"
+
+His eyes, as Yegorushka saw now, were small and dingy looking; his
+face was grey, sickly and looked somehow dingy too while his chin
+was red and seemed very much swollen.
+
+"Grandfather, what did he kill it for?" he repeated, striding along
+beside Panteley.
+
+"A stupid fellow. His hands itch to kill, and that is why he does
+it," answered the old man; "but he oughtn't to kill a grass snake,
+that's true. . . . Dymov is a ruffian, we all know, he kills
+everything he comes across, and Kiruha did not interfere. He ought
+to have taken its part, but instead of that, he goes off into
+'Ha-ha-ha!' and 'Ho-ho-ho!' . . . But don't be angry, Vassya. . . .
+Why be angry? They've killed it--well, never mind them. Dymov
+is a ruffian and Kiruha acted from foolishness--never mind. . . .
+They are foolish people without understanding--but there, don't
+mind them. Emelyan here never touches what he shouldn't; he never
+does; . . . that is true, . . . because he is a man of education,
+while they are stupid. . . . Emelyan, he doesn't touch things."
+
+The waggoner in the reddish-brown coat and the spongy swelling on
+his face, who was conducting an unseen choir, stopped. Hearing his
+name, and waiting till Panteley and Vassya came up to him, he walked
+beside them.
+
+"What are you talking about?" he asked in a husky muffled voice.
+
+"Why, Vassya here is angry," said Panteley. "So I have been saying
+things to him to stop his being angry. . . . Oh, how my swollen
+feet hurt! Oh, oh! They are more inflamed than ever for Sunday,
+God's holy day!"
+
+"It's from walking," observed Vassya.
+
+"No, lad, no. It's not from walking. When I walk it seems easier;
+when I lie down and get warm, . . . it's deadly. Walking is easier
+for me."
+
+Emelyan, in his reddish-brown coat, walked between Panteley and
+Vassya and waved his arms, as though they were going to sing. After
+waving them a little while he dropped them, and croaked out hopelessly:
+
+"I have no voice. It's a real misfortune. All last night and this
+morning I have been haunted by the trio 'Lord, have Mercy' that we
+sang at the wedding at Marionovsky's. It's in my head and in my
+throat. It seems as though I could sing it, but I can't; I have no
+voice."
+
+He paused for a minute, thinking, then went on:
+
+"For fifteen years I was in the choir. In all the Lugansky works
+there was, maybe, no one with a voice like mine. But, confound it,
+I bathed two years ago in the Donets, and I can't get a single note
+true ever since. I took cold in my throat. And without a voice I
+am like a workman without hands."
+
+"That's true," Panteley agreed.
+
+"I think of myself as a ruined man and nothing more."
+
+At that moment Vassya chanced to catch sight of Yegorushka. His
+eyes grew moist and smaller than ever.
+
+"There's a little gentleman driving with us," and he covered his
+nose with his sleeve as though he were bashful. "What a grand driver!
+Stay with us and you shall drive the waggons and sell wool."
+
+The incongruity of one person being at once a little gentleman and
+a waggon driver seemed to strike him as very queer and funny, for
+he burst into a loud guffaw, and went on enlarging upon the idea.
+Emelyan glanced upwards at Yegorushka, too, but coldly and cursorily.
+He was absorbed in his own thoughts, and had it not been for Vassya,
+would not have noticed Yegorushka's presence. Before five minutes
+had passed he was waving his arms again, then describing to his
+companions the beauties of the wedding anthem, "Lord, have Mercy,"
+which he had remembered in the night. He put the whip under his arm
+and waved both hands.
+
+A mile from the village the waggons stopped by a well with a crane.
+Letting his pail down into the well, black-bearded Kiruha lay on
+his stomach on the framework and thrust his shaggy head, his
+shoulders, and part of his chest into the black hole, so that
+Yegorushka could see nothing but his short legs, which scarcely
+touched the ground. Seeing the reflection of his head far down at
+the bottom of the well, he was delighted and went off into his deep
+bass stupid laugh, and the echo from the well answered him. When
+he got up his neck and face were as red as beetroot. The first to
+run up and drink was Dymov. He drank laughing, often turning from
+the pail to tell Kiruha something funny, then he turned round, and
+uttered aloud, to be heard all over the steppe, five very bad words.
+Yegorushka did not understand the meaning of such words, but he
+knew very well they were bad words. He knew the repulsion his friends
+and relations silently felt for such words. He himself, without
+knowing why, shared that feeling and was accustomed to think that
+only drunk and disorderly people enjoy the privilege of uttering
+such words aloud. He remembered the murder of the grass snake,
+listened to Dymov's laughter, and felt something like hatred for
+the man. And as ill-luck would have it, Dymov at that moment caught
+sight of Yegorushka, who had climbed down from the waggon and gone
+up to the well. He laughed aloud and shouted:
+
+"I say, lads, the old man has been brought to bed of a boy in the
+night!"
+
+Kiruha laughed his bass laugh till he coughed. Someone else laughed
+too, while Yegorushka crimsoned and made up his mind finally that
+Dymov was a very wicked man.
+
+With his curly flaxen head, with his shirt opened on his chest and
+no hat on, Dymov looked handsome and exceptionally strong; in every
+movement he made one could see the reckless dare-devil and athlete,
+knowing his value. He shrugged his shoulders, put his arms akimbo,
+talked and laughed louder than any of the rest, and looked as though
+he were going to lift up something very heavy with one hand and
+astonish the whole world by doing so. His mischievous mocking eyes
+glided over the road, the waggons, and the sky without resting on
+anything, and seemed looking for someone to kill, just as a pastime,
+and something to laugh at. Evidently he was afraid of no one, would
+stick at nothing, and most likely was not in the least interested
+in Yegorushka's opinion of him. . . . Yegorushka meanwhile hated
+his flaxen head, his clear face, and his strength with his whole
+heart, listened with fear and loathing to his laughter, and kept
+thinking what word of abuse he could pay him out with.
+
+Panteley, too, went up to the pail. He took out of his pocket a
+little green glass of an ikon lamp, wiped it with a rag, filled it
+from the pail and drank from it, then filled it again, wrapped the
+little glass in the rag, and then put it back into his pocket.
+
+"Grandfather, why do you drink out of a lamp?" Yegorushka asked
+him, surprised.
+
+"One man drinks out of a pail and another out of a lamp," the old
+man answered evasively. "Every man to his own taste. . . . You drink
+out of the pail--well, drink, and may it do you good. . . ."
+
+"You darling, you beauty!" Vassya said suddenly, in a caressing,
+plaintive voice. "You darling!"
+
+His eyes were fixed on the distance; they were moist and smiling,
+and his face wore the same expression as when he had looked at
+Yegorushka.
+
+"Who is it you are talking to?" asked Kiruha.
+
+"A darling fox, . . . lying on her back, playing like a dog."
+
+Everyone began staring into the distance, looking for the fox, but
+no one could see it, only Vassya with his grey muddy-looking eyes,
+and he was enchanted by it. His sight was extraordinarily keen, as
+Yegorushka learnt afterwards. He was so long-sighted that the brown
+steppe was for him always full of life and interest. He had only
+to look into the distance to see a fox, a hare, a bustard, or some
+other animal keeping at a distance from men. There was nothing
+strange in seeing a hare running away or a flying bustard--everyone
+crossing the steppes could see them; but it was not vouchsafed to
+everyone to see wild animals in their own haunts when they were not
+running nor hiding, nor looking about them in alarm. Yet Vassya saw
+foxes playing, hares washing themselves with their paws, bustards
+preening their wings and hammering out their hollow nests. Thanks
+to this keenness of sight, Vassya had, besides the world seen by
+everyone, another world of his own, accessible to no one else, and
+probably a very beautiful one, for when he saw something and was
+in raptures over it it was impossible not to envy him.
+
+When the waggons set off again, the church bells were ringing for
+service.
+
+V
+
+The train of waggons drew up on the bank of a river on one side of
+a village. The sun was blazing, as it had been the day before; the
+air was stagnant and depressing. There were a few willows on the
+bank, but the shade from them did not fall on the earth, but on the
+water, where it was wasted; even in the shade under the waggon it
+was stifling and wearisome. The water, blue from the reflection of
+the sky in it, was alluring.
+
+Styopka, a waggoner whom Yegorushka noticed now for the first time,
+a Little Russian lad of eighteen, in a long shirt without a belt,
+and full trousers that flapped like flags as he walked, undressed
+quickly, ran along the steep bank and plunged into the water. He
+dived three times, then swam on his back and shut his eyes in his
+delight. His face was smiling and wrinkled up as though he were
+being tickled, hurt and amused.
+
+On a hot day when there is nowhere to escape from the sultry,
+stifling heat, the splash of water and the loud breathing of a man
+bathing sounds like good music to the ear. Dymov and Kiruha, looking
+at Styopka, undressed quickly and one after the other, laughing
+loudly in eager anticipation of their enjoyment, dropped into the
+water, and the quiet, modest little river resounded with snorting
+and splashing and shouting. Kiruha coughed, laughed and shouted as
+though they were trying to drown him, while Dymov chased him and
+tried to catch him by the leg.
+
+"Ha-ha-ha!" he shouted. "Catch him! Hold him!"
+
+Kiruha laughed and enjoyed himself, but his expression was the same
+as it had been on dry land, stupid, with a look of astonishment on
+it as though someone had, unnoticed, stolen up behind him and hit
+him on the head with the butt-end of an axe. Yegorushka undressed,
+too, but did not let himself down by the bank, but took a run and
+a flying leap from the height of about ten feet. Describing an arc
+in the air, he fell into the water, sank deep, but did not reach
+the bottom; some force, cold and pleasant to the touch, seemed to
+hold him up and bring him back to the surface. He popped out and,
+snorting and blowing bubbles, opened his eyes; but the sun was
+reflected in the water quite close to his face. At first blinding
+spots of light, then rainbow colours and dark patches, flitted
+before his eyes. He made haste to dive again, opened his eyes in
+the water and saw something cloudy-green like a sky on a moonlight
+night. Again the same force would not let him touch the bottom and
+stay in the coolness, but lifted him to the surface. He popped out
+and heaved a sigh so deep that he had a feeling of space and
+freshness, not only in his chest, but in his stomach. Then, to get
+from the water everything he possibly could get, he allowed himself
+every luxury; he lay on his back and basked, splashed, frolicked,
+swam on his face, on his side, on his back and standing up--just
+as he pleased till he was exhausted. The other bank was thickly
+overgrown with reeds; it was golden in the sun, and the flowers of
+the reeds hung drooping to the water in lovely tassels. In one place
+the reeds were shaking and nodding, with their flowers rustling--
+Styopka and Kiruha were hunting crayfish.
+
+"A crayfish, look, lads! A crayfish!" Kiruha cried triumphantly and
+actually showed a crayfish.
+
+Yegorushka swam up to the reeds, dived, and began fumbling among
+their roots. Burrowing in the slimy, liquid mud, he felt something
+sharp and unpleasant--perhaps it really was a crayfish. But at
+that minute someone seized him by the leg and pulled him to the
+surface. Spluttering and coughing, Yegorushka opened his eyes and
+saw before him the wet grinning face of the dare-devil Dymov. The
+impudent fellow was breathing hard, and from a look in his eyes he
+seemed inclined for further mischief. He held Yegorushka tight by
+the leg, and was lifting his hand to take hold of his neck. But
+Yegorushka tore himself away with repulsion and terror, as though
+disgusted at being touched and afraid that the bully would drown
+him, and said:
+
+"Fool! I'll punch you in the face."
+
+Feeling that this was not sufficient to express his hatred, he
+thought a minute and added:
+
+"You blackguard! You son of a bitch!"
+
+But Dymov, as though nothing were the matter, took no further notice
+of Yegorushka, but swam off to Kiruha, shouting:
+
+"Ha-ha-ha! Let us catch fish! Mates, let us catch fish."
+
+"To be sure," Kiruha agreed; "there must be a lot of fish here."
+
+"Styopka, run to the village and ask the peasants for a net!
+
+"They won't give it to me."
+
+"They will, you ask them. Tell them that they should give it to us
+for Christ's sake, because we are just the same as pilgrims."
+
+"That's true."
+
+Styopka clambered out of the water, dressed quickly, and without a
+cap on he ran, his full trousers flapping, to the village. The water
+lost all its charm for Yegorushka after his encounter with Dymov.
+He got out and began dressing. Panteley and Vassya were sitting on
+the steep bank, with their legs hanging down, looking at the bathers.
+Emelyan was standing naked, up to his knees in the water, holding
+on to the grass with one hand to prevent himself from falling while
+the other stroked his body. With his bony shoulder-blades, with the
+swelling under his eye, bending down and evidently afraid of the
+water, he made a ludicrous figure. His face was grave and severe.
+He looked angrily at the water, as though he were just going to
+upbraid it for having given him cold in the Donets and robbed him
+of his voice.
+
+"And why don't you bathe?" Yegorushka asked Vassya.
+
+"Oh, I don't care for it, . . ." answered Vassya.
+
+"How is it your chin is swollen?"
+
+"It's bad. . . . I used to work at the match factory, little sir.
+. . . The doctor used to say that it would make my jaw rot. The air
+is not healthy there. There were three chaps beside me who had their
+jaws swollen, and with one of them it rotted away altogether."
+
+Styopka soon came back with the net. Dymov and Kiruha were already
+turning blue and getting hoarse by being so long in the water, but
+they set about fishing eagerly. First they went to a deep place
+beside the reeds; there Dymov was up to his neck, while the water
+went over squat Kiruha's head. The latter spluttered and blew
+bubbles, while Dymov stumbling on the prickly roots, fell over and
+got caught in the net; both flopped about in the water, and made a
+noise, and nothing but mischief came of their fishing.
+
+"It's deep," croaked Kiruha. "You won't catch anything."
+
+"Don't tug, you devil!" shouted Dymov trying to put the net in the
+proper position. "Hold it up."
+
+"You won't catch anything here," Panteley shouted from the bank.
+"You are only frightening the fish, you stupids! Go more to the
+left! It's shallower there!"
+
+Once a big fish gleamed above the net; they all drew a breath, and
+Dymov struck the place where it had vanished with his fist, and his
+face expressed vexation.
+
+"Ugh!" cried Panteley, and he stamped his foot. "You've let the
+perch slip! It's gone!"
+
+Moving more to the left, Dymov and Kiruha picked out a shallower
+place, and then fishing began in earnest. They had wandered off
+some hundred paces from the waggons; they could be seen silently
+trying to go as deep as they could and as near the reeds, moving
+their legs a little at a time, drawing out the nets, beating the
+water with their fists to drive them towards the nets. From the
+reeds they got to the further bank; they drew the net out, then,
+with a disappointed air, lifting their knees high as they walked,
+went back into the reeds. They were talking about something, but
+what it was no one could hear. The sun was scorching their backs,
+the flies were stinging them, and their bodies had turned from
+purple to crimson. Styopka was walking after them with a pail in
+his hands; he had tucked his shirt right up under his armpits, and
+was holding it up by the hem with his teeth. After every successful
+catch he lifted up some fish, and letting it shine in the sun,
+shouted:
+
+"Look at this perch! We've five like that!"
+
+Every time Dymov, Kiruha and Styopka pulled out the net they could
+be seen fumbling about in the mud in it, putting some things into
+the pail and throwing other things away; sometimes they passed
+something that was in the net from hand to hand, examined it
+inquisitively, then threw that, too, away.
+
+"What is it?" they shouted to them from the bank.
+
+Styopka made some answer, but it was hard to make out his words.
+Then he climbed out of the water and, holding the pail in both
+hands, forgetting to let his shirt drop, ran to the waggons.
+
+"It's full!" he shouted, breathing hard. "Give us another!"
+
+Yegorushka looked into the pail: it was full. A young pike poked
+its ugly nose out of the water, and there were swarms of crayfish
+and little fish round about it. Yegorushka put his hand down to the
+bottom and stirred up the water; the pike vanished under the crayfish
+and a perch and a tench swam to the surface instead of it. Vassya,
+too, looked into the pail. His eyes grew moist and his face looked
+as caressing as before when he saw the fox. He took something out
+of the pail, put it to his mouth and began chewing it.
+
+"Mates," said Styopka in amazement, "Vassya is eating a live gudgeon!
+Phoo!"
+
+"It's not a gudgeon, but a minnow," Vassya answered calmly, still
+munching.
+
+He took a fish's tail out of his mouth, looked at it caressingly,
+and put it back again. While he was chewing and crunching with his
+teeth it seemed to Yegorushka that he saw before him something not
+human. Vassya's swollen chin, his lustreless eyes, his extraordinary
+sharp sight, the fish's tail in his mouth, and the caressing
+friendliness with which he crunched the gudgeon made him like an
+animal.
+
+Yegorushka felt dreary beside him. And the fishing was over, too.
+He walked about beside the waggons, thought a little, and, feeling
+bored, strolled off to the village.
+
+Not long afterwards he was standing in the church, and with his
+forehead leaning on somebody's back, listened to the singing of the
+choir. The service was drawing to a close. Yegorushka did not
+understand church singing and did not care for it. He listened a
+little, yawned, and began looking at the backs and heads before
+him. In one head, red and wet from his recent bathe, he recognized
+Emelyan. The back of his head had been cropped in a straight line
+higher than is usual; the hair in front had been cut unbecomingly
+high, and Emelyan's ears stood out like two dock leaves, and seemed
+to feel themselves out of place. Looking at the back of his head
+and his ears, Yegorushka, for some reason, thought that Emelyan was
+probably very unhappy. He remembered the way he conducted with his
+hands, his husky voice, his timid air when he was bathing, and felt
+intense pity for him. He longed to say something friendly to him.
+
+"I am here, too," he said, putting out his hand.
+
+People who sing tenor or bass in the choir, especially those who
+have at any time in their lives conducted, are accustomed to look
+with a stern and unfriendly air at boys. They do not give up this
+habit, even when they leave off being in a choir. Turning to
+Yegorushka, Emelyan looked at him from under his brows and said:
+
+"Don't play in church!"
+
+Then Yegorushka moved forwards nearer to the ikon-stand. Here he
+saw interesting people. On the right side, in front of everyone, a
+lady and a gentleman were standing on a carpet. There were chairs
+behind them. The gentleman was wearing newly ironed shantung trousers;
+he stood as motionless as a soldier saluting, and held high his
+bluish shaven chin. There was a very great air of dignity in his
+stand-up collar, in his blue chin, in his small bald patch and his
+cane. His neck was so strained from excess of dignity, and his chin
+was drawn up so tensely, that it looked as though his head were
+ready to fly off and soar upwards any minute. The lady, who was
+stout and elderly and wore a white silk shawl, held her head on one
+side and looked as though she had done someone a favour, and wanted
+to say: "Oh, don't trouble yourself to thank me; I don't like it
+. . . ." A thick wall of Little Russian heads stood all round the
+carpet.
+
+Yegorushka went up to the ikon-stand and began kissing the local
+ikons. Before each image he slowly bowed down to the ground, without
+getting up, looked round at the congregation, then got up and kissed
+the ikon. The contact of his forehead with the cold floor afforded
+him great satisfaction. When the beadle came from the altar with a
+pair of long snuffers to put out the candles, Yegorushka jumped up
+quickly from the floor and ran up to him.
+
+"Have they given out the holy bread?" he asked.
+
+"There is none; there is none," the beadle muttered gruffly. "It
+is no use your. . ."
+
+The service was over; Yegorushka walked out of the church in a
+leisurely way, and began strolling about the market-place. He had
+seen a good many villages, market-places, and peasants in his time,
+and everything that met his eyes was entirely without interest for
+him. At a loss for something to do, he went into a shop over the
+door of which hung a wide strip of red cotton. The shop consisted
+of two roomy, badly lighted parts; in one half they sold drapery
+and groceries, in the other there were tubs of tar, and there were
+horse-collars hanging from the ceiling; from both came the savoury
+smell of leather and tar. The floor of the shop had been watered;
+the man who watered it must have been a very whimsical and original
+person, for it was sprinkled in patterns and mysterious symbols.
+The shopkeeper, an overfed-looking man with a broad face and round
+beard, apparently a Great Russian, was standing, leaning his person
+over the counter. He was nibbling a piece of sugar as he drank his
+tea, and heaved a deep sigh at every sip. His face expressed complete
+indifference, but each sigh seemed to be saying:
+
+"Just wait a minute; I will give it you."
+
+"Give me a farthing's worth of sunflower seeds," Yegorushka said,
+addressing him.
+
+The shopkeeper raised his eyebrows, came out from behind the counter,
+and poured a farthing's worth of sunflower seeds into Yegorushka's
+pocket, using an empty pomatum pot as a measure. Yegorushka did not
+want to go away. He spent a long time in examining the box of cakes,
+thought a little and asked, pointing to some little cakes covered
+with the mildew of age:
+
+"How much are these cakes?"
+
+"Two for a farthing."
+
+Yegorushka took out of his pocket the cake given him the day before
+by the Jewess, and asked him:
+
+"And how much do you charge for cakes like this?"
+
+The shopman took the cake in his hands, looked at it from all sides,
+and raised one eyebrow.
+
+"Like that?" he asked.
+
+Then he raised the other eyebrow, thought a minute, and answered:
+
+"Two for three farthings. . . ."
+
+A silence followed.
+
+"Whose boy are you?" the shopman asked, pouring himself out some
+tea from a red copper teapot.
+
+"The nephew of Ivan Ivanitch."
+
+"There are all sorts of Ivan Ivanitchs," the shopkeeper sighed. He
+looked over Yegorushka's head towards the door, paused a minute and
+asked:
+
+"Would you like some tea?"
+
+"Please. . . ." Yegorushka assented not very readily, though he
+felt an intense longing for his usual morning tea.
+
+The shopkeeper poured him out a glass and gave him with it a bit
+of sugar that looked as though it had been nibbled. Yegorushka sat
+down on the folding chair and began drinking it. He wanted to ask
+the price of a pound of sugar almonds, and had just broached the
+subject when a customer walked in, and the shopkeeper, leaving his
+glass of tea, attended to his business. He led the customer into
+the other half, where there was a smell of tar, and was there a
+long time discussing something with him. The customer, a man
+apparently very obstinate and pig-headed, was continually shaking
+his head to signify his disapproval, and retreating towards the
+door. The shopkeeper tried to persuade him of something and began
+pouring some oats into a big sack for him.
+
+"Do you call those oats?" the customer said gloomily. "Those are
+not oats, but chaff. It's a mockery to give that to the hens; enough
+to make the hens laugh. . . . No, I will go to Bondarenko."
+
+When Yegorushka went back to the river a small camp fire was smoking
+on the bank. The waggoners were cooking their dinner. Styopka was
+standing in the smoke, stirring the cauldron with a big notched
+spoon. A little on one side Kiruha and Vassya, with eyes reddened
+from the smoke, were sitting cleaning the fish. Before them lay the
+net covered with slime and water weeds, and on it lay gleaming fish
+and crawling crayfish.
+
+Emelyan, who had not long been back from the church, was sitting
+beside Panteley, waving his arm and humming just audibly in a husky
+voice: "To Thee we sing. . . ." Dymov was moving about by the horses.
+
+When they had finished cleaning them, Kiruha and Vassya put the
+fish and the living crayfish together in the pail, rinsed them, and
+from the pail poured them all into the boiling water.
+
+"Shall I put in some fat?" asked Styopka, skimming off the froth.
+
+"No need. The fish will make its own gravy," answered Kiruha.
+
+Before taking the cauldron off the fire Styopka scattered into the
+water three big handfuls of millet and a spoonful of salt; finally
+he tried it, smacked his lips, licked the spoon, and gave a
+self-satisfied grunt, which meant that the grain was done.
+
+All except Panteley sat down near the cauldron and set to work with
+their spoons.
+
+"You there! Give the little lad a spoon!" Panteley observed sternly.
+"I dare say he is hungry too!"
+
+"Ours is peasant fare," sighed Kiruha.
+
+"Peasant fare is welcome, too, when one is hungry."
+
+They gave Yegorushka a spoon. He began eating, not sitting, but
+standing close to the cauldron and looking down into it as in a
+hole. The grain smelt of fish and fish-scales were mixed up with
+the millet. The crayfish could not be hooked out with a spoon, and
+the men simply picked them out of the cauldron with their hands;
+Vassya did so particularly freely, and wetted his sleeves as well
+as his hands in the mess. But yet the stew seemed to Yegorushka
+very nice, and reminded him of the crayfish soup which his mother
+used to make at home on fast-days. Panteley was sitting apart
+munching bread.
+
+"Grandfather, why aren't you eating?" Emelyan asked him.
+
+"I don't eat crayfish. . . . Nasty things," the old man said, and
+turned away with disgust.
+
+While they were eating they all talked. From this conversation
+Yegorushka gathered that all his new acquaintances, in spite of the
+differences of their ages and their characters, had one point in
+common which made them all alike: they were all people with a
+splendid past and a very poor present. Of their past they all--
+every one of them--spoke with enthusiasm; their attitude to the
+present was almost one of contempt. The Russian loves recalling
+life, but he does not love living. Yegorushka did not yet know that,
+and before the stew had been all eaten he firmly believed that the
+men sitting round the cauldron were the injured victims of fate.
+Panteley told them that in the past, before there were railways,
+he used to go with trains of waggons to Moscow and to Nizhni, and
+used to earn so much that he did not know what to do with his money;
+and what merchants there used to be in those days! what fish! how
+cheap everything was! Now the roads were shorter, the merchants
+were stingier, the peasants were poorer, the bread was dearer,
+everything had shrunk and was on a smaller scale. Emelyan told them
+that in old days he had been in the choir in the Lugansky works,
+and that he had a remarkable voice and read music splendidly, while
+now he had become a peasant and lived on the charity of his brother,
+who sent him out with his horses and took half his earnings. Vassya
+had once worked in a match factory; Kiruha had been a coachman in
+a good family, and had been reckoned the smartest driver of a
+three-in-hand in the whole district. Dymov, the son of a well-to-do
+peasant, lived at ease, enjoyed himself and had known no trouble
+till he was twenty, when his stern harsh father, anxious to train
+him to work, and afraid he would be spoiled at home, had sent him
+to a carrier's to work as a hired labourer. Styopka was the only
+one who said nothing, but from his beardless face it was evident
+that his life had been a much better one in the past.
+
+Thinking of his father, Dymov frowned and left off eating. Sullenly
+from under his brows he looked round at his companions and his eye
+rested upon Yegorushka.
+
+"You heathen, take off your cap," he said rudely. "You can't eat
+with your cap on, and you a gentleman too!"
+
+Yegorushka took off his hat and did not say a word, but the stew
+lost all savour for him, and he did not hear Panteley and Vassya
+intervening on his behalf. A feeling of anger with the insulting
+fellow was rankling oppressively in his breast, and he made up his
+mind that he would do him some injury, whatever it cost him.
+
+After dinner everyone sauntered to the waggons and lay down in the
+shade.
+
+"Are we going to start soon, grandfather?" Yegorushka asked Panteley.
+
+"In God's good time we shall set off. There's no starting yet; it
+is too hot. . . . O Lord, Thy will be done. Holy Mother. . . Lie
+down, little lad."
+
+Soon there was a sound of snoring from under the waggons. Yegorushka
+meant to go back to the village, but on consideration, yawned and
+lay down by the old man.
+
+VI
+
+The waggons remained by the river the whole day, and set off again
+when the sun was setting.
+
+Yegorushka was lying on the bales again; the waggon creaked softly
+and swayed from side to side. Panteley walked below, stamping his
+feet, slapping himself on his thighs and muttering. The air was
+full of the churring music of the steppes, as it had been the day
+before.
+
+Yegorushka lay on his back, and, putting his hands under his head,
+gazed upwards at the sky. He watched the glow of sunset kindle,
+then fade away; guardian angels covering the horizon with their
+gold wings disposed themselves to slumber. The day had passed
+peacefully; the quiet peaceful night had come, and they could stay
+tranquilly at home in heaven. . . . Yegorushka saw the sky by degrees
+grow dark and the mist fall over the earth--saw the stars light
+up, one after the other. . . .
+
+When you gaze a long while fixedly at the deep sky thoughts and
+feelings for some reason merge in a sense of loneliness. One begins
+to feel hopelessly solitary, and everything one used to look upon
+as near and akin becomes infinitely remote and valueless; the stars
+that have looked down from the sky thousands of years already, the
+mists and the incomprehensible sky itself, indifferent to the brief
+life of man, oppress the soul with their silence when one is left
+face to face with them and tries to grasp their significance. One
+is reminded of the solitude awaiting each one of us in the grave,
+and the reality of life seems awful . . . full of despair. . . .
+
+Yegorushka thought of his grandmother, who was sleeping now under
+the cherry-trees in the cemetery. He remembered how she lay in her
+coffin with pennies on her eyes, how afterwards she was shut in and
+let down into the grave; he even recalled the hollow sound of the
+clods of earth on the coffin lid. . . . He pictured his granny in
+the dark and narrow coffin, helpless and deserted by everyone. His
+imagination pictured his granny suddenly awakening, not understanding
+where she was, knocking upon the lid and calling for help, and in
+the end swooning with horror and dying again. He imagined his mother
+dead, Father Christopher, Countess Dranitsky, Solomon. But however
+much he tried to imagine himself in the dark tomb, far from home,
+outcast, helpless and dead, he could not succeed; for himself
+personally he could not admit the possibility of death, and felt
+that he would never die. . . .
+
+Panteley, for whom death could not be far away, walked below and
+went on reckoning up his thoughts.
+
+"All right. . . . Nice gentlefolk, . . ." he muttered. "Took his
+little lad to school--but how he is doing now I haven't heard say
+--in Slavyanoserbsk. I say there is no establishment for teaching
+them to be very clever. . . . No, that's true--a nice little lad,
+no harm in him. . . . He'll grow up and be a help to his father
+. . . . You, Yegory, are little now, but you'll grow big and will
+keep your father and mother. . . . So it is ordained of God, 'Honour
+your father and your mother.' . . . I had children myself, but they
+were burnt. . . . My wife was burnt and my children, . . . that's
+true. . . . The hut caught fire on the night of Epiphany. . . . I
+was not at home, I was driving in Oryol. In Oryol. . . . Marya
+dashed out into the street, but remembering that the children were
+asleep in the hut, ran back and was burnt with her children. . . .
+Next day they found nothing but bones."
+
+About midnight Yegorushka and the waggoners were again sitting round
+a small camp fire. While the dry twigs and stems were burning up,
+Kiruha and Vassya went off somewhere to get water from a creek;
+they vanished into the darkness, but could be heard all the time
+talking and clinking their pails; so the creek was not far away.
+The light from the fire lay a great flickering patch on the earth;
+though the moon was bright, yet everything seemed impenetrably black
+beyond that red patch. The light was in the waggoners' eyes, and
+they saw only part of the great road; almost unseen in the darkness
+the waggons with the bales and the horses looked like a mountain
+of undefined shape. Twenty paces from the camp fire at the edge of
+the road stood a wooden cross that had fallen aslant. Before the
+camp fire had been lighted, when he could still see things at a
+distance, Yegorushka had noticed that there was a similar old
+slanting cross on the other side of the great road.
+
+Coming back with the water, Kiruha and Vassya filled the cauldron
+and fixed it over the fire. Styopka, with the notched spoon in his
+hand, took his place in the smoke by the cauldron, gazing dreamily
+into the water for the scum to rise. Panteley and Emelyan were
+sitting side by side in silence, brooding over something. Dymov was
+lying on his stomach, with his head propped on his fists, looking
+into the fire. . . . Styopka's shadow was dancing over him, so that
+his handsome face was at one minute covered with darkness, at the
+next lighted up. . . . Kiruha and Vassya were wandering about at a
+little distance gathering dry grass and bark for the fire. Yegorushka,
+with his hands in his pockets, was standing by Panteley, watching
+how the fire devoured the grass.
+
+All were resting, musing on something, and they glanced cursorily
+at the cross over which patches of red light were dancing. There
+is something melancholy, pensive, and extremely poetical about a
+solitary tomb; one feels its silence, and the silence gives one the
+sense of the presence of the soul of the unknown man who lies under
+the cross. Is that soul at peace on the steppe? Does it grieve in
+the moonlight? Near the tomb the steppe seems melancholy, dreary
+and mournful; the grass seems more sorrowful, and one fancies the
+grasshoppers chirrup less freely, and there is no passer-by who
+would not remember that lonely soul and keep looking back at the
+tomb, till it was left far behind and hidden in the mists. . . .
+
+"Grandfather, what is that cross for?" asked Yegorushka.
+
+Panteley looked at the cross and then at Dymov and asked:
+
+"Nikola, isn't this the place where the mowers killed the merchants?"
+
+Dymov not very readily raised himself on his elbow, looked at the
+road and said:
+
+"Yes, it is. . . ."
+
+A silence followed. Kiruha broke up some dry stalks, crushed them
+up together and thrust them under the cauldron. The fire flared up
+brightly; Styopka was enveloped in black smoke, and the shadow cast
+by the cross danced along the road in the dusk beside the waggons.
+
+"Yes, they were killed," Dymov said reluctantly. "Two merchants,
+father and son, were travelling, selling holy images. They put up
+in the inn not far from here that is now kept by Ignat Fomin. The
+old man had a drop too much, and began boasting that he had a lot
+of money with him. We all know merchants are a boastful set, God
+preserve us. . . . They can't resist showing off before the likes
+of us. And at the time some mowers were staying the night at the
+inn. So they overheard what the merchants said and took note of
+it."
+
+"O Lord! . . . Holy Mother!" sighed Panteley.
+
+"Next day, as soon as it was light," Dymov went on, "the merchants
+were preparing to set off and the mowers tried to join them. 'Let
+us go together, your worships. It will be more cheerful and there
+will be less danger, for this is an out-of-the-way place. . . .'
+The merchants had to travel at a walking pace to avoid breaking the
+images, and that just suited the mowers. . . ."
+
+Dymov rose into a kneeling position and stretched.
+
+"Yes," he went on, yawning. "Everything went all right till they
+reached this spot, and then the mowers let fly at them with their
+scythes. The son, he was a fine young fellow, snatched the scythe
+from one of them, and he used it, too. . . . Well, of course, they
+got the best of it because there were eight of them. They hacked
+at the merchants so that there was not a sound place left on their
+bodies; when they had finished they dragged both of them off the
+road, the father to one side and the son to the other. Opposite
+that cross there is another cross on this side. . . . Whether it
+is still standing, I don't know. . . . I can't see from here. . . ."
+
+"It is," said Kiruha.
+
+"They say they did not find much money afterwards."
+
+"No," Panteley confirmed; "they only found a hundred roubles."
+
+"And three of them died afterwards, for the merchant had cut them
+badly with the scythe, too. They died from loss of blood. One had
+his hand cut off, so that they say he ran three miles without his
+hand, and they found him on a mound close to Kurikovo. He was
+squatting on his heels, with his head on his knees, as though he
+were lost in thought, but when they looked at him there was no life
+in him and he was dead. . . ."
+
+"They found him by the track of blood," said Panteley.
+
+Everyone looked at the cross, and again there was a hush. From
+somewhere, most likely from the creek, floated the mournful cry of
+the bird: "Sleep! sleep! sleep!"
+
+"There are a great many wicked people in the world," said Emelyan.
+
+"A great many," assented Panteley, and he moved up closer to the
+fire as though he were frightened. "A great many," he went on in a
+low voice. "I've seen lots and lots of them. . . . Wicked people!
+. . . I have seen a great many holy and just, too. . . . Queen of
+Heaven, save us and have mercy on us. I remember once thirty years
+ago, or maybe more, I was driving a merchant from Morshansk. The
+merchant was a jolly handsome fellow, with money, too . . . the
+merchant was . . . a nice man, no harm in him. . . . So we put up
+for the night at an inn. And in Russia the inns are not what they
+are in these parts. There the yards are roofed in and look like the
+ground floor, or let us say like barns in good farms. Only a barn
+would be a bit higher. So we put up there and were all right. My
+merchant was in a room, while I was with the horses, and everything
+was as it should be. So, lads, I said my prayers before going to
+sleep and began walking about the yard. And it was a dark night, I
+couldn't see anything; it was no good trying. So I walked about a
+bit up to the waggons, or nearly, when I saw a light gleaming. What
+could it mean? I thought the people of the inn had gone to bed long
+ago, and besides the merchant and me there were no other guests in
+the inn. . . . Where could the light have come from? I felt suspicious.
+. . . I went closer . . . towards the light. . . . The Lord have
+mercy upon me! and save me, Queen of Heaven! I looked and there was
+a little window with a grating, . . . close to the ground, in the
+house. . . I lay down on the ground and looked in; as soon as I
+looked in a cold chill ran all down me. . . ."
+
+Kiruha, trying not to make a noise, thrust a handful of twigs into
+the fire. After waiting for it to leave off crackling and hissing,
+the old man went on:
+
+"I looked in and there was a big cellar, black and dark. . . . There
+was a lighted lantern on a tub. In the middle of the cellar were
+about a dozen men in red shirts with their sleeves turned up,
+sharpening long knives. . . . Ugh! So we had fallen into a nest of
+robbers. . . . What's to be done? I ran to the merchant, waked him
+up quietly, and said: 'Don't be frightened, merchant,' said I, 'but
+we are in a bad way. We have fallen into a nest of robbers,' I said.
+He turned pale and asked: 'What are we to do now, Panteley? I have
+a lot of money that belongs to orphans. As for my life,' he said,
+'that's in God's hands. I am not afraid to die, but it's dreadful
+to lose the orphans' money,' said he. . . . What were we to do? The
+gates were locked; there was no getting out. If there had been a
+fence one could have climbed over it, but with the yard shut up!
+. . . 'Come, don't be frightened, merchant,' said I; 'but pray to
+God. Maybe the Lord will not let the orphans suffer. Stay still.'
+said I, 'and make no sign, and meanwhile, maybe, I shall think of
+something. . . .' Right! . . . I prayed to God and the Lord put the
+thought into my mind. . . . I clambered up on my chaise and softly,
+. . . softly so that no one should hear, began pulling out the straw
+in the thatch, made a hole and crept out, crept out. . . . Then I
+jumped off the roof and ran along the road as fast as I could. I
+ran and ran till I was nearly dead. . . . I ran maybe four miles
+without taking breath, if not more. Thank God I saw a village. I
+ran up to a hut and began tapping at a window. 'Good Christian
+people,' I said, and told them all about it, 'do not let a Christian
+soul perish. . . .' I waked them all up. . . . The peasants gathered
+together and went with me, . . one with a cord, one with an oakstick,
+others with pitchforks. . . . We broke in the gates of the inn-yard
+and went straight to the cellar. . . . And the robbers had just
+finished sharpening their knives and were going to kill the merchant.
+The peasants took them, every one of them, bound them and carried
+them to the police. The merchant gave them three hundred roubles
+in his joy, and gave me five gold pieces and put my name down. They
+said that they found human bones in the cellar afterwards, heaps
+and heaps of them. . . . Bones! . . . So they robbed people and
+then buried them, so that there should be no traces. . . . Well,
+afterwards they were punished at Morshansk."
+
+Panteley had finished his story, and he looked round at his listeners.
+They were gazing at him in silence. The water was boiling by now
+and Styopka was skimming off the froth.
+
+"Is the fat ready?" Kiruha asked him in a whisper.
+
+"Wait a little. . . . Directly."
+
+Styopka, his eyes fixed on Panteley as though he were afraid that
+the latter might begin some story before he was back, ran to the
+waggons; soon he came back with a little wooden bowl and began
+pounding some lard in it.
+
+"I went another journey with a merchant, too, . . ." Panteley went
+on again, speaking as before in a low voice and with fixed unblinking
+eyes. "His name, as I remember now, was Pyotr Grigoritch. He was a
+nice man, . . . the merchant was. We stopped in the same way at an
+inn. . . . He indoors and me with the horses. . . . The people of
+the house, the innkeeper and his wife, seemed friendly good sort
+of people; the labourers, too, seemed all right; but yet, lads, I
+couldn't sleep. I had a queer feeling in my heart, . . . a queer
+feeling, that was just it. The gates were open and there were plenty
+of people about, and yet I felt afraid and not myself. Everyone had
+been asleep long ago. It was the middle of the night; it would soon
+be time to get up, and I was lying alone in my chaise and could not
+close my eyes, as though I were some owl. And then, lads, I heard
+this sound, 'Toop! toop! toop!' Someone was creeping up to the
+chaise. I poke my head out, and there was a peasant woman in nothing
+but her shift and with her feet bare. . . . 'What do you want, good
+woman?' I asked. And she was all of a tremble; her face was
+terror-stricken. . . 'Get up, good man,' said she; 'the people are
+plotting evil. . . . They mean to kill your merchant. With my own
+ears I heard the master whispering with his wife. . . .' So it was
+not for nothing, the foreboding of my heart! 'And who are you?' I
+asked. 'I am their cook,' she said. . . . Right! . . . So I got out
+of the chaise and went to the merchant. I waked him up and said:
+'Things aren't quite right, Pyotr Grigoritch. . . . Make haste and
+rouse yourself from sleep, your worship, and dress now while there
+is still time,' I said; 'and to save our skins, let us get away
+from trouble.' He had no sooner begun dressing when the door opened
+and, mercy on us! I saw, Holy Mother! the innkeeper and his wife
+come into the room with three labourers. . . . So they had persuaded
+the labourers to join them. 'The merchant has a lot of money, and
+we'll go shares,' they told them. Every one of the five had a long
+knife in their hand each a knife. The innkeeper locked the door and
+said: 'Say your prayers, travellers, . . . and if you begin screaming,'
+they said, 'we won't let you say your prayers before you die. . . .'
+As though we could scream! I had such a lump in my throat I could
+not cry out. . . . The merchant wept and said: 'Good Christian
+people! you have resolved to kill me because my money tempts you.
+Well, so be it; I shall not be the first nor shall I be the last.
+Many of us merchants have been murdered at inns. But why, good
+Christian brothers,' says he, 'murder my driver? Why should he have
+to suffer for my money?' And he said that so pitifully! And the
+innkeeper answered him: 'If we leave him alive,' said he, 'he will
+be the first to bear witness against us. One may just as well kill
+two as one. You can but answer once for seven misdeeds. . . Say
+your prayers, that's all you can do, and it is no good talking!'
+The merchant and I knelt down side by side and wept and said our
+prayers. He thought of his children. I was young in those days; I
+wanted to live. . . . We looked at the images and prayed, and so
+pitifully that it brings a tear even now. . . . And the innkeeper's
+wife looks at us and says: 'Good people,' said she, 'don't bear a
+grudge against us in the other world and pray to God for our
+punishment, for it is want that drives us to it.' We prayed and
+wept and prayed and wept, and God heard us. He had pity on us, I
+suppose. . . . At the very minute when the innkeeper had taken the
+merchant by the beard to rip open his throat with his knife suddenly
+someone seemed to tap at the window from the yard! We all started,
+and the innkeeper's hands dropped. . . . Someone was tapping at the
+window and shouting: 'Pyotr Grigoritch,' he shouted, 'are you here?
+Get ready and let's go!' The people saw that someone had come for
+the merchant; they were terrified and took to their heels. . . .
+And we made haste into the yard, harnessed the horses, and were out
+of sight in a minute. . ."
+
+"Who was it knocked at the window?" asked Dymov.
+
+"At the window? It must have been a holy saint or angel, for there
+was no one else. . . . When we drove out of the yard there wasn't
+a soul in the street. . . . It was the Lord's doing."
+
+Panteley told other stories, and in all of them "long knives" figured
+and all alike sounded made up. Had he heard these stories from
+someone else, or had he made them up himself in the remote past,
+and afterwards, as his memory grew weaker, mixed up his experiences
+with his imaginations and become unable to distinguish one from the
+other? Anything is possible, but it is strange that on this occasion
+and for the rest of the journey, whenever he happened to tell a
+story, he gave unmistakable preference to fiction, and never told
+of what he really had experienced. At the time Yegorushka took it
+all for the genuine thing, and believed every word; later on it
+seemed to him strange that a man who in his day had travelled all
+over Russia and seen and known so much, whose wife and children had
+been burnt to death, so failed to appreciate the wealth of his life
+that whenever he was sitting by the camp fire he was either silent
+or talked of what had never been.
+
+Over their porridge they were all silent, thinking of what they had
+just heard. Life is terrible and marvellous, and so, however terrible
+a story you tell in Russia, however you embroider it with nests of
+robbers, long knives and such marvels, it always finds an echo of
+reality in the soul of the listener, and only a man who has been a
+good deal affected by education looks askance distrustfully, and
+even he will be silent. The cross by the roadside, the dark bales
+of wool, the wide expanse of the plain, and the lot of the men
+gathered together by the camp fire--all this was of itself so
+marvellous and terrible that the fantastic colours of legend and
+fairy-tale were pale and blended with life.
+
+All the others ate out of the cauldron, but Panteley sat apart and
+ate his porridge out of a wooden bowl. His spoon was not like those
+the others had, but was made of cypress wood, with a little cross
+on it. Yegorushka, looking at him, thought of the little ikon glass
+and asked Styopka softly:
+
+"Why does Grandfather sit apart?"
+
+"He is an Old Believer," Styopka and Vassya answered in a whisper.
+And as they said it they looked as though they were speaking of
+some secret vice or weakness.
+
+All sat silent, thinking. After the terrible stories there was no
+inclination to speak of ordinary things. All at once in the midst
+of the silence Vassya drew himself up and, fixing his lustreless
+eyes on one point, pricked up his ears.
+
+"What is it?" Dymov asked him.
+
+"Someone is coming," answered Vassya.
+
+"Where do you see him?"
+
+"Yo-on-der! There's something white. . ."
+
+There was nothing to be seen but darkness in the direction in which
+Vassya was looking; everyone listened, but they could hear no sound
+of steps.
+
+"Is he coming by the highroad?" asked Dymov.
+
+"No, over the open country. . . . He is coming this way."
+
+A minute passed in silence.
+
+"And maybe it's the merchant who was buried here walking over the
+steppe," said Dymov.
+
+All looked askance at the cross, exchanged glances and suddenly
+broke into a laugh. They felt ashamed of their terror.
+
+"Why should he walk?" asked Panteley. "It's only those walk at night
+whom the earth will not take to herself. And the merchants were all
+right. . . . The merchants have received the crown of martyrs."
+
+But all at once they heard the sound of steps; someone was coming
+in haste.
+
+"He's carrying something," said Vassya.
+
+They could hear the grass rustling and the dry twigs crackling under
+the feet of the approaching wayfarer. But from the glare of the
+camp fire nothing could be seen. At last the steps sounded close
+by, and someone coughed. The flickering light seemed to part; a
+veil dropped from the waggoners' eyes, and they saw a man facing
+them.
+
+Whether it was due to the flickering light or because everyone
+wanted to make out the man's face first of all, it happened, strangely
+enough, that at the first glance at him they all saw, first of all,
+not his face nor his clothes, but his smile. It was an extraordinarily
+good-natured, broad, soft smile, like that of a baby on waking, one
+of those infectious smiles to which it is difficult not to respond
+by smiling too. The stranger, when they did get a good look at him,
+turned out to be a man of thirty, ugly and in no way remarkable.
+He was a tall Little Russian, with a long nose, long arms and long
+legs; everything about him seemed long except his neck, which was
+so short that it made him seem stooping. He was wearing a clean
+white shirt with an embroidered collar, white trousers, and new
+high boots, and in comparison with the waggoners he looked quite a
+dandy. In his arms he was carrying something big, white, and at the
+first glance strange-looking, and the stock of a gun also peeped
+out from behind his shoulder.
+
+Coming from the darkness into the circle of light, he stopped short
+as though petrified, and for half a minute looked at the waggoners
+as though he would have said: "Just look what a smile I have!"
+
+Then he took a step towards the fire, smiled still more radiantly
+and said:
+
+"Bread and salt, friends!"
+
+"You are very welcome!" Panteley answered for them all.
+
+The stranger put down by the fire what he was carrying in his arms
+--it was a dead bustard--and greeted them once more.
+
+They all went up to the bustard and began examining it.
+
+"A fine big bird; what did you kill it with?" asked Dymov.
+
+"Grape-shot. You can't get him with small shot, he won't let you
+get near enough. Buy it, friends! I will let you have it for twenty
+kopecks."
+
+"What use would it be to us? It's good roast, but I bet it would
+be tough boiled; you could not get your teeth into it. . . ."
+
+"Oh, what a pity! I would take it to the gentry at the farm; they
+would give me half a rouble for it. But it's a long way to go--
+twelve miles!"
+
+The stranger sat down, took off his gun and laid it beside him.
+
+He seemed sleepy and languid; he sat smiling, and, screwing up his
+eyes at the firelight, apparently thinking of something very
+agreeable. They gave him a spoon; he began eating.
+
+"Who are you?" Dymov asked him.
+
+The stranger did not hear the question; he made no answer, and did
+not even glance at Dymov. Most likely this smiling man did not taste
+the flavour of the porridge either, for he seemed to eat it
+mechanically, lifting the spoon to his lips sometimes very full and
+sometimes quite empty. He was not drunk, but he seemed to have
+something nonsensical in his head.
+
+"I ask you who you are?" repeated Dymov.
+
+"I?" said the unknown, starting. "Konstantin Zvonik from Rovno.
+It's three miles from here."
+
+And anxious to show straight off that he was not quite an ordinary
+peasant, but something better, Konstantin hastened to add:
+
+"We keep bees and fatten pigs."
+
+"Do you live with your father or in a house of your own?"
+
+"No; now I am living in a house of my own. I have parted. This
+month, just after St. Peter's Day, I got married. I am a married
+man now! . . . It's eighteen days since the wedding."
+
+"That's a good thing," said Panteley. "Marriage is a good thing
+. . . . God's blessing is on it."
+
+"His young wife sits at home while he rambles about the steppe,"
+laughed Kiruha. "Queer chap!"
+
+As though he had been pinched on the tenderest spot, Konstantin
+started, laughed and flushed crimson.
+
+"But, Lord, she is not at home!" he said quickly, taking the spoon
+out of his mouth and looking round at everyone with an expression
+of delight and wonder. "She is not; she has gone to her mother's
+for three days! Yes, indeed, she has gone away, and I feel as though
+I were not married. . . ."
+
+Konstantin waved his hand and turned his head; he wanted to go on
+thinking, but the joy which beamed in his face prevented him. As
+though he were not comfortable, he changed his attitude, laughed,
+and again waved his hand. He was ashamed to share his happy thoughts
+with strangers, but at the same time he had an irresistible longing
+to communicate his joy.
+
+"She has gone to Demidovo to see her mother," he said, blushing and
+moving his gun. "She'll be back to-morrow. . . . She said she would
+be back to dinner."
+
+"And do you miss her?" said Dymov.
+
+"Oh, Lord, yes; I should think so. We have only been married such
+a little while, and she has gone away. . . . Eh! Oh, but she is a
+tricky one, God strike me dead! She is such a fine, splendid girl,
+such a one for laughing and singing, full of life and fire! When
+she is there your brain is in a whirl, and now she is away I wander
+about the steppe like a fool, as though I had lost something. I
+have been walking since dinner."
+
+Konstantin rubbed his eyes, looked at the fire and laughed.
+
+"You love her, then, . . ." said Panteley.
+
+"She is so fine and splendid," Konstantin repeated, not hearing
+him; "such a housewife, clever and sensible. You wouldn't find
+another like her among simple folk in the whole province. She has
+gone away. . . . But she is missing me, I kno-ow! I know the little
+magpie. She said she would be back to-morrow by dinner-time. . . .
+And just think how queer!" Konstantin almost shouted, speaking a
+note higher and shifting his position. "Now she loves me and is sad
+without me, and yet she would not marry me."
+
+"But eat," said Kiruha.
+
+"She would not marry me," Konstantin went on, not heeding him. "I
+have been struggling with her for three years! I saw her at the
+Kalatchik fair; I fell madly in love with her, was ready to hang
+myself. . . . I live at Rovno, she at Demidovo, more than twenty
+miles apart, and there was nothing I could do. I sent match-makers
+to her, and all she said was: 'I won't!' Ah, the magpie! I sent her
+one thing and another, earrings and cakes, and twenty pounds of
+honey--but still she said: 'I won't!' And there it was. If you
+come to think of it, I was not a match for her! She was young and
+lovely, full of fire, while I am old: I shall soon be thirty, and
+a regular beauty, too; a fine beard like a goat's, a clear complexion
+all covered with pimples--how could I be compared with her! The
+only thing to be said is that we are well off, but then the Vahramenkys
+are well off, too. They've six oxen, and they keep a couple of
+labourers. I was in love, friends, as though I were plague-stricken.
+I couldn't sleep or eat; my brain was full of thoughts, and in such
+a maze, Lord preserve us! I longed to see her, and she was in
+Demidovo. What do you think? God be my witness, I am not lying,
+three times a week I walked over there on foot just to have a look
+at her. I gave up my work! I was so frantic that I even wanted to
+get taken on as a labourer in Demidovo, so as to be near her. I was
+in misery! My mother called in a witch a dozen times; my father
+tried thrashing me. For three years I was in this torment, and then
+I made up my mind. 'Damn my soul!' I said. 'I will go to the town
+and be a cabman. . . . It seems it is fated not to be.' At Easter
+I went to Demidovo to have a last look at her. . . ."
+
+Konstantin threw back his head and went off into a mirthful tinkling
+laugh, as though he had just taken someone in very cleverly.
+
+"I saw her by the river with the lads," he went on. "I was overcome
+with anger. . . . I called her aside and maybe for a full hour I
+said all manner of things to her. She fell in love with me! For
+three years she did not like me! she fell in love with me for what
+I said to her. . . ."
+
+"What did you say to her?" asked Dymov.
+
+"What did I say? I don't remember. . . How could one remember? My
+words flowed at the time like water from a tap, without stopping
+to take breath. Ta-ta-ta! And now I can't utter a word. . . . Well,
+so she married me. . . . She's gone now to her mother's, the magpie,
+and while she is away here I wander over the steppe. I can't stay
+at home. It's more than I can do!"
+
+Konstantin awkwardly released his feet, on which he was sitting,
+stretched himself on the earth, and propped his head in his fists,
+then got up and sat down again. Everyone by now thoroughly understood
+that he was in love and happy, poignantly happy; his smile, his
+eyes, and every movement, expressed fervent happiness. He could not
+find a place for himself, and did not know what attitude to take
+to keep himself from being overwhelmed by the multitude of his
+delightful thoughts. Having poured out his soul before these
+strangers, he settled down quietly at last, and, looking at the
+fire, sank into thought.
+
+At the sight of this happy man everyone felt depressed and longed
+to be happy, too. Everyone was dreamy. Dymov got up, walked about
+softly by the fire, and from his walk, from the movement of his
+shoulder-blades, it could be seen that he was weighed down by
+depression and yearning. He stood still for a moment, looked at
+Konstantin and sat down.
+
+The camp fire had died down by now; there was no flicker, and the
+patch of red had grown small and dim. . . . And as the fire went
+out the moonlight grew clearer and clearer. Now they could see the
+full width of the road, the bales of wool, the shafts of the waggons,
+the munching horses; on the further side of the road there was the
+dim outline of the second cross. . . .
+
+Dymov leaned his cheek on his hand and softly hummed some plaintive
+song. Konstantin smiled drowsily and chimed in with a thin voice.
+They sang for half a minute, then sank into silence. Emelyan started,
+jerked his elbows and wriggled his fingers.
+
+"Lads," he said in an imploring voice, "let's sing something sacred!"
+Tears came into his eyes. "Lads," he repeated, pressing his hands
+on his heart, "let's sing something sacred!"
+
+"I don't know anything," said Konstantin.
+
+Everyone refused, then Emelyan sang alone. He waved both arms,
+nodded his head, opened his mouth, but nothing came from his throat
+but a discordant gasp. He sang with his arms, with his head, with
+his eyes, even with the swelling on his face; he sang passionately
+with anguish, and the more he strained his chest to extract at least
+one note from it, the more discordant were his gasps.
+
+Yegorushka, like the rest, was overcome with depression. He went
+to his waggon, clambered up on the bales and lay down. He looked
+at the sky, and thought of happy Konstantin and his wife. Why did
+people get married? What were women in the world for? Yegorushka
+put the vague questions to himself, and thought that a man would
+certainly be happy if he had an affectionate, merry and beautiful
+woman continually living at his side. For some reason he remembered
+the Countess Dranitsky, and thought it would probably be very
+pleasant to live with a woman like that; he would perhaps have
+married her with pleasure if that idea had not been so shameful.
+He recalled her eyebrows, the pupils of her eyes, her carriage, the
+clock with the horseman. . . . The soft warm night moved softly
+down upon him and whispered something in his ear, and it seemed to
+him that it was that lovely woman bending over him, looking at him
+with a smile and meaning to kiss him. . . .
+
+Nothing was left of the fire but two little red eyes, which kept
+on growing smaller and smaller. Konstantin and the waggoners were
+sitting by it, dark motionless figures, and it seemed as though
+there were many more of them than before. The twin crosses were
+equally visible, and far, far away, somewhere by the highroad there
+gleamed a red light--other people cooking their porridge, most
+likely.
+
+"Our Mother Russia is the he-ad of all the world!" Kiruha sang out
+suddenly in a harsh voice, choked and subsided. The steppe echo
+caught up his voice, carried it on, and it seemed as though stupidity
+itself were rolling on heavy wheels over the steppe.
+
+"It's time to go," said Panteley. "Get up, lads."
+
+While they were putting the horses in, Konstantin walked by the
+waggons and talked rapturously of his wife.
+
+"Good-bye, mates!" he cried when the waggons started. "Thank you
+for your hospitality. I shall go on again towards that light. It's
+more than I can stand."
+
+And he quickly vanished in the mist, and for a long time they could
+hear him striding in the direction of the light to tell those other
+strangers of his happiness.
+
+When Yegorushka woke up next day it was early morning; the sun had
+not yet risen. The waggons were at a standstill. A man in a white
+cap and a suit of cheap grey material, mounted on a little Cossack
+stallion, was talking to Dymov and Kiruha beside the foremost waggon.
+A mile and a half ahead there were long low white barns and little
+houses with tiled roofs; there were neither yards nor trees to be
+seen beside the little houses.
+
+"What village is that, Grandfather?" asked Yegorushka.
+
+"That's the Armenian Settlement, youngster," answered Panteley.
+"The Armenians live there. They are a good sort of people, . . .
+the Arnienians are."
+
+The man in grey had finished talking to Dymov and Kiruha; he pulled
+up his little stallion and looked across towards the settlement.
+
+"What a business, only think!" sighed Panteley, looking towards the
+settlement, too, and shuddering at the morning freshness. "He has
+sent a man to the settlement for some papers, and he doesn't come
+. . . . He should have sent Styopka."
+
+"Who is that, Grandfather?" asked Yegorushka.
+
+"Varlamov."
+
+My goodness! Yegorushka jumped up quickly, getting upon his knees,
+and looked at the white cap. It was hard to recognize the mysterious
+elusive Varlamov, who was sought by everyone, who was always "on
+his rounds," and who had far more money than Countess Dranitsky,
+in the short, grey little man in big boots, who was sitting on an
+ugly little nag and talking to peasants at an hour when all decent
+people were asleep.
+
+"He is all right, a good man," said Panteley, looking towards the
+settlement. "God give him health--a splendid gentleman, Semyon
+Alexandritch. . . . It's people like that the earth rests upon.
+That's true. . . . The cocks are not crowing yet, and he is already
+up and about. . . . Another man would be asleep, or gallivanting
+with visitors at home, but he is on the steppe all day, . . . on
+his rounds. . . . He does not let things slip. . . . No-o! He's a
+fine fellow. . ."
+
+Varlamov was talking about something, while he kept his eyes fixed.
+The little stallion shifted from one leg to another impatiently.
+
+"Semyon Alexandritch!" cried Panteley, taking off his hat. "Allow
+us to send Styopka! Emelyan, call out that Styopka should be sent."
+
+But now at last a man on horseback could be seen coming from the
+settlement. Bending very much to one side and brandishing his whip
+above his head like a gallant young Caucasian, and wanting to
+astonish everyone by his horsemanship, he flew towards the waggons
+with the swiftness of a bird.
+
+"That must be one of his circuit men," said Panteley. "He must have
+a hundred such horsemen or maybe more."
+
+Reaching the first waggon, he pulled up his horse, and taking off
+his hat, handed Varlamov a little book. Varlamov took several papers
+out of the book, read them and cried:
+
+"And where is Ivantchuk's letter?"
+
+The horseman took the book back, looked at the papers and shrugged
+his shoulders. He began saying something, probably justifying himself
+and asking to be allowed to ride back to the settlement again. The
+little stallion suddenly stirred as though Varlamov had grown
+heavier. Varlamov stirred too.
+
+"Go along!" he cried angrily, and he waved his whip at the man.
+
+Then he turned his horse round and, looking through the papers in
+the book, moved at a walking pace alongside the waggons. When he
+reached the hindmost, Yegorushka strained his eyes to get a better
+look at him. Varlamov was an elderly man. His face, a simple Russian
+sunburnt face with a small grey beard, was red, wet with dew and
+covered with little blue veins; it had the same expression of
+businesslike coldness as Ivan Ivanitch's face, the same look of
+fanatical zeal for business. But yet what a difference could be
+felt between him and Kuzmitchov! Uncle Ivan Ivanitch always had on
+his face, together with his business-like reserve, a look of anxiety
+and apprehension that he would not find Varlamov, that he would be
+late, that he would miss a good price; nothing of that sort, so
+characteristic of small and dependent persons, could be seen in the
+face or figure of Varlamov. This man made the price himself, was
+not looking for anyone, and did not depend on anyone; however
+ordinary his exterior, yet in everything, even in the manner of
+holding his whip, there was a sense of power and habitual authority
+over the steppe.
+
+As he rode by Yegorushka he did not glance at him. Only the little
+stallion deigned to notice Yegorushka; he looked at him with his
+large foolish eyes, and even he showed no interest. Panteley bowed
+to Varlamov; the latter noticed it, and without taking his eyes off
+the sheets of paper, said lisping:
+
+"How are you, old man?"
+
+Varlamov's conversation with the horseman and the way he had
+brandished his whip had evidently made an overwhelming impression
+on the whole party. Everyone looked grave. The man on horseback,
+cast down at the anger of the great man, remained stationary, with
+his hat off, and the rein loose by the foremost waggon; he was
+silent, and seemed unable to grasp that the day had begun so badly
+for him.
+
+"He is a harsh old man, . ." muttered Panteley. "It's a pity he is
+so harsh! But he is all right, a good man. . . . He doesn't abuse
+men for nothing. . . . It's no matter. . . ."
+
+After examining the papers, Varlamov thrust the book into his pocket;
+the little stallion, as though he knew what was in his mind, without
+waiting for orders, started and dashed along the highroad.
+
+VII
+
+On the following night the waggoners had halted and were cooking
+their porridge. On this occasion there was a sense of overwhelming
+oppression over everyone. It was sultry; they all drank a great
+deal, but could not quench their thirst. The moon was intensely
+crimson and sullen, as though it were sick. The stars, too, were
+sullen, the mist was thicker, the distance more clouded. Nature
+seemed as though languid and weighed down by some foreboding.
+
+There was not the same liveliness and talk round the camp fire as
+there had been the day before. All were dreary and spoke listlessly
+and without interest. Panteley did nothing but sigh and complain
+of his feet, and continually alluded to impenitent deathbeds.
+
+Dymov was lying on his stomach, chewing a straw in silence; there
+was an expression of disgust on his face as though the straw smelt
+unpleasant, a spiteful and exhausted look. . . . Vassya complained
+that his jaw ached, and prophesied bad weather; Emelyan was not
+waving his arms, but sitting still and looking gloomily at the fire.
+Yegorushka, too, was weary. This slow travelling exhausted him, and
+the sultriness of the day had given him a headache.
+
+While they were cooking the porridge, Dymov, to relieve his boredom,
+began quarrelling with his companions.
+
+"Here he lolls, the lumpy face, and is the first to put his spoon
+in," he said, looking spitefully at Emelyan. "Greedy! always contrives
+to sit next the cauldron. He's been a church-singer, so he thinks
+he is a gentleman! There are a lot of singers like you begging along
+the highroad!"
+
+"What are you pestering me for?" asked Emelyan, looking at him
+angrily.
+
+"To teach you not to be the first to dip into the cauldron. Don't
+think too much of yourself!"
+
+"You are a fool, and that is all about it!" wheezed out Emelyan.
+
+Knowing by experience how such conversations usually ended, Panteley
+and Vassya intervened and tried to persuade Dymov not to quarrel
+about nothing.
+
+"A church-singer!" The bully would not desist, but laughed
+contemptuously. "Anyone can sing like that--sit in the church
+porch and sing 'Give me alms, for Christ's sake!' Ugh! you are a
+nice fellow!"
+
+Emelyan did not speak. His silence had an irritating effect on
+Dymov. He looked with still greater hatred at the ex-singer and
+said:
+
+"I don't care to have anything to do with you, or I would show you
+what to think of yourself."
+
+"But why are you pushing me, you Mazeppa?" Emelyan cried, flaring
+up. "Am I interfering with you?"
+
+"What did you call me?" asked Dymov, drawing himself up, and his
+eyes were suffused with blood. "Eh! I am a Mazeppa? Yes? Take that,
+then; go and look for it."
+
+Dymov snatched the spoon out of Emelyan's hand and flung it far
+away. Kiruha, Vassya, and Styopka ran to look for it, while Emelyan
+fixed an imploring and questioning look on Panteley. His face
+suddenly became small and wrinkled; it began twitching, and the
+ex-singer began to cry like a child.
+
+Yegorushka, who had long hated Dymov, felt as though the air all
+at once were unbearably stifling, as though the fire were scorching
+his face; he longed to run quickly to the waggons in the darkness,
+but the bully's angry bored eyes drew the boy to him. With a
+passionate desire to say something extremely offensive, he took a
+step towards Dymov and brought out, gasping for breath:
+
+"You are the worst of the lot; I can't bear you!"
+
+After this he ought to have run to the waggons, but he could not
+stir from the spot and went on:
+
+"In the next world you will burn in hell! I'll complain to Ivan
+Ivanitch. Don't you dare insult Emelyan!"
+
+"Say this too, please," laughed Dyrnov: "'every little sucking-pig
+wants to lay down the law.' Shall I pull your ear?"
+
+Yegorushka felt that he could not breathe; and something which had
+never happened to him before--he suddenly began shaking all over,
+stamping his feet and crying shrilly:
+
+"Beat him, beat him!"
+
+Tears gushed from his eyes; he felt ashamed, and ran staggering
+back to the waggon. The effect produced by his outburst he did not
+see. Lying on the bales and twitching his arms and legs, he whispered:
+
+"Mother, mother!"
+
+And these men and the shadows round the camp fire, and the dark
+bales and the far-away lightning, which was flashing every minute
+in the distance--all struck him now as terrible and unfriendly.
+He was overcome with terror and asked himself in despair why and
+how he had come into this unknown land in the company of terrible
+peasants? Where was his uncle now, where was Father Christopher,
+where was Deniska? Why were they so long in coming? Hadn't they
+forgotten him? At the thought that he was forgotten and cast out
+to the mercy of fate, he felt such a cold chill of dread that he
+had several times an impulse to jump off the bales of wool, and run
+back full speed along the road; but the thought of the huge dark
+crosses, which would certainly meet him on the way, and the lightning
+flashing in the distance, stopped him. . . . And only when he
+whispered, "Mother, mother!" he felt as it were a little better.
+
+The waggoners must have been full of dread, too. After Yegorushka
+had run away from the camp fire they sat at first for a long time
+in silence, then they began speaking in hollow undertones about
+something, saying that it was coming and that they must make haste
+and get away from it. . . . They quickly finished supper, put out
+the fire and began harnessing the horses in silence. From their
+fluster and the broken phrases they uttered it was apparent they
+foresaw some trouble. Before they set off on their way, Dymov went
+up to Panteley and asked softly:
+
+"What's his name?"
+
+"Yegory," answered Panteley.
+
+Dymov put one foot on the wheel, caught hold of the cord which was
+tied round the bales and pulled himself up. Yegorushka saw his face
+and curly head. The face was pale and looked grave and exhausted,
+but there was no expression of spite in it.
+
+"Yera!" he said softly, "here, hit me!"
+
+Yegorushka looked at him in surprise. At that instant there was a
+flash of lightning.
+
+"It's all right, hit me," repeated Dymov. And without waiting for
+Yegorushka to hit him or to speak to him, he jumped down and said:
+"How dreary I am!"
+
+Then, swaying from one leg to the other and moving his shoulder-blades,
+he sauntered lazily alongside the string of waggons and repeated
+in a voice half weeping, half angry:
+
+"How dreary I am! O Lord! Don't you take offence, Emelyan," he said
+as he passed Emelyan. "Ours is a wretched cruel life!"
+
+There was a flash of lightning on the right, and, like a reflection
+in the looking-glass, at once a second flash in the distance.
+
+"Yegory, take this," cried Panteley, throwing up something big and
+dark.
+
+"What is it?" asked Yegorushka.
+
+"A mat. There will be rain, so cover yourself up."
+
+Yegorushka sat up and looked about him. The distance had grown
+perceptibly blacker, and now oftener than every minute winked with
+a pale light. The blackness was being bent towards the right as
+though by its own weight.
+
+"Will there be a storm, Grandfather?" asked Yegorushka.
+
+"Ah, my poor feet, how they ache!" Panteley said in a high-pitched
+voice, stamping his feet and not hearing the boy.
+
+On the left someone seemed to strike a match in the sky; a pale
+phosphorescent streak gleamed and went out. There was a sound as
+though someone very far away were walking over an iron roof, probably
+barefoot, for the iron gave a hollow rumble.
+
+"It's set in!" cried Kiruha.
+
+Between the distance and the horizon on the right there was a flash
+of lightning so vivid that it lighted up part of the steppe and the
+spot where the clear sky met the blackness. A terrible cloud was
+swooping down, without haste, a compact mass; big black shreds hung
+from its edge; similar shreds pressing one upon another were piling
+up on the right and left horizon. The tattered, ragged look of the
+storm-cloud gave it a drunken disorderly air. There was a distinct,
+not smothered, growl of thunder. Yegorushka crossed himself and
+began quickly putting on his great-coat.
+
+"I am dreary!" Dymov's shout floated from the foremost waggon, and
+it could be told from his voice that he was beginning to be
+ill-humoured again. "I am so dreary!"
+
+All at once there was a squall of wind, so violent that it almost
+snatched away Yegorushka's bundle and mat; the mat fluttered in all
+directions and flapped on the bale and on Yegorushka's face. The
+wind dashed whistling over the steppe, whirled round in disorder
+and raised such an uproar from the grass that neither the thunder
+nor the creaking of the wheels could be heard; it blew from the
+black storm-cloud, carrying with it clouds of dust and the scent
+of rain and wet earth. The moonlight grew mistier, as it were
+dirtier; the stars were even more overcast; and clouds of dust could
+be seen hurrying along the edge of the road, followed by their
+shadows. By now, most likely, the whirlwind eddying round and lifting
+from the earth dust, dry grass and feathers, was mounting to the
+very sky; uprooted plants must have been flying by that very black
+storm-cloud, and how frightened they must have been! But through
+the dust that clogged the eyes nothing could be seen but the flash
+of lightning.
+
+Yegorushka, thinking it would pour with rain in a minute, knelt up
+and covered himself with the mat.
+
+"Panteley-ey!" someone shouted in the front. "A. . . a. . . va!"
+
+"I can't!" Panteley answered in a loud high voice. "A . . . a
+. . . va! Arya . . . a!"
+
+There was an angry clap of thunder, which rolled across the sky
+from right to left, then back again, and died away near the foremost
+waggon.
+
+"Holy, holy, holy, Lord of Sabaoth," whispered Yegorushka, crossing
+himself. "Fill heaven and earth with Thy glory."
+
+The blackness in the sky yawned wide and breathed white fire. At
+once there was another clap of thunder. It had scarcely ceased when
+there was a flash of lightning so broad that Yegorushka suddenly
+saw through a slit in the mat the whole highroad to the very horizon,
+all the waggoners and even Kiruha's waistcoat. The black shreds had
+by now moved upwards from the left, and one of them, a coarse,
+clumsy monster like a claw with fingers, stretched to the moon.
+Yegorushka made up his mind to shut his eyes tight, to pay no
+attention to it, and to wait till it was all over.
+
+The rain was for some reason long in coming. Yegorushka peeped out
+from the mat in the hope that perhaps the storm-cloud was passing
+over. It was fearfully dark. Yegorushka could see neither Panteley,
+nor the bale of wool, nor himself; he looked sideways towards the
+place where the moon had lately been, but there was the same black
+darkness there as over the waggons. And in the darkness the flashes
+of lightning seemed more violent and blinding, so that they hurt
+his eyes.
+
+"Panteley!" called Yegorushka.
+
+No answer followed. But now a gust of wind for the last time flung
+up the mat and hurried away. A quiet regular sound was heard. A big
+cold drop fell on Yegorushka's knee, another trickled over his hand.
+He noticed that his knees were not covered, and tried to rearrange
+the mat, but at that moment something began pattering on the road,
+then on the shafts and the bales. It was the rain. As though they
+understood one another, the rain and the mat began prattling of
+something rapidly, gaily and most annoyingly like two magpies.
+
+Yegorushka knelt up or rather squatted on his boots. While the rain
+was pattering on the mat, he leaned forward to screen his knees,
+which were suddenly wet. He succeeded in covering his knees, but
+in less than a minute was aware of a penetrating, unpleasant dampness
+behind on his back and the calves of his legs. He returned to his
+former position, exposing his knees to the rain, and wondered what
+to do to rearrange the mat which he could not see in the darkness.
+But his arms were already wet, the water was trickling up his sleeves
+and down his collar, and his shoulder-blades felt chilly. And he
+made up his mind to do nothing but sit motionless and wait till it
+was all over.
+
+"Holy, holy, holy!" he whispered.
+
+Suddenly, exactly over his head, the sky cracked with a fearful
+deafening din; he huddled up and held his breath, waiting for the
+fragments to fall upon his head and back. He inadvertently opened
+his eyes and saw a blinding intense light flare out and flash five
+times on his fingers, his wet sleeves, and on the trickles of water
+running from the mat upon the bales and down to the ground. There
+was a fresh peal of thunder as violent and awful; the sky was not
+growling and rumbling now, but uttering short crashing sounds like
+the crackling of dry wood.
+
+"Trrah! tah! tah! tah!" the thunder rang out distinctly, rolled
+over the sky, seemed to stumble, and somewhere by the foremost
+waggons or far behind to fall with an abrupt angry "Trrra!"
+
+The flashes of lightning had at first been only terrible, but with
+such thunder they seemed sinister and menacing. Their magic light
+pierced through closed eyelids and sent a chill all over the body.
+What could he do not to see them? Yegorushka made up his mind to
+turn over on his face. Cautiously, as though afraid of being watched,
+he got on all fours, and his hands slipping on the wet bale, he
+turned back again.
+
+"Trrah! tah! tah!" floated over his head, rolled under the waggons
+and exploded "Kraa!"
+
+Again he inadvertently opened his eyes and saw a new danger: three
+huge giants with long pikes were following the waggon! A flash of
+lightning gleamed on the points of their pikes and lighted up their
+figures very distinctly. They were men of huge proportions, with
+covered faces, bowed heads, and heavy footsteps. They seemed gloomy
+and dispirited and lost in thought. Perhaps they were not following
+the waggons with any harmful intent, and yet there was something
+awful in their proximity.
+
+Yegorushka turned quickly forward, and trembling all over cried:
+"Panteley! Grandfather!"
+
+"Trrah! tah! tah!" the sky answered him.
+
+He opened his eyes to see if the waggoners were there. There were
+flashes of lightning in two places, which lighted up the road to
+the far distance, the whole string of waggons and all the waggoners.
+Streams of water were flowing along the road and bubbles were
+dancing. Panteley was walking beside the waggon; his tall hat and
+his shoulder were covered with a small mat; his figure expressed
+neither terror nor uneasiness, as though he were deafened by the
+thunder and blinded by the lightning.
+
+"Grandfather, the giants!" Yegorushka shouted to him in tears.
+
+But the old man did not hear. Further away walked Emelyan. He was
+covered from head to foot with a big mat and was triangular in
+shape. Vassya, without anything over him, was walking with the same
+wooden step as usual, lifting his feet high and not bending his
+knees. In the flash of lightning it seemed as though the waggons
+were not moving and the men were motionless, that Vassya's lifted
+foot was rigid in the same position. . . .
+
+Yegorushka called the old man once more. Getting no answer, he sat
+motionless, and no longer waited for it all to end. He was convinced
+that the thunder would kill him in another minute, that he would
+accidentally open his eyes and see the terrible giants, and he left
+off crossing himself, calling the old man and thinking of his mother,
+and was simply numb with cold and the conviction that the storm
+would never end.
+
+But at last there was the sound of voices.
+
+"Yegory, are you asleep?" Panteley cried below. "Get down! Is he
+deaf, the silly little thing? . . ."
+
+"Something like a storm!" said an unfamiliar bass voice, and the
+stranger cleared his throat as though he had just tossed off a good
+glass of vodka.
+
+Yegorushka opened his eyes. Close to the waggon stood Panteley,
+Emelyan, looking like a triangle, and the giants. The latter were
+by now much shorter, and when Yegorushka looked more closely at
+them they turned out to be ordinary peasants, carrying on their
+shoulders not pikes but pitchforks. In the space between Panteley
+and the triangular figure, gleamed the window of a low-pitched hut.
+So the waggons were halting in the village. Yegorushka flung off
+the mat, took his bundle and made haste to get off the waggon. Now
+when close to him there were people talking and a lighted window
+he no longer felt afraid, though the thunder was crashing as before
+and the whole sky was streaked with lightning.
+
+"It was a good storm, all right, . . ." Panteley was muttering.
+"Thank God, . . . my feet are a little softened by the rain. It was
+all right. . . . Have you got down, Yegory? Well, go into the hut;
+it is all right. . . ."
+
+"Holy, holy, holy!" wheezed Emelyan, "it must have struck something
+. . . . Are you of these parts?" he asked the giants.
+
+"No, from Glinovo. We belong to Glinovo. We are working at the
+Platers'."
+
+"Threshing?"
+
+"All sorts. Just now we are getting in the wheat. The lightning,
+the lightning! It is long since we have had such a storm. . . ."
+
+Yegorushka went into the hut. He was met by a lean hunchbacked old
+woman with a sharp chin. She stood holding a tallow candle in her
+hands, screwing up her eyes and heaving prolonged sighs.
+
+"What a storm God has sent us!" she said. "And our lads are out for
+the night on the steppe; they'll have a bad time, poor dears! Take
+off your things, little sir, take off your things."
+
+Shivering with cold and shrugging squeamishly, Yegorushka pulled
+off his drenched overcoat, then stretched out his arms and straddled
+his legs, and stood a long time without moving. The slightest
+movement caused an unpleasant sensation of cold and wetness. His
+sleeves and the back of his shirt were sopped, his trousers stuck
+to his legs, his head was dripping.
+
+"What's the use of standing there, with your legs apart, little
+lad?" said the old woman. "Come, sit down."
+
+Holding his legs wide apart, Yegorushka went up to the table and
+sat down on a bench near somebody's head. The head moved, puffed a
+stream of air through its nose, made a chewing sound and subsided.
+A mound covered with a sheepskin stretched from the head along the
+bench; it was a peasant woman asleep.
+
+The old woman went out sighing, and came back with a big water melon
+and a little sweet melon.
+
+"Have something to eat, my dear! I have nothing else to offer you,
+. . ." she said, yawning. She rummaged in the table and took out a
+long sharp knife, very much like the one with which the brigands
+killed the merchants in the inn. "Have some, my dear!"
+
+Yegorushka, shivering as though he were in a fever, ate a slice of
+sweet melon with black bread and then a slice of water melon, and
+that made him feel colder still.
+
+"Our lads are out on the steppe for the night, . . ." sighed the
+old woman while he was eating. "The terror of the Lord! I'd light
+the candle under the ikon, but I don't know where Stepanida has put
+it. Have some more, little sir, have some more. . . ."
+
+The old woman gave a yawn and, putting her right hand behind her,
+scratched her left shoulder.
+
+"It must be two o'clock now," she said; "it will soon be time to
+get up. Our lads are out on the steppe for the night; they are all
+wet through for sure. . . ."
+
+"Granny," said Yegorushka. "I am sleepy."
+
+"Lie down, my dear, lie down," the old woman sighed, yawning. "Lord
+Jesus Christ! I was asleep, when I heard a noise as though someone
+were knocking. I woke up and looked, and it was the storm God had
+sent us. . . . I'd have lighted the candle, but I couldn't find
+it."
+
+Talking to herself, she pulled some rags, probably her own bed, off
+the bench, took two sheepskins off a nail by the stove, and began
+laying them out for a bed for Yegorushka. "The storm doesn't grow
+less," she muttered. "If only nothing's struck in an unlucky hour.
+Our lads are out on the steppe for the night. Lie down and sleep,
+my dear. . . . Christ be with you, my child. . . . I won't take
+away the melon; maybe you'll have a bit when you get up."
+
+The sighs and yawns of the old woman, the even breathing of the
+sleeping woman, the half-darkness of the hut, and the sound of the
+rain outside, made one sleepy. Yegorushka was shy of undressing
+before the old woman. He only took off his boots, lay down and
+covered himself with the sheepskin.
+
+"Is the little lad lying down?" he heard Panteley whisper a little
+later.
+
+"Yes," answered the old woman in a whisper. "The terror of the Lord!
+It thunders and thunders, and there is no end to it."
+
+"It will soon be over," wheezed Panteley, sitting down; "it's getting
+quieter. . . . The lads have gone into the huts, and two have stayed
+with the horses. The lads have. . . . They can't; . . . the horses
+would be taken away. . . . I'll sit here a bit and then go and take
+my turn. . . . We can't leave them; they would be taken. . . ."
+
+Panteley and the old woman sat side by side at Yegorushka's feet,
+talking in hissing whispers and interspersing their speech with
+sighs and yawns. And Yegorushka could not get warm. The warm heavy
+sheepskin lay on him, but he was trembling all over; his arms and
+legs were twitching, and his whole inside was shivering. . . . He
+undressed under the sheepskin, but that was no good. His shivering
+grew more and more acute.
+
+Panteley went out to take his turn with the horses, and afterwards
+came back again, and still Yegorushka was shivering all over and
+could not get to sleep. Something weighed upon his head and chest
+and oppressed him, and he did not know what it was, whether it was
+the old people whispering, or the heavy smell of the sheepskin. The
+melon he had eaten had left an unpleasant metallic taste in his
+mouth. Moreover he was being bitten by fleas.
+
+"Grandfather, I am cold," he said, and did not know his own voice.
+
+"Go to sleep, my child, go to sleep," sighed the old woman.
+
+Tit came up to the bedside on his thin little legs and waved his
+arms, then grew up to the ceiling and turned into a windmill. . . .
+Father Christopher, not as he was in the chaise, but in his full
+vestments with the sprinkler in his hand, walked round the mill,
+sprinkling it with holy water, and it left off waving. Yegorushka,
+knowing this was delirium, opened his eyes.
+
+"Grandfather," he called, "give me some water."
+
+No one answered. Yegorushka felt it insufferably stifling and
+uncomfortable lying down. He got up, dressed, and went out of the
+hut. Morning was beginning. The sky was overcast, but it was no
+longer raining. Shivering and wrapping himself in his wet overcoat,
+Yegorushka walked about the muddy yard and listened to the silence;
+he caught sight of a little shed with a half-open door made of
+reeds. He looked into this shed, went into it, and sat down in a
+dark corner on a heap of dry dung.
+
+There was a tangle of thoughts in his heavy head; his mouth was dry
+and unpleasant from the metallic taste. He looked at his hat,
+straightened the peacock's feather on it, and thought how he had
+gone with his mother to buy the hat. He put his hand into his pocket
+and took out a lump of brownish sticky paste. How had that paste
+come into his pocket? He thought a minute, smelt it; it smelt of
+honey. Aha! it was the Jewish cake! How sopped it was, poor thing!
+
+Yegorushka examined his coat. It was a little grey overcoat with
+big bone buttons, cut in the shape of a frock-coat. At home, being
+a new and expensive article, it had not been hung in the hall, but
+with his mother's dresses in her bedroom; he was only allowed to
+wear it on holidays. Looking at it, Yegorushka felt sorry for it.
+He thought that he and the great-coat were both abandoned to the
+mercy of destiny; he thought that he would never get back home, and
+began sobbing so violently that he almost fell off the heap of dung.
+
+A big white dog with woolly tufts like curl-papers about its face,
+sopping from the rain, came into the shed and stared with curiosity
+at Yegorushka. It seemed to be hesitating whether to bark or not.
+Deciding that there was no need to bark, it went cautiously up to
+Yegorushka, ate the sticky plaster and went out again.
+
+"There are Varlamov's men!" someone shouted in the street.
+
+After having his cry out, Yegorushka went out of the shed and,
+walking round a big puddle, made his way towards the street. The
+waggons were standing exactly opposite the gateway. The drenched
+waggoners, with their muddy feet, were sauntering beside them or
+sitting on the shafts, as listless and drowsy as flies in autumn.
+Yegorushka looked at them and thought: "How dreary and comfortless
+to be a peasant!" He went up to Panteley and sat down beside him
+on the shaft.
+
+"Grandfather, I'm cold," he said, shivering and thrusting his hands
+up his sleeves.
+
+"Never mind, we shall soon be there," yawned Panteley. "Never mind,
+you will get warm."
+
+It must have been early when the waggons set off, for it was not
+hot. Yegorushka lay on the bales of wool and shivered with cold,
+though the sun soon came out and dried his clothes, the bales, and
+the earth. As soon as he closed his eyes he saw Tit and the windmill
+again. Feeling a sickness and heaviness all over, he did his utmost
+to drive away these images, but as soon as they vanished the
+dare-devil Dymov, with red eyes and lifted fists, rushed at Yegorushka
+with a roar, or there was the sound of his complaint: "I am so
+dreary!" Varlamov rode by on his little Cossack stallion; happy
+Konstantin passed, with a smile and the bustard in his arms. And
+how tedious these people were, how sickening and unbearable!
+
+Once--it was towards evening--he raised his head to ask for
+water. The waggons were standing on a big bridge across a broad
+river. There was black smoke below over the river, and through it
+could be seen a steamer with a barge in tow. Ahead of them, beyond
+the river, was a huge mountain dotted with houses and churches; at
+the foot of the mountain an engine was being shunted along beside
+some goods trucks.
+
+Yegorushka had never before seen steamers, nor engines, nor broad
+rivers. Glancing at them now, he was not alarmed or surprised; there
+was not even a look of anything like curiosity in his face. He
+merely felt sick, and made haste to turn over to the edge of the
+bale. He was sick. Panteley, seeing this, cleared his throat and
+shook his head.
+
+"Our little lad's taken ill," he said. "He must have got a chill
+to the stomach. The little lad must. . . away from home; it's a bad
+lookout!"
+
+VIII
+
+The waggons stopped at a big inn for merchants, not far from the
+quay. As Yegorushka climbed down from the waggon he heard a very
+familiar voice. Someone was helping him to get down, and saying:
+
+"We arrived yesterday evening. . . . We have been expecting you all
+day. We meant to overtake you yesterday, but it was out of our way;
+we came by the other road. I say, how you have crumpled your coat!
+You'll catch it from your uncle!"
+
+Yegorushka looked into the speaker's mottled face and remembered
+that this was Deniska.
+
+"Your uncle and Father Christopher are in the inn now, drinking
+tea; come along!"
+
+And he led Yegorushka to a big two-storied building, dark and gloomy
+like the almshouse at N. After going across the entry, up a dark
+staircase and through a narrow corridor, Yegorushka and Deniska
+reached a little room in which Ivan Ivanitch and Father Christopher
+were sitting at the tea-table. Seeing the boy, both the old men
+showed surprise and pleasure.
+
+"Aha! Yegor Ni-ko-la-aitch!" chanted Father Christopher. "Mr.
+Lomonosov!"
+
+"Ah, our gentleman that is to be," said Kuzmitchov, "pleased to see
+you!"
+
+Yegorushka took off his great-coat, kissed his uncle's hand and
+Father Christopher's, and sat down to the table.
+
+"Well, how did you like the journey, puer bone?" Father Christopher
+pelted him with questions as he poured him out some tea, with his
+radiant smile. "Sick of it, I've no doubt? God save us all from
+having to travel by waggon or with oxen. You go on and on, God
+forgive us; you look ahead and the steppe is always lying stretched
+out the same as it was--you can't see the end of it! It's not
+travelling but regular torture. Why don't you drink your tea? Drink
+it up; and in your absence, while you have been trailing along with
+the waggons, we have settled all our business capitally. Thank God
+we have sold our wool to Tcherepahin, and no one could wish to have
+done better. . . . We have made a good bargain."
+
+At the first sight of his own people Yegorushka felt an overwhelming
+desire to complain. He did not listen to Father Christopher, but
+thought how to begin and what exactly to complain of. But Father
+Christopher's voice, which seemed to him harsh and unpleasant,
+prevented him from concentrating his attention and confused his
+thoughts. He had not sat at the table five minutes before he got
+up, went to the sofa and lay down.
+
+"Well, well," said Father Christopher in surprise. "What about your
+tea?"
+
+Still thinking what to complain of, Yegorushka leaned his head
+against the wall and broke into sobs.
+
+"Well, well!" repeated Father Christopher, getting up and going to
+the sofa. "Yegory, what is the matter with you? Why are you crying?"
+
+"I'm . . . I'm ill," Yegorushka brought out.
+
+"Ill?" said Father Christopher in amazement. "That's not the right
+thing, my boy. . . . One mustn't be ill on a journey. Aie, aie,
+what are you thinking about, boy . . . eh?"
+
+He put his hand to Yegorushka's head, touched his cheek and said:
+
+"Yes, your head's feverish. . . . You must have caught cold or else
+have eaten something. . . . Pray to God."
+
+"Should we give him quinine? . . ." said Ivan Ivanitch, troubled.
+
+"No; he ought to have something hot. . . . Yegory, have a little
+drop of soup? Eh?"
+
+"I . . . don't want any," said Yegorushka.
+
+"Are you feeling chilly?"
+
+"I was chilly before, but now . . . now I am hot. And I ache all
+over. . . ."
+
+Ivan Ivanitch went up to the sofa, touched Yegorushka on the head,
+cleared his throat with a perplexed air, and went back to the table.
+
+"I tell you what, you undress and go to bed," said Father Christopher.
+"What you want is sleep now."
+
+He helped Yegorushka to undress, gave him a pillow and covered him
+with a quilt, and over that Ivan Ivanitch's great-coat. Then he
+walked away on tiptoe and sat down to the table. Yegorushka shut
+his eyes, and at once it seemed to him that he was not in the hotel
+room, but on the highroad beside the camp fire. Emelyan waved his
+hands, and Dymov with red eyes lay on his stomach and looked mockingly
+at Yegorushka.
+
+"Beat him, beat him!" shouted Yegorushka.
+
+"He is delirious," said Father Christopher in an undertone.
+
+"It's a nuisance!" sighed Ivan Ivanitch.
+
+"He must be rubbed with oil and vinegar. Please God, he will be
+better to-morrow."
+
+To be rid of bad dreams, Yegorushka opened his eyes and began looking
+towards the fire. Father Christopher and Ivan Ivanitch had now
+finished their tea and were talking in a whisper. The first was
+smiling with delight, and evidently could not forget that he had
+made a good bargain over his wool; what delighted him was not so
+much the actual profit he had made as the thought that on getting
+home he would gather round him his big family, wink slyly and go
+off into a chuckle; at first he would deceive them all, and say
+that he had sold the wool at a price below its value, then he would
+give his son-in-law, Mihail, a fat pocket-book and say: "Well, take
+it! that's the way to do business!" Kuzmitchov did not seem pleased;
+his face expressed, as before, a business-like reserve and anxiety.
+
+"If I could have known that Tcherepahin would give such a price,"
+he said in a low voice, "I wouldn't have sold Makarov those five
+tons at home. It is vexatious! But who could have told that the
+price had gone up here?"
+
+A man in a white shirt cleared away the samovar and lighted the
+little lamp before the ikon in the corner. Father Christopher
+whispered something in his ear; the man looked, made a serious face
+like a conspirator, as though to say, "I understand," went out, and
+returned a little while afterwards and put something under the sofa.
+Ivan Ivanitch made himself a bed on the floor, yawned several times,
+said his prayers lazily, and lay down.
+
+"I think of going to the cathedral to-morrow," said Father Christopher.
+"I know the sacristan there. I ought to go and see the bishop after
+mass, but they say he is ill."
+
+He yawned and put out the lamp. Now there was no light in the room
+but the little lamp before the ikon.
+
+"They say he can't receive visitors," Father Christopher went on,
+undressing. "So I shall go away without seeing him."
+
+He took off his full coat, and Yegorushka saw Robinson Crusoe
+reappear. Robinson stirred something in a saucer, went up to
+Yegorushka and whispered:
+
+"Lomonosov, are you asleep? Sit up; I'm going to rub you with oil
+and vinegar. It's a good thing, only you must say a prayer."
+
+Yegorushka roused himself quickly and sat up. Father Christopher
+pulled down the boy's shirt, and shrinking and breathing jerkily,
+as though he were being tickled himself, began rubbing Yegorushka's
+chest.
+
+"In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost," he
+whispered, "lie with your back upwards--that's it. . . . You'll
+be all right to-morrow, but don't do it again. . . . You are as hot
+as fire. I suppose you were on the road in the storm."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"You might well fall ill! In the name of the Father, the Son, and
+the Holy Ghost, . . . you might well fall ill!"
+
+After rubbing Yegorushka, Father Christopher put on his shirt again,
+covered him, made the sign of the cross over him, and walked away.
+Then Yegorushka saw him saying his prayers. Probably the old man
+knew a great many prayers by heart, for he stood a long time before
+the ikon murmuring. After saying his prayers he made the sign of
+the cross over the window, the door, Yegorushka, and Ivan Ivanitch,
+lay down on the little sofa without a pillow, and covered himself
+with his full coat. A clock in the corridor struck ten. Yegorushka
+thought how long a time it would be before morning; feeling miserable,
+he pressed his forehead against the back of the sofa and left off
+trying to get rid of the oppressive misty dreams. But morning came
+much sooner than he expected.
+
+It seemed to him that he had not been lying long with his head
+pressed to the back of the sofa, but when he opened his eyes slanting
+rays of sunlight were already shining on the floor through the two
+windows of the little hotel room. Father Christopher and Ivan
+Ivanitch were not in the room. The room had been tidied; it was
+bright, snug, and smelt of Father Christopher, who always smelt of
+cypress and dried cornflowers (at home he used to make the holy-water
+sprinklers and decorations for the ikonstands out of cornflowers,
+and so he was saturated with the smell of them). Yegorushka looked
+at the pillow, at the slanting sunbeams, at his boots, which had
+been cleaned and were standing side by side near the sofa, and
+laughed. It seemed strange to him that he was not on the bales of
+wool, that everything was dry around him, and that there was no
+thunder and lightning on the ceiling.
+
+He jumped off the sofa and began dressing. He felt splendid; nothing
+was left of his yesterday's illness but a slight weakness in his
+legs and neck. So the vinegar and oil had done good. He remembered
+the steamer, the railway engine, and the broad river, which he had
+dimly seen the day before, and now he made haste to dress, to run
+to the quay and have a look at them. When he had washed and was
+putting on his red shirt, the latch of the door clicked, and Father
+Christopher appeared in the doorway, wearing his top-hat and a brown
+silk cassock over his canvas coat and carrying his staff in his
+hand. Smiling and radiant (old men are always radiant when they
+come back from church), he put a roll of holy bread and a parcel
+of some sort on the table, prayed before the ikon, and said:
+
+"God has sent us blessings--well, how are you?"
+
+"Quite well now," answered Yegorushka, kissing his hand.
+
+"Thank God. . . . I have come from mass. I've been to see a sacristan
+I know. He invited me to breakfast with him, but I didn't go. I
+don't like visiting people too early, God bless them!"
+
+He took off his cassock, stroked himself on the chest, and without
+haste undid the parcel. Yegorushka saw a little tin of caviare, a
+piece of dry sturgeon, and a French loaf.
+
+"See; I passed a fish-shop and brought this," said Father Christopher.
+"There is no need to indulge in luxuries on an ordinary weekday;
+but I thought, I've an invalid at home, so it is excusable. And the
+caviare is good, real sturgeon. . . ."
+
+The man in the white shirt brought in the samovar and a tray with
+tea-things.
+
+"Eat some," said Father Christopher, spreading the caviare on a
+slice of bread and handing it to Yegorushka. "Eat now and enjoy
+yourself, but the time will soon come for you to be studying. Mind
+you study with attention and application, so that good may come of
+it. What you have to learn by heart, learn by heart, but when you
+have to tell the inner sense in your own words, without regard to
+the outer form, then say it in your own words. And try to master
+all subjects. One man knows mathematics excellently, but has never
+heard of Pyotr Mogila; another knows about Pyotr Mogila, but cannot
+explain about the moon. But you study so as to understand everything.
+Study Latin, French, German, . . . geography, of course, history,
+theology, philosophy, mathematics, . . . and when you have mastered
+everything, not with haste but with prayer and with zeal, then go
+into the service. When you know everything it will be easy for you
+in any line of life. . . . You study and strive for the divine
+blessing, and God will show you what to be. Whether a doctor, a
+judge or an engineer. . . ."
+
+Father Christopher spread a little caviare on a piece of bread, put
+it in his mouth and said:
+
+"The Apostle Paul says: 'Do not apply yourself to strange and diverse
+studies.' Of course, if it is black magic, unlawful arts, or calling
+up spirits from the other world, like Saul, or studying subjects
+that can be of no use to yourself or others, better not learn them.
+You must undertake only what God has blessed. Take example . . .
+the Holy Apostles spoke in all languages, so you study languages.
+Basil the Great studied mathematics and philosophy--so you study
+them; St. Nestor wrote history--so you study and write history.
+Take example from the saints."
+
+Father Christopher sipped the tea from his saucer, wiped his
+moustaches, and shook his head.
+
+"Good!" he said. "I was educated in the old-fashioned way; I have
+forgotten a great deal by now, but still I live differently from
+other people. Indeed, there is no comparison. For instance, in
+company at a dinner, or at an assembly, one says something in Latin,
+or makes some allusion from history or philosophy, and it pleases
+people, and it pleases me myself. . . . Or when the circuit court
+comes and one has to take the oath, all the other priests are shy,
+but I am quite at home with the judges, the prosecutors, and the
+lawyers. I talk intellectually, drink a cup of tea with them, laugh,
+ask them what I don't know, . . . and they like it. So that's how
+it is, my boy. Learning is light and ignorance is darkness. Study!
+It's hard, of course; nowadays study is expensive. . . . Your mother
+is a widow; she lives on her pension, but there, of course . . ."
+
+Father Christopher glanced apprehensively towards the door, and
+went on in a whisper:
+
+"Ivan Ivanitch will assist. He won't desert you. He has no children
+of his own, and he will help you. Don't be uneasy."
+
+He looked grave, and whispered still more softly:
+
+"Only mind, Yegory, don't forget your mother and Ivan Ivanitch, God
+preserve you from it. The commandment bids you honour your mother,
+and Ivan Ivanitch is your benefactor and takes the place of a father
+to you. If you become learned, God forbid you should be impatient
+and scornful with people because they are not so clever as you,
+then woe, woe to you!"
+
+Father Christopher raised his hand and repeated in a thin voice:
+
+"Woe to you! Woe to you!"
+
+Father Christopher's tongue was loosened, and he was, as they say,
+warming to his subject; he would not have finished till dinnertime
+but the door opened and Ivan Ivanitch walked in. He said good-morning
+hurriedly, sat down to the table, and began rapidly swallowing his
+tea.
+
+"Well, I have settled all our business," he said. "We might have
+gone home to-day, but we have still to think about Yegor. We must
+arrange for him. My sister told me that Nastasya Petrovna, a friend
+of hers, lives somewhere here, so perhaps she will take him in as
+a boarder."
+
+He rummaged in his pocket-book, found a crumpled note and read:
+
+"'Little Lower Street: Nastasya Petrovna Toskunov, living in a
+house of her own.' We must go at once and try to find her. It's a
+nuisance!"
+
+Soon after breakfast Ivan Ivanitch and Yegorushka left the inn.
+
+"It's a nuisance," muttered his uncle. "You are sticking to me like
+a burr. You and your mother want education and gentlemanly breeding
+and I have nothing but worry with you both. . . ."
+
+When they crossed the yard, the waggons and the drivers were not
+there. They had all gone off to the quay early in the morning. In
+a far-off dark corner of the yard stood the chaise.
+
+"Good-bye, chaise!" thought Yegorushka.
+
+At first they had to go a long way uphill by a broad street, then
+they had to cross a big marketplace; here Ivan Ivanitch asked a
+policeman for Little Lower Street.
+
+"I say," said the policeman, with a grin, "it's a long way off, out
+that way towards the town grazing ground."
+
+They met several cabs but Ivan Ivanitch only permitted himself such
+a weakness as taking a cab in exceptional cases and on great holidays.
+Yegorushka and he walked for a long while through paved streets,
+then along streets where there were only wooden planks at the sides
+and no pavements, and in the end got to streets where there were
+neither planks nor pavements. When their legs and their tongues had
+brought them to Little Lower Street they were both red in the face,
+and taking off their hats, wiped away the perspiration.
+
+"Tell me, please," said Ivan Ivanitch, addressing an old man sitting
+on a little bench by a gate, "where is Nastasya Petrovna Toskunov's
+house?"
+
+"There is no one called Toskunov here," said the old man, after
+pondering a moment. "Perhaps it's Timoshenko you want."
+
+"No, Toskunov. . . ."
+
+"Excuse me, there's no one called Toskunov. . . ."
+
+Ivan Ivanitch shrugged his shoulders and trudged on farther.
+
+"You needn't look," the old man called after them. "I tell you there
+isn't, and there isn't."
+
+"Listen, auntie," said Ivan Ivanitch, addressing an old woman who
+was sitting at a corner with a tray of pears and sunflower seeds,
+"where is Nastasya Petrovna Toskunov's house?"
+
+The old woman looked at him with surprise and laughed.
+
+"Why, Nastasya Petrovna live in her own house now!" she cried.
+"Lord! it is eight years since she married her daughter and gave
+up the house to her son-in-law! It's her son-in-law lives there
+now."
+
+And her eyes expressed: "How is it you didn't know a simple thing
+like that, you fools?"
+
+"And where does she live now?" Ivan Ivanitch asked.
+
+"Oh, Lord!" cried the old woman, flinging up her hands in surprise.
+"She moved ever so long ago! It's eight years since she gave up her
+house to her son-in-law! Upon my word!"
+
+She probably expected Ivan Ivanitch to be surprised, too, and to
+exclaim: "You don't say so," but Ivan Ivanitch asked very calmly:
+
+"Where does she live now?"
+
+The old woman tucked up her sleeves and, stretching out her bare
+arm to point, shouted in a shrill piercing voice:
+
+"Go straight on, straight on, straight on. You will pass a little
+red house, then you will see a little alley on your left. Turn down
+that little alley, and it will be the third gate on the right. . . ."
+
+Ivan Ivanitch and Yegorushka reached the little red house, turned
+to the left down the little alley, and made for the third gate on
+the right. On both sides of this very old grey gate there was a
+grey fence with big gaps in it. The first part of the fence was
+tilting forwards and threatened to fall, while on the left of the
+gate it sloped backwards towards the yard. The gate itself stood
+upright and seemed to be still undecided which would suit it best
+--to fall forwards or backwards. Ivan Ivanitch opened the little
+gate at the side, and he and Yegorushka saw a big yard overgrown
+with weeds and burdocks. A hundred paces from the gate stood a
+little house with a red roof and green shutters. A stout woman with
+her sleeves tucked up and her apron held out was standing in the
+middle of the yard, scattering something on the ground and shouting
+in a voice as shrill as that of the woman selling fruit:
+
+"Chick! . . . Chick! . . . Chick!"
+
+Behind her sat a red dog with pointed ears. Seeing the strangers,
+he ran to the little gate and broke into a tenor bark (all red dogs
+have a tenor bark).
+
+"Whom do you want?" asked the woman, putting up her hand to shade
+her eyes from the sun.
+
+"Good-morning!" Ivan Ivanitch shouted, too, waving off the red dog
+with his stick. "Tell me, please, does Nastasya Petrovna Toskunov
+live here?"
+
+"Yes! But what do you want with her?"
+
+"Perhaps you are Nastasya Petrovna?"
+
+"Well, yes, I am!"
+
+"Very pleased to see you. . . . You see, your old friend Olga
+Ivanovna Knyasev sends her love to you. This is her little son. And
+I, perhaps you remember, am her brother Ivan Ivanitch. . . . You
+are one of us from N. . . . You were born among us and married
+there. . . ."
+
+A silence followed. The stout woman stared blankly at Ivan Ivanitch,
+as though not believing or not understanding him, then she flushed
+all over, and flung up her hands; the oats were scattered out of
+her apron and tears spurted from her eyes.
+
+"Olga Ivanovna!" she screamed, breathless with excitement. "My own
+darling! Ah, holy saints, why am I standing here like a fool? My
+pretty little angel. . . ."
+
+She embraced Yegorushka, wetted his face with her tears, and broke
+down completely.
+
+"Heavens!" she said, wringing her hands, "Olga's little boy! How
+delightful! He is his mother all over! The image of his mother! But
+why are you standing in the yard? Come indoors."
+
+Crying, gasping for breath and talking as she went, she hurried
+towards the house. Her visitors trudged after her.
+
+"The room has not been done yet," she said, ushering the visitors
+into a stuffy little drawing-room adorned with many ikons and pots
+of flowers. "Oh, Mother of God! Vassilisa, go and open the shutters
+anyway! My little angel! My little beauty! I did not know that
+Olitchka had a boy like that!"
+
+When she had calmed down and got over her first surprise Ivan
+Ivanitch asked to speak to her alone. Yegorushka went into another
+room; there was a sewing-machine; in the window was a cage with a
+starling in it, and there were as many ikons and flowers as in the
+drawing-room. Near the machine stood a little girl with a sunburnt
+face and chubby cheeks like Tit's, and a clean cotton dress. She
+stared at Yegorushka without blinking, and apparently felt very
+awkward. Yegorushka looked at her and after a pause asked:
+
+"What's your name?"
+
+The little girl moved her lips, looked as if she were going to cry,
+and answered softly:
+
+"Atka. . . ."
+
+This meant Katka.
+
+"He will live with you," Ivan Ivanitch was whispering in the
+drawing-room, "if you will be so kind, and we will pay ten roubles
+a month for his keep. He is not a spoilt boy; he is quiet. . . ."
+
+"I really don't know what to say, Ivan Ivanitch!" Nastasya Petrovna
+sighed tearfully. "Ten roubles a month is very good, but it is a
+dreadful thing to take another person's child! He may fall ill or
+something. . . ."
+
+When Yegorushka was summoned back to the drawing-room Ivan Ivanitch
+was standing with his hat in his hands, saying good-bye.
+
+"Well, let him stay with you now, then," he said. "Good-bye! You
+stay, Yegor!" he said, addressing his nephew. "Don't be troublesome;
+mind you obey Nastasya Petrovna. . . . Good-bye; I am coming again
+to-morrow."
+
+And he went away. Nastasya once more embraced Yegorushka, called
+him a little angel, and with a tear-stained face began preparing
+for dinner. Three minutes later Yegorushka was sitting beside her,
+answering her endless questions and eating hot savoury cabbage soup.
+
+In the evening he sat again at the same table and, resting his head
+on his hand, listened to Nastasya Petrovna. Alternately laughing
+and crying, she talked of his mother's young days, her own marriage,
+her children. . . . A cricket chirruped in the stove, and there was
+a faint humming from the burner of the lamp. Nastasya Petrovna
+talked in a low voice, and was continually dropping her thimble in
+her excitement; and Katka her granddaughter, crawled under the table
+after it and each time sat a long while under the table, probably
+examining Yegorushka's feet; and Yegorushka listened, half dozing
+and looking at the old woman's face, her wart with hairs on it, and
+the stains of tears, and he felt sad, very sad. He was put to sleep
+on a chest and told that if he were hungry in the night he must go
+out into the little passage and take some chicken, put there under
+a plate in the window.
+
+Next morning Ivan Ivanitch and Father Christopher came to say
+good-bye. Nastasya Petrovna was delighted to see them, and was about
+to set the samovar; but Ivan Ivanitch, who was in a great hurry,
+waved his hands and said:
+
+"We have no time for tea! We are just setting off."
+
+Before parting they all sat down and were silent for a minute.
+Nastasya Petrovna heaved a deep sigh and looked towards the ikon
+with tear-stained eyes.
+
+"Well," began Ivan Ivanitch, getting up, "so you will stay. . . ."
+
+All at once the look of business-like reserve vanished from his
+face; he flushed a little and said with a mournful smile:
+
+"Mind you work hard. . . . Don't forget your mother, and obey
+Nastasya Petrovna. . . . If you are diligent at school, Yegor, I'll
+stand by you."
+
+He took his purse out of his pocket, turned his back to Yegorushka,
+fumbled for a long time among the smaller coins, and, finding a
+ten-kopeck piece, gave it to Yegorushka.
+
+Father Christopher, without haste, blessed Yegorushka.
+
+"In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. . . .
+Study," he said. "Work hard, my lad. If I die, remember me in your
+prayers. Here is a ten-kopeck piece from me, too. . . ."
+
+Yegorushka kissed his hand, and shed tears; something whispered in
+his heart that he would never see the old man again.
+
+"I have applied at the high school already," said Ivan Ivanitch in
+a voice as though there were a corpse in the room. "You will take
+him for the entrance examination on the seventh of August. . . .
+Well, good-bye; God bless you, good-bye, Yegor!"
+
+"You might at least have had a cup of tea," wailed Nastasya Petrovna.
+
+Through the tears that filled his eyes Yegorushka could not see his
+uncle and Father Christopher go out. He rushed to the window, but
+they were not in the yard, and the red dog, who had just been
+barking, was running back from the gate with the air of having done
+his duty. When Yegorushka ran out of the gate Ivan Ivanitch and
+Father Christopher, the former waving his stick with the crook, the
+latter his staff, were just turning the corner. Yegorushka felt
+that with these people all that he had known till then had vanished
+from him for ever. He sank helplessly on to the little bench, and
+with bitter tears greeted the new unknown life that was beginning
+for him now. . . .
+
+What would that life be like?
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Bishop and Other Stories, by Anton Chekhov
+
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+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Bishop and Other Stories, by Anton Chekhov
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Bishop and Other Stories
+
+Author: Anton Chekhov
+
+Release Date: September 9, 2004 [EBook #13419]
+Last Updated: May 26, 2018
+
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BISHOP AND OTHER STORIES ***
+
+
+
+
+Etext Produced by James Rusk
+
+HTML file produced by David Widger
+
+
+</pre>
+
+    <div style="height: 8em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h1>
+      THE TALES OF CHEKHOV
+    </h1>
+    <h4>
+      Volume 7
+    </h4>
+    <h3>
+      THE BISHOP AND OTHER STORIES
+    </h3>
+    <h2>
+      By Anton Tchekhov
+    </h2>
+    <h4>
+      Translated by Constance Garnett
+    </h4>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <b>CONTENTS</b>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0001"> THE BISHOP </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0002"> THE LETTER </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0003"> EASTER EVE </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0004"> A NIGHTMARE </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0005"> THE MURDER </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0006"> UPROOTED </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0007"> THE STEPPE </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0001" id="link2H_4_0001"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <h2>
+      THE BISHOP
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      I
+    </h3>
+    <p class="pfirst">
+      <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">T</span>HE evening service
+      was being celebrated on the eve of Palm Sunday in the Old Petrovsky
+      Convent. When they began distributing the palm it was close upon ten
+      o&rsquo;clock, the candles were burning dimly, the wicks wanted snuffing; it was
+      all in a sort of mist. In the twilight of the church the crowd seemed
+      heaving like the sea, and to Bishop Pyotr, who had been unwell for the
+      last three days, it seemed that all the faces&mdash;old and young, men&rsquo;s
+      and women&rsquo;s&mdash;were alike, that everyone who came up for the palm had
+      the same expression in his eyes. In the mist he could not see the doors;
+      the crowd kept moving and looked as though there were no end to it. The
+      female choir was singing, a nun was reading the prayers for the day.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      How stifling, how hot it was! How long the service went on! Bishop Pyotr
+      was tired. His breathing was laboured and rapid, his throat was parched,
+      his shoulders ached with weariness, his legs were trembling. And it
+      disturbed him unpleasantly when a religious maniac uttered occasional
+      shrieks in the gallery. And then all of a sudden, as though in a dream or
+      delirium, it seemed to the bishop as though his own mother Marya
+      Timofyevna, whom he had not seen for nine years, or some old woman just
+      like his mother, came up to him out of the crowd, and, after taking a palm
+      branch from him, walked away looking at him all the while good-humouredly
+      with a kind, joyful smile until she was lost in the crowd. And for some
+      reason tears flowed down his face. There was peace in his heart,
+      everything was well, yet he kept gazing fixedly towards the left choir,
+      where the prayers were being read, where in the dusk of evening you could
+      not recognize anyone, and&mdash;wept. Tears glistened on his face and on
+      his beard. Here someone close at hand was weeping, then someone else
+      farther away, then others and still others, and little by little the
+      church was filled with soft weeping. And a little later, within five
+      minutes, the nuns&rsquo; choir was singing; no one was weeping and everything
+      was as before.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Soon the service was over. When the bishop got into his carriage to drive
+      home, the gay, melodious chime of the heavy, costly bells was filling the
+      whole garden in the moonlight. The white walls, the white crosses on the
+      tombs, the white birch-trees and black shadows, and the far-away moon in
+      the sky exactly over the convent, seemed now living their own life, apart
+      and incomprehensible, yet very near to man. It was the beginning of April,
+      and after the warm spring day it turned cool; there was a faint touch of
+      frost, and the breath of spring could be felt in the soft, chilly air. The
+      road from the convent to the town was sandy, the horses had to go at a
+      walking pace, and on both sides of the carriage in the brilliant, peaceful
+      moonlight there were people trudging along home from church through the
+      sand. And all was silent, sunk in thought; everything around seemed
+      kindly, youthful, akin, everything&mdash;trees and sky and even the moon,
+      and one longed to think that so it would be always.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At last the carriage drove into the town and rumbled along the principal
+      street. The shops were already shut, but at Erakin&rsquo;s, the millionaire
+      shopkeeper&rsquo;s, they were trying the new electric lights, which flickered
+      brightly, and a crowd of people were gathered round. Then came wide, dark,
+      deserted streets, one after another; then the highroad, the open country,
+      the fragrance of pines. And suddenly there rose up before the bishop&rsquo;s
+      eyes a white turreted wall, and behind it a tall belfry in the full
+      moonlight, and beside it five shining, golden cupolas: this was the
+      Pankratievsky Monastery, in which Bishop Pyotr lived. And here, too, high
+      above the monastery, was the silent, dreamy moon. The carriage drove in at
+      the gate, crunching over the sand; here and there in the moonlight there
+      were glimpses of dark monastic figures, and there was the sound of
+      footsteps on the flag-stones. . . .
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You know, your holiness, your mamma arrived while you were away,&rdquo; the lay
+      brother informed the bishop as he went into his cell.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My mother? When did she come?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Before the evening service. She asked first where you were and then she
+      went to the convent.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then it was her I saw in the church, just now! Oh, Lord!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And the bishop laughed with joy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She bade me tell your holiness,&rdquo; the lay brother went on, &ldquo;that she would
+      come to-morrow. She had a little girl with her&mdash;her grandchild, I
+      suppose. They are staying at Ovsyannikov&rsquo;s inn.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What time is it now?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A little after eleven.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, how vexing!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The bishop sat for a little while in the parlour, hesitating, and as it
+      were refusing to believe it was so late. His arms and legs were stiff, his
+      head ached. He was hot and uncomfortable. After resting a little he went
+      into his bedroom, and there, too, he sat a little, still thinking of his
+      mother; he could hear the lay brother going away, and Father Sisoy
+      coughing the other side of the wall. The monastery clock struck a quarter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The bishop changed his clothes and began reading the prayers before sleep.
+      He read attentively those old, long familiar prayers, and at the same time
+      thought about his mother. She had nine children and about forty
+      grandchildren. At one time, she had lived with her husband, the deacon, in
+      a poor village; she had lived there a very long time from the age of
+      seventeen to sixty. The bishop remembered her from early childhood, almost
+      from the age of three, and&mdash;how he had loved her! Sweet, precious
+      childhood, always fondly remembered! Why did it, that long-past time that
+      could never return, why did it seem brighter, fuller, and more festive
+      than it had really been? When in his childhood or youth he had been ill,
+      how tender and sympathetic his mother had been! And now his prayers
+      mingled with the memories, which gleamed more and more brightly like a
+      flame, and the prayers did not hinder his thinking of his mother.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When he had finished his prayers he undressed and lay down, and at once,
+      as soon as it was dark, there rose before his mind his dead father, his
+      mother, his native village Lesopolye . . . the creak of wheels, the bleat
+      of sheep, the church bells on bright summer mornings, the gypsies under
+      the window&mdash;oh, how sweet to think of it! He remembered the priest of
+      Lesopolye, Father Simeon&mdash;mild, gentle, kindly; he was a lean little
+      man, while his son, a divinity student, was a huge fellow and talked in a
+      roaring bass voice. The priest&rsquo;s son had flown into a rage with the cook
+      and abused her: &ldquo;Ah, you Jehud&rsquo;s ass!&rdquo; and Father Simeon overhearing it,
+      said not a word, and was only ashamed because he could not remember where
+      such an ass was mentioned in the Bible. After him the priest at Lesopolye
+      had been Father Demyan, who used to drink heavily, and at times drank till
+      he saw green snakes, and was even nicknamed Demyan Snakeseer. The
+      schoolmaster at Lesopolye was Matvey Nikolaitch, who had been a divinity
+      student, a kind and intelligent man, but he, too, was a drunkard; he never
+      beat the schoolchildren, but for some reason he always had hanging on his
+      wall a bunch of birch-twigs, and below it an utterly meaningless
+      inscription in Latin: &ldquo;Betula kinderbalsamica secuta.&rdquo; He had a shaggy
+      black dog whom he called Syntax.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And his holiness laughed. Six miles from Lesopolye was the village Obnino
+      with a wonder-working ikon. In the summer they used to carry the ikon in
+      procession about the neighbouring villages and ring the bells the whole
+      day long; first in one village and then in another, and it used to seem to
+      the bishop then that joy was quivering in the air, and he (in those days
+      his name was Pavlusha) used to follow the ikon, bareheaded and barefoot,
+      with naïve faith, with a naïve smile, infinitely happy. In Obnino, he
+      remembered now, there were always a lot of people, and the priest there,
+      Father Alexey, to save time during mass, used to make his deaf nephew
+      Ilarion read the names of those for whose health or whose souls&rsquo; peace
+      prayers were asked. Ilarion used to read them, now and then getting a five
+      or ten kopeck piece for the service, and only when he was grey and bald,
+      when life was nearly over, he suddenly saw written on one of the pieces of
+      paper: &ldquo;What a fool you are, Ilarion.&rdquo; Up to fifteen at least Pavlusha was
+      undeveloped and idle at his lessons, so much so that they thought of
+      taking him away from the clerical school and putting him into a shop; one
+      day, going to the post at Obnino for letters, he had stared a long time at
+      the post-office clerks and asked: &ldquo;Allow me to ask, how do you get your
+      salary, every month or every day?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His holiness crossed himself and turned over on the other side, trying to
+      stop thinking and go to sleep.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My mother has come,&rdquo; he remembered and laughed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The moon peeped in at the window, the floor was lighted up, and there were
+      shadows on it. A cricket was chirping. Through the wall Father Sisoy was
+      snoring in the next room, and his aged snore had a sound that suggested
+      loneliness, forlornness, even vagrancy. Sisoy had once been housekeeper to
+      the bishop of the diocese, and was called now &ldquo;the former Father
+      Housekeeper&rdquo;; he was seventy years old, he lived in a monastery twelve
+      miles from the town and stayed sometimes in the town, too. He had come to
+      the Pankratievsky Monastery three days before, and the bishop had kept him
+      that he might talk to him at his leisure about matters of business, about
+      the arrangements here. . . .
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At half-past one they began ringing for matins. Father Sisoy could be
+      heard coughing, muttering something in a discontented voice, then he got
+      up and walked barefoot about the rooms.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Father Sisoy,&rdquo; the bishop called.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sisoy went back to his room and a little later made his appearance in his
+      boots, with a candle; he had on his cassock over his underclothes and on
+      his head was an old faded skull-cap.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can&rsquo;t sleep,&rdquo; said the bishop, sitting up. &ldquo;I must be unwell. And what
+      it is I don&rsquo;t know. Fever!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You must have caught cold, your holiness. You must be rubbed with
+      tallow.&rdquo; Sisoy stood a little and yawned. &ldquo;O Lord, forgive me, a sinner.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They had the electric lights on at Erakin&rsquo;s today,&rdquo; he said; &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t
+      like it!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Father Sisoy was old, lean, bent, always dissatisfied with something, and
+      his eyes were angry-looking and prominent as a crab&rsquo;s.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t like it,&rdquo; he said, going away. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t like it. Bother it!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <h3>
+      II
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      Next day, Palm Sunday, the bishop took the service in the cathedral in the
+      town, then he visited the bishop of the diocese, then visited a very sick
+      old lady, the widow of a general, and at last drove home. Between one and
+      two o&rsquo;clock he had welcome visitors dining with him&mdash;his mother and
+      his niece Katya, a child of eight years old. All dinner-time the spring
+      sunshine was streaming in at the windows, throwing bright light on the
+      white tablecloth and on Katya&rsquo;s red hair. Through the double windows they
+      could hear the noise of the rooks and the notes of the starlings in the
+      garden.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is nine years since we have met,&rdquo; said the old lady. &ldquo;And when I
+      looked at you in the monastery yesterday, good Lord! you&rsquo;ve not changed a
+      bit, except maybe you are thinner and your beard is a little longer. Holy
+      Mother, Queen of Heaven! Yesterday at the evening service no one could
+      help crying. I, too, as I looked at you, suddenly began crying, though I
+      couldn&rsquo;t say why. His Holy Will!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And in spite of the affectionate tone in which she said this, he could see
+      she was constrained as though she were uncertain whether to address him
+      formally or familiarly, to laugh or not, and that she felt herself more a
+      deacon&rsquo;s widow than his mother. And Katya gazed without blinking at her
+      uncle, his holiness, as though trying to discover what sort of a person he
+      was. Her hair sprang up from under the comb and the velvet ribbon and
+      stood out like a halo; she had a turned-up nose and sly eyes. The child
+      had broken a glass before sitting down to dinner, and now her grandmother,
+      as she talked, moved away from Katya first a wineglass and then a tumbler.
+      The bishop listened to his mother and remembered how many, many years ago
+      she used to take him and his brothers and sisters to relations whom she
+      considered rich; in those days she was taken up with the care of her
+      children, now with her grandchildren, and she had brought Katya. . . .
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your sister, Varenka, has four children,&rdquo; she told him; &ldquo;Katya, here, is
+      the eldest. And your brother-in-law Father Ivan fell sick, God knows of
+      what, and died three days before the Assumption; and my poor Varenka is
+      left a beggar.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And how is Nikanor getting on?&rdquo; the bishop asked about his eldest
+      brother.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He is all right, thank God. Though he has nothing much, yet he can live.
+      Only there is one thing: his son, my grandson Nikolasha, did not want to
+      go into the Church; he has gone to the university to be a doctor. He
+      thinks it is better; but who knows! His Holy Will!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nikolasha cuts up dead people,&rdquo; said Katya, spilling water over her
+      knees.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sit still, child,&rdquo; her grandmother observed calmly, and took the glass
+      out of her hand. &ldquo;Say a prayer, and go on eating.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How long it is since we have seen each other!&rdquo; said the bishop, and he
+      tenderly stroked his mother&rsquo;s hand and shoulder; &ldquo;and I missed you abroad,
+      mother, I missed you dreadfully.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thank you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I used to sit in the evenings at the open window, lonely and alone; often
+      there was music playing, and all at once I used to be overcome with
+      homesickness and felt as though I would give everything only to be at home
+      and see you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His mother smiled, beamed, but at once she made a grave face and said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thank you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His mood suddenly changed. He looked at his mother and could not
+      understand how she had come by that respectfulness, that timid expression
+      of face: what was it for? And he did not recognize her. He felt sad and
+      vexed. And then his head ached just as it had the day before; his legs
+      felt fearfully tired, and the fish seemed to him stale and tasteless; he
+      felt thirsty all the time. . . .
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After dinner two rich ladies, landowners, arrived and sat for an hour and
+      a half in silence with rigid countenances; the archimandrite, a silent,
+      rather deaf man, came to see him about business. Then they began ringing
+      for vespers; the sun was setting behind the wood and the day was over.
+      When he returned from church, he hurriedly said his prayers, got into bed,
+      and wrapped himself up as warm as possible.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was disagreeable to remember the fish he had eaten at dinner. The
+      moonlight worried him, and then he heard talking. In an adjoining room,
+      probably in the parlour, Father Sisoy was talking politics:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There&rsquo;s war among the Japanese now. They are fighting. The Japanese, my
+      good soul, are the same as the Montenegrins; they are the same race. They
+      were under the Turkish yoke together.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And then he heard the voice of Marya Timofyevna:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So, having said our prayers and drunk tea, we went, you know, to Father
+      Yegor at Novokatnoye, so. . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And she kept on saying, &ldquo;having had tea&rdquo; or &ldquo;having drunk tea,&rdquo; and it
+      seemed as though the only thing she had done in her life was to drink tea.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The bishop slowly, languidly, recalled the seminary, the academy. For
+      three years he had been Greek teacher in the seminary: by that time he
+      could not read without spectacles. Then he had become a monk; he had been
+      made a school inspector. Then he had defended his thesis for his degree.
+      When he was thirty-two he had been made rector of the seminary, and
+      consecrated archimandrite: and then his life had been so easy, so
+      pleasant; it seemed so long, so long, no end was in sight. Then he had
+      begun to be ill, had grown very thin and almost blind, and by the advice
+      of the doctors had to give up everything and go abroad.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And what then?&rdquo; asked Sisoy in the next room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then we drank tea . . .&rdquo; answered Marya Timofyevna.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good gracious, you&rsquo;ve got a green beard,&rdquo; said Katya suddenly in
+      surprise, and she laughed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The bishop remembered that the grey-headed Father Sisoy&rsquo;s beard really had
+      a shade of green in it, and he laughed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;God have mercy upon us, what we have to put up with with this girl!&rdquo; said
+      Sisoy, aloud, getting angry. &ldquo;Spoilt child! Sit quiet!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The bishop remembered the perfectly new white church in which he had
+      conducted the services while living abroad, he remembered the sound of the
+      warm sea. In his flat he had five lofty light rooms; in his study he had a
+      new writing-table, lots of books. He had read a great deal and often
+      written. And he remembered how he had pined for his native land, how a
+      blind beggar woman had played the guitar under his window every day and
+      sung of love, and how, as he listened, he had always for some reason
+      thought of the past. But eight years had passed and he had been called
+      back to Russia, and now he was a suffragan bishop, and all the past had
+      retreated far away into the mist as though it were a dream. . . .
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Father Sisoy came into the bedroom with a candle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I say!&rdquo; he said, wondering, &ldquo;are you asleep already, your holiness?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, it&rsquo;s still early, ten o&rsquo;clock or less. I bought a candle to-day; I
+      wanted to rub you with tallow.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am in a fever . . .&rdquo; said the bishop, and he sat up. &ldquo;I really ought to
+      have something. My head is bad. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sisoy took off the bishop&rsquo;s shirt and began rubbing his chest and back
+      with tallow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s the way . . . that&rsquo;s the way . . .&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Lord Jesus Christ .
+      . . that&rsquo;s the way. I walked to the town to-day; I was at
+      what&rsquo;s-his-name&rsquo;s&mdash;the chief priest Sidonsky&rsquo;s. . . . I had tea with
+      him. I don&rsquo;t like him. Lord Jesus Christ. . . . That&rsquo;s the way. I don&rsquo;t
+      like him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <h3>
+      III
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      The bishop of the diocese, a very fat old man, was ill with rheumatism or
+      gout, and had been in bed for over a month. Bishop Pyotr went to see him
+      almost every day, and saw all who came to ask his help. And now that he
+      was unwell he was struck by the emptiness, the triviality of everything
+      which they asked and for which they wept; he was vexed at their ignorance,
+      their timidity; and all this useless, petty business oppressed him by the
+      mass of it, and it seemed to him that now he understood the diocesan
+      bishop, who had once in his young days written on &ldquo;The Doctrines of the
+      Freedom of the Will,&rdquo; and now seemed to be all lost in trivialities, to
+      have forgotten everything, and to have no thoughts of religion. The bishop
+      must have lost touch with Russian life while he was abroad; he did not
+      find it easy; the peasants seemed to him coarse, the women who sought his
+      help dull and stupid, the seminarists and their teachers uncultivated and
+      at times savage. And the documents coming in and going out were reckoned
+      by tens of thousands; and what documents they were! The higher clergy in
+      the whole diocese gave the priests, young and old, and even their wives
+      and children, marks for their behaviour&mdash;a five, a four, and
+      sometimes even a three; and about this he had to talk and to read and
+      write serious reports. And there was positively not one minute to spare;
+      his soul was troubled all day long, and the bishop was only at peace when
+      he was in church.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He could not get used, either, to the awe which, through no wish of his
+      own, he inspired in people in spite of his quiet, modest disposition. All
+      the people in the province seemed to him little, scared, and guilty when
+      he looked at them. Everyone was timid in his presence, even the old chief
+      priests; everyone &ldquo;flopped&rdquo; at his feet, and not long previously an old
+      lady, a village priest&rsquo;s wife who had come to consult him, was so overcome
+      by awe that she could not utter a single word, and went empty away. And
+      he, who could never in his sermons bring himself to speak ill of people,
+      never reproached anyone because he was so sorry for them, was moved to
+      fury with the people who came to consult him, lost his temper and flung
+      their petitions on the floor. The whole time he had been here, not one
+      person had spoken to him genuinely, simply, as to a human being; even his
+      old mother seemed now not the same! And why, he wondered, did she chatter
+      away to Sisoy and laugh so much; while with him, her son, she was grave
+      and usually silent and constrained, which did not suit her at all. The
+      only person who behaved freely with him and said what he meant was old
+      Sisoy, who had spent his whole life in the presence of bishops and had
+      outlived eleven of them. And so the bishop was at ease with him, although,
+      of course, he was a tedious and nonsensical man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After the service on Tuesday, his holiness Pyotr was in the diocesan
+      bishop&rsquo;s house receiving petitions there; he got excited and angry, and
+      then drove home. He was as unwell as before; he longed to be in bed, but
+      he had hardly reached home when he was informed that a young merchant
+      called Erakin, who subscribed liberally to charities, had come to see him
+      about a very important matter. The bishop had to see him. Erakin stayed
+      about an hour, talked very loud, almost shouted, and it was difficult to
+      understand what he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;God grant it may,&rdquo; he said as he went away. &ldquo;Most essential! According to
+      circumstances, your holiness! I trust it may!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      After him came the Mother Superior from a distant convent. And when she
+      had gone they began ringing for vespers. He had to go to church.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the evening the monks sang harmoniously, with inspiration. A young
+      priest with a black beard conducted the service; and the bishop, hearing
+      of the Bridegroom who comes at midnight and of the Heavenly Mansion
+      adorned for the festival, felt no repentance for his sins, no tribulation,
+      but peace at heart and tranquillity. And he was carried back in thought to
+      the distant past, to his childhood and youth, when, too, they used to sing
+      of the Bridegroom and of the Heavenly Mansion; and now that past rose up
+      before him&mdash;living, fair, and joyful as in all likelihood it never
+      had been. And perhaps in the other world, in the life to come, we shall
+      think of the distant past, of our life here, with the same feeling. Who
+      knows? The bishop was sitting near the altar. It was dark; tears flowed
+      down his face. He thought that here he had attained everything a man in
+      his position could attain; he had faith and yet everything was not clear,
+      something was lacking still. He did not want to die; and he still felt
+      that he had missed what was most important, something of which he had
+      dimly dreamed in the past; and he was troubled by the same hopes for the
+      future as he had felt in childhood, at the academy and abroad.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How well they sing to-day!&rdquo; he thought, listening to the singing. &ldquo;How
+      nice it is!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <h3>
+      IV
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      On Thursday he celebrated mass in the cathedral; it was the Washing of
+      Feet. When the service was over and the people were going home, it was
+      sunny, warm; the water gurgled in the gutters, and the unceasing trilling
+      of the larks, tender, telling of peace, rose from the fields outside the
+      town. The trees were already awakening and smiling a welcome, while above
+      them the infinite, fathomless blue sky stretched into the distance, God
+      knows whither.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On reaching home his holiness drank some tea, then changed his clothes,
+      lay down on his bed, and told the lay brother to close the shutters on the
+      windows. The bedroom was darkened. But what weariness, what pain in his
+      legs and his back, a chill heavy pain, what a noise in his ears! He had
+      not slept for a long time&mdash;for a very long time, as it seemed to him
+      now, and some trifling detail which haunted his brain as soon as his eyes
+      were closed prevented him from sleeping. As on the day before, sounds
+      reached him from the adjoining rooms through the walls, voices, the jingle
+      of glasses and teaspoons. . . . Marya Timofyevna was gaily telling Father
+      Sisoy some story with quaint turns of speech, while the latter answered in
+      a grumpy, ill-humoured voice: &ldquo;Bother them! Not likely! What next!&rdquo; And
+      the bishop again felt vexed and then hurt that with other people his old
+      mother behaved in a simple, ordinary way, while with him, her son, she was
+      shy, spoke little, and did not say what she meant, and even, as he
+      fancied, had during all those three days kept trying in his presence to
+      find an excuse for standing up, because she was embarrassed at sitting
+      before him. And his father? He, too, probably, if he had been living,
+      would not have been able to utter a word in the bishop&rsquo;s presence. . . .
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Something fell down on the floor in the adjoining room and was broken;
+      Katya must have dropped a cup or a saucer, for Father Sisoy suddenly spat
+      and said angrily:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What a regular nuisance the child is! Lord forgive my transgressions! One
+      can&rsquo;t provide enough for her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Then all was quiet, the only sounds came from outside. And when the bishop
+      opened his eyes he saw Katya in his room, standing motionless, staring at
+      him. Her red hair, as usual, stood up from under the comb like a halo.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is that you, Katya?&rdquo; he asked. &ldquo;Who is it downstairs who keeps opening
+      and shutting a door?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t hear it,&rdquo; answered Katya; and she listened.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There, someone has just passed by.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But that was a noise in your stomach, uncle.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He laughed and stroked her on the head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So you say Cousin Nikolasha cuts up dead people?&rdquo; he asked after a pause.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, he is studying.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And is he kind?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, yes, he&rsquo;s kind. But he drinks vodka awfully.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And what was it your father died of?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Papa was weak and very, very thin, and all at once his throat was bad. I
+      was ill then, too, and brother Fedya; we all had bad throats. Papa died,
+      uncle, and we got well.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Her chin began quivering, and tears gleamed in her eyes and trickled down
+      her cheeks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your holiness,&rdquo; she said in a shrill voice, by now weeping bitterly,
+      &ldquo;uncle, mother and all of us are left very wretched. . . . Give us a
+      little money . . . do be kind . . . uncle darling. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He, too, was moved to tears, and for a long time was too much touched to
+      speak. Then he stroked her on the head, patted her on the shoulder and
+      said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very good, very good, my child. When the holy Easter comes, we will talk
+      it over. . . . I will help you. . . . I will help you. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His mother came in quietly, timidly, and prayed before the ikon. Noticing
+      that he was not sleeping, she said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Won&rsquo;t you have a drop of soup?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, thank you,&rdquo; he answered, &ldquo;I am not hungry.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You seem to be unwell, now I look at you. I should think so; you may well
+      be ill! The whole day on your legs, the whole day. . . . And, my goodness,
+      it makes one&rsquo;s heart ache even to look at you! Well, Easter is not far
+      off; you will rest then, please God. Then we will have a talk, too, but
+      now I&rsquo;m not going to disturb you with my chatter. Come along, Katya; let
+      his holiness sleep a little.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And he remembered how once very long ago, when he was a boy, she had
+      spoken exactly like that, in the same jestingly respectful tone, with a
+      Church dignitary. . . . Only from her extraordinarily kind eyes and the
+      timid, anxious glance she stole at him as she went out of the room could
+      one have guessed that this was his mother. He shut his eyes and seemed to
+      sleep, but twice heard the clock strike and Father Sisoy coughing the
+      other side of the wall. And once more his mother came in and looked
+      timidly at him for a minute. Someone drove up to the steps, as he could
+      hear, in a coach or in a chaise. Suddenly a knock, the door slammed, the
+      lay brother came into the bedroom.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your holiness,&rdquo; he called.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The horses are here; it&rsquo;s time for the evening service.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What o&rsquo;clock is it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A quarter past seven.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He dressed and drove to the cathedral. During all the &ldquo;Twelve Gospels&rdquo; he
+      had to stand in the middle of the church without moving, and the first
+      gospel, the longest and the most beautiful, he read himself. A mood of
+      confidence and courage came over him. That first gospel, &ldquo;Now is the Son
+      of Man glorified,&rdquo; he knew by heart; and as he read he raised his eyes
+      from time to time, and saw on both sides a perfect sea of lights and heard
+      the splutter of candles, but, as in past years, he could not see the
+      people, and it seemed as though these were all the same people as had been
+      round him in those days, in his childhood and his youth; that they would
+      always be the same every year and till such time as God only knew.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His father had been a deacon, his grandfather a priest, his
+      great-grandfather a deacon, and his whole family, perhaps from the days
+      when Christianity had been accepted in Russia, had belonged to the
+      priesthood; and his love for the Church services, for the priesthood, for
+      the peal of the bells, was deep in him, ineradicable, innate. In church,
+      particularly when he took part in the service, he felt vigorous, of good
+      cheer, happy. So it was now. Only when the eighth gospel had been read, he
+      felt that his voice had grown weak, even his cough was inaudible. His head
+      had begun to ache intensely, and he was troubled by a fear that he might
+      fall down. And his legs were indeed quite numb, so that by degrees he
+      ceased to feel them and could not understand how or on what he was
+      standing, and why he did not fall. . . .
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was a quarter to twelve when the service was over. When he reached
+      home, the bishop undressed and went to bed at once without even saying his
+      prayers. He could not speak and felt that he could not have stood up. When
+      he had covered his head with the quilt he felt a sudden longing to be
+      abroad, an insufferable longing! He felt that he would give his life not
+      to see those pitiful cheap shutters, those low ceilings, not to smell that
+      heavy monastery smell. If only there were one person to whom he could have
+      talked, have opened his heart!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For a long while he heard footsteps in the next room and could not tell
+      whose they were. At last the door opened, and Sisoy came in with a candle
+      and a tea-cup in his hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are in bed already, your holiness?&rdquo; he asked. &ldquo;Here I have come to
+      rub you with spirit and vinegar. A thorough rubbing does a great deal of
+      good. Lord Jesus Christ! . . . That&rsquo;s the way . . . that&rsquo;s the way. . . .
+      I&rsquo;ve just been in our monastery. . . . I don&rsquo;t like it. I&rsquo;m going away
+      from here to-morrow, your holiness; I don&rsquo;t want to stay longer. Lord
+      Jesus Christ. . . . That&rsquo;s the way. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sisoy could never stay long in the same place, and he felt as though he
+      had been a whole year in the Pankratievsky Monastery. Above all, listening
+      to him it was difficult to understand where his home was, whether he cared
+      for anyone or anything, whether he believed in God. . . . He did not know
+      himself why he was a monk, and, indeed, he did not think about it, and the
+      time when he had become a monk had long passed out of his memory; it
+      seemed as though he had been born a monk.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;m going away to-morrow; God be with them all.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I should like to talk to you. . . . I can&rsquo;t find the time,&rdquo; said the
+      bishop softly with an effort. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know anything or anybody here. . .
+      .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll stay till Sunday if you like; so be it, but I don&rsquo;t want to stay
+      longer. I am sick of them!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I ought not to be a bishop,&rdquo; said the bishop softly. &ldquo;I ought to have
+      been a village priest, a deacon . . . or simply a monk. . . . All this
+      oppresses me . . . oppresses me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What? Lord Jesus Christ. . . . That&rsquo;s the way. Come, sleep well, your
+      holiness! . . . What&rsquo;s the good of talking? It&rsquo;s no use. Good-night!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The bishop did not sleep all night. And at eight o&rsquo;clock in the morning he
+      began to have hemorrhage from the bowels. The lay brother was alarmed, and
+      ran first to the archimandrite, then for the monastery doctor, Ivan
+      Andreyitch, who lived in the town. The doctor, a stout old man with a long
+      grey beard, made a prolonged examination of the bishop, and kept shaking
+      his head and frowning, then said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you know, your holiness, you have got typhoid?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      After an hour or so of hemorrhage the bishop looked much thinner, paler,
+      and wasted; his face looked wrinkled, his eyes looked bigger, and he
+      seemed older, shorter, and it seemed to him that he was thinner, weaker,
+      more insignificant than any one, that everything that had been had
+      retreated far, far away and would never go on again or be repeated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How good,&rdquo; he thought, &ldquo;how good!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His old mother came. Seeing his wrinkled face and his big eyes, she was
+      frightened, she fell on her knees by the bed and began kissing his face,
+      his shoulders, his hands. And to her, too, it seemed that he was thinner,
+      weaker, and more insignificant than anyone, and now she forgot that he was
+      a bishop, and kissed him as though he were a child very near and very dear
+      to her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Pavlusha, darling,&rdquo; she said; &ldquo;my own, my darling son! . . . Why are you
+      like this? Pavlusha, answer me!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Katya, pale and severe, stood beside her, unable to understand what was
+      the matter with her uncle, why there was such a look of suffering on her
+      grandmother&rsquo;s face, why she was saying such sad and touching things. By
+      now he could not utter a word, he could understand nothing, and he
+      imagined he was a simple ordinary man, that he was walking quickly,
+      cheerfully through the fields, tapping with his stick, while above him was
+      the open sky bathed in sunshine, and that he was free now as a bird and
+      could go where he liked!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Pavlusha, my darling son, answer me,&rdquo; the old woman was saying. &ldquo;What is
+      it? My own!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t disturb his holiness,&rdquo; Sisoy said angrily, walking about the room.
+      &ldquo;Let him sleep . . . what&rsquo;s the use . . . it&rsquo;s no good. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Three doctors arrived, consulted together, and went away again. The day
+      was long, incredibly long, then the night came on and passed slowly,
+      slowly, and towards morning on Saturday the lay brother went in to the old
+      mother who was lying on the sofa in the parlour, and asked her to go into
+      the bedroom: the bishop had just breathed his last.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Next day was Easter Sunday. There were forty-two churches and six
+      monasteries in the town; the sonorous, joyful clang of the bells hung over
+      the town from morning till night unceasingly, setting the spring air
+      aquiver; the birds were singing, the sun was shining brightly. The big
+      market square was noisy, swings were going, barrel organs were playing,
+      accordions were squeaking, drunken voices were shouting. After midday
+      people began driving up and down the principal street.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In short, all was merriment, everything was satisfactory, just as it had
+      been the year before, and as it will be in all likelihood next year.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A month later a new suffragan bishop was appointed, and no one thought
+      anything more of Bishop Pyotr, and afterwards he was completely forgotten.
+      And only the dead man&rsquo;s old mother, who is living to-day with her
+      son-in-law the deacon in a remote little district town, when she goes out
+      at night to bring her cow in and meets other women at the pasture, begins
+      talking of her children and her grandchildren, and says that she had a son
+      a bishop, and this she says timidly, afraid that she may not be believed.
+      . . .
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And, indeed, there are some who do not believe her.
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0002" id="link2H_4_0002"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <h2>
+      THE LETTER
+    </h2>
+    <p class="pfirst">
+      <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">T</span>he clerical
+      superintendent of the district, his Reverence Father Fyodor Orlov, a
+      handsome, well-nourished man of fifty, grave and important as he always
+      was, with an habitual expression of dignity that never left his face, was
+      walking to and fro in his little drawing-room, extremely exhausted, and
+      thinking intensely about the same thing: &ldquo;When would his visitor go?&rdquo; The
+      thought worried him and did not leave him for a minute. The visitor,
+      Father Anastasy, the priest of one of the villages near the town, had come
+      to him three hours before on some very unpleasant and dreary business of
+      his own, had stayed on and on, was now sitting in the corner at a little
+      round table with his elbow on a thick account book, and apparently had no
+      thought of going, though it was getting on for nine o&rsquo;clock in the
+      evening.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Not everyone knows when to be silent and when to go. It not infrequently
+      happens that even diplomatic persons of good worldly breeding fail to
+      observe that their presence is arousing a feeling akin to hatred in their
+      exhausted or busy host, and that this feeling is being concealed with an
+      effort and disguised with a lie. But Father Anastasy perceived it clearly,
+      and realized that his presence was burdensome and inappropriate, that his
+      Reverence, who had taken an early morning service in the night and a long
+      mass at midday, was exhausted and longing for repose; every minute he was
+      meaning to get up and go, but he did not get up, he sat on as though he
+      were waiting for something. He was an old man of sixty-five, prematurely
+      aged, with a bent and bony figure, with a sunken face and the dark skin of
+      old age, with red eyelids and a long narrow back like a fish&rsquo;s; he was
+      dressed in a smart cassock of a light lilac colour, but too big for him
+      (presented to him by the widow of a young priest lately deceased), a full
+      cloth coat with a broad leather belt, and clumsy high boots the size and
+      hue of which showed clearly that Father Anastasy dispensed with goloshes.
+      In spite of his position and his venerable age, there was something
+      pitiful, crushed and humiliated in his lustreless red eyes, in the strands
+      of grey hair with a shade of green in it on the nape of his neck, and in
+      the big shoulder-blades on his lean back. . . . He sat without speaking or
+      moving, and coughed with circumspection, as though afraid that the sound
+      of his coughing might make his presence more noticeable.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The old man had come to see his Reverence on business. Two months before
+      he had been prohibited from officiating till further notice, and his case
+      was being inquired into. His shortcomings were numerous. He was
+      intemperate in his habits, fell out with the other clergy and the commune,
+      kept the church records and accounts carelessly &mdash;these were the
+      formal charges against him; but besides all that, there had been rumours
+      for a long time past that he celebrated unlawful marriages for money and
+      sold certificates of having fasted and taken the sacrament to officials
+      and officers who came to him from the town. These rumours were maintained
+      the more persistently that he was poor and had nine children to keep, who
+      were as incompetent and unsuccessful as himself. The sons were spoilt and
+      uneducated, and stayed at home doing nothing, while the daughters were
+      ugly and did not get married.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Not having the moral force to be open, his Reverence walked up and down
+      the room and said nothing or spoke in hints.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So you are not going home to-night?&rdquo; he asked, stopping near the dark
+      window and poking with his little finger into the cage where a canary was
+      asleep with its feathers puffed out.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Father Anastasy started, coughed cautiously and said rapidly:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Home? I don&rsquo;t care to, Fyodor Ilyitch. I cannot officiate, as you know,
+      so what am I to do there? I came away on purpose that I might not have to
+      look the people in the face. One is ashamed not to officiate, as you know.
+      Besides, I have business here, Fyodor Ilyitch. To-morrow after breaking
+      the fast I want to talk things over thoroughly with the Father charged
+      with the inquiry.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah! . . .&rdquo; yawned his Reverence, &ldquo;and where are you staying?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;At Zyavkin&rsquo;s.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Father Anastasy suddenly remembered that within two hours his Reverence
+      had to take the Easter-night service, and he felt so ashamed of his
+      unwelcome burdensome presence that he made up his mind to go away at once
+      and let the exhausted man rest. And the old man got up to go. But before
+      he began saying good-bye he stood clearing his throat for a minute and
+      looking searchingly at his Reverence&rsquo;s back, still with the same
+      expression of vague expectation in his whole figure; his face was working
+      with shame, timidity, and a pitiful forced laugh such as one sees in
+      people who do not respect themselves. Waving his hand as it were
+      resolutely, he said with a husky quavering laugh:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Father Fyodor, do me one more kindness: bid them give me at leave-taking
+      . . . one little glass of vodka.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s not the time to drink vodka now,&rdquo; said his Reverence sternly. &ldquo;One
+      must have some regard for decency.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Father Anastasy was still more overwhelmed by confusion; he laughed, and,
+      forgetting his resolution to go away, he dropped back on his chair. His
+      Reverence looked at his helpless, embarrassed face and his bent figure and
+      he felt sorry for the old man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Please God, we will have a drink to-morrow,&rdquo; he said, wishing to soften
+      his stem refusal. &ldquo;Everything is good in due season.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His Reverence believed in people&rsquo;s reforming, but now when a feeling of
+      pity had been kindled in him it seemed to him that this disgraced,
+      worn-out old man, entangled in a network of sins and weaknesses, was
+      hopelessly wrecked, that there was no power on earth that could straighten
+      out his spine, give brightness to his eyes and restrain the unpleasant
+      timid laugh which he laughed on purpose to smoothe over to some slight
+      extent the repulsive impression he made on people.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The old man seemed now to Father Fyodor not guilty and not vicious, but
+      humiliated, insulted, unfortunate; his Reverence thought of his wife, his
+      nine children, the dirty beggarly shelter at Zyavkin&rsquo;s; he thought for
+      some reason of the people who are glad to see priests drunk and persons in
+      authority detected in crimes; and thought that the very best thing Father
+      Anastasy could do now would be to die as soon as possible and to depart
+      from this world for ever.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There were a sound of footsteps.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Father Fyodor, you are not resting?&rdquo; a bass voice asked from the passage.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, deacon; come in.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Orlov&rsquo;s colleague, the deacon Liubimov, an elderly man with a big bald
+      patch on the top of his head, though his hair was still black and he was
+      still vigorous-looking, with thick black eyebrows like a Georgian&rsquo;s,
+      walked in. He bowed to Father Anastasy and sat down.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What good news have you?&rdquo; asked his Reverence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What good news?&rdquo; answered the deacon, and after a pause he went on with a
+      smile: &ldquo;When your children are little, your trouble is small; when your
+      children are big, your trouble is great. Such goings on, Father Fyodor,
+      that I don&rsquo;t know what to think of it. It&rsquo;s a regular farce, that&rsquo;s what
+      it is.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He paused again for a little, smiled still more broadly and said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nikolay Matveyitch came back from Harkov to-day. He has been telling me
+      about my Pyotr. He has been to see him twice, he tells me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What has he been telling you, then?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He has upset me, God bless him. He meant to please me but when I came to
+      think it over, it seems there is not much to be pleased at. I ought to
+      grieve rather than be pleased. . . &lsquo;Your Petrushka,&rsquo; said he, &lsquo;lives in
+      fine style. He is far above us now,&rsquo; said he. &lsquo;Well thank God for that,&rsquo;
+      said I. &lsquo;I dined with him,&rsquo; said he, &lsquo;and saw his whole manner of life. He
+      lives like a gentleman,&rsquo; he said; &lsquo;you couldn&rsquo;t wish to live better.&rsquo; I
+      was naturally interested and I asked, &lsquo;And what did you have for dinner?&rsquo;
+      &lsquo;First,&rsquo; he said, &lsquo;a fish course something like fish soup, then tongue and
+      peas,&rsquo; and then he said, &lsquo;roast turkey.&rsquo; &lsquo;Turkey in Lent? that is
+      something to please me,&rsquo; said I. &lsquo;Turkey in Lent? Eh?&rsquo;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nothing marvellous in that,&rdquo; said his Reverence, screwing up his eyes
+      ironically. And sticking both thumbs in his belt, he drew himself up and
+      said in the tone in which he usually delivered discourses or gave his
+      Scripture lessons to the pupils in the district school: &ldquo;People who do not
+      keep the fasts are divided into two different categories: some do not keep
+      them through laxity, others through infidelity. Your Pyotr does not keep
+      them through infidelity. Yes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The deacon looked timidly at Father Fyodor&rsquo;s stern face and said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There is worse to follow. . . . We talked and discussed one thing and
+      another, and it turned out that my infidel of a son is living with some
+      madame, another man&rsquo;s wife. She takes the place of wife and hostess in his
+      flat, pours out the tea, receives visitors and all the rest of it, as
+      though she were his lawful wife. For over two years he has been keeping up
+      this dance with this viper. It&rsquo;s a regular farce. They have been living
+      together for three years and no children.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I suppose they have been living in chastity!&rdquo; chuckled Father Anastasy,
+      coughing huskily. &ldquo;There are children, Father Deacon&mdash; there are, but
+      they don&rsquo;t keep them at home! They send them to the Foundling! He-he-he! .
+      . .&rdquo; Anastasy went on coughing till he choked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t interfere, Father Anastasy,&rdquo; said his Reverence sternly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nikolay Matveyitch asked him, &lsquo;What madame is this helping the soup at
+      your table?&rsquo;&rdquo; the deacon went on, gloomily scanning Anastasy&rsquo;s bent
+      figure. &ldquo;&lsquo;That is my wife,&rsquo; said he. &lsquo;When was your wedding?&rsquo; Nikolay
+      Matveyitch asked him, and Pyotr answered, &lsquo;We were married at Kulikov&rsquo;s
+      restaurant.&rsquo;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His Reverence&rsquo;s eyes flashed wrathfully and the colour came into his
+      temples. Apart from his sinfulness, Pyotr was not a person he liked.
+      Father Fyodor had, as they say, a grudge against him. He remembered him a
+      boy at school&mdash;he remembered him distinctly, because even then the
+      boy had seemed to him not normal. As a schoolboy, Petrushka had been
+      ashamed to serve at the altar, had been offended at being addressed
+      without ceremony, had not crossed himself on entering the room, and what
+      was still more noteworthy, was fond of talking a great deal and with heat&mdash;and,
+      in Father Fyodor&rsquo;s opinion, much talking was unseemly in children and
+      pernicious to them; moreover Petrushka had taken up a contemptuous and
+      critical attitude to fishing, a pursuit to which both his Reverence and
+      the deacon were greatly addicted. As a student Pyotr had not gone to
+      church at all, had slept till midday, had looked down on people, and had
+      been given to raising delicate and insoluble questions with a peculiarly
+      provoking zest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What would you have?&rdquo; his Reverence asked, going up to the deacon and
+      looking at him angrily. &ldquo;What would you have? This was to be expected! I
+      always knew and was convinced that nothing good would come of your Pyotr!
+      I told you so, and I tell you so now. What you have sown, that now you
+      must reap! Reap it!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But what have I sown, Father Fyodor?&rdquo; the deacon asked softly, looking up
+      at his Reverence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, who is to blame if not you? You&rsquo;re his father, he is your offspring!
+      You ought to have admonished him, have instilled the fear of God into him.
+      A child must be taught! You have brought him into the world, but you
+      haven&rsquo;t trained him up in the right way. It&rsquo;s a sin! It&rsquo;s wrong! It&rsquo;s a
+      shame!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His Reverence forgot his exhaustion, paced to and fro and went on talking.
+      Drops of perspiration came out on the deacon&rsquo;s bald head and forehead. He
+      raised his eyes to his Reverence with a look of guilt, and said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But didn&rsquo;t I train him, Father Fyodor? Lord have mercy on us, haven&rsquo;t I
+      been a father to my children? You know yourself I spared nothing for his
+      good; I have prayed and done my best all my life to give him a thorough
+      education. He went to the high school and I got him tutors, and he took
+      his degree at the University. And as to my not being able to influence his
+      mind, Father Fyodor, why, you can judge for yourself that I am not
+      qualified to do so! Sometimes when he used to come here as a student, I
+      would begin admonishing him in my way, and he wouldn&rsquo;t heed me. I&rsquo;d say to
+      him, &lsquo;Go to church,&rsquo; and he would answer, &lsquo;What for?&rsquo; I would begin
+      explaining, and he would say, &lsquo;Why? what for?&rsquo; Or he would slap me on the
+      shoulder and say, &lsquo;Everything in this world is relative, approximate and
+      conditional. I don&rsquo;t know anything, and you don&rsquo;t know anything either,
+      dad.&rsquo;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Father Anastasy laughed huskily, cleared his throat and waved his fingers
+      in the air as though preparing to say something. His Reverence glanced at
+      him and said sternly:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t interfere, Father Anastasy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The old man laughed, beamed, and evidently listened with pleasure to the
+      deacon as though he were glad there were other sinful persons in this
+      world besides himself. The deacon spoke sincerely, with an aching heart,
+      and tears actually came into his eyes. Father Fyodor felt sorry for him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are to blame, deacon, you are to blame,&rdquo; he said, but not so sternly
+      and heatedly as before. &ldquo;If you could beget him, you ought to know how to
+      instruct him. You ought to have trained him in his childhood; it&rsquo;s no good
+      trying to correct a student.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A silence followed; the deacon clasped his hands and said with a sigh:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you know I shall have to answer for him!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To be sure you will!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      After a brief silence his Reverence yawned and sighed at the same moment
+      and asked:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who is reading the &lsquo;Acts&rsquo;?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yevstrat. Yevstrat always reads them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The deacon got up and, looking imploringly at his Reverence, asked:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Father Fyodor, what am I to do now?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do as you please; you are his father, not I. You ought to know best.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know anything, Father Fyodor! Tell me what to do, for goodness&rsquo;
+      sake! Would you believe it, I am sick at heart! I can&rsquo;t sleep now, nor
+      keep quiet, and the holiday will be no holiday to me. Tell me what to do,
+      Father Fyodor!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Write him a letter.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What am I to write to him?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Write that he mustn&rsquo;t go on like that. Write shortly, but sternly and
+      circumstantially, without softening or smoothing away his guilt. It is
+      your parental duty; if you write, you will have done your duty and will be
+      at peace.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s true. But what am I to write to him, to what effect? If I write to
+      him, he will answer, &lsquo;Why? what for? Why is it a sin?&rsquo;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Father Anastasy laughed hoarsely again, and brandished his fingers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why? what for? why is it a sin?&rdquo; he began shrilly. &ldquo;I was once confessing
+      a gentleman, and I told him that excessive confidence in the Divine Mercy
+      is a sin; and he asked, &lsquo;Why?&rsquo; I tried to answer him, but&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+       Anastasy slapped himself on the forehead. &ldquo;I had nothing here.
+      He-he-he-he! . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Anastasy&rsquo;s words, his hoarse jangling laugh at what was not laughable, had
+      an unpleasant effect on his Reverence and on the deacon. The former was on
+      the point of saying, &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t interfere&rdquo; again, but he did not say it, he
+      only frowned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can&rsquo;t write to him,&rdquo; sighed the deacon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you can&rsquo;t, who can?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Father Fyodor!&rdquo; said the deacon, putting his head on one side and
+      pressing his hand to his heart. &ldquo;I am an uneducated slow-witted man, while
+      the Lord has vouchsafed you judgment and wisdom. You know everything and
+      understand everything. You can master anything, while I don&rsquo;t know how to
+      put my words together sensibly. Be generous. Instruct me how to write the
+      letter. Teach me what to say and how to say it. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is there to teach? There is nothing to teach. Sit down and write.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, do me the favour, Father Fyodor! I beseech you! I know he will be
+      frightened and will attend to your letter, because, you see, you are a
+      cultivated man too. Do be so good! I&rsquo;ll sit down, and you&rsquo;ll dictate to
+      me. It will be a sin to write to-morrow, but now would be the very time;
+      my mind would be set at rest.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His Reverence looked at the deacon&rsquo;s imploring face, thought of the
+      disagreeable Pyotr, and consented to dictate. He made the deacon sit down
+      to his table and began.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, write . . . &lsquo;Christ is risen, dear son . . .&rsquo; exclamation mark.
+      &lsquo;Rumours have reached me, your father,&rsquo; then in parenthesis, &lsquo;from what
+      source is no concern of yours . . .&rsquo; close the parenthesis. . . . Have you
+      written it? &lsquo;That you are leading a life inconsistent with the laws both
+      of God and of man. Neither the luxurious comfort, nor the worldly
+      splendour, nor the culture with which you seek outwardly to disguise it,
+      can hide your heathen manner of life. In name you are a Christian, but in
+      your real nature a heathen as pitiful and wretched as all other heathens&mdash;more
+      wretched, indeed, seeing that those heathens who know not Christ are lost
+      from ignorance, while you are lost in that, possessing a treasure, you
+      neglect it. I will not enumerate here your vices, which you know well
+      enough; I will say that I see the cause of your ruin in your infidelity.
+      You imagine yourself to be wise, boast of your knowledge of science, but
+      refuse to see that science without faith, far from elevating a man,
+      actually degrades him to the level of a lower animal, inasmuch as. . .&rsquo;&rdquo;
+       The whole letter was in this strain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When he had finished writing it the deacon read it aloud, beamed all over
+      and jumped up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a gift, it&rsquo;s really a gift!&rdquo; he said, clasping his hands and looking
+      enthusiastically at his Reverence. &ldquo;To think of the Lord&rsquo;s bestowing a
+      gift like that! Eh? Holy Mother! I do believe I couldn&rsquo;t write a letter
+      like that in a hundred years. Lord save you!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Father Anastasy was enthusiastic too.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;One couldn&rsquo;t write like that without a gift,&rdquo; he said, getting up and
+      wagging his fingers&mdash;&ldquo;that one couldn&rsquo;t! His rhetoric would trip any
+      philosopher and shut him up. Intellect. Brilliant intellect! If you
+      weren&rsquo;t married, Father Fyodor, you would have been a bishop long ago, you
+      would really!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Having vented his wrath in a letter, his Reverence felt relieved; his
+      fatigue and exhaustion came back to him. The deacon was an old friend, and
+      his Reverence did not hesitate to say to him:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well deacon, go, and God bless you. I&rsquo;ll have half an hour&rsquo;s nap on the
+      sofa; I must rest.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The deacon went away and took Anastasy with him. As is always the case on
+      Easter Eve, it was dark in the street, but the whole sky was sparkling
+      with bright luminous stars. There was a scent of spring and holiday in the
+      soft still air.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How long was he dictating?&rdquo; the deacon said admiringly. &ldquo;Ten minutes, not
+      more! It would have taken someone else a month to compose such a letter.
+      Eh! What a mind! Such a mind that I don&rsquo;t know what to call it! It&rsquo;s a
+      marvel! It&rsquo;s really a marvel!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Education!&rdquo; sighed Anastasy as he crossed the muddy street; holding up
+      his cassock to his waist. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s not for us to compare ourselves with him.
+      We come of the sacristan class, while he has had a learned education. Yes,
+      he&rsquo;s a real man, there is no denying that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And you listen how he&rsquo;ll read the Gospel in Latin at mass to-day! He
+      knows Latin and he knows Greek. . . . Ah Petrushka, Petrushka!&rdquo; the deacon
+      said, suddenly remembering. &ldquo;Now that will make him scratch his head! That
+      will shut his mouth, that will bring it home to him! Now he won&rsquo;t ask
+      &lsquo;Why.&rsquo; It is a case of one wit to outwit another! Haha-ha!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The deacon laughed gaily and loudly. Since the letter had been written to
+      Pyotr he had become serene and more cheerful. The consciousness of having
+      performed his duty as a father and his faith in the power of the letter
+      had brought back his mirthfulness and good-humour.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Pyotr means a stone,&rdquo; said he, as he went into his house. &ldquo;My Pyotr is
+      not a stone, but a rag. A viper has fastened upon him and he pampers her,
+      and hasn&rsquo;t the pluck to kick her out. Tfoo! To think there should be women
+      like that, God forgive me! Eh? Has she no shame? She has fastened upon the
+      lad, sticking to him, and keeps him tied to her apron strings. . . . Fie
+      upon her!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps it&rsquo;s not she keeps hold of him, but he of her?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She is a shameless one anyway! Not that I am defending Pyotr. . . . He&rsquo;ll
+      catch it. He&rsquo;ll read the letter and scratch his head! He&rsquo;ll burn with
+      shame!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a splendid letter, only you know I wouldn&rsquo;t send it, Father Deacon.
+      Let him alone.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What?&rdquo; said the deacon, disconcerted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why. . . . Don&rsquo;t send it, deacon! What&rsquo;s the sense of it? Suppose you
+      send it; he reads it, and . . . and what then? You&rsquo;ll only upset him.
+      Forgive him. Let him alone!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The deacon looked in surprise at Anastasy&rsquo;s dark face, at his unbuttoned
+      cassock, which looked in the dusk like wings, and shrugged his shoulders.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How can I forgive him like that?&rdquo; he asked. &ldquo;Why I shall have to answer
+      for him to God!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Even so, forgive him all the same. Really! And God will forgive you for
+      your kindness to him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But he is my son, isn&rsquo;t he? Ought I not to teach him?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Teach him? Of course&mdash;why not? You can teach him, but why call him a
+      heathen? It will hurt his feelings, you know, deacon. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The deacon was a widower, and lived in a little house with three windows.
+      His elder sister, an old maid, looked after his house for him, though she
+      had three years before lost the use of her legs and was confined to her
+      bed; he was afraid of her, obeyed her, and did nothing without her advice.
+      Father Anastasy went in with him. Seeing his table already laid with
+      Easter cakes and red eggs, he began weeping for some reason, probably
+      thinking of his own home, and to turn these tears into a jest, he at once
+      laughed huskily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, we shall soon be breaking the fast,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Yes . . . it wouldn&rsquo;t
+      come amiss, deacon, to have a little glass now. Can we? I&rsquo;ll drink it so
+      that the old lady does not hear,&rdquo; he whispered, glancing sideways towards
+      the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Without a word the deacon moved a decanter and wineglass towards him. He
+      unfolded the letter and began reading it aloud. And now the letter pleased
+      him just as much as when his Reverence had dictated it to him. He beamed
+      with pleasure and wagged his head, as though he had been tasting something
+      very sweet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A-ah, what a letter!&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Petrushka has never dreamt of such a
+      letter. It&rsquo;s just what he wants, something to throw him into a fever. . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you know, deacon, don&rsquo;t send it!&rdquo; said Anastasy, pouring himself out a
+      second glass of vodka as though unconsciously. &ldquo;Forgive him, let him
+      alone! I am telling you . . . what I really think. If his own father can&rsquo;t
+      forgive him, who will forgive him? And so he&rsquo;ll live without forgiveness.
+      Think, deacon: there will be plenty to chastise him without you, but you
+      should look out for some who will show mercy to your son! I&rsquo;ll . . . I&rsquo;ll
+      . . . have just one more. The last, old man. . . . Just sit down and write
+      straight off to him, &lsquo;I forgive you Pyotr!&rsquo; He will under-sta-and! He will
+      fe-el it! I understand it from myself, you see old man . . . deacon, I
+      mean. When I lived like other people, I hadn&rsquo;t much to trouble about, but
+      now since I lost the image and semblance, there is only one thing I care
+      about, that good people should forgive me. And remember, too, it&rsquo;s not the
+      righteous but sinners we must forgive. Why should you forgive your old
+      woman if she is not sinful? No, you must forgive a man when he is a sad
+      sight to look at . . . yes!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Anastasy leaned his head on his fist and sank into thought.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a terrible thing, deacon,&rdquo; he sighed, evidently struggling with the
+      desire to take another glass&mdash;&ldquo;a terrible thing! In sin my mother
+      bore me, in sin I have lived, in sin I shall die. . . . God forgive me, a
+      sinner! I have gone astray, deacon! There is no salvation for me! And it&rsquo;s
+      not as though I had gone astray in my life, but in old age&mdash;at
+      death&rsquo;s door . . . I . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The old man, with a hopeless gesture, drank off another glass, then got up
+      and moved to another seat. The deacon, still keeping the letter in his
+      hand, was walking up and down the room. He was thinking of his son.
+      Displeasure, distress and anxiety no longer troubled him; all that had
+      gone into the letter. Now he was simply picturing Pyotr; he imagined his
+      face, he thought of the past years when his son used to come to stay with
+      him for the holidays. His thoughts were only of what was good, warm,
+      touching, of which one might think for a whole lifetime without wearying.
+      Longing for his son, he read the letter through once more and looked
+      questioningly at Anastasy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t send it,&rdquo; said the latter, with a wave of his hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, I must send it anyway; I must . . . bring him to his senses a little,
+      all the same. It&rsquo;s just as well. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The deacon took an envelope from the table, but before putting the letter
+      into it he sat down to the table, smiled and added on his own account at
+      the bottom of the letter:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They have sent us a new inspector. He&rsquo;s much friskier than the old one.
+      He&rsquo;s a great one for dancing and talking, and there&rsquo;s nothing he can&rsquo;t do,
+      so that all the Govorovsky girls are crazy over him. Our military chief,
+      Kostyrev, will soon get the sack too, they say. High time he did!&rdquo; And
+      very well pleased, without the faintest idea that with this postscript he
+      had completely spoiled the stern letter, the deacon addressed the envelope
+      and laid it in the most conspicuous place on the table.
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0003" id="link2H_4_0003"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <h2>
+      EASTER EVE
+    </h2>
+    <p class="pfirst">
+      <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">I</span> was standing on
+      the bank of the River Goltva, waiting for the ferry-boat from the other
+      side. At ordinary times the Goltva is a humble stream of moderate size,
+      silent and pensive, gently glimmering from behind thick reeds; but now a
+      regular lake lay stretched out before me. The waters of spring, running
+      riot, had overflowed both banks and flooded both sides of the river for a
+      long distance, submerging vegetable gardens, hayfields and marshes, so
+      that it was no unusual thing to meet poplars and bushes sticking out above
+      the surface of the water and looking in the darkness like grim solitary
+      crags.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The weather seemed to me magnificent. It was dark, yet I could see the
+      trees, the water and the people. . . . The world was lighted by the stars,
+      which were scattered thickly all over the sky. I don&rsquo;t remember ever
+      seeing so many stars. Literally one could not have put a finger in between
+      them. There were some as big as a goose&rsquo;s egg, others tiny as hempseed. .
+      . . They had come out for the festival procession, every one of them,
+      little and big, washed, renewed and joyful, and everyone of them was
+      softly twinkling its beams. The sky was reflected in the water; the stars
+      were bathing in its dark depths and trembling with the quivering eddies.
+      The air was warm and still. . . . Here and there, far away on the further
+      bank in the impenetrable darkness, several bright red lights were
+      gleaming. . . .
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A couple of paces from me I saw the dark silhouette of a peasant in a high
+      hat, with a thick knotted stick in his hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How long the ferry-boat is in coming!&rdquo; I said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is time it was here,&rdquo; the silhouette answered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are waiting for the ferry-boat, too?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No I am not,&rdquo; yawned the peasant&mdash;&ldquo;I am waiting for the
+      illumination. I should have gone, but to tell you the truth, I haven&rsquo;t the
+      five kopecks for the ferry.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll give you the five kopecks.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No; I humbly thank you. . . . With that five kopecks put up a candle for
+      me over there in the monastery. . . . That will be more interesting, and I
+      will stand here. What can it mean, no ferry-boat, as though it had sunk in
+      the water!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The peasant went up to the water&rsquo;s edge, took the rope in his hands, and
+      shouted; &ldquo;Ieronim! Ieron&mdash;im!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      As though in answer to his shout, the slow peal of a great bell floated
+      across from the further bank. The note was deep and low, as from the
+      thickest string of a double bass; it seemed as though the darkness itself
+      had hoarsely uttered it. At once there was the sound of a cannon shot. It
+      rolled away in the darkness and ended somewhere in the far distance behind
+      me. The peasant took off his hat and crossed himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;&ldquo;Christ is risen,&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Before the vibrations of the first peal of the bell had time to die away
+      in the air a second sounded, after it at once a third, and the darkness
+      was filled with an unbroken quivering clamour. Near the red lights fresh
+      lights flashed, and all began moving together and twinkling restlessly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ieron&mdash;im!&rdquo; we heard a hollow prolonged shout.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They are shouting from the other bank,&rdquo; said the peasant, &ldquo;so there is no
+      ferry there either. Our Ieronim has gone to sleep.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The lights and the velvety chimes of the bell drew one towards them. . . .
+      I was already beginning to lose patience and grow anxious, but behold at
+      last, staring into the dark distance, I saw the outline of something very
+      much like a gibbet. It was the long-expected ferry. It moved towards us
+      with such deliberation that if it had not been that its lines grew
+      gradually more definite, one might have supposed that it was standing
+      still or moving to the other bank.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Make haste! Ieronim!&rdquo; shouted my peasant. &ldquo;The gentleman&rsquo;s tired of
+      waiting!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The ferry crawled to the bank, gave a lurch and stopped with a creak. A
+      tall man in a monk&rsquo;s cassock and a conical cap stood on it, holding the
+      rope.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why have you been so long?&rdquo; I asked jumping upon the ferry.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Forgive me, for Christ&rsquo;s sake,&rdquo; Ieronim answered gently. &ldquo;Is there no one
+      else?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No one. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ieronim took hold of the rope in both hands, bent himself to the figure of
+      a mark of interrogation, and gasped. The ferry-boat creaked and gave a
+      lurch. The outline of the peasant in the high hat began slowly retreating
+      from me&mdash;so the ferry was moving off. Ieronim soon drew himself up
+      and began working with one hand only. We were silent, gazing towards the
+      bank to which we were floating. There the illumination for which the
+      peasant was waiting had begun. At the water&rsquo;s edge barrels of tar were
+      flaring like huge camp fires. Their reflections, crimson as the rising
+      moon, crept to meet us in long broad streaks. The burning barrels lighted
+      up their own smoke and the long shadows of men flitting about the fire;
+      but further to one side and behind them from where the velvety chime
+      floated there was still the same unbroken black gloom. All at once,
+      cleaving the darkness, a rocket zigzagged in a golden ribbon up the sky;
+      it described an arc and, as though broken to pieces against the sky, was
+      scattered crackling into sparks. There was a roar from the bank like a
+      far-away hurrah.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How beautiful!&rdquo; I said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Beautiful beyond words!&rdquo; sighed Ieronim. &ldquo;Such a night, sir! Another time
+      one would pay no attention to the fireworks, but to-day one rejoices in
+      every vanity. Where do you come from?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I told him where I came from.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To be sure . . . a joyful day to-day. . . .&rdquo; Ieronim went on in a weak
+      sighing tenor like the voice of a convalescent. &ldquo;The sky is rejoicing and
+      the earth and what is under the earth. All the creatures are keeping
+      holiday. Only tell me kind sir, why, even in the time of great rejoicing,
+      a man cannot forget his sorrows?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I fancied that this unexpected question was to draw me into one of those
+      endless religious conversations which bored and idle monks are so fond of.
+      I was not disposed to talk much, and so I only asked:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What sorrows have you, father?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;As a rule only the same as all men, kind sir, but to-day a special sorrow
+      has happened in the monastery: at mass, during the reading of the Bible,
+      the monk and deacon Nikolay died.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, it&rsquo;s God&rsquo;s will!&rdquo; I said, falling into the monastic tone. &ldquo;We must
+      all die. To my mind, you ought to rejoice indeed. . . . They say if anyone
+      dies at Easter he goes straight to the kingdom of heaven.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s true.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      We sank into silence. The figure of the peasant in the high hat melted
+      into the lines of the bank. The tar barrels were flaring up more and more.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The Holy Scripture points clearly to the vanity of sorrow and so does
+      reflection,&rdquo; said Ieronim, breaking the silence, &ldquo;but why does the heart
+      grieve and refuse to listen to reason? Why does one want to weep
+      bitterly?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ieronim shrugged his shoulders, turned to me and said quickly:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If I died, or anyone else, it would not be worth notice perhaps; but, you
+      see, Nikolay is dead! No one else but Nikolay! Indeed, it&rsquo;s hard to
+      believe that he is no more! I stand here on my ferry-boat and every minute
+      I keep fancying that he will lift up his voice from the bank. He always
+      used to come to the bank and call to me that I might not be afraid on the
+      ferry. He used to get up from his bed at night on purpose for that. He was
+      a kind soul. My God! how kindly and gracious! Many a mother is not so good
+      to her child as Nikolay was to me! Lord, save his soul!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ieronim took hold of the rope, but turned to me again at once.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And such a lofty intelligence, your honour,&rdquo; he said in a vibrating
+      voice. &ldquo;Such a sweet and harmonious tongue! Just as they will sing
+      immediately at early matins: &lsquo;Oh lovely! oh sweet is Thy Voice!&rsquo; Besides
+      all other human qualities, he had, too, an extraordinary gift!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What gift?&rdquo; I asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The monk scrutinized me, and as though he had convinced himself that he
+      could trust me with a secret, he laughed good-humouredly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He had a gift for writing hymns of praise,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;It was a marvel,
+      sir; you couldn&rsquo;t call it anything else! You would be amazed if I tell you
+      about it. Our Father Archimandrite comes from Moscow, the Father Sub-Prior
+      studied at the Kazan academy, we have wise monks and elders, but, would
+      you believe it, no one could write them; while Nikolay, a simple monk, a
+      deacon, had not studied anywhere, and had not even any outer appearance of
+      it, but he wrote them! A marvel! A real marvel!&rdquo; Ieronim clasped his hands
+      and, completely forgetting the rope, went on eagerly:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The Father Sub-Prior has great difficulty in composing sermons; when he
+      wrote the history of the monastery he worried all the brotherhood and
+      drove a dozen times to town, while Nikolay wrote canticles! Hymns of
+      praise! That&rsquo;s a very different thing from a sermon or a history!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is it difficult to write them?&rdquo; I asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There&rsquo;s great difficulty!&rdquo; Ieronim wagged his head. &ldquo;You can do nothing
+      by wisdom and holiness if God has not given you the gift. The monks who
+      don&rsquo;t understand argue that you only need to know the life of the saint
+      for whom you are writing the hymn, and to make it harmonize with the other
+      hymns of praise. But that&rsquo;s a mistake, sir. Of course, anyone who writes
+      canticles must know the life of the saint to perfection, to the least
+      trivial detail. To be sure, one must make them harmonize with the other
+      canticles and know where to begin and what to write about. To give you an
+      instance, the first response begins everywhere with &lsquo;the chosen&rsquo; or &lsquo;the
+      elect.&rsquo; . . . The first line must always begin with the &lsquo;angel.&rsquo; In the
+      canticle of praise to Jesus the Most Sweet, if you are interested in the
+      subject, it begins like this: &lsquo;Of angels Creator and Lord of all powers!&rsquo;
+      In the canticle to the Holy Mother of God: &lsquo;Of angels the foremost sent
+      down from on high,&rsquo; to Nikolay, the Wonder-worker&mdash; &lsquo;An angel in
+      semblance, though in substance a man,&rsquo; and so on. Everywhere you begin
+      with the angel. Of course, it would be impossible without making them
+      harmonize, but the lives of the saints and conformity with the others is
+      not what matters; what matters is the beauty and sweetness of it.
+      Everything must be harmonious, brief and complete. There must be in every
+      line softness, graciousness and tenderness; not one word should be harsh
+      or rough or unsuitable. It must be written so that the worshipper may
+      rejoice at heart and weep, while his mind is stirred and he is thrown into
+      a tremor. In the canticle to the Holy Mother are the words: &lsquo;Rejoice, O
+      Thou too high for human thought to reach! Rejoice, O Thou too deep for
+      angels&rsquo; eyes to fathom!&rsquo; In another place in the same canticle: &lsquo;Rejoice,
+      O tree that bearest the fair fruit of light that is the food of the
+      faithful! Rejoice, O tree of gracious spreading shade, under which there
+      is shelter for multitudes!&rsquo;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ieronim hid his face in his hands, as though frightened at something or
+      overcome with shame, and shook his head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tree that bearest the fair fruit of light . . . tree of gracious
+      spreading shade. . . .&rdquo; he muttered. &ldquo;To think that a man should find
+      words like those! Such a power is a gift from God! For brevity he packs
+      many thoughts into one phrase, and how smooth and complete it all is!
+      &lsquo;Light-radiating torch to all that be . . .&rsquo; comes in the canticle to
+      Jesus the Most Sweet. &lsquo;Light-radiating!&rsquo; There is no such word in
+      conversation or in books, but you see he invented it, he found it in his
+      mind! Apart from the smoothness and grandeur of language, sir, every line
+      must be beautified in every way, there must be flowers and lightning and
+      wind and sun and all the objects of the visible world. And every
+      exclamation ought to be put so as to be smooth and easy for the ear.
+      &lsquo;Rejoice, thou flower of heavenly growth!&rsquo; comes in the hymn to Nikolay
+      the Wonder-worker. It&rsquo;s not simply &lsquo;heavenly flower,&rsquo; but &lsquo;flower of
+      heavenly growth.&rsquo; It&rsquo;s smoother so and sweet to the ear. That was just as
+      Nikolay wrote it! Exactly like that! I can&rsquo;t tell you how he used to
+      write!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, in that case it is a pity he is dead,&rdquo; I said; &ldquo;but let us get on,
+      father, or we shall be late.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ieronim started and ran to the rope; they were beginning to peal all the
+      bells. Probably the procession was already going on near the monastery,
+      for all the dark space behind the tar barrels was now dotted with moving
+      lights.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did Nikolay print his hymns?&rdquo; I asked Ieronim.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How could he print them?&rdquo; he sighed. &ldquo;And indeed, it would be strange to
+      print them. What would be the object? No one in the monastery takes any
+      interest in them. They don&rsquo;t like them. They knew Nikolay wrote them, but
+      they let it pass unnoticed. No one esteems new writings nowadays, sir!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Were they prejudiced against him?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, indeed. If Nikolay had been an elder perhaps the brethren would have
+      been interested, but he wasn&rsquo;t forty, you know. There were some who
+      laughed and even thought his writing a sin.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What did he write them for?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Chiefly for his own comfort. Of all the brotherhood, I was the only one
+      who read his hymns. I used to go to him in secret, that no one else might
+      know of it, and he was glad that I took an interest in them. He would
+      embrace me, stroke my head, speak to me in caressing words as to a little
+      child. He would shut his cell, make me sit down beside him, and begin to
+      read. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ieronim left the rope and came up to me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We were dear friends in a way,&rdquo; he whispered, looking at me with shining
+      eyes. &ldquo;Where he went I would go. If I were not there he would miss me. And
+      he cared more for me than for anyone, and all because I used to weep over
+      his hymns. It makes me sad to remember. Now I feel just like an orphan or
+      a widow. You know, in our monastery they are all good people, kind and
+      pious, but . . . there is no one with softness and refinement, they are
+      just like peasants. They all speak loudly, and tramp heavily when they
+      walk; they are noisy, they clear their throats, but Nikolay always talked
+      softly, caressingly, and if he noticed that anyone was asleep or praying
+      he would slip by like a fly or a gnat. His face was tender, compassionate.
+      . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ieronim heaved a deep sigh and took hold of the rope again. We were by now
+      approaching the bank. We floated straight out of the darkness and
+      stillness of the river into an enchanted realm, full of stifling smoke,
+      crackling lights and uproar. By now one could distinctly see people moving
+      near the tar barrels. The flickering of the lights gave a strange, almost
+      fantastic, expression to their figures and red faces. From time to time
+      one caught among the heads and faces a glimpse of a horse&rsquo;s head
+      motionless as though cast in copper.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They&rsquo;ll begin singing the Easter hymn directly, . . .&rdquo; said Ieronim, &ldquo;and
+      Nikolay is gone; there is no one to appreciate it. . . . There was nothing
+      written dearer to him than that hymn. He used to take in every word!
+      You&rsquo;ll be there, sir, so notice what is sung; it takes your breath away!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Won&rsquo;t you be in church, then?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can&rsquo;t; . . . I have to work the ferry. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But won&rsquo;t they relieve you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know. . . . I ought to have been relieved at eight; but, as you
+      see, they don&rsquo;t come! . . . And I must own I should have liked to be in
+      the church. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you a monk?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes . . . that is, I am a lay-brother.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The ferry ran into the bank and stopped. I thrust a five-kopeck piece into
+      Ieronim&rsquo;s hand for taking me across and jumped on land. Immediately a cart
+      with a boy and a sleeping woman in it drove creaking onto the ferry.
+      Ieronim, with a faint glow from the lights on his figure, pressed on the
+      rope, bent down to it, and started the ferry back. . . .
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I took a few steps through mud, but a little farther walked on a soft
+      freshly trodden path. This path led to the dark monastery gates, that
+      looked like a cavern through a cloud of smoke, through a disorderly crowd
+      of people, unharnessed horses, carts and chaises. All this crowd was
+      rattling, snorting, laughing, and the crimson light and wavering shadows
+      from the smoke flickered over it all . . . . A perfect chaos! And in this
+      hubbub the people yet found room to load a little cannon and to sell
+      cakes. There was no less commotion on the other side of the wall in the
+      monastery precincts, but there was more regard for decorum and order. Here
+      there was a smell of juniper and incense. They talked loudly, but there
+      was no sound of laughter or snorting. Near the tombstones and crosses
+      people pressed close to one another with Easter cakes and bundles in their
+      arms. Apparently many had come from a long distance for their cakes to be
+      blessed and now were exhausted. Young lay brothers, making a metallic
+      sound with their boots, ran busily along the iron slabs that paved the way
+      from the monastery gates to the church door. They were busy and shouting
+      on the belfry, too.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What a restless night!&rdquo; I thought. &ldquo;How nice!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      One was tempted to see the same unrest and sleeplessness in all nature,
+      from the night darkness to the iron slabs, the crosses on the tombs and
+      the trees under which the people were moving to and fro. But nowhere was
+      the excitement and restlessness so marked as in the church. An unceasing
+      struggle was going on in the entrance between the inflowing stream and the
+      outflowing stream. Some were going in, others going out and soon coming
+      back again to stand still for a little and begin moving again. People were
+      scurrying from place to place, lounging about as though they were looking
+      for something. The stream flowed from the entrance all round the church,
+      disturbing even the front rows, where persons of weight and dignity were
+      standing. There could be no thought of concentrated prayer. There were no
+      prayers at all, but a sort of continuous, childishly irresponsible joy,
+      seeking a pretext to break out and vent itself in some movement, even in
+      senseless jostling and shoving.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The same unaccustomed movement is striking in the Easter service itself.
+      The altar gates are flung wide open, thick clouds of incense float in the
+      air near the candelabra; wherever one looks there are lights, the gleam
+      and splutter of candles. . . . There is no reading; restless and
+      lighthearted singing goes on to the end without ceasing. After each hymn
+      the clergy change their vestments and come out to burn the incense, which
+      is repeated every ten minutes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I had no sooner taken a place, when a wave rushed from in front and forced
+      me back. A tall thick-set deacon walked before me with a long red candle;
+      the grey-headed archimandrite in his golden mitre hurried after him with
+      the censer. When they had vanished from sight the crowd squeezed me back
+      to my former position. But ten minutes had not passed before a new wave
+      burst on me, and again the deacon appeared. This time he was followed by
+      the Father Sub-Prior, the man who, as Ieronim had told me, was writing the
+      history of the monastery.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As I mingled with the crowd and caught the infection of the universal
+      joyful excitement, I felt unbearably sore on Ieronim&rsquo;s account. Why did
+      they not send someone to relieve him? Why could not someone of less
+      feeling and less susceptibility go on the ferry? &lsquo;Lift up thine eyes, O
+      Sion, and look around,&rsquo; they sang in the choir, &lsquo;for thy children have
+      come to thee as to a beacon of divine light from north and south, and from
+      east and from the sea. . . .&rsquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I looked at the faces; they all had a lively expression of triumph, but
+      not one was listening to what was being sung and taking it in, and not one
+      was &lsquo;holding his breath.&rsquo; Why was not Ieronim released? I could fancy
+      Ieronim standing meekly somewhere by the wall, bending forward and
+      hungrily drinking in the beauty of the holy phrase. All this that glided
+      by the ears of the people standing by me he would have eagerly drunk in
+      with his delicately sensitive soul, and would have been spell-bound to
+      ecstasy, to holding his breath, and there would not have been a man
+      happier than he in all the church. Now he was plying to and fro over the
+      dark river and grieving for his dead friend and brother.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The wave surged back. A stout smiling monk, playing with his rosary and
+      looking round behind him, squeezed sideways by me, making way for a lady
+      in a hat and velvet cloak. A monastery servant hurried after the lady,
+      holding a chair over our heads.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I came out of the church. I wanted to have a look at the dead Nikolay, the
+      unknown canticle writer. I walked about the monastery wall, where there
+      was a row of cells, peeped into several windows, and, seeing nothing, came
+      back again. I do not regret now that I did not see Nikolay; God knows,
+      perhaps if I had seen him I should have lost the picture my imagination
+      paints for me now. I imagine the lovable poetical figure solitary and not
+      understood, who went out at nights to call to Ieronim over the water, and
+      filled his hymns with flowers, stars and sunbeams, as a pale timid man
+      with soft mild melancholy features. His eyes must have shone, not only
+      with intelligence, but with kindly tenderness and that hardly restrained
+      childlike enthusiasm which I could hear in Ieronim&rsquo;s voice when he quoted
+      to me passages from the hymns.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When we came out of church after mass it was no longer night. The morning
+      was beginning. The stars had gone out and the sky was a morose greyish
+      blue. The iron slabs, the tombstones and the buds on the trees were
+      covered with dew There was a sharp freshness in the air. Outside the
+      precincts I did not find the same animated scene as I had beheld in the
+      night. Horses and men looked exhausted, drowsy, scarcely moved, while
+      nothing was left of the tar barrels but heaps of black ash. When anyone is
+      exhausted and sleepy he fancies that nature, too, is in the same
+      condition. It seemed to me that the trees and the young grass were asleep.
+      It seemed as though even the bells were not pealing so loudly and gaily as
+      at night. The restlessness was over, and of the excitement nothing was
+      left but a pleasant weariness, a longing for sleep and warmth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now I could see both banks of the river; a faint mist hovered over it in
+      shifting masses. There was a harsh cold breath from the water. When I
+      jumped on to the ferry, a chaise and some two dozen men and women were
+      standing on it already. The rope, wet and as I fancied drowsy, stretched
+      far away across the broad river and in places disappeared in the white
+      mist.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Christ is risen! Is there no one else?&rdquo; asked a soft voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I recognized the voice of Ieronim. There was no darkness now to hinder me
+      from seeing the monk. He was a tall narrow-shouldered man of
+      five-and-thirty, with large rounded features, with half-closed
+      listless-looking eyes and an unkempt wedge-shaped beard. He had an
+      extraordinarily sad and exhausted look.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They have not relieved you yet?&rdquo; I asked in surprise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Me?&rdquo; he answered, turning to me his chilled and dewy face with a smile.
+      &ldquo;There is no one to take my place now till morning. They&rsquo;ll all be going
+      to the Father Archimandrite&rsquo;s to break the fast directly.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      With the help of a little peasant in a hat of reddish fur that looked like
+      the little wooden tubs in which honey is sold, he threw his weight on the
+      rope; they gasped simultaneously, and the ferry started.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We floated across, disturbing on the way the lazily rising mist. Everyone
+      was silent. Ieronim worked mechanically with one hand. He slowly passed
+      his mild lustreless eyes over us; then his glance rested on the rosy face
+      of a young merchant&rsquo;s wife with black eyebrows, who was standing on the
+      ferry beside me silently shrinking from the mist that wrapped her about.
+      He did not take his eyes off her face all the way.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was little that was masculine in that prolonged gaze. It seemed to
+      me that Ieronim was looking in the woman&rsquo;s face for the soft and tender
+      features of his dead friend.
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0004" id="link2H_4_0004"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <h2>
+      A NIGHTMARE
+    </h2>
+    <p class="pfirst">
+      <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">K</span>unin, a young man
+      of thirty, who was a permanent member of the Rural Board, on returning
+      from Petersburg to his district, Borisovo, immediately sent a mounted
+      messenger to Sinkino, for the priest there, Father Yakov Smirnov.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Five hours later Father Yakov appeared.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very glad to make your acquaintance,&rdquo; said Kunin, meeting him in the
+      entry. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve been living and serving here for a year; it seems as though
+      we ought to have been acquainted before. You are very welcome! But . . .
+      how young you are!&rdquo; Kunin added in surprise. &ldquo;What is your age?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Twenty-eight, . . .&rdquo; said Father Yakov, faintly pressing Kunin&rsquo;s
+      outstretched hand, and for some reason turning crimson.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Kunin led his visitor into his study and began looking at him more
+      attentively.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What an uncouth womanish face!&rdquo; he thought.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There certainly was a good deal that was womanish in Father Yakov&rsquo;s face:
+      the turned-up nose, the bright red cheeks, and the large grey-blue eyes
+      with scanty, scarcely perceptible eyebrows. His long reddish hair, smooth
+      and dry, hung down in straight tails on to his shoulders. The hair on his
+      upper lip was only just beginning to form into a real masculine moustache,
+      while his little beard belonged to that class of good-for-nothing beards
+      which among divinity students are for some reason called &ldquo;ticklers.&rdquo; It
+      was scanty and extremely transparent; it could not have been stroked or
+      combed, it could only have been pinched. . . . All these scanty
+      decorations were put on unevenly in tufts, as though Father Yakov,
+      thinking to dress up as a priest and beginning to gum on the beard, had
+      been interrupted halfway through. He had on a cassock, the colour of weak
+      coffee with chicory in it, with big patches on both elbows.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A queer type,&rdquo; thought Kunin, looking at his muddy skirts. &ldquo;Comes to the
+      house for the first time and can&rsquo;t dress decently.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sit down, Father,&rdquo; he began more carelessly than cordially, as he moved
+      an easy-chair to the table. &ldquo;Sit down, I beg you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Father Yakov coughed into his fist, sank awkwardly on to the edge of the
+      chair, and laid his open hands on his knees. With his short figure, his
+      narrow chest, his red and perspiring face, he made from the first moment a
+      most unpleasant impression on Kunin. The latter could never have imagined
+      that there were such undignified and pitiful-looking priests in Russia;
+      and in Father Yakov&rsquo;s attitude, in the way he held his hands on his knees
+      and sat on the very edge of his chair, he saw a lack of dignity and even a
+      shade of servility.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have invited you on business, Father. . . .&rdquo; Kunin began, sinking back
+      in his low chair. &ldquo;It has fallen to my lot to perform the agreeable duty
+      of helping you in one of your useful undertakings. . . . On coming back
+      from Petersburg, I found on my table a letter from the Marshal of
+      Nobility. Yegor Dmitrevitch suggests that I should take under my
+      supervision the church parish school which is being opened in Sinkino. I
+      shall be very glad to, Father, with all my heart. . . . More than that, I
+      accept the proposition with enthusiasm.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Kunin got up and walked about the study.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course, both Yegor Dmitrevitch and probably you, too, are aware that I
+      have not great funds at my disposal. My estate is mortgaged, and I live
+      exclusively on my salary as the permanent member. So that you cannot
+      reckon on very much assistance, but I will do all that is in my power. . .
+      . And when are you thinking of opening the school Father?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When we have the money, . . .&rdquo; answered Father Yakov.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You have some funds at your disposal already?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Scarcely any. . . . The peasants settled at their meeting that they would
+      pay, every man of them, thirty kopecks a year; but that&rsquo;s only a promise,
+      you know! And for the first beginning we should need at least two hundred
+      roubles. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;M&rsquo;yes. . . . Unhappily, I have not that sum now,&rdquo; said Kunin with a sigh.
+      &ldquo;I spent all I had on my tour and got into debt, too. Let us try and think
+      of some plan together.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Kunin began planning aloud. He explained his views and watched Father
+      Yakov&rsquo;s face, seeking signs of agreement or approval in it. But the face
+      was apathetic and immobile, and expressed nothing but constrained shyness
+      and uneasiness. Looking at it, one might have supposed that Kunin was
+      talking of matters so abstruse that Father Yakov did not understand and
+      only listened from good manners, and was at the same time afraid of being
+      detected in his failure to understand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The fellow is not one of the brightest, that&rsquo;s evident . . .&rdquo; thought
+      Kunin. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s rather shy and much too stupid.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Father Yakov revived somewhat and even smiled only when the footman came
+      into the study bringing in two glasses of tea on a tray and a cake-basket
+      full of biscuits. He took his glass and began drinking at once.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Shouldn&rsquo;t we write at once to the bishop?&rdquo; Kunin went on, meditating
+      aloud. &ldquo;To be precise, you know, it is not we, not the Zemstvo, but the
+      higher ecclesiastical authorities, who have raised the question of the
+      church parish schools. They ought really to apportion the funds. I
+      remember I read that a sum of money had been set aside for the purpose. Do
+      you know nothing about it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Father Yakov was so absorbed in drinking tea that he did not answer this
+      question at once. He lifted his grey-blue eyes to Kunin, thought a moment,
+      and as though recalling his question, he shook his head in the negative.
+      An expression of pleasure and of the most ordinary prosaic appetite
+      overspread his face from ear to ear. He drank and smacked his lips over
+      every gulp. When he had drunk it to the very last drop, he put his glass
+      on the table, then took his glass back again, looked at the bottom of it,
+      then put it back again. The expression of pleasure faded from his face. .
+      . . Then Kunin saw his visitor take a biscuit from the cake-basket, nibble
+      a little bit off it, then turn it over in his hand and hurriedly stick it
+      in his pocket.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, that&rsquo;s not at all clerical!&rdquo; thought Kunin, shrugging his shoulders
+      contemptuously. &ldquo;What is it, priestly greed or childishness?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      After giving his visitor another glass of tea and seeing him to the entry,
+      Kunin lay down on the sofa and abandoned himself to the unpleasant feeling
+      induced in him by the visit of Father Yakov.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What a strange wild creature!&rdquo; he thought. &ldquo;Dirty, untidy, coarse,
+      stupid, and probably he drinks. . . . My God, and that&rsquo;s a priest, a
+      spiritual father! That&rsquo;s a teacher of the people! I can fancy the irony
+      there must be in the deacon&rsquo;s face when before every mass he booms out:
+      &lsquo;Thy blessing, Reverend Father!&rsquo; A fine reverend Father! A reverend Father
+      without a grain of dignity or breeding, hiding biscuits in his pocket like
+      a schoolboy. . . . Fie! Good Lord, where were the bishop&rsquo;s eyes when he
+      ordained a man like that? What can he think of the people if he gives them
+      a teacher like that? One wants people here who . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And Kunin thought what Russian priests ought to be like.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If I were a priest, for instance. . . . An educated priest fond of his
+      work might do a great deal. . . . I should have had the school opened long
+      ago. And the sermons? If the priest is sincere and is inspired by love for
+      his work, what wonderful rousing sermons he might give!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Kunin shut his eyes and began mentally composing a sermon. A little later
+      he sat down to the table and rapidly began writing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll give it to that red-haired fellow, let him read it in church, . . .&rdquo;
+       he thought.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The following Sunday Kunin drove over to Sinkino in the morning to settle
+      the question of the school, and while he was there to make acquaintance
+      with the church of which he was a parishioner. In spite of the awful state
+      of the roads, it was a glorious morning. The sun was shining brightly and
+      cleaving with its rays the layers of white snow still lingering here and
+      there. The snow as it took leave of the earth glittered with such diamonds
+      that it hurt the eyes to look, while the young winter corn was hastily
+      thrusting up its green beside it. The rooks floated with dignity over the
+      fields. A rook would fly, drop to earth, and give several hops before
+      standing firmly on its feet. . . .
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The wooden church up to which Kunin drove was old and grey; the columns of
+      the porch had once been painted white, but the colour had now completely
+      peeled off, and they looked like two ungainly shafts. The ikon over the
+      door looked like a dark smudged blur. But its poverty touched and softened
+      Kunin. Modestly dropping his eyes, he went into the church and stood by
+      the door. The service had only just begun. An old sacristan, bent into a
+      bow, was reading the &ldquo;Hours&rdquo; in a hollow indistinct tenor. Father Yakov,
+      who conducted the service without a deacon, was walking about the church,
+      burning incense. Had it not been for the softened mood in which Kunin
+      found himself on entering the poverty-stricken church, he certainly would
+      have smiled at the sight of Father Yakov. The short priest was wearing a
+      crumpled and extremely long robe of some shabby yellow material; the hem
+      of the robe trailed on the ground.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The church was not full. Looking at the parishioners, Kunin was struck at
+      the first glance by one strange circumstance: he saw nothing but old
+      people and children. . . . Where were the men of working age? Where was
+      the youth and manhood? But after he had stood there a little and looked
+      more attentively at the aged-looking faces, Kunin saw that he had mistaken
+      young people for old. He did not, however, attach any significance to this
+      little optical illusion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The church was as cold and grey inside as outside. There was not one spot
+      on the ikons nor on the dark brown walls which was not begrimed and
+      defaced by time. There were many windows, but the general effect of colour
+      was grey, and so it was twilight in the church.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Anyone pure in soul can pray here very well,&rdquo; thought Kunin. &ldquo;Just as in
+      St. Peter&rsquo;s in Rome one is impressed by grandeur, here one is touched by
+      the lowliness and simplicity.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But his devout mood vanished like smoke as soon as Father Yakov went up to
+      the altar and began mass. Being still young and having come straight from
+      the seminary bench to the priesthood, Father Yakov had not yet formed a
+      set manner of celebrating the service. As he read he seemed to be
+      vacillating between a high tenor and a thin bass; he bowed clumsily,
+      walked quickly, and opened and shut the gates abruptly. . . . The old
+      sacristan, evidently deaf and ailing, did not hear the prayers very
+      distinctly, and this very often led to slight misunderstandings. Before
+      Father Yakov had time to finish what he had to say, the sacristan began
+      chanting his response, or else long after Father Yakov had finished the
+      old man would be straining his ears, listening in the direction of the
+      altar and saying nothing till his skirt was pulled. The old man had a
+      sickly hollow voice and an asthmatic quavering lisp. . . . The complete
+      lack of dignity and decorum was emphasized by a very small boy who
+      seconded the sacristan and whose head was hardly visible over the railing
+      of the choir. The boy sang in a shrill falsetto and seemed to be trying to
+      avoid singing in tune. Kunin stayed a little while, listened and went out
+      for a smoke. He was disappointed, and looked at the grey church almost
+      with dislike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They complain of the decline of religious feeling among the people . . .&rdquo;
+       he sighed. &ldquo;I should rather think so! They&rsquo;d better foist a few more
+      priests like this one on them!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Kunin went back into the church three times, and each time he felt a great
+      temptation to get out into the open air again. Waiting till the end of the
+      mass, he went to Father Yakov&rsquo;s. The priest&rsquo;s house did not differ
+      outwardly from the peasants&rsquo; huts, but the thatch lay more smoothly on the
+      roof and there were little white curtains in the windows. Father Yakov led
+      Kunin into a light little room with a clay floor and walls covered with
+      cheap paper; in spite of some painful efforts towards luxury in the way of
+      photographs in frames and a clock with a pair of scissors hanging on the
+      weight the furnishing of the room impressed him by its scantiness. Looking
+      at the furniture, one might have supposed that Father Yakov had gone from
+      house to house and collected it in bits; in one place they had given him a
+      round three-legged table, in another a stool, in a third a chair with a
+      back bent violently backwards; in a fourth a chair with an upright back,
+      but the seat smashed in; while in a fifth they had been liberal and given
+      him a semblance of a sofa with a flat back and a lattice-work seat. This
+      semblance had been painted dark red and smelt strongly of paint. Kunin
+      meant at first to sit down on one of the chairs, but on second thoughts he
+      sat down on the stool.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This is the first time you have been to our church?&rdquo; asked Father Yakov,
+      hanging his hat on a huge misshapen nail.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes it is. I tell you what, Father, before we begin on business, will you
+      give me some tea? My soul is parched.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Father Yakov blinked, gasped, and went behind the partition wall. There
+      was a sound of whispering.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;With his wife, I suppose,&rdquo; thought Kunin; &ldquo;it would be interesting to see
+      what the red-headed fellow&rsquo;s wife is like.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A little later Father Yakov came back, red and perspiring and with an
+      effort to smile, sat down on the edge of the sofa.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They will heat the samovar directly,&rdquo; he said, without looking at his
+      visitor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My goodness, they have not heated the samovar yet!&rdquo; Kunin thought with
+      horror. &ldquo;A nice time we shall have to wait.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have brought you,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;the rough draft of the letter I have
+      written to the bishop. I&rsquo;ll read it after tea; perhaps you may find
+      something to add. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very well.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A silence followed. Father Yakov threw furtive glances at the partition
+      wall, smoothed his hair, and blew his nose.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s wonderful weather, . . .&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes. I read an interesting thing yesterday. . . . the Volsky Zemstvo have
+      decided to give their schools to the clergy, that&rsquo;s typical.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Kunin got up, and pacing up and down the clay floor, began to give
+      expression to his reflections.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That would be all right,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;if only the clergy were equal to
+      their high calling and recognized their tasks. I am so unfortunate as to
+      know priests whose standard of culture and whose moral qualities make them
+      hardly fit to be army secretaries, much less priests. You will agree that
+      a bad teacher does far less harm than a bad priest.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Kunin glanced at Father Yakov; he was sitting bent up, thinking intently
+      about something and apparently not listening to his visitor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yasha, come here!&rdquo; a woman&rsquo;s voice called from behind the partition.
+      Father Yakov started and went out. Again a whispering began.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Kunin felt a pang of longing for tea.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No; it&rsquo;s no use my waiting for tea here,&rdquo; he thought, looking at his
+      watch. &ldquo;Besides I fancy I am not altogether a welcome visitor. My host has
+      not deigned to say one word to me; he simply sits and blinks.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Kunin took up his hat, waited for Father Yakov to return, and said
+      good-bye to him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have simply wasted the morning,&rdquo; he thought wrathfully on the way home.
+      &ldquo;The blockhead! The dummy! He cares no more about the school than I about
+      last year&rsquo;s snow. . . . No, I shall never get anything done with him! We
+      are bound to fail! If the Marshal knew what the priest here was like, he
+      wouldn&rsquo;t be in such a hurry to talk about a school. We ought first to try
+      and get a decent priest, and then think about the school.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      By now Kunin almost hated Father Yakov. The man, his pitiful, grotesque
+      figure in the long crumpled robe, his womanish face, his manner of
+      officiating, his way of life and his formal restrained respectfulness,
+      wounded the tiny relic of religious feeling which was stored away in a
+      warm corner of Kunin&rsquo;s heart together with his nurse&rsquo;s other fairy tales.
+      The coldness and lack of attention with which Father Yakov had met Kunin&rsquo;s
+      warm and sincere interest in what was the priest&rsquo;s own work was hard for
+      the former&rsquo;s vanity to endure. . . .
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the evening of the same day Kunin spent a long time walking about his
+      rooms and thinking. Then he sat down to the table resolutely and wrote a
+      letter to the bishop. After asking for money and a blessing for the
+      school, he set forth genuinely, like a son, his opinion of the priest at
+      Sinkino.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He is young,&rdquo; he wrote, &ldquo;insufficiently educated, leads, I fancy, an
+      intemperate life, and altogether fails to satisfy the ideals which the
+      Russian people have in the course of centuries formed of what a pastor
+      should be.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      After writing this letter Kunin heaved a deep sigh, and went to bed with
+      the consciousness that he had done a good deed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On Monday morning, while he was still in bed, he was informed that Father
+      Yakov had arrived. He did not want to get up, and instructed the servant
+      to say he was not at home. On Tuesday he went away to a sitting of the
+      Board, and when he returned on Saturday he was told by the servants that
+      Father Yakov had called every day in his absence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He liked my biscuits, it seems,&rdquo; he thought.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Towards evening on Sunday Father Yakov arrived. This time not only his
+      skirts, but even his hat, was bespattered with mud. Just as on his first
+      visit, he was hot and perspiring, and sat down on the edge of his chair as
+      he had done then. Kunin determined not to talk about the school&mdash;not
+      to cast pearls.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have brought you a list of books for the school, Pavel Mihailovitch, .
+      . .&rdquo; Father Yakov began.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thank you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But everything showed that Father Yakov had come for something else
+      besides the list. Has whole figure was expressive of extreme
+      embarrassment, and at the same time there was a look of determination upon
+      his face, as on the face of a man suddenly inspired by an idea. He
+      struggled to say something important, absolutely necessary, and strove to
+      overcome his timidity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why is he dumb?&rdquo; Kunin thought wrathfully. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s settled himself
+      comfortably! I haven&rsquo;t time to be bothered with him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      To smoothe over the awkwardness of his silence and to conceal the struggle
+      going on within him, the priest began to smile constrainedly, and this
+      slow smile, wrung out on his red perspiring face, and out of keeping with
+      the fixed look in his grey-blue eyes, made Kunin turn away. He felt moved
+      to repulsion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Excuse me, Father, I have to go out,&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Father Yakov started like a man asleep who has been struck a blow, and,
+      still smiling, began in his confusion wrapping round him the skirts of his
+      cassock. In spite of his repulsion for the man, Kunin felt suddenly sorry
+      for him, and he wanted to soften his cruelty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Please come another time, Father,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;and before we part I want to
+      ask you a favour. I was somehow inspired to write two sermons the other
+      day. . . . I will give them to you to look at. If they are suitable, use
+      them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very good,&rdquo; said Father Yakov, laying his open hand on Kunin&rsquo;s sermons
+      which were lying on the table. &ldquo;I will take them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      After standing a little, hesitating and still wrapping his cassock round
+      him, he suddenly gave up the effort to smile and lifted his head
+      resolutely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Pavel Mihailovitch,&rdquo; he said, evidently trying to speak loudly and
+      distinctly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What can I do for you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have heard that you . . . er . . . have dismissed your secretary, and .
+      . . and are looking for a new one. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, I am. . . . Why, have you someone to recommend?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I. . . er . . . you see . . . I . . . Could you not give the post to me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, are you giving up the Church?&rdquo; said Kunin in amazement.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, no,&rdquo; Father Yakov brought out quickly, for some reason turning pale
+      and trembling all over. &ldquo;God forbid! If you feel doubtful, then never
+      mind, never mind. You see, I could do the work between whiles, . . so as
+      to increase my income. . . . Never mind, don&rsquo;t disturb yourself!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;H&rsquo;m! . . . your income. . . . But you know, I only pay my secretary
+      twenty roubles a month.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good heavens! I would take ten,&rdquo; whispered Father Yakov, looking about
+      him. &ldquo;Ten would be enough! You . . . you are astonished, and everyone is
+      astonished. The greedy priest, the grasping priest, what does he do with
+      his money? I feel myself I am greedy, . . . and I blame myself, I condemn
+      myself. . . . I am ashamed to look people in the face. . . . I tell you on
+      my conscience, Pavel Mihailovitch. . . . I call the God of truth to
+      witness. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Father Yakov took breath and went on:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;On the way here I prepared a regular confession to make you, but . . .
+      I&rsquo;ve forgotten it all; I cannot find a word now. I get a hundred and fifty
+      roubles a year from my parish, and everyone wonders what I do with the
+      money. . . . But I&rsquo;ll explain it all truly. . . . I pay forty roubles a
+      year to the clerical school for my brother Pyotr. He has everything found
+      there, except that I have to provide pens and paper.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, I believe you; I believe you! But what&rsquo;s the object of all this?&rdquo;
+       said Kunin, with a wave of the hand, feeling terribly oppressed by this
+      outburst of confidence on the part of his visitor, and not knowing how to
+      get away from the tearful gleam in his eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then I have not yet paid up all that I owe to the consistory for my place
+      here. They charged me two hundred roubles for the living, and I was to pay
+      ten roubles a month. . . . You can judge what is left! And, besides, I
+      must allow Father Avraamy at least three roubles a month.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What Father Avraamy?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Father Avraamy who was priest at Sinkino before I came. He was deprived
+      of the living on account of . . . his failing, but you know, he is still
+      living at Sinkino! He has nowhere to go. There is no one to keep him.
+      Though he is old, he must have a corner, and food and clothing&mdash;I
+      can&rsquo;t let him go begging on the roads in his position! It would be on my
+      conscience if anything happened! It would be my fault! He is. . . in debt
+      all round; but, you see, I am to blame for not paying for him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Father Yakov started up from his seat and, looking frantically at the
+      floor, strode up and down the room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My God, my God!&rdquo; he muttered, raising his hands and dropping them again.
+      &ldquo;Lord, save us and have mercy upon us! Why did you take such a calling on
+      yourself if you have so little faith and no strength? There is no end to
+      my despair! Save me, Queen of Heaven!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Calm yourself, Father,&rdquo; said Kunin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am worn out with hunger, Pavel Mihailovitch,&rdquo; Father Yakov went on.
+      &ldquo;Generously forgive me, but I am at the end of my strength . . . . I know
+      if I were to beg and to bow down, everyone would help, but . . . I cannot!
+      I am ashamed. How can I beg of the peasants? You are on the Board here, so
+      you know. . . . How can one beg of a beggar? And to beg of richer people,
+      of landowners, I cannot! I have pride! I am ashamed!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Father Yakov waved his hand, and nervously scratched his head with both
+      hands.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am ashamed! My God, I am ashamed! I am proud and can&rsquo;t bear people to
+      see my poverty! When you visited me, Pavel Mihailovitch, I had no tea in
+      the house! There wasn&rsquo;t a pinch of it, and you know it was pride prevented
+      me from telling you! I am ashamed of my clothes, of these patches here. .
+      . . I am ashamed of my vestments, of being hungry. . . . And is it seemly
+      for a priest to be proud?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Father Yakov stood still in the middle of the study, and, as though he did
+      not notice Kunin&rsquo;s presence, began reasoning with himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, supposing I endure hunger and disgrace&mdash;but, my God, I have a
+      wife! I took her from a good home! She is not used to hard work; she is
+      soft; she is used to tea and white bread and sheets on her bed. . . . At
+      home she used to play the piano. . . . She is young, not twenty yet. . . .
+      She would like, to be sure, to be smart, to have fun, go out to see
+      people. . . . And she is worse off with me than any cook; she is ashamed
+      to show herself in the street. My God, my God! Her only treat is when I
+      bring an apple or some biscuit from a visit. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Father Yakov scratched his head again with both hands.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And it makes us feel not love but pity for each other. . . . I cannot
+      look at her without compassion! And the things that happen in this life, O
+      Lord! Such things that people would not believe them if they saw them in
+      the newspaper. . . . And when will there be an end to it all!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hush, Father!&rdquo; Kunin almost shouted, frightened at his tone. &ldquo;Why take
+      such a gloomy view of life?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Generously forgive me, Pavel Mihailovitch . . .&rdquo; muttered Father Yakov as
+      though he were drunk, &ldquo;Forgive me, all this . . . doesn&rsquo;t matter, and
+      don&rsquo;t take any notice of it. . . . Only I do blame myself, and always
+      shall blame myself . . . always.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Father Yakov looked about him and began whispering:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;One morning early I was going from Sinkino to Lutchkovo; I saw a woman
+      standing on the river bank, doing something. . . . I went up close and
+      could not believe my eyes. . . . It was horrible! The wife of the doctor,
+      Ivan Sergeitch, was sitting there washing her linen. . . . A doctor&rsquo;s
+      wife, brought up at a select boarding-school! She had got up you see,
+      early and gone half a mile from the village that people should not see
+      her. . . . She couldn&rsquo;t get over her pride! When she saw that I was near
+      her and noticed her poverty, she turned red all over. . . . I was
+      flustered&mdash;I was frightened, and ran up to help her, but she hid her
+      linen from me; she was afraid I should see her ragged chemises. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All this is positively incredible,&rdquo; said Kunin, sitting down and looking
+      almost with horror at Father Yakov&rsquo;s pale face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Incredible it is! It&rsquo;s a thing that has never been! Pavel Mihailovitch,
+      that a doctor&rsquo;s wife should be rinsing the linen in the river! Such a
+      thing does not happen in any country! As her pastor and spiritual father,
+      I ought not to allow it, but what can I do? What? Why, I am always trying
+      to get treated by her husband for nothing myself! It is true that, as you
+      say, it is all incredible! One can hardly believe one&rsquo;s eyes. During Mass,
+      you know, when I look out from the altar and see my congregation, Avraamy
+      starving, and my wife, and think of the doctor&rsquo;s wife&mdash;how blue her
+      hands were from the cold water&mdash;would you believe it, I forget myself
+      and stand senseless like a fool, until the sacristan calls to me. . . .
+      It&rsquo;s awful!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Father Yakov began walking about again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Lord Jesus!&rdquo; he said, waving his hands, &ldquo;holy Saints! I can&rsquo;t officiate
+      properly. . . . Here you talk to me about the school, and I sit like a
+      dummy and don&rsquo;t understand a word, and think of nothing but food. . . .
+      Even before the altar. . . . But . . . what am I doing?&rdquo; Father Yakov
+      pulled himself up suddenly. &ldquo;You want to go out. Forgive me, I meant
+      nothing. . . . Excuse . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Kunin shook hands with Father Yakov without speaking, saw him into the
+      hall, and going back into his study, stood at the window. He saw Father
+      Yakov go out of the house, pull his wide-brimmed rusty-looking hat over
+      his eyes, and slowly, bowing his head, as though ashamed of his outburst,
+      walk along the road.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t see his horse,&rdquo; thought Kunin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Kunin did not dare to think that the priest had come on foot every day to
+      see him; it was five or six miles to Sinkino, and the mud on the road was
+      impassable. Further on he saw the coachman Andrey and the boy Paramon,
+      jumping over the puddles and splashing Father Yakov with mud, run up to
+      him for his blessing. Father Yakov took off his hat and slowly blessed
+      Andrey, then blessed the boy and stroked his head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Kunin passed his hand over his eyes, and it seemed to him that his hand
+      was moist. He walked away from the window and with dim eyes looked round
+      the room in which he still seemed to hear the timid droning voice. He
+      glanced at the table. Luckily, Father Yakov, in his haste, had forgotten
+      to take the sermons. Kunin rushed up to them, tore them into pieces, and
+      with loathing thrust them under the table.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And I did not know!&rdquo; he moaned, sinking on to the sofa. &ldquo;After being here
+      over a year as member of the Rural Board, Honorary Justice of the Peace,
+      member of the School Committee! Blind puppet, egregious idiot! I must make
+      haste and help them, I must make haste!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He turned from side to side uneasily, pressed his temples and racked his
+      brains.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;On the twentieth I shall get my salary, two hundred roubles. . . . On
+      some good pretext I will give him some, and some to the doctor&rsquo;s wife. . .
+      . I will ask them to perform a special service here, and will get up an
+      illness for the doctor. . . . In that way I shan&rsquo;t wound their pride. And
+      I&rsquo;ll help Father Avraamy too. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He reckoned his money on his fingers, and was afraid to own to himself
+      that those two hundred roubles would hardly be enough for him to pay his
+      steward, his servants, the peasant who brought the meat. . . . He could
+      not help remembering the recent past when he was senselessly squandering
+      his father&rsquo;s fortune, when as a puppy of twenty he had given expensive
+      fans to prostitutes, had paid ten roubles a day to Kuzma, his cab-driver,
+      and in his vanity had made presents to actresses. Oh, how useful those
+      wasted rouble, three-rouble, ten-rouble notes would have been now!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Father Avraamy lives on three roubles a month!&rdquo; thought Kunin. &ldquo;For a
+      rouble the priest&rsquo;s wife could get herself a chemise, and the doctor&rsquo;s
+      wife could hire a washerwoman. But I&rsquo;ll help them, anyway! I must help
+      them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Here Kunin suddenly recalled the private information he had sent to the
+      bishop, and he writhed as from a sudden draught of cold air. This
+      remembrance filled him with overwhelming shame before his inner self and
+      before the unseen truth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So had begun and had ended a sincere effort to be of public service on the
+      part of a well-intentioned but unreflecting and over-comfortable person.
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0005" id="link2H_4_0005"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <h2>
+      THE MURDER
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      I
+    </h3>
+    <p class="pfirst">
+      <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">T</span>he evening service
+      was being celebrated at Progonnaya Station. Before the great ikon, painted
+      in glaring colours on a background of gold, stood the crowd of railway
+      servants with their wives and children, and also of the timbermen and
+      sawyers who worked close to the railway line. All stood in silence,
+      fascinated by the glare of the lights and the howling of the snow-storm
+      which was aimlessly disporting itself outside, regardless of the fact that
+      it was the Eve of the Annunciation. The old priest from Vedenyapino
+      conducted the service; the sacristan and Matvey Terehov were singing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Matvey&rsquo;s face was beaming with delight; he sang stretching out his neck as
+      though he wanted to soar upwards. He sang tenor and chanted the &ldquo;Praises&rdquo;
+       too in a tenor voice with honied sweetness and persuasiveness. When he
+      sang &ldquo;Archangel Voices&rdquo; he waved his arms like a conductor, and trying to
+      second the sacristan&rsquo;s hollow bass with his tenor, achieved something
+      extremely complex, and from his face it could be seen that he was
+      experiencing great pleasure.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At last the service was over, and they all quietly dispersed, and it was
+      dark and empty again, and there followed that hush which is only known in
+      stations that stand solitary in the open country or in the forest when the
+      wind howls and nothing else is heard and when all the emptiness around,
+      all the dreariness of life slowly ebbing away is felt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Matvey lived not far from the station at his cousin&rsquo;s tavern. But he did
+      not want to go home. He sat down at the refreshment bar and began talking
+      to the waiter in a low voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We had our own choir in the tile factory. And I must tell you that though
+      we were only workmen, our singing was first-rate, splendid. We were often
+      invited to the town, and when the Deputy Bishop, Father Ivan, took the
+      service at Trinity Church, the bishop&rsquo;s singers sang in the right choir
+      and we in the left. Only they complained in the town that we kept the
+      singing on too long: &lsquo;the factory choir drag it out,&rsquo; they used to say. It
+      is true we began St. Andrey&rsquo;s prayers and the Praises between six and
+      seven, and it was past eleven when we finished, so that it was sometimes
+      after midnight when we got home to the factory. It was good,&rdquo; sighed
+      Matvey. &ldquo;Very good it was, indeed, Sergey Nikanoritch! But here in my
+      father&rsquo;s house it is anything but joyful. The nearest church is four miles
+      away; with my weak health I can&rsquo;t get so far; there are no singers there.
+      And there is no peace or quiet in our family; day in day out, there is an
+      uproar, scolding, uncleanliness; we all eat out of one bowl like peasants;
+      and there are beetles in the cabbage soup. . . . God has not given me
+      health, else I would have gone away long ago, Sergey Nikanoritch.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Matvey Terehov was a middle-aged man about forty-five, but he had a look
+      of ill-health; his face was wrinkled and his lank, scanty beard was quite
+      grey, and that made him seem many years older. He spoke in a weak voice,
+      circumspectly, and held his chest when he coughed, while his eyes assumed
+      the uneasy and anxious look one sees in very apprehensive people. He never
+      said definitely what was wrong with him, but he was fond of describing at
+      length how once at the factory he had lifted a heavy box and had ruptured
+      himself, and how this had led to &ldquo;the gripes,&rdquo; and had forced him to give
+      up his work in the tile factory and come back to his native place; but he
+      could not explain what he meant by &ldquo;the gripes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I must own I am not fond of my cousin,&rdquo; he went on, pouring himself out
+      some tea. &ldquo;He is my elder; it is a sin to censure him, and I fear the
+      Lord, but I cannot bear it in patience. He is a haughty, surly, abusive
+      man; he is the torment of his relations and workmen, and constantly out of
+      humour. Last Sunday I asked him in an amiable way, &lsquo;Brother, let us go to
+      Pahomovo for the Mass!&rsquo; but he said &lsquo;I am not going; the priest there is a
+      gambler;&rsquo; and he would not come here to-day because, he said, the priest
+      from Vedenyapino smokes and drinks vodka. He doesn&rsquo;t like the clergy! He
+      reads Mass himself and the Hours and the Vespers, while his sister acts as
+      sacristan; he says, &lsquo;Let us pray unto the Lord&rsquo;! and she, in a thin little
+      voice like a turkey-hen, &lsquo;Lord, have mercy upon us! . . .&rsquo; It&rsquo;s a sin,
+      that&rsquo;s what it is. Every day I say to him, &lsquo;Think what you are doing,
+      brother! Repent, brother!&rsquo; and he takes no notice.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sergey Nikanoritch, the waiter, poured out five glasses of tea and carried
+      them on a tray to the waiting-room. He had scarcely gone in when there was
+      a shout:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is that the way to serve it, pig&rsquo;s face? You don&rsquo;t know how to wait!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was the voice of the station-master. There was a timid mutter, then
+      again a harsh and angry shout:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Get along!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The waiter came back greatly crestfallen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There was a time when I gave satisfaction to counts and princes,&rdquo; he said
+      in a low voice; &ldquo;but now I don&rsquo;t know how to serve tea. . . . He called me
+      names before the priest and the ladies!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The waiter, Sergey Nikanoritch, had once had money of his own, and had
+      kept a buffet at a first-class station, which was a junction, in the
+      principal town of a province. There he had worn a swallow-tail coat and a
+      gold chain. But things had gone ill with him; he had squandered all his
+      own money over expensive fittings and service; he had been robbed by his
+      staff, and getting gradually into difficulties, had moved to another
+      station less bustling. Here his wife had left him, taking with her all the
+      silver, and he moved to a third station of a still lower class, where no
+      hot dishes were served. Then to a fourth. Frequently changing his
+      situation and sinking lower and lower, he had at last come to Progonnaya,
+      and here he used to sell nothing but tea and cheap vodka, and for lunch
+      hard-boiled eggs and dry sausages, which smelt of tar, and which he
+      himself sarcastically said were only fit for the orchestra. He was bald
+      all over the top of his head, and had prominent blue eyes and thick bushy
+      whiskers, which he often combed out, looking into the little
+      looking-glass. Memories of the past haunted him continually; he could
+      never get used to sausage &ldquo;only fit for the orchestra,&rdquo; to the rudeness of
+      the station-master, and to the peasants who used to haggle over the
+      prices, and in his opinion it was as unseemly to haggle over prices in a
+      refreshment room as in a chemist&rsquo;s shop. He was ashamed of his poverty and
+      degradation, and that shame was now the leading interest of his life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Spring is late this year,&rdquo; said Matvey, listening. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a good job; I
+      don&rsquo;t like spring. In spring it is very muddy, Sergey Nikanoritch. In
+      books they write: Spring, the birds sing, the sun is setting, but what is
+      there pleasant in that? A bird is a bird, and nothing more. I am fond of
+      good company, of listening to folks, of talking of religion or singing
+      something agreeable in chorus; but as for nightingales and flowers&mdash;bless
+      them, I say!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He began again about the tile factory, about the choir, but Sergey
+      Nikanoritch could not get over his mortification, and kept shrugging his
+      shoulders and muttering. Matvey said good-bye and went home.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was no frost, and the snow was already melting on the roofs, though
+      it was still falling in big flakes; they were whirling rapidly round and
+      round in the air and chasing one another in white clouds along the railway
+      line. And the oak forest on both sides of the line, in the dim light of
+      the moon which was hidden somewhere high up in the clouds, resounded with
+      a prolonged sullen murmur. When a violent storm shakes the trees, how
+      terrible they are! Matvey walked along the causeway beside the line,
+      covering his face and his hands, while the wind beat on his back. All at
+      once a little nag, plastered all over with snow, came into sight; a sledge
+      scraped along the bare stones of the causeway, and a peasant, white all
+      over, too, with his head muffled up, cracked his whip. Matvey looked round
+      after him, but at once, as though it had been a vision, there was neither
+      sledge nor peasant to be seen, and he hastened his steps, suddenly scared,
+      though he did not know why.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Here was the crossing and the dark little house where the signalman lived.
+      The barrier was raised, and by it perfect mountains had drifted and clouds
+      of snow were whirling round like witches on broomsticks. At that point the
+      line was crossed by an old highroad, which was still called &ldquo;the track.&rdquo;
+       On the right, not far from the crossing, by the roadside stood Terehov&rsquo;s
+      tavern, which had been a posting inn. Here there was always a light
+      twinkling at night.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When Matvey reached home there was a strong smell of incense in all the
+      rooms and even in the entry. His cousin Yakov Ivanitch was still reading
+      the evening service. In the prayer-room where this was going on, in the
+      corner opposite the door, there stood a shrine of old-fashioned ancestral
+      ikons in gilt settings, and both walls to right and to left were decorated
+      with ikons of ancient and modern fashion, in shrines and without them. On
+      the table, which was draped to the floor, stood an ikon of the
+      Annunciation, and close by a cyprus-wood cross and the censer; wax candles
+      were burning. Beside the table was a reading desk. As he passed by the
+      prayer-room, Matvey stopped and glanced in at the door. Yakov Ivanitch was
+      reading at the desk at that moment, his sister Aglaia, a tall lean old
+      woman in a dark-blue dress and white kerchief, was praying with him. Yakov
+      Ivanitch&rsquo;s daughter Dashutka, an ugly freckled girl of eighteen, was
+      there, too, barefoot as usual, and wearing the dress in which she had at
+      nightfall taken water to the cattle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Glory to Thee Who hast shown us the light!&rdquo; Yakov Ivanitch boomed out in
+      a chant, bowing low.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Aglaia propped her chin on her hand and chanted in a thin, shrill,
+      drawling voice. And upstairs, above the ceiling, there was the sound of
+      vague voices which seemed menacing or ominous of evil. No one had lived on
+      the storey above since a fire there a long time ago. The windows were
+      boarded up, and empty bottles lay about on the floor between the beams.
+      Now the wind was banging and droning, and it seemed as though someone were
+      running and stumbling over the beams.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Half of the lower storey was used as a tavern, while Terehov&rsquo;s family
+      lived in the other half, so that when drunken visitors were noisy in the
+      tavern every word they said could be heard in the rooms. Matvey lived in a
+      room next to the kitchen, with a big stove, in which, in old days, when
+      this had been a posting inn, bread had been baked every day. Dashutka, who
+      had no room of her own, lived in the same room behind the stove. A cricket
+      chirped there always at night and mice ran in and out.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Matvey lighted a candle and began reading a book which he had borrowed
+      from the station policeman. While he was sitting over it the service
+      ended, and they all went to bed. Dashutka lay down, too. She began snoring
+      at once, but soon woke up and said, yawning:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You shouldn&rsquo;t burn a candle for nothing, Uncle Matvey.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s my candle,&rdquo; answered Matvey; &ldquo;I bought it with my own money.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Dashutka turned over a little and fell asleep again. Matvey sat up a good
+      time longer&mdash;he was not sleepy&mdash;and when he had finished the
+      last page he took a pencil out of a box and wrote on the book:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I, Matvey Terehov, have read this book, and think it the very best of all
+      the books I have read, for which I express my gratitude to the
+      non-commissioned officer of the Police Department of Railways, Kuzma
+      Nikolaev Zhukov, as the possessor of this priceless book.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He considered it an obligation of politeness to make such inscriptions in
+      other people&rsquo;s books.
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      II
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      On Annunciation Day, after the mail train had been sent off, Matvey was
+      sitting in the refreshment bar, talking and drinking tea with lemon in it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The waiter and Zhukov the policeman were listening to him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I was, I must tell you,&rdquo; Matvey was saying, &ldquo;inclined to religion from my
+      earliest childhood. I was only twelve years old when I used to read the
+      epistle in church, and my parents were greatly delighted, and every summer
+      I used to go on a pilgrimage with my dear mother. Sometimes other lads
+      would be singing songs and catching crayfish, while I would be all the
+      time with my mother. My elders commended me, and, indeed, I was pleased
+      myself that I was of such good behaviour. And when my mother sent me with
+      her blessing to the factory, I used between working hours to sing tenor
+      there in our choir, and nothing gave me greater pleasure. I needn&rsquo;t say, I
+      drank no vodka, I smoked no tobacco, and lived in chastity; but we all
+      know such a mode of life is displeasing to the enemy of mankind, and he,
+      the unclean spirit, once tried to ruin me and began to darken my mind,
+      just as now with my cousin. First of all, I took a vow to fast every
+      Monday and not to eat meat any day, and as time went on all sorts of
+      fancies came over me. For the first week of Lent down to Saturday the holy
+      fathers have ordained a diet of dry food, but it is no sin for the weak or
+      those who work hard even to drink tea, yet not a crumb passed into my
+      mouth till the Sunday, and afterwards all through Lent I did not allow
+      myself a drop of oil, and on Wednesdays and Fridays I did not touch a
+      morsel at all. It was the same in the lesser fasts. Sometimes in St.
+      Peter&rsquo;s fast our factory lads would have fish soup, while I would sit a
+      little apart from them and suck a dry crust. Different people have
+      different powers, of course, but I can say of myself I did not find fast
+      days hard, and, indeed, the greater the zeal the easier it seems. You are
+      only hungry on the first days of the fast, and then you get used to it; it
+      goes on getting easier, and by the end of a week you don&rsquo;t mind it at all,
+      and there is a numb feeling in your legs as though you were not on earth,
+      but in the clouds. And, besides that, I laid all sorts of penances on
+      myself; I used to get up in the night and pray, bowing down to the ground,
+      used to drag heavy stones from place to place, used to go out barefoot in
+      the snow, and I even wore chains, too. Only, as time went on, you know, I
+      was confessing one day to the priest and suddenly this reflection occurred
+      to me: why, this priest, I thought, is married, he eats meat and smokes
+      tobacco&mdash;how can he confess me, and what power has he to absolve my
+      sins if he is more sinful that I? I even scruple to eat Lenten oil, while
+      he eats sturgeon, I dare say. I went to another priest, and he, as ill
+      luck would have it, was a fat fleshy man, in a silk cassock; he rustled
+      like a lady, and he smelt of tobacco too. I went to fast and confess in
+      the monastery, and my heart was not at ease even there; I kept fancying
+      the monks were not living according to their rules. And after that I could
+      not find a service to my mind: in one place they read the service too
+      fast, in another they sang the wrong prayer, in a third the sacristan
+      stammered. Sometimes, the Lord forgive me a sinner, I would stand in
+      church and my heart would throb with anger. How could one pray, feeling
+      like that? And I fancied that the people in the church did not cross
+      themselves properly, did not listen properly; wherever I looked it seemed
+      to me that they were all drunkards, that they broke the fast, smoked,
+      lived loose lives and played cards. I was the only one who lived according
+      to the commandments. The wily spirit did not slumber; it got worse as it
+      went on. I gave up singing in the choir and I did not go to church at all;
+      since my notion was that I was a righteous man and that the church did not
+      suit me owing to its imperfections&mdash;that is, indeed, like a fallen
+      angel, I was puffed up in my pride beyond all belief. After this I began
+      attempting to make a church for myself. I hired from a deaf woman a tiny
+      little room, a long way out of town near the cemetery, and made a
+      prayer-room like my cousin&rsquo;s, only I had big church candlesticks, too, and
+      a real censer. In this prayer-room of mine I kept the rules of holy Mount
+      Athos&mdash;that is, every day my matins began at midnight without fail,
+      and on the eve of the chief of the twelve great holy days my midnight
+      service lasted ten hours and sometimes even twelve. Monks are allowed by
+      rule to sit during the singing of the Psalter and the reading of the
+      Bible, but I wanted to be better than the monks, and so I used to stand
+      all through. I used to read and sing slowly, with tears and sighing,
+      lifting up my hands, and I used to go straight from prayer to work without
+      sleeping; and, indeed, I was always praying at my work, too. Well, it got
+      all over the town &lsquo;Matvey is a saint; Matvey heals the sick and
+      senseless.&rsquo; I never had healed anyone, of course, but we all know wherever
+      any heresy or false doctrine springs up there&rsquo;s no keeping the female sex
+      away. They are just like flies on the honey. Old maids and females of all
+      sorts came trailing to me, bowing down to my feet, kissing my hands and
+      crying out I was a saint and all the rest of it, and one even saw a halo
+      round my head. It was too crowded in the prayer-room. I took a bigger
+      room, and then we had a regular tower of Babel. The devil got hold of me
+      completely and screened the light from my eyes with his unclean hoofs. We
+      all behaved as though we were frantic. I read, while the old maids and
+      other females sang, and then after standing on their legs for twenty-four
+      hours or longer without eating or drinking, suddenly a trembling would
+      come over them as though they were in a fever; after that, one would begin
+      screaming and then another&mdash;it was horrible! I, too, would shiver all
+      over like a Jew in a frying-pan, I don&rsquo;t know myself why, and our legs
+      began to prance about. It&rsquo;s a strange thing, indeed: you don&rsquo;t want to,
+      but you prance about and waggle your arms; and after that, screaming and
+      shrieking, we all danced and ran after one another &mdash;ran till we
+      dropped; and in that way, in wild frenzy, I fell into fornication.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The policeman laughed, but, noticing that no one else was laughing, became
+      serious and said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s Molokanism. I have heard they are all like that in the Caucasus.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But I was not killed by a thunderbolt,&rdquo; Matvey went on, crossing himself
+      before the ikon and moving his lips. &ldquo;My dead mother must have been
+      praying for me in the other world. When everyone in the town looked upon
+      me as a saint, and even the ladies and gentlemen of good family used to
+      come to me in secret for consolation, I happened to go into our landlord,
+      Osip Varlamitch, to ask forgiveness &mdash;it was the Day of Forgiveness&mdash;and
+      he fastened the door with the hook, and we were left alone face to face.
+      And he began to reprove me, and I must tell you Osip Varlamitch was a man
+      of brains, though without education, and everyone respected and feared
+      him, for he was a man of stern, God-fearing life and worked hard. He had
+      been the mayor of the town, and a warden of the church for twenty years
+      maybe, and had done a great deal of good; he had covered all the New
+      Moscow Road with gravel, had painted the church, and had decorated the
+      columns to look like malachite. Well, he fastened the door, and&mdash;&lsquo;I
+      have been wanting to get at you for a long time, you rascal, . . .&rsquo; he
+      said. &lsquo;You think you are a saint,&rsquo; he said. &lsquo;No you are not a saint, but a
+      backslider from God, a heretic and an evildoer! . . .&rsquo; And he went on and
+      on. . . . I can&rsquo;t tell you how he said it, so eloquently and cleverly, as
+      though it were all written down, and so touchingly. He talked for two
+      hours. His words penetrated my soul; my eyes were opened. I listened,
+      listened and &mdash;burst into sobs! &lsquo;Be an ordinary man,&rsquo; he said, &lsquo;eat
+      and drink, dress and pray like everyone else. All that is above the
+      ordinary is of the devil. Your chains,&rsquo; he said, &lsquo;are of the devil; your
+      fasting is of the devil; your prayer-room is of the devil. It is all
+      pride,&rsquo; he said. Next day, on Monday in Holy Week, it pleased God I should
+      fall ill. I ruptured myself and was taken to the hospital. I was terribly
+      worried, and wept bitterly and trembled. I thought there was a straight
+      road before me from the hospital to hell, and I almost died. I was in
+      misery on a bed of sickness for six months, and when I was discharged the
+      first thing I did I confessed, and took the sacrament in the regular way
+      and became a man again. Osip Varlamitch saw me off home and exhorted me:
+      &lsquo;Remember, Matvey, that anything above the ordinary is of the devil.&rsquo; And
+      now I eat and drink like everyone else and pray like everyone else . . . .
+      If it happens now that the priest smells of tobacco or vodka I don&rsquo;t
+      venture to blame him, because the priest, too, of course, is an ordinary
+      man. But as soon as I am told that in the town or in the village a saint
+      has set up who does not eat for weeks, and makes rules of his own, I know
+      whose work it is. So that is how I carried on in the past, gentlemen. Now,
+      like Osip Varlamitch, I am continually exhorting my cousins and
+      reproaching them, but I am a voice crying in the wilderness. God has not
+      vouchsafed me the gift.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Matvey&rsquo;s story evidently made no impression whatever. Sergey Nikanoritch
+      said nothing, but began clearing the refreshments off the counter, while
+      the policeman began talking of how rich Matvey&rsquo;s cousin was.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He must have thirty thousand at least,&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Zhukov the policeman, a sturdy, well-fed, red-haired man with a full face
+      (his cheeks quivered when he walked), usually sat lolling and crossing his
+      legs when not in the presence of his superiors. As he talked he swayed to
+      and fro and whistled carelessly, while his face had a self-satisfied
+      replete air, as though he had just had dinner. He was making money, and he
+      always talked of it with the air of a connoisseur. He undertook jobs as an
+      agent, and when anyone wanted to sell an estate, a horse or a carriage,
+      they applied to him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, it will be thirty thousand, I dare say,&rdquo; Sergey Nikanoritch
+      assented. &ldquo;Your grandfather had an immense fortune,&rdquo; he said, addressing
+      Matvey. &ldquo;Immense it was; all left to your father and your uncle. Your
+      father died as a young man and your uncle got hold of it all, and
+      afterwards, of course, Yakov Ivanitch. While you were going pilgrimages
+      with your mama and singing tenor in the factory, they didn&rsquo;t let the grass
+      grow under their feet.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Fifteen thousand comes to your share,&rdquo; said the policeman swaying from
+      side to side. &ldquo;The tavern belongs to you in common, so the capital is in
+      common. Yes. If I were in your place I should have taken it into court
+      long ago. I would have taken it into court for one thing, and while the
+      case was going on I&rsquo;d have knocked his face to a jelly.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Yakov Ivanitch was disliked because, when anyone believes differently from
+      others, it upsets even people who are indifferent to religion. The
+      policeman disliked him also because he, too, sold horses and carriages.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You don&rsquo;t care about going to law with your cousin because you have
+      plenty of money of your own,&rdquo; said the waiter to Matvey, looking at him
+      with envy. &ldquo;It is all very well for anyone who has means, but here I shall
+      die in this position, I suppose. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Matvey began declaring that he hadn&rsquo;t any money at all, but Sergey
+      Nikanoritch was not listening. Memories of the past and of the insults
+      which he endured every day came showering upon him. His bald head began to
+      perspire; he flushed and blinked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A cursed life!&rdquo; he said with vexation, and he banged the sausage on the
+      floor.
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      III
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      The story ran that the tavern had been built in the time of Alexander I,
+      by a widow who had settled here with her son; her name was Avdotya
+      Terehov. The dark roofed-in courtyard and the gates always kept locked
+      excited, especially on moonlight nights, a feeling of depression and
+      unaccountable uneasiness in people who drove by with posting-horses, as
+      though sorcerers or robbers were living in it; and the driver always
+      looked back after he passed, and whipped up his horses. Travellers did not
+      care to put up here, as the people of the house were always unfriendly and
+      charged heavily. The yard was muddy even in summer; huge fat pigs used to
+      lie there in the mud, and the horses in which the Terehovs dealt wandered
+      about untethered, and often it happened that they ran out of the yard and
+      dashed along the road like mad creatures, terrifying the pilgrim women. At
+      that time there was a great deal of traffic on the road; long trains of
+      loaded waggons trailed by, and all sorts of adventures happened, such as,
+      for instance, that thirty years ago some waggoners got up a quarrel with a
+      passing merchant and killed him, and a slanting cross is standing to this
+      day half a mile from the tavern; posting-chaises with bells and the heavy
+      <i>dormeuses</i> of country gentlemen drove by; and herds of horned cattle
+      passed bellowing and stirring up clouds of dust.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When the railway came there was at first at this place only a platform,
+      which was called simply a halt; ten years afterwards the present station,
+      Progonnaya, was built. The traffic on the old posting-road almost ceased,
+      and only local landowners and peasants drove along it now, but the working
+      people walked there in crowds in spring and autumn. The posting-inn was
+      transformed into a restaurant; the upper storey was destroyed by fire, the
+      roof had grown yellow with rust, the roof over the yard had fallen by
+      degrees, but huge fat pigs, pink and revolting, still wallowed in the mud
+      in the yard. As before, the horses sometimes ran away and, lashing their
+      tails dashed madly along the road. In the tavern they sold tea, hay oats
+      and flour, as well as vodka and beer, to be drunk on the premises and also
+      to be taken away; they sold spirituous liquors warily, for they had never
+      taken out a licence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Terehovs had always been distinguished by their piety, so much so that
+      they had even been given the nickname of the &ldquo;Godlies.&rdquo; But perhaps
+      because they lived apart like bears, avoided people and thought out all
+      their ideas for themselves, they were given to dreams and to doubts and to
+      changes of faith and almost each generation had a peculiar faith of its
+      own. The grandmother Avdotya, who had built the inn, was an Old Believer;
+      her son and both her grandsons (the fathers of Matvey and Yakov) went to
+      the Orthodox church, entertained the clergy, and worshipped before the new
+      ikons as devoutly as they had done before the old. The son in old age
+      refused to eat meat and imposed upon himself the rule of silence,
+      considering all conversation as sin; it was the peculiarity of the
+      grandsons that they interpreted the Scripture not simply, but sought in it
+      a hidden meaning, declaring that every sacred word must contain a mystery.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Avdotya&rsquo;s great-grandson Matvey had struggled from early childhood with
+      all sorts of dreams and fancies and had been almost ruined by it; the
+      other great-grandson, Yakov Ivanitch, was orthodox, but after his wife&rsquo;s
+      death he gave up going to church and prayed at home. Following his
+      example, his sister Aglaia had turned, too; she did not go to church
+      herself, and did not let Dashutka go. Of Aglaia it was told that in her
+      youth she used to attend the Flagellant meetings in Vedenyapino, and that
+      she was still a Flagellant in secret, and that was why she wore a white
+      kerchief.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yakov Ivanitch was ten years older than Matvey&mdash;he was a very
+      handsome tall old man with a big grey beard almost to his waist, and bushy
+      eyebrows which gave his face a stern, even ill-natured expression. He wore
+      a long jerkin of good cloth or a black sheepskin coat, and altogether
+      tried to be clean and neat in dress; he wore goloshes even in dry weather.
+      He did not go to church, because, to his thinking, the services were not
+      properly celebrated and because the priests drank wine at unlawful times
+      and smoked tobacco. Every day he read and sang the service at home with
+      Aglaia. At Vedenyapino they left out the &ldquo;Praises&rdquo; at early matins, and
+      had no evening service even on great holidays, but he used to read through
+      at home everything that was laid down for every day, without hurrying or
+      leaving out a single line, and even in his spare time read aloud the Lives
+      of the Saints. And in everyday life he adhered strictly to the rules of
+      the church; thus, if wine were allowed on some day in Lent &ldquo;for the sake
+      of the vigil,&rdquo; then he never failed to drink wine, even if he were not
+      inclined.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He read, sang, burned incense and fasted, not for the sake of receiving
+      blessings of some sort from God, but for the sake of good order. Man
+      cannot live without religion, and religion ought to be expressed from year
+      to year and from day to day in a certain order, so that every morning and
+      every evening a man might turn to God with exactly those words and
+      thoughts that were befitting that special day and hour. One must live,
+      and, therefore, also pray as is pleasing to God, and so every day one must
+      read and sing what is pleasing to God&mdash;that is, what is laid down in
+      the rule of the church. Thus the first chapter of St. John must only be
+      read on Easter Day, and &ldquo;It is most meet&rdquo; must not be sung from Easter to
+      Ascension, and so on. The consciousness of this order and its importance
+      afforded Yakov Ivanitch great gratification during his religious
+      exercises. When he was forced to break this order by some necessity&mdash;to
+      drive to town or to the bank, for instance his conscience was uneasy and
+      he felt miserable.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When his cousin Matvey had returned unexpectedly from the factory and
+      settled in the tavern as though it were his home, he had from the very
+      first day disturbed his settled order. He refused to pray with them, had
+      meals and drank tea at wrong times, got up late, drank milk on Wednesdays
+      and Fridays on the pretext of weak health; almost every day he went into
+      the prayer-room while they were at prayers and cried: &ldquo;Think what you are
+      doing, brother! Repent, brother!&rdquo; These words threw Yakov into a fury,
+      while Aglaia could not refrain from beginning to scold; or at night Matvey
+      would steal into the prayer-room and say softly: &ldquo;Cousin, your prayer is
+      not pleasing to God. For it is written, First be reconciled with thy
+      brother and then offer thy gift. You lend money at usury, you deal in
+      vodka&mdash;repent!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      In Matvey&rsquo;s words Yakov saw nothing but the usual evasions of empty-headed
+      and careless people who talk of loving your neighbour, of being reconciled
+      with your brother, and so on, simply to avoid praying, fasting and reading
+      holy books, and who talk contemptuously of profit and interest simply
+      because they don&rsquo;t like working. Of course, to be poor, save nothing, and
+      put by nothing was a great deal easier than being rich.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But yet he was troubled and could not pray as before. As soon as he went
+      into the prayer-room and opened the book he began to be afraid his cousin
+      would come in and hinder him; and, in fact, Matvey did soon appear and cry
+      in a trembling voice: &ldquo;Think what you are doing, brother! Repent,
+      brother!&rdquo; Aglaia stormed and Yakov, too, flew into a passion and shouted:
+      &ldquo;Go out of my house!&rdquo; while Matvey answered him: &ldquo;The house belongs to
+      both of us.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Yakov would begin singing and reading again, but he could not regain his
+      calm, and unconsciously fell to dreaming over his book. Though he regarded
+      his cousin&rsquo;s words as nonsense, yet for some reason it had of late haunted
+      his memory that it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven,
+      that the year before last he had made a very good bargain over buying a
+      stolen horse, that one day when his wife was alive a drunkard had died of
+      vodka in his tavern. . . .
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He slept badly at nights now and woke easily, and he could hear that
+      Matvey, too, was awake, and continually sighing and pining for his tile
+      factory. And while Yakov turned over from one side to another at night he
+      thought of the stolen horse and the drunken man, and what was said in the
+      gospels about the camel.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It looked as though his dreaminess were coming over him again. And as
+      ill-luck would have it, although it was the end of March, every day it
+      kept snowing, and the forest roared as though it were winter, and there
+      was no believing that spring would ever come. The weather disposed one to
+      depression, and to quarrelling and to hatred and in the night, when the
+      wind droned over the ceiling, it seemed as though someone were living
+      overhead in the empty storey; little by little the broodings settled like
+      a burden on his mind, his head burned and he could not sleep.
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      IV
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      On the morning of the Monday before Good Friday, Matvey heard from his
+      room Dashutka say to Aglaia:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Uncle Matvey said, the other day, that there is no need to fast.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Matvey remembered the whole conversation he had had the evening before
+      with Dashutka, and he felt hurt all at once.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Girl, don&rsquo;t do wrong!&rdquo; he said in a moaning voice, like a sick man. &ldquo;You
+      can&rsquo;t do without fasting; our Lord Himself fasted forty days. I only
+      explained that fasting does a bad man no good.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You should just listen to the factory hands; they can teach you
+      goodness,&rdquo; Aglaia said sarcastically as she washed the floor (she usually
+      washed the floors on working days and was always angry with everyone when
+      she did it). &ldquo;We know how they keep the fasts in the factory. You had
+      better ask that uncle of yours&mdash;ask him about his &lsquo;Darling,&rsquo; how he
+      used to guzzle milk on fast days with her, the viper. He teaches others;
+      he forgets about his viper. But ask him who was it he left his money with&mdash;who
+      was it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Matvey had carefully concealed from everyone, as though it were a foul
+      sore, that during that period of his life when old women and unmarried
+      girls had danced and run about with him at their prayers he had formed a
+      connection with a working woman and had had a child by her. When he went
+      home he had given this woman all he had saved at the factory, and had
+      borrowed from his landlord for his journey, and now he had only a few
+      roubles which he spent on tea and candles. The &ldquo;Darling&rdquo; had informed him
+      later on that the child was dead, and asked him in a letter what she
+      should do with the money. This letter was brought from the station by the
+      labourer. Aglaia intercepted it and read it, and had reproached Matvey
+      with his &ldquo;Darling&rdquo; every day since.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Just fancy, nine hundred roubles,&rdquo; Aglaia went on. &ldquo;You gave nine hundred
+      roubles to a viper, no relation, a factory jade, blast you!&rdquo; She had flown
+      into a passion by now and was shouting shrilly: &ldquo;Can&rsquo;t you speak? I could
+      tear you to pieces, wretched creature! Nine hundred roubles as though it
+      were a farthing. You might have left it to Dashutka&mdash;she is a
+      relation, not a stranger&mdash;or else have it sent to Byelev for Marya&rsquo;s
+      poor orphans. And your viper did not choke, may she be thrice accursed,
+      the she-devil! May she never look upon the light of day!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Yakov Ivanitch called to her: it was time to begin the &ldquo;Hours.&rdquo; She
+      washed, put on a white kerchief, and by now quiet and meek, went into the
+      prayer-room to the brother she loved. When she spoke to Matvey or served
+      peasants in the tavern with tea she was a gaunt, keen-eyed, ill-humoured
+      old woman; in the prayer-room her face was serene and softened, she looked
+      younger altogether, she curtsied affectedly, and even pursed up her lips.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yakov Ivanitch began reading the service softly and dolefully, as he
+      always did in Lent. After he had read a little he stopped to listen to the
+      stillness that reigned through the house, and then went on reading again,
+      with a feeling of gratification; he folded his hands in supplication,
+      rolled his eyes, shook his head, sighed. But all at once there was the
+      sound of voices. The policeman and Sergey Nikanoritch had come to see
+      Matvey. Yakov Ivanitch was embarrassed at reading aloud and singing when
+      there were strangers in the house, and now, hearing voices, he began
+      reading in a whisper and slowly. He could hear in the prayer-room the
+      waiter say:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The Tatar at Shtchepovo is selling his business for fifteen hundred.
+      He&rsquo;ll take five hundred down and an I.O.U. for the rest. And so, Matvey
+      Vassilitch, be so kind as to lend me that five hundred roubles. I will pay
+      you two per cent a month.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What money have I got?&rdquo; cried Matvey, amazed. &ldquo;I have no money!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Two per cent a month will be a godsend to you,&rdquo; the policeman explained.
+      &ldquo;While lying by, your money is simply eaten by the moth, and that&rsquo;s all
+      that you get from it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Afterwards the visitors went out and a silence followed. But Yakov
+      Ivanitch had hardly begun reading and singing again when a voice was heard
+      outside the door:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Brother, let me have a horse to drive to Vedenyapino.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was Matvey. And Yakov was troubled again. &ldquo;Which can you go with?&rdquo; he
+      asked after a moment&rsquo;s thought. &ldquo;The man has gone with the sorrel to take
+      the pig, and I am going with the little stallion to Shuteykino as soon as
+      I have finished.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Brother, why is it you can dispose of the horses and not I?&rdquo; Matvey asked
+      with irritation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Because I am not taking them for pleasure, but for work.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Our property is in common, so the horses are in common, too, and you
+      ought to understand that, brother.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A silence followed. Yakov did not go on praying, but waited for Matvey to
+      go away from the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Brother,&rdquo; said Matvey, &ldquo;I am a sick man. I don&rsquo;t want possession &mdash;let
+      them go; you have them, but give me a small share to keep me in my
+      illness. Give it me and I&rsquo;ll go away.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Yakov did not speak. He longed to be rid of Matvey, but he could not give
+      him money, since all the money was in the business; besides, there had
+      never been a case of the family dividing in the whole history of the
+      Terehovs. Division means ruin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yakov said nothing, but still waited for Matvey to go away, and kept
+      looking at his sister, afraid that she would interfere, and that there
+      would be a storm of abuse again, as there had been in the morning. When at
+      last Matvey did go Yakov went on reading, but now he had no pleasure in
+      it. There was a heaviness in his head and a darkness before his eyes from
+      continually bowing down to the ground, and he was weary of the sound of
+      his soft dejected voice. When such a depression of spirit came over him at
+      night, he put it down to not being able to sleep; by day it frightened
+      him, and he began to feel as though devils were sitting on his head and
+      shoulders.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Finishing the service after a fashion, dissatisfied and ill-humoured, he
+      set off for Shuteykino. In the previous autumn a gang of navvies had dug a
+      boundary ditch near Progonnaya, and had run up a bill at the tavern for
+      eighteen roubles, and now he had to find their foreman in Shuteykino and
+      get the money from him. The road had been spoilt by the thaw and the
+      snowstorm; it was of a dark colour and full of holes, and in parts it had
+      given way altogether. The snow had sunk away at the sides below the road,
+      so that he had to drive, as it were, upon a narrow causeway, and it was
+      very difficult to turn off it when he met anything. The sky had been
+      overcast ever since the morning and a damp wind was blowing. . . .
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A long train of sledges met him; peasant women were carting bricks. Yakov
+      had to turn off the road. His horse sank into the snow up to its belly;
+      the sledge lurched over to the right, and to avoid falling out he bent
+      over to the left, and sat so all the time the sledges moved slowly by him.
+      Through the wind he heard the creaking of the sledge poles and the
+      breathing of the gaunt horses, and the women saying about him, &ldquo;There&rsquo;s
+      Godly coming,&rdquo; while one, gazing with compassion at his horse, said
+      quickly:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It looks as though the snow will be lying till Yegory&rsquo;s Day! They are
+      worn out with it!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Yakov sat uncomfortably huddled up, screwing up his eyes on account of the
+      wind, while horses and red bricks kept passing before him. And perhaps
+      because he was uncomfortable and his side ached, he felt all at once
+      annoyed, and the business he was going about seemed to him unimportant,
+      and he reflected that he might send the labourer next day to Shuteykino.
+      Again, as in the previous sleepless night, he thought of the saying about
+      the camel, and then memories of all sorts crept into his mind; of the
+      peasant who had sold him the stolen horse, of the drunken man, of the
+      peasant women who had brought their samovars to him to pawn. Of course,
+      every merchant tries to get as much as he can, but Yakov felt depressed
+      that he was in trade; he longed to get somewhere far away from this
+      routine, and he felt dreary at the thought that he would have to read the
+      evening service that day. The wind blew straight into his face and soughed
+      in his collar; and it seemed as though it were whispering to him all these
+      thoughts, bringing them from the broad white plain . . . . Looking at that
+      plain, familiar to him from childhood, Yakov remembered that he had had
+      just this same trouble and these same thoughts in his young days when
+      dreams and imaginings had come upon him and his faith had wavered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He felt miserable at being alone in the open country; he turned back and
+      drove slowly after the sledges, and the women laughed and said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Godly has turned back.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At home nothing had been cooked and the samovar was not heated on account
+      of the fast, and this made the day seem very long. Yakov Ivanitch had long
+      ago taken the horse to the stable, dispatched the flour to the station,
+      and twice taken up the Psalms to read, and yet the evening was still far
+      off. Aglaia has already washed all the floors, and, having nothing to do,
+      was tidying up her chest, the lid of which was pasted over on the inside
+      with labels off bottles. Matvey, hungry and melancholy, sat reading, or
+      went up to the Dutch stove and slowly scrutinized the tiles which reminded
+      him of the factory. Dashutka was asleep; then, waking up, she went to take
+      water to the cattle. When she was getting water from the well the cord
+      broke and the pail fell in. The labourer began looking for a boathook to
+      get the pail out, and Dashutka, barefooted, with legs as red as a goose&rsquo;s,
+      followed him about in the muddy snow, repeating: &ldquo;It&rsquo;s too far!&rdquo; She meant
+      to say that the well was too deep for the hook to reach the bottom, but
+      the labourer did not understand her, and evidently she bothered him, so
+      that he suddenly turned around and abused her in unseemly language. Yakov
+      Ivanitch, coming out that moment into the yard, heard Dashutka answer the
+      labourer in a long rapid stream of choice abuse, which she could only have
+      learned from drunken peasants in the tavern.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What are you saying, shameless girl!&rdquo; he cried to her, and he was
+      positively aghast. &ldquo;What language!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And she looked at her father in perplexity, dully, not understanding why
+      she should not use those words. He would have admonished her, but she
+      struck him as so savage and benighted; and for the first time he realized
+      that she had no religion. And all this life in the forest, in the snow,
+      with drunken peasants, with coarse oaths, seemed to him as savage and
+      benighted as this girl, and instead of giving her a lecture he only waved
+      his hand and went back into the room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At that moment the policeman and Sergey Nikanoritch came in again to see
+      Matvey. Yakov Ivanitch thought that these people, too, had no religion,
+      and that that did not trouble them in the least; and human life began to
+      seem to him as strange, senseless and unenlightened as a dog&rsquo;s. Bareheaded
+      he walked about the yard, then he went out on to the road, clenching his
+      fists. Snow was falling in big flakes at the time. His beard was blown
+      about in the wind. He kept shaking his head, as though there were
+      something weighing upon his head and shoulders, as though devils were
+      sitting on them; and it seemed to him that it was not himself walking
+      about, but some wild beast, a huge terrible beast, and that if he were to
+      cry out his voice would be a roar that would sound all over the forest and
+      the plain, and would frighten everyone. . . .
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      V
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      When he went back into the house the policeman was no longer there, but
+      the waiter was sitting with Matvey, counting something on the reckoning
+      beads. He was in the habit of coming often, almost every day, to the
+      tavern; in old days he had come to see Yakov Ivanitch, now he came to see
+      Matvey. He was continually reckoning on the beads, while his face
+      perspired and looked strained, or he would ask for money or, stroking his
+      whiskers, would describe how he had once been in a first-class station and
+      used to prepare champagne-punch for officers, and at grand dinners served
+      the sturgeon-soup with his own hands. Nothing in this world interested him
+      but refreshment bars, and he could only talk about things to eat, about
+      wines and the paraphernalia of the dinner-table. On one occasion, handing
+      a cup of tea to a young woman who was nursing her baby and wishing to say
+      something agreeable to her, he expressed himself in this way:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The mother&rsquo;s breast is the baby&rsquo;s refreshment bar.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Reckoning with the beads in Matvey&rsquo;s room, he asked for money; said he
+      could not go on living at Progonnaya, and several times repeated in a tone
+      of voice that sounded as though he were just going to cry:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where am I to go? Where am I to go now? Tell me that, please.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Then Matvey went into the kitchen and began peeling some boiled potatoes
+      which he had probably put away from the day before. It was quiet, and it
+      seemed to Yakov Ivanitch that the waiter was gone. It was past the time
+      for evening service; he called Aglaia, and, thinking there was no one else
+      in the house sang out aloud without embarrassment. He sang and read, but
+      was inwardly pronouncing other words, &ldquo;Lord, forgive me! Lord, save me!&rdquo;
+       and, one after another, without ceasing, he made low bows to the ground as
+      though he wanted to exhaust himself, and he kept shaking his head, so that
+      Aglaia looked at him with wonder. He was afraid Matvey would come in, and
+      was certain that he would come in, and felt an anger against him which he
+      could overcome neither by prayer nor by continually bowing down to the
+      ground.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Matvey opened the door very softly and went into the prayer-room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a sin, such a sin!&rdquo; he said reproachfully, and heaved a sigh.
+      &ldquo;Repent! Think what you are doing, brother!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Yakov Ivanitch, clenching his fists and not looking at him for fear of
+      striking him, went quickly out of the room. Feeling himself a huge
+      terrible wild beast, just as he had done before on the road, he crossed
+      the passage into the grey, dirty room, reeking with smoke and fog, in
+      which the peasants usually drank tea, and there he spent a long time
+      walking from one corner to the other, treading heavily, so that the
+      crockery jingled on the shelves and the tables shook. It was clear to him
+      now that he was himself dissatisfied with his religion, and could not pray
+      as he used to do. He must repent, he must think things over, reconsider,
+      live and pray in some other way. But how pray? And perhaps all this was a
+      temptation of the devil, and nothing of this was necessary? . . . How was
+      it to be? What was he to do? Who could guide him? What helplessness! He
+      stopped and, clutching at his head, began to think, but Matvey&rsquo;s being
+      near him prevented him from reflecting calmly. And he went rapidly into
+      the room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Matvey was sitting in the kitchen before a bowl of potato, eating. Close
+      by, near the stove, Aglaia and Dashutka were sitting facing one another,
+      spinning yarn. Between the stove and the table at which Matvey was sitting
+      was stretched an ironing-board; on it stood a cold iron.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sister,&rdquo; Matvey asked, &ldquo;let me have a little oil!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who eats oil on a day like this?&rdquo; asked Aglaia.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am not a monk, sister, but a layman. And in my weak health I may take
+      not only oil but milk.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, at the factory you may have anything.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Aglaia took a bottle of Lenten oil from the shelf and banged it angrily
+      down before Matvey, with a malignant smile evidently pleased that he was
+      such a sinner.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But I tell you, you can&rsquo;t eat oil!&rdquo; shouted Yakov.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Aglaia and Dashutka started, but Matvey poured the oil into the bowl and
+      went on eating as though he had not heard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I tell you, you can&rsquo;t eat oil!&rdquo; Yakov shouted still more loudly; he
+      turned red all over, snatched up the bowl, lifted it higher than his head,
+      and dashed it with all his force to the ground, so that it flew into
+      fragments. &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t dare to speak!&rdquo; he cried in a furious voice, though
+      Matvey had not said a word. &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t dare!&rdquo; he repeated, and struck his fist
+      on the table.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Matvey turned pale and got up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Brother!&rdquo; he said, still munching&mdash;&ldquo;brother, think what you are
+      about!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Out of my house this minute!&rdquo; shouted Yakov; he loathed Matvey&rsquo;s wrinkled
+      face, and his voice, and the crumbs on his moustache, and the fact that he
+      was munching. &ldquo;Out, I tell you!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Brother, calm yourself! The pride of hell has confounded you!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hold your tongue!&rdquo; (Yakov stamped.) &ldquo;Go away, you devil!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you care to know,&rdquo; Matvey went on in a loud voice, as he, too, began
+      to get angry, &ldquo;you are a backslider from God and a heretic. The accursed
+      spirits have hidden the true light from you; your prayer is not acceptable
+      to God. Repent before it is too late! The deathbed of the sinner is
+      terrible! Repent, brother!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Yakov seized him by the shoulders and dragged him away from the table,
+      while he turned whiter than ever, and frightened and bewildered, began
+      muttering, &ldquo;What is it? What&rsquo;s the matter?&rdquo; and, struggling and making
+      efforts to free himself from Yakov&rsquo;s hands, he accidentally caught hold of
+      his shirt near the neck and tore the collar; and it seemed to Aglaia that
+      he was trying to beat Yakov. She uttered a shriek, snatched up the bottle
+      of Lenten oil and with all her force brought it down straight on the skull
+      of the cousin she hated. Matvey reeled, and in one instant his face became
+      calm and indifferent. Yakov, breathing heavily, excited, and feeling
+      pleasure at the gurgle the bottle had made, like a living thing, when it
+      had struck the head, kept him from falling and several times (he
+      remembered this very distinctly) motioned Aglaia towards the iron with his
+      finger; and only when the blood began trickling through his hands and he
+      heard Dashutka&rsquo;s loud wail, and when the ironing-board fell with a crash,
+      and Matvey rolled heavily on it, Yakov left off feeling anger and
+      understood what had happened.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let him rot, the factory buck!&rdquo; Aglaia brought out with repulsion, still
+      keeping the iron in her hand. The white bloodstained kerchief slipped on
+      to her shoulders and her grey hair fell in disorder. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s got what he
+      deserved!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Everything was terrible. Dashutka sat on the floor near the stove with the
+      yarn in her hands, sobbing, and continually bowing down, uttering at each
+      bow a gasping sound. But nothing was so terrible to Yakov as the potato in
+      the blood, on which he was afraid of stepping, and there was something
+      else terrible which weighed upon him like a bad dream and seemed the worst
+      danger, though he could not take it in for the first minute. This was the
+      waiter, Sergey Nikanoritch, who was standing in the doorway with the
+      reckoning beads in his hands, very pale, looking with horror at what was
+      happening in the kitchen. Only when he turned and went quickly into the
+      passage and from there outside, Yakov grasped who it was and followed him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wiping his hands on the snow as he went, he reflected. The idea flashed
+      through his mind that their labourer had gone away long before and had
+      asked leave to stay the night at home in the village; the day before they
+      had killed a pig, and there were huge bloodstains in the snow and on the
+      sledge, and even one side of the top of the well was splattered with
+      blood, so that it could not have seemed suspicious even if the whole of
+      Yakov&rsquo;s family had been stained with blood. To conceal the murder would be
+      agonizing, but for the policeman, who would whistle and smile ironically,
+      to come from the station, for the peasants to arrive and bind Yakov&rsquo;s and
+      Aglaia&rsquo;s hands, and take them solemnly to the district courthouse and from
+      there to the town, while everyone on the way would point at them and say
+      mirthfully, &ldquo;They are taking the Godlies!&rdquo;&mdash;this seemed to Yakov more
+      agonizing than anything, and he longed to lengthen out the time somehow,
+      so as to endure this shame not now, but later, in the future.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can lend you a thousand roubles, . . .&rdquo; he said, overtaking Sergey
+      Nikanoritch. &ldquo;If you tell anyone, it will do no good. . . . There&rsquo;s no
+      bringing the man back, anyway;&rdquo; and with difficulty keeping up with the
+      waiter, who did not look round, but tried to walk away faster than ever,
+      he went on: &ldquo;I can give you fifteen hundred. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He stopped because he was out of breath, while Sergey Nikanoritch walked
+      on as quickly as ever, probably afraid that he would be killed, too. Only
+      after passing the railway crossing and going half the way from the
+      crossing to the station, he furtively looked round and walked more slowly.
+      Lights, red and green, were already gleaming in the station and along the
+      line; the wind had fallen, but flakes of snow were still coming down and
+      the road had turned white again. But just at the station Sergey
+      Nikanoritch stopped, thought a minute, and turned resolutely back. It was
+      growing dark.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oblige me with the fifteen hundred, Yakov Ivanitch,&rdquo; he said, trembling
+      all over. &ldquo;I agree.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <h3>
+      VI
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      Yakov Ivanitch&rsquo;s money was in the bank of the town and was invested in
+      second mortgages; he only kept a little at home, Just what was wanted for
+      necessary expenses. Going into the kitchen he felt for the matchbox, and
+      while the sulphur was burning with a blue light he had time to make out
+      the figure of Matvey, which was still lying on the floor near the table,
+      but now it was covered with a white sheet, and nothing could be seen but
+      his boots. A cricket was chirruping. Aglaia and Dashutka were not in the
+      room, they were both sitting behind the counter in the tea-room, spinning
+      yarn in silence. Yakov Ivanitch crossed to his own room with a little lamp
+      in his hand, and pulled from under the bed a little box in which he kept
+      his money. This time there were in it four hundred and twenty one-rouble
+      notes and silver to the amount of thirty-five roubles; the notes had an
+      unpleasant heavy smell. Putting the money together in his cap, Yakov
+      Ivanitch went out into the yard and then out of the gate. He walked,
+      looking from side to side, but there was no sign of the waiter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hi!&rdquo; cried Yakov.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A dark figure stepped out from the barrier at the railway crossing and
+      came irresolutely towards him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why do you keep walking about?&rdquo; said Yakov with vexation, as he
+      recognized the waiter. &ldquo;Here you are; there is a little less than five
+      hundred. . . . I&rsquo;ve no more in the house.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very well; . . . very grateful to you,&rdquo; muttered Sergey Nikanoritch,
+      taking the money greedily and stuffing it into his pockets. He was
+      trembling all over, and that was perceptible in spite of the darkness.
+      &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t worry yourself, Yakov Ivanitch. . . . What should I chatter for: I
+      came and went away, that&rsquo;s all I&rsquo;ve had to do with it. As the saying is, I
+      know nothing and I can tell nothing . . .&rdquo; And at once he added with a
+      sigh &ldquo;Cursed life!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      For a minute they stood in silence, without looking at each other.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So it all came from a trifle, goodness knows how, . . .&rdquo; said the waiter,
+      trembling. &ldquo;I was sitting counting to myself when all at once a noise. . .
+      . I looked through the door, and just on account of Lenten oil you. . . .
+      Where is he now?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Lying there in the kitchen.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You ought to take him somewhere. . . . Why put it off?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Yakov accompanied him to the station without a word, then went home again
+      and harnessed the horse to take Matvey to Limarovo. He had decided to take
+      him to the forest of Limarovo, and to leave him there on the road, and
+      then he would tell everyone that Matvey had gone off to Vedenyapino and
+      had not come back, and then everyone would think that he had been killed
+      by someone on the road. He knew there was no deceiving anyone by this, but
+      to move, to do something, to be active, was not as agonizing as to sit
+      still and wait. He called Dashutka, and with her carried Matvey out.
+      Aglaia stayed behind to clean up the kitchen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When Yakov and Dashutka turned back they were detained at the railway
+      crossing by the barrier being let down. A long goods train was passing,
+      dragged by two engines, breathing heavily, and flinging puffs of crimson
+      fire out of their funnels.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The foremost engine uttered a piercing whistle at the crossing in sight of
+      the station.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s whistling, . . .&rdquo; said Dashutka.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The train had passed at last, and the signalman lifted the barrier without
+      haste.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is that you, Yakov Ivanitch? I didn&rsquo;t know you, so you&rsquo;ll be rich.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And then when they had reached home they had to go to bed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Aglaia and Dashutka made themselves a bed in the tea-room and lay down
+      side by side, while Yakov stretched himself on the counter. They neither
+      said their prayers nor lighted the ikon lamp before lying down to sleep.
+      All three lay awake till morning, but did not utter a single word, and it
+      seemed to them that all night someone was walking about in the empty
+      storey overhead.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Two days later a police inspector and the examining magistrate came from
+      the town and made a search, first in Matvey&rsquo;s room and then in the whole
+      tavern. They questioned Yakov first of all, and he testified that on the
+      Monday Matvey had gone to Vedenyapino to confess, and that he must have
+      been killed by the sawyers who were working on the line.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And when the examining magistrate had asked him how it had happened that
+      Matvey was found on the road, while his cap had turned up at home&mdash;surely
+      he had not gone to Vedenyapino without his cap?&mdash; and why they had
+      not found a single drop of blood beside him in the snow on the road,
+      though his head was smashed in and his face and chest were black with
+      blood, Yakov was confused, lost his head and answered:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I cannot tell.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And just what Yakov had so feared happened: the policeman came, the
+      district police officer smoked in the prayer-room and Aglaia fell upon him
+      with abuse and was rude to the police inspector; and afterwards when Yakov
+      and Aglaia were led out to the yard, the peasants crowded at the gates and
+      said, &ldquo;They are taking the Godlies!&rdquo; and it seemed that they were all
+      glad.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the inquiry the policeman stated positively that Yakov and Aglaia had
+      killed Matvey in order not to share with him, and that Matvey had money of
+      his own, and that if it was not found at the search evidently Yakov and
+      Aglaia had got hold of it. And Dashutka was questioned. She said that
+      Uncle Matvey and Aunt Aglaia quarrelled and almost fought every day over
+      money, and that Uncle Matvey was rich, so much so that he had given
+      someone&mdash;&ldquo;his Darling&rdquo;&mdash;nine hundred roubles.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Dashutka was left alone in the tavern. No one came now to drink tea or
+      vodka, and she divided her time between cleaning up the rooms, drinking
+      mead and eating rolls; but a few days later they questioned the signalman
+      at the railway crossing, and he said that late on Monday evening he had
+      seen Yakov and Dashutka driving from Limarovo. Dashutka, too, was
+      arrested, taken to the town and put in prison. It soon became known, from
+      what Aglaia said, that Sergey Nikanoritch had been present at the murder.
+      A search was made in his room, and money was found in an unusual place, in
+      his snowboots under the stove, and the money was all in small change,
+      three hundred one-rouble notes. He swore he had made this money himself,
+      and that he hadn&rsquo;t been in the tavern for a year, but witnesses testified
+      that he was poor and had been in great want of money of late, and that he
+      used to go every day to the tavern to borrow from Matvey; and the
+      policeman described how on the day of the murder he had himself gone twice
+      to the tavern with the waiter to help him to borrow. It was recalled at
+      this juncture that on Monday evening Sergey Nikanoritch had not been there
+      to meet the passenger train, but had gone off somewhere. And he, too, was
+      arrested and taken to the town.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The trial took place eleven months later.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yakov Ivanitch looked much older and much thinner, and spoke in a low
+      voice like a sick man. He felt weak, pitiful, lower in stature that anyone
+      else, and it seemed as though his soul, too, like his body, had grown
+      older and wasted, from the pangs of his conscience and from the dreams and
+      imaginings which never left him all the while he was in prison. When it
+      came out that he did not go to church the president of the court asked
+      him:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you a dissenter?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can&rsquo;t tell,&rdquo; he answered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had no religion at all now; he knew nothing and understood nothing; and
+      his old belief was hateful to him now, and seemed to him darkness and
+      folly. Aglaia was not in the least subdued, and she still went on abusing
+      the dead man, blaming him for all their misfortunes. Sergey Nikanoritch
+      had grown a beard instead of whiskers. At the trial he was red and
+      perspiring, and was evidently ashamed of his grey prison coat and of
+      sitting on the same bench with humble peasants. He defended himself
+      awkwardly, and, trying to prove that he had not been to the tavern for a
+      whole year, got into an altercation with every witness, and the spectators
+      laughed at him. Dashutka had grown fat in prison. At the trial she did not
+      understand the questions put to her, and only said that when they killed
+      Uncle Matvey she was dreadfully frightened, but afterwards she did not
+      mind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All four were found guilty of murder with mercenary motives. Yakov
+      Ivanitch was sentenced to penal servitude for twenty years; Aglaia for
+      thirteen and a half; Sergey Nikanoritch to ten; Dashutka to six.
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      VII
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      Late one evening a foreign steamer stopped in the roads of Dué in Sahalin
+      and asked for coal. The captain was asked to wait till morning, but he did
+      not want to wait over an hour, saying that if the weather changed for the
+      worse in the night there would be a risk of his having to go off without
+      coal. In the Gulf of Tartary the weather is liable to violent changes in
+      the course of half an hour, and then the shores of Sahalin are dangerous.
+      And already it had turned fresh, and there was a considerable sea running.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A gang of convicts were sent to the mine from the Voevodsky prison, the
+      grimmest and most forbidding of all the prisons in Sahalin. The coal had
+      to be loaded upon barges, and then they had to be towed by a steam-cutter
+      alongside the steamer which was anchored more than a quarter of a mile
+      from the coast, and then the unloading and reloading had to begin&mdash;an
+      exhausting task when the barge kept rocking against the steamer and the
+      men could scarcely keep on their legs for sea-sickness. The convicts, only
+      just roused from their sleep, still drowsy, went along the shore,
+      stumbling in the darkness and clanking their fetters. On the left,
+      scarcely visible, was a tall, steep, extremely gloomy-looking cliff, while
+      on the right there was a thick impenetrable mist, in which the sea moaned
+      with a prolonged monotonous sound, &ldquo;Ah! . . . ah! . . . ah! . . . ah! . .
+      .&rdquo; And it was only when the overseer was lighting his pipe, casting as he
+      did so a passing ray of light on the escort with a gun and on the coarse
+      faces of two or three of the nearest convicts, or when he went with his
+      lantern close to the water that the white crests of the foremost waves
+      could be discerned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One of this gang was Yakov Ivanitch, nicknamed among the convicts the
+      &ldquo;Brush,&rdquo; on account of his long beard. No one had addressed him by his
+      name or his father&rsquo;s name for a long time now; they called him simply
+      Yashka.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was here in disgrace, as, three months after coming to Siberia, feeling
+      an intense irresistible longing for home, he had succumbed to temptation
+      and run away; he had soon been caught, had been sentenced to penal
+      servitude for life and given forty lashes. Then he was punished by
+      flogging twice again for losing his prison clothes, though on each
+      occasion they were stolen from him. The longing for home had begun from
+      the very time he had been brought to Odessa, and the convict train had
+      stopped in the night at Progonnaya; and Yakov, pressing to the window, had
+      tried to see his own home, and could see nothing in the darkness. He had
+      no one with whom to talk of home. His sister Aglaia had been sent right
+      across Siberia, and he did not know where she was now. Dashutka was in
+      Sahalin, but she had been sent to live with some ex-convict in a far away
+      settlement; there was no news of her except that once a settler who had
+      come to the Voevodsky Prison told Yakov that Dashutka had three children.
+      Sergey Nikanoritch was serving as a footman at a government official&rsquo;s at
+      Dué, but he could not reckon on ever seeing him, as he was ashamed of
+      being acquainted with convicts of the peasant class.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The gang reached the mine, and the men took their places on the quay. It
+      was said there would not be any loading, as the weather kept getting worse
+      and the steamer was meaning to set off. They could see three lights. One
+      of them was moving: that was the steam-cutter going to the steamer, and it
+      seemed to be coming back to tell them whether the work was to be done or
+      not. Shivering with the autumn cold and the damp sea mist, wrapping
+      himself in his short torn coat, Yakov Ivanitch looked intently without
+      blinking in the direction in which lay his home. Ever since he had lived
+      in prison together with men banished here from all ends of the earth&mdash;with
+      Russians, Ukrainians, Tatars, Georgians, Chinese, Gypsies, Jews&mdash; and
+      ever since he had listened to their talk and watched their sufferings, he
+      had begun to turn again to God, and it seemed to him at last that he had
+      learned the true faith for which all his family, from his grandmother
+      Avdotya down, had so thirsted, which they had sought so long and which
+      they had never found. He knew it all now and understood where God was, and
+      how He was to be served, and the only thing he could not understand was
+      why men&rsquo;s destinies were so diverse, why this simple faith which other men
+      receive from God for nothing and together with their lives, had cost him
+      such a price that his arms and legs trembled like a drunken man&rsquo;s from all
+      the horrors and agonies which as far as he could see would go on without a
+      break to the day of his death. He looked with strained eyes into the
+      darkness, and it seemed to him that through the thousand miles of that
+      mist he could see home, could see his native province, his district,
+      Progonnaya, could see the darkness, the savagery, the heartlessness, and
+      the dull, sullen, animal indifference of the men he had left there. His
+      eyes were dimmed with tears; but still he gazed into the distance where
+      the pale lights of the steamer faintly gleamed, and his heart ached with
+      yearning for home, and he longed to live, to go back home to tell them
+      there of his new faith and to save from ruin if only one man, and to live
+      without suffering if only for one day.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The cutter arrived, and the overseer announced in a loud voice that there
+      would be no loading.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Back!&rdquo; he commanded. &ldquo;Steady!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They could hear the hoisting of the anchor chain on the steamer. A strong
+      piercing wind was blowing by now; somewhere on the steep cliff overhead
+      the trees were creaking. Most likely a storm was coming.
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0006" id="link2H_4_0006"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <h2>
+      UPROOTED
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      <i>An Incident of My Travels</i>
+    </h3>
+    <p class="pfirst">
+      <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">I</span> WAS on my way
+      back from evening service. The clock in the belfry of the Svyatogorsky
+      Monastery pealed out its soft melodious chimes by way of prelude and then
+      struck twelve. The great courtyard of the monastery stretched out at the
+      foot of the Holy Mountains on the banks of the Donets, and, enclosed by
+      the high hostel buildings as by a wall, seemed now in the night, when it
+      was lighted up only by dim lanterns, lights in the windows, and the stars,
+      a living hotch-potch full of movement, sound, and the most original
+      confusion. From end to end, so far as the eye could see, it was all choked
+      up with carts, old-fashioned coaches and chaises, vans, tilt-carts, about
+      which stood crowds of horses, dark and white, and horned oxen, while
+      people bustled about, and black long-skirted lay brothers threaded their
+      way in and out in all directions. Shadows and streaks of light cast from
+      the windows moved over the carts and the heads of men and horses, and in
+      the dense twilight this all assumed the most monstrous capricious shapes:
+      here the tilted shafts stretched upwards to the sky, here eyes of fire
+      appeared in the face of a horse, there a lay brother grew a pair of black
+      wings. . . . There was the noise of talk, the snorting and munching of
+      horses, the creaking of carts, the whimpering of children. Fresh crowds
+      kept walking in at the gate and belated carts drove up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The pines which were piled up on the overhanging mountain, one above
+      another, and leaned towards the roof of the hostel, gazed into the
+      courtyard as into a deep pit, and listened in wonder; in their dark
+      thicket the cuckoos and nightingales never ceased calling. . . . Looking
+      at the confusion, listening to the uproar, one fancied that in this living
+      hotch-potch no one understood anyone, that everyone was looking for
+      something and would not find it, and that this multitude of carts, chaises
+      and human beings could not ever succeed in getting off.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      More than ten thousand people flocked to the Holy Mountains for the
+      festivals of St. John the Divine and St. Nikolay the wonder-worker. Not
+      only the hostel buildings, but even the bakehouse, the tailoring room, the
+      carpenter&rsquo;s shop, the carriage house, were filled to overflowing. . . .
+      Those who had arrived towards night clustered like flies in autumn, by the
+      walls, round the wells in the yard, or in the narrow passages of the
+      hostel, waiting to be shown a resting-place for the night. The lay
+      brothers, young and old, were in an incessant movement, with no rest or
+      hope of being relieved. By day or late at night they produced the same
+      impression of men hastening somewhere and agitated by something, yet, in
+      spite of their extreme exhaustion, their faces remained full of courage
+      and kindly welcome, their voices friendly, their movements rapid. . . .
+      For everyone who came they had to find a place to sleep, and to provide
+      food and drink; to those who were deaf, slow to understand, or profuse in
+      questions, they had to give long and wearisome explanations, to tell them
+      why there were no empty rooms, at what o&rsquo;clock the service was to be where
+      holy bread was sold, and so on. They had to run, to carry, to talk
+      incessantly, but more than that, they had to be polite, too, to be
+      tactful, to try to arrange that the Greeks from Mariupol, accustomed to
+      live more comfortably than the Little Russians, should be put with other
+      Greeks, that some shopkeeper from Bahmut or Lisitchansk, dressed like a
+      lady, should not be offended by being put with peasants. There were
+      continual cries of: &ldquo;Father, kindly give us some kvass! Kindly give us
+      some hay!&rdquo; or &ldquo;Father, may I drink water after confession?&rdquo; And the lay
+      brother would have to give out kvass or hay or to answer: &ldquo;Address
+      yourself to the priest, my good woman, we have not the authority to give
+      permission.&rdquo; Another question would follow, &ldquo;Where is the priest then?&rdquo;
+       and the lay brother would have to explain where was the priest&rsquo;s cell.
+      With all this bustling activity, he yet had to make time to go to service
+      in the church, to serve in the part devoted to the gentry, and to give
+      full answers to the mass of necessary and unnecessary questions which
+      pilgrims of the educated class are fond of showering about them. Watching
+      them during the course of twenty-four hours, I found it hard to imagine
+      when these black moving figures sat down and when they slept.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When, coming back from the evening service, I went to the hostel in which
+      a place had been assigned me, the monk in charge of the sleeping quarters
+      was standing in the doorway, and beside him, on the steps, was a group of
+      several men and women dressed like townsfolk.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sir,&rdquo; said the monk, stopping me, &ldquo;will you be so good as to allow this
+      young man to pass the night in your room? If you would do us the favour!
+      There are so many people and no place left&mdash;it is really dreadful!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And he indicated a short figure in a light overcoat and a straw hat. I
+      consented, and my chance companion followed me. Unlocking the little
+      padlock on my door, I was always, whether I wanted to or not, obliged to
+      look at the picture that hung on the doorpost on a level with my face.
+      This picture with the title, &ldquo;A Meditation on Death,&rdquo; depicted a monk on
+      his knees, gazing at a coffin and at a skeleton laying in it. Behind the
+      man&rsquo;s back stood another skeleton, somewhat more solid and carrying a
+      scythe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There are no bones like that,&rdquo; said my companion, pointing to the place
+      in the skeleton where there ought to have been a pelvis. &ldquo;Speaking
+      generally, you know, the spiritual fare provided for the people is not of
+      the first quality,&rdquo; he added, and heaved through his nose a long and very
+      melancholy sigh, meant to show me that I had to do with a man who really
+      knew something about spiritual fare.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While I was looking for the matches to light a candle he sighed once more
+      and said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When I was in Harkov I went several times to the anatomy theatre and saw
+      the bones there; I have even been in the mortuary. Am I not in your way?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      My room was small and poky, with neither table nor chairs in it, but quite
+      filled up with a chest of drawers by the window, the stove and two little
+      wooden sofas which stood against the walls, facing one another, leaving a
+      narrow space to walk between them. Thin rusty-looking little mattresses
+      lay on the little sofas, as well as my belongings. There were two sofas,
+      so this room was evidently intended for two, and I pointed out the fact to
+      my companion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They will soon be ringing for mass, though,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;and I shan&rsquo;t have
+      to be in your way very long.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Still under the impression that he was in my way and feeling awkward, he
+      moved with a guilty step to his little sofa, sighed guiltily and sat down.
+      When the tallow candle with its dim, dilatory flame had left off
+      flickering and burned up sufficiently to make us both visible, I could
+      make out what he was like. He was a young man of two-and-twenty, with a
+      round and pleasing face, dark childlike eyes, dressed like a townsman in
+      grey cheap clothes, and as one could judge from his complexion and narrow
+      shoulders, not used to manual labour. He was of a very indefinite type;
+      one could take him neither for a student nor for a man in trade, still
+      less for a workman. But looking at his attractive face and childlike
+      friendly eyes, I was unwilling to believe he was one of those vagabond
+      impostors with whom every conventual establishment where they give food
+      and lodging is flooded, and who give themselves out as divinity students,
+      expelled for standing up for justice, or for church singers who have lost
+      their voice. . . . There was something characteristic, typical, very
+      familiar in his face, but what exactly, I could not remember nor make out.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For a long time he sat silent, pondering. Probably because I had not shown
+      appreciation of his remarks about bones and the mortuary, he thought that
+      I was ill-humoured and displeased at his presence. Pulling a sausage out
+      of his pocket, he turned it about before his eyes and said irresolutely:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Excuse my troubling you, . . . have you a knife?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I gave him a knife.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The sausage is disgusting,&rdquo; he said, frowning and cutting himself off a
+      little bit. &ldquo;In the shop here they sell you rubbish and fleece you
+      horribly. . . . I would offer you a piece, but you would scarcely care to
+      consume it. Will you have some?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      In his language, too, there was something typical that had a very great
+      deal in common with what was characteristic in his face, but what it was
+      exactly I still could not decide. To inspire confidence and to show that I
+      was not ill-humoured, I took some of the proffered sausage. It certainly
+      was horrible; one needed the teeth of a good house-dog to deal with it. As
+      we worked our jaws we got into conversation; we began complaining to each
+      other of the lengthiness of the service.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The rule here approaches that of Mount Athos,&rdquo; I said; &ldquo;but at Athos the
+      night services last ten hours, and on great feast-days &mdash;fourteen!
+      You should go there for prayers!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; answered my companion, and he wagged his head, &ldquo;I have been here
+      for three weeks. And you know, every day services, every day services. On
+      ordinary days at midnight they ring for matins, at five o&rsquo;clock for early
+      mass, at nine o&rsquo;clock for late mass. Sleep is utterly out of the question.
+      In the daytime there are hymns of praise, special prayers, vespers. . . .
+      And when I was preparing for the sacrament I was simply dropping from
+      exhaustion.&rdquo; He sighed and went on: &ldquo;And it&rsquo;s awkward not to go to church.
+      . . . The monks give one a room, feed one, and, you know, one is ashamed
+      not to go. One wouldn&rsquo;t mind standing it for a day or two, perhaps, but
+      three weeks is too much&mdash;much too much! Are you here for long?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am going to-morrow evening.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But I am staying another fortnight.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But I thought it was not the rule to stay for so long here?&rdquo; I said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, that&rsquo;s true: if anyone stays too long, sponging on the monks, he is
+      asked to go. Judge for yourself, if the proletariat were allowed to stay
+      on here as long as they liked there would never be a room vacant, and they
+      would eat up the whole monastery. That&rsquo;s true. But the monks make an
+      exception for me, and I hope they won&rsquo;t turn me out for some time. You
+      know I am a convert.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You mean?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am a Jew baptized. . . . Only lately I have embraced orthodoxy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Now I understood what I had before been utterly unable to understand from
+      his face: his thick lips, and his way of twitching up the right corner of
+      his mouth and his right eyebrow, when he was talking, and that peculiar
+      oily brilliance of his eyes which is only found in Jews. I understood,
+      too, his phraseology. . . . From further conversation I learned that his
+      name was Alexandr Ivanitch, and had in the past been Isaac, that he was a
+      native of the Mogilev province, and that he had come to the Holy Mountains
+      from Novotcherkassk, where he had adopted the orthodox faith.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Having finished his sausage, Alexandr Ivanitch got up, and, raising his
+      right eyebrow, said his prayer before the ikon. The eyebrow remained up
+      when he sat down again on the little sofa and began giving me a brief
+      account of his long biography.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;From early childhood I cherished a love for learning,&rdquo; he began in a tone
+      which suggested he was not speaking of himself, but of some great man of
+      the past. &ldquo;My parents were poor Hebrews; they exist by buying and selling
+      in a small way; they live like beggars, you know, in filth. In fact, all
+      the people there are poor and superstitious; they don&rsquo;t like education,
+      because education, very naturally, turns a man away from religion. . . .
+      They are fearful fanatics. . . . Nothing would induce my parents to let me
+      be educated, and they wanted me to take to trade, too, and to know nothing
+      but the Talmud. . . . But you will agree, it is not everyone who can spend
+      his whole life struggling for a crust of bread, wallowing in filth, and
+      mumbling the Talmud. At times officers and country gentlemen would put up
+      at papa&rsquo;s inn, and they used to talk a great deal of things which in those
+      days I had never dreamed of; and, of course, it was alluring and moved me
+      to envy. I used to cry and entreat them to send me to school, but they
+      taught me to read Hebrew and nothing more. Once I found a Russian
+      newspaper, and took it home with me to make a kite of it. I was beaten for
+      it, though I couldn&rsquo;t read Russian. Of course, fanaticism is inevitable,
+      for every people instinctively strives to preserve its nationality, but I
+      did not know that then and was very indignant. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Having made such an intellectual observation, Isaac, as he had been,
+      raised his right eyebrow higher than ever in his satisfaction and looked
+      at me, as it were, sideways, like a cock at a grain of corn, with an air
+      as though he would say: &ldquo;Now at last you see for certain that I am an
+      intellectual man, don&rsquo;t you?&rdquo; After saying something more about fanaticism
+      and his irresistible yearning for enlightenment, he went on:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What could I do? I ran away to Smolensk. And there I had a cousin who
+      relined saucepans and made tins. Of course, I was glad to work under him,
+      as I had nothing to live upon; I was barefoot and in rags. . . . I thought
+      I could work by day and study at night and on Saturdays. And so I did, but
+      the police found out I had no passport and sent me back by stages to my
+      father. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Alexandr Ivanitch shrugged one shoulder and sighed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What was one to do?&rdquo; he went on, and the more vividly the past rose up
+      before his mind, the more marked his Jewish accent became. &ldquo;My parents
+      punished me and handed me over to my grandfather, a fanatical old Jew, to
+      be reformed. But I went off at night to Shklov. And when my uncle tried to
+      catch me in Shklov, I went off to Mogilev; there I stayed two days and
+      then I went off to Starodub with a comrade.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Later on he mentioned in his story Gonel, Kiev, Byelaya, Tserkov, Uman,
+      Balt, Bendery and at last reached Odessa.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In Odessa I wandered about for a whole week, out of work and hungry, till
+      I was taken in by some Jews who went about the town buying second-hand
+      clothes. I knew how to read and write by then, and had done arithmetic up
+      to fractions, and I wanted to go to study somewhere, but I had not the
+      means. What was I to do? For six months I went about Odessa buying old
+      clothes, but the Jews paid me no wages, the rascals. I resented it and
+      left them. Then I went by steamer to Perekop.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What for?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, nothing. A Greek promised me a job there. In short, till I was
+      sixteen I wandered about like that with no definite work and no roots till
+      I got to Poltava. There a student, a Jew, found out that I wanted to
+      study, and gave me a letter to the Harkov students. Of course, I went to
+      Harkov. The students consulted together and began to prepare me for the
+      technical school. And, you know, I must say the students that I met there
+      were such that I shall never forget them to the day of my death. To say
+      nothing of their giving me food and lodging, they set me on the right
+      path, they made me think, showed me the object of life. Among them were
+      intellectual remarkable people who by now are celebrated. For instance,
+      you have heard of Grumaher, haven&rsquo;t you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, I haven&rsquo;t.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You haven&rsquo;t! He wrote very clever articles in the <i>Harkov Gazette</i>,
+      and was preparing to be a professor. Well, I read a great deal and
+      attended the student&rsquo;s societies, where you hear nothing that is
+      commonplace. I was working up for six months, but as one has to have been
+      through the whole high-school course of mathematics to enter the technical
+      school, Grumaher advised me to try for the veterinary institute, where
+      they admit high-school boys from the sixth form. Of course, I began
+      working for it. I did not want to be a veterinary surgeon but they told me
+      that after finishing the course at the veterinary institute I should be
+      admitted to the faculty of medicine without examination. I learnt all
+      Kühner; I could read Cornelius Nepos, <i>à livre ouvert</i>; and in Greek
+      I read through almost all Curtius. But, you know, one thing and another, .
+      . . the students leaving and the uncertainty of my position, and then I
+      heard that my mamma had come and was looking for me all over Harkov. Then
+      I went away. What was I to do? But luckily I learned that there was a
+      school of mines here on the Donets line. Why should I not enter that? You
+      know the school of mines qualifies one as a mining foreman&mdash;a
+      splendid berth. I know of mines where the foremen get a salary of fifteen
+      hundred a year. Capital. . . . I entered it. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      With an expression of reverent awe on his face Alexandr Ivanitch
+      enumerated some two dozen abstruse sciences in which instruction was given
+      at the school of mines; he described the school itself, the construction
+      of the shafts, and the condition of the miners. . . . Then he told me a
+      terrible story which sounded like an invention, though I could not help
+      believing it, for his tone in telling it was too genuine and the
+      expression of horror on his Semitic face was too evidently sincere.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;While I was doing the practical work, I had such an accident one day!&rdquo; he
+      said, raising both eyebrows. &ldquo;I was at a mine here in the Donets district.
+      You have seen, I dare say, how people are let down into the mine. You
+      remember when they start the horse and set the gates moving one bucket on
+      the pulley goes down into the mine, while the other comes up; when the
+      first begins to come up, then the second goes down&mdash;exactly like a
+      well with two pails. Well, one day I got into the bucket, began going
+      down, and can you fancy, all at once I heard, Trrr! The chain had broken
+      and I flew to the devil together with the bucket and the broken bit of
+      chain. . . . I fell from a height of twenty feet, flat on my chest and
+      stomach, while the bucket, being heavier, reached the bottom before me,
+      and I hit this shoulder here against its edge. I lay, you know, stunned. I
+      thought I was killed, and all at once I saw a fresh calamity: the other
+      bucket, which was going up, having lost the counter-balancing weight, was
+      coming down with a crash straight upon me. . . . What was I to do? Seeing
+      the position, I squeezed closer to the wall, crouching and waiting for the
+      bucket to come full crush next minute on my head. I thought of papa and
+      mamma and Mogilev and Grumaher. . . . I prayed. . . . But happily . . . it
+      frightens me even to think of it. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Alexandr Ivanitch gave a constrained smile and rubbed his forehead with
+      his hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But happily it fell beside me and only caught this side a little. . . .
+      It tore off coat, shirt and skin, you know, from this side. . . . The
+      force of it was terrific. I was unconscious after it. They got me out and
+      sent me to the hospital. I was there four months, and the doctors there
+      said I should go into consumption. I always have a cough now and a pain in
+      my chest. And my psychic condition is terrible. . . . When I am alone in a
+      room I feel overcome with terror. Of course, with my health in that state,
+      to be a mining foreman is out of the question. I had to give up the school
+      of mines. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And what are you doing now?&rdquo; I asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have passed my examination as a village schoolmaster. Now I belong to
+      the orthodox church, and I have a right to be a teacher. In
+      Novotcherkassk, where I was baptized, they took a great interest in me and
+      promised me a place in a church parish school. I am going there in a
+      fortnight, and shall ask again.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Alexandr Ivanitch took off his overcoat and remained in a shirt with an
+      embroidered Russian collar and a worsted belt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is time for bed,&rdquo; he said, folding his overcoat for a pillow, and
+      yawning. &ldquo;Till lately, you know, I had no knowledge of God at all. I was
+      an atheist. When I was lying in the hospital I thought of religion, and
+      began reflecting on that subject. In my opinion, there is only one
+      religion possible for a thinking man, and that is the Christian religion.
+      If you don&rsquo;t believe in Christ, then there is nothing else to believe in,
+      . . . is there? Judaism has outlived its day, and is preserved only owing
+      to the peculiarities of the Jewish race. When civilization reaches the
+      Jews there will not be a trace of Judaism left. All young Jews are
+      atheists now, observe. The New Testament is the natural continuation of
+      the Old, isn&rsquo;t it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I began trying to find out the reasons which had led him to take so grave
+      and bold a step as the change of religion, but he kept repeating the same,
+      &ldquo;The New Testament is the natural continuation of the Old&rdquo;&mdash;a formula
+      obviously not his own, but acquired&mdash; which did not explain the
+      question in the least. In spite of my efforts and artifices, the reasons
+      remained obscure. If one could believe that he had embraced Orthodoxy from
+      conviction, as he said he had done, what was the nature and foundation of
+      this conviction it was impossible to grasp from his words. It was equally
+      impossible to assume that he had changed his religion from interested
+      motives: his cheap shabby clothes, his going on living at the expense of
+      the convent, and the uncertainty of his future, did not look like
+      interested motives. There was nothing for it but to accept the idea that
+      my companion had been impelled to change his religion by the same restless
+      spirit which had flung him like a chip of wood from town to town, and
+      which he, using the generally accepted formula, called the craving for
+      enlightenment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Before going to bed I went into the corridor to get a drink of water. When
+      I came back my companion was standing in the middle of the room, and he
+      looked at me with a scared expression. His face looked a greyish white,
+      and there were drops of perspiration on his forehead.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My nerves are in an awful state,&rdquo; he muttered with a sickly smile,&rdquo;
+       awful! It&rsquo;s acute psychological disturbance. But that&rsquo;s of no
+      consequence.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And he began reasoning again that the New Testament was a natural
+      continuation of the Old, that Judaism has outlived its day. . . . Picking
+      out his phrases, he seemed to be trying to put together the forces of his
+      conviction and to smother with them the uneasiness of his soul, and to
+      prove to himself that in giving up the religion of his fathers he had done
+      nothing dreadful or peculiar, but had acted as a thinking man free from
+      prejudice, and that therefore he could boldly remain in a room all alone
+      with his conscience. He was trying to convince himself, and with his eyes
+      besought my assistance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Meanwhile a big clumsy wick had burned up on our tallow candle. It was by
+      now getting light. At the gloomy little window, which was turning blue, we
+      could distinctly see both banks of the Donets River and the oak copse
+      beyond the river. It was time to sleep.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It will be very interesting here to-morrow,&rdquo; said my companion when I put
+      out the candle and went to bed. &ldquo;After early mass, the procession will go
+      in boats from the Monastery to the Hermitage.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Raising his right eyebrow and putting his head on one side, he prayed
+      before the ikons, and, without undressing, lay down on his little sofa.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; he said, turning over on the other side.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why yes?&rdquo; I asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When I accepted orthodoxy in Novotcherkassk my mother was looking for me
+      in Rostov. She felt that I meant to change my religion,&rdquo; he sighed, and
+      went on: &ldquo;It is six years since I was there in the province of Mogilev. My
+      sister must be married by now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      After a short silence, seeing that I was still awake, he began talking
+      quietly of how they soon, thank God, would give him a job, and that at
+      last he would have a home of his own, a settled position, his daily bread
+      secure. . . . And I was thinking that this man would never have a home of
+      his own, nor a settled position, nor his daily bread secure. He dreamed
+      aloud of a village school as of the Promised Land; like the majority of
+      people, he had a prejudice against a wandering life, and regarded it as
+      something exceptional, abnormal and accidental, like an illness, and was
+      looking for salvation in ordinary workaday life. The tone of his voice
+      betrayed that he was conscious of his abnormal position and regretted it.
+      He seemed as it were apologizing and justifying himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Not more than a yard from me lay a homeless wanderer; in the rooms of the
+      hostels and by the carts in the courtyard among the pilgrims some hundreds
+      of such homeless wanderers were waiting for the morning, and further away,
+      if one could picture to oneself the whole of Russia, a vast multitude of
+      such uprooted creatures was pacing at that moment along highroads and
+      side-tracks, seeking something better, or were waiting for the dawn,
+      asleep in wayside inns and little taverns, or on the grass under the open
+      sky. . . . As I fell asleep I imagined how amazed and perhaps even
+      overjoyed all these people would have been if reasoning and words could be
+      found to prove to them that their life was as little in need of
+      justification as any other. In my sleep I heard a bell ring outside as
+      plaintively as though shedding bitter tears, and the lay brother calling
+      out several times:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy upon us! Come to mass!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      When I woke up my companion was not in the room. It was sunny and there
+      was a murmur of the crowds through the window. Going out, I learned that
+      mass was over and that the procession had set off for the Hermitage some
+      time before. The people were wandering in crowds upon the river bank and,
+      feeling at liberty, did not know what to do with themselves: they could
+      not eat or drink, as the late mass was not yet over at the Hermitage; the
+      Monastery shops where pilgrims are so fond of crowding and asking prices
+      were still shut. In spite of their exhaustion, many of them from sheer
+      boredom were trudging to the Hermitage. The path from the Monastery to the
+      Hermitage, towards which I directed my steps, twined like a snake along
+      the high steep bank, going up and down and threading in and out among the
+      oaks and pines. Below, the Donets gleamed, reflecting the sun; above, the
+      rugged chalk cliff stood up white with bright green on the top from the
+      young foliage of oaks and pines, which, hanging one above another, managed
+      somehow to grow on the vertical cliff without falling. The pilgrims
+      trailed along the path in single file, one behind another. The majority of
+      them were Little Russians from the neighbouring districts, but there were
+      many from a distance, too, who had come on foot from the provinces of
+      Kursk and Orel; in the long string of varied colours there were Greek
+      settlers, too, from Mariupol, strongly built, sedate and friendly people,
+      utterly unlike their weakly and degenerate compatriots who fill our
+      southern seaside towns. There were men from the Donets, too, with red
+      stripes on their breeches, and emigrants from the Tavritchesky province.
+      There were a good many pilgrims of a nondescript class, like my Alexandr
+      Ivanitch; what sort of people they were and where they came from it was
+      impossible to tell from their faces, from their clothes, or from their
+      speech. The path ended at the little landing-stage, from which a narrow
+      road went to the left to the Hermitage, cutting its way through the
+      mountain. At the landing-stage stood two heavy big boats of a forbidding
+      aspect, like the New Zealand pirogues which one may see in the works of
+      Jules Verne. One boat with rugs on the seats was destined for the clergy
+      and the singers, the other without rugs for the public. When the
+      procession was returning I found myself among the elect who had succeeded
+      in squeezing themselves into the second. There were so many of the elect
+      that the boat scarcely moved, and one had to stand all the way without
+      stirring and to be careful that one&rsquo;s hat was not crushed. The route was
+      lovely. Both banks&mdash;one high, steep and white, with overhanging pines
+      and oaks, with the crowds hurrying back along the path, and the other
+      shelving, with green meadows and an oak copse bathed in sunshine&mdash;looked
+      as happy and rapturous as though the May morning owed its charm only to
+      them. The reflection of the sun in the rapidly flowing Donets quivered and
+      raced away in all directions, and its long rays played on the chasubles,
+      on the banners and on the drops splashed up by the oars. The singing of
+      the Easter hymns, the ringing of the bells, the splash of the oars in the
+      water, the calls of the birds, all mingled in the air into something
+      tender and harmonious. The boat with the priests and the banners led the
+      way; at its helm the black figure of a lay brother stood motionless as a
+      statue.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When the procession was getting near the Monastery, I noticed Alexandr
+      Ivanitch among the elect. He was standing in front of them all, and, his
+      mouth wide open with pleasure and his right eyebrow cocked up, was gazing
+      at the procession. His face was beaming; probably at such moments, when
+      there were so many people round him and it was so bright, he was satisfied
+      with himself, his new religion, and his conscience.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When a little later we were sitting in our room, drinking tea, he still
+      beamed with satisfaction; his face showed that he was satisfied both with
+      the tea and with me, that he fully appreciated my being an intellectual,
+      but that he would know how to play his part with credit if any
+      intellectual topic turned up. . . .
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tell me, what psychology ought I to read?&rdquo; he began an intellectual
+      conversation, wrinkling up his nose.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, what do you want it for?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;One cannot be a teacher without a knowledge of psychology. Before
+      teaching a boy I ought to understand his soul.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I told him that psychology alone would not be enough to make one
+      understand a boy&rsquo;s soul, and moreover psychology for a teacher who had not
+      yet mastered the technical methods of instruction in reading, writing, and
+      arithmetic would be a luxury as superfluous as the higher mathematics. He
+      readily agreed with me, and began describing how hard and responsible was
+      the task of a teacher, how hard it was to eradicate in the boy the
+      habitual tendency to evil and superstition, to make him think honestly and
+      independently, to instil into him true religion, the ideas of personal
+      dignity, of freedom, and so on. In answer to this I said something to him.
+      He agreed again. He agreed very readily, in fact. Obviously his brain had
+      not a very firm grasp of all these &ldquo;intellectual subjects.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Up to the time of my departure we strolled together about the Monastery,
+      whiling away the long hot day. He never left my side a minute; whether he
+      had taken a fancy to me or was afraid of solitude, God only knows! I
+      remember we sat together under a clump of yellow acacia in one of the
+      little gardens that are scattered on the mountain side.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am leaving here in a fortnight,&rdquo; he said; &ldquo;it is high time.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you going on foot?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;From here to Slavyansk I shall walk, then by railway to Nikitovka; from
+      Nikitovka the Donets line branches off, and along that branch line I shall
+      walk as far as Hatsepetovka, and there a railway guard, I know, will help
+      me on my way.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I thought of the bare, deserted steppe between Nikitovka and Hatsepetovka,
+      and pictured to myself Alexandr Ivanitch striding along it, with his
+      doubts, his homesickness, and his fear of solitude . . . . He read boredom
+      in my face, and sighed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And my sister must be married by now,&rdquo; he said, thinking aloud, and at
+      once, to shake off melancholy thoughts, pointed to the top of the rock and
+      said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;From that mountain one can see Izyum.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      As we were walking up the mountain he had a little misfortune. I suppose
+      he stumbled, for he slit his cotton trousers and tore the sole of his
+      shoe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tss!&rdquo; he said, frowning as he took off a shoe and exposed a bare foot
+      without a stocking. &ldquo;How unpleasant! . . . That&rsquo;s a complication, you
+      know, which . . . Yes!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Turning the shoe over and over before his eyes, as though unable to
+      believe that the sole was ruined for ever, he spent a long time frowning,
+      sighing, and clicking with his tongue.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I had in my trunk a pair of boots, old but fashionable, with pointed toes
+      and laces. I had brought them with me in case of need, and only wore them
+      in wet weather. When we got back to our room I made up a phrase as
+      diplomatic as I could and offered him these boots. He accepted them and
+      said with dignity:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I should thank you, but I know that you consider thanks a convention.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He was pleased as a child with the pointed toes and the laces, and even
+      changed his plans.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now I shall go to Novotcherkassk in a week, and not in a fortnight,&rdquo; he
+      said, thinking aloud. &ldquo;In shoes like these I shall not be ashamed to show
+      myself to my godfather. I was not going away from here just because I
+      hadn&rsquo;t any decent clothes. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      When the coachman was carrying out my trunk, a lay brother with a good
+      ironical face came in to sweep out the room. Alexandr Ivanitch seemed
+      flustered and embarrassed and asked him timidly:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Am I to stay here or go somewhere else?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He could not make up his mind to occupy a whole room to himself, and
+      evidently by now was feeling ashamed of living at the expense of the
+      Monastery. He was very reluctant to part from me; to put off being lonely
+      as long as possible, he asked leave to see me on my way.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The road from the Monastery, which had been excavated at the cost of no
+      little labour in the chalk mountain, moved upwards, going almost like a
+      spiral round the mountain, over roots and under sullen overhanging pines.
+      . . .
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Donets was the first to vanish from our sight, after it the Monastery
+      yard with its thousands of people, and then the green roofs. . . . Since I
+      was mounting upwards everything seemed vanishing into a pit. The cross on
+      the church, burnished by the rays of the setting sun, gleamed brightly in
+      the abyss and vanished. Nothing was left but the oaks, the pines, and the
+      white road. But then our carriage came out on a level country, and that
+      was all left below and behind us. Alexandr Ivanitch jumped out and,
+      smiling mournfully, glanced at me for the last time with his childish
+      eyes, and vanished from me for ever. . . .
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The impressions of the Holy Mountains had already become memories, and I
+      saw something new: the level plain, the whitish-brown distance, the way
+      side copse, and beyond it a windmill which stood with out moving, and
+      seemed bored at not being allowed to wave its sails because it was a
+      holiday.
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0007" id="link2H_4_0007"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <h2>
+      THE STEPPE
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      <i>The Story of a Journey</i>
+    </h3>
+    <h3>
+      I
+    </h3>
+    <p class="pfirst">
+      <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">E</span>ARLY one morning
+      in July a shabby covered chaise, one of those antediluvian chaises without
+      springs in which no one travels in Russia nowadays, except merchant&rsquo;s
+      clerks, dealers and the less well-to-do among priests, drove out of N.,
+      the principal town of the province of Z., and rumbled noisily along the
+      posting-track. It rattled and creaked at every movement; the pail, hanging
+      on behind, chimed in gruffly, and from these sounds alone and from the
+      wretched rags of leather hanging loose about its peeling body one could
+      judge of its decrepit age and readiness to drop to pieces.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Two of the inhabitants of N. were sitting in the chaise; they were a
+      merchant of N. called Ivan Ivanitch Kuzmitchov, a man with a shaven face
+      wearing glasses and a straw hat, more like a government clerk than a
+      merchant, and Father Christopher Sireysky, the priest of the Church of St.
+      Nikolay at N., a little old man with long hair, in a grey canvas cassock,
+      a wide-brimmed top-hat and a coloured embroidered girdle. The former was
+      absorbed in thought, and kept tossing his head to shake off drowsiness; in
+      his countenance an habitual business-like reserve was struggling with the
+      genial expression of a man who has just said good-bye to his relatives and
+      has had a good drink at parting. The latter gazed with moist eyes
+      wonderingly at God&rsquo;s world, and his smile was so broad that it seemed to
+      embrace even the brim of his hat; his face was red and looked frozen. Both
+      of them, Father Christopher as well as Kuzmitchov, were going to sell
+      wool. At parting with their families they had just eaten heartily of
+      pastry puffs and cream, and although it was so early in the morning had
+      had a glass or two. . . . Both were in the best of humours.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Apart from the two persons described above and the coachman Deniska, who
+      lashed the pair of frisky bay horses, there was another figure in the
+      chaise&mdash;a boy of nine with a sunburnt face, wet with tears. This was
+      Yegorushka, Kuzmitchov&rsquo;s nephew. With the sanction of his uncle and the
+      blessing of Father Christopher, he was now on his way to go to school. His
+      mother, Olga Ivanovna, the widow of a collegiate secretary, and
+      Kuzmitchov&rsquo;s sister, who was fond of educated people and refined society,
+      had entreated her brother to take Yegorushka with him when he went to sell
+      wool and to put him to school; and now the boy was sitting on the box
+      beside the coachman Deniska, holding on to his elbow to keep from falling
+      off, and dancing up and down like a kettle on the hob, with no notion
+      where he was going or what he was going for. The rapid motion through the
+      air blew out his red shirt like a balloon on his back and made his new hat
+      with a peacock&rsquo;s feather in it, like a coachman&rsquo;s, keep slipping on to the
+      back of his head. He felt himself an intensely unfortunate person, and had
+      an inclination to cry.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When the chaise drove past the prison, Yegorushka glanced at the sentinels
+      pacing slowly by the high white walls, at the little barred windows, at
+      the cross shining on the roof, and remembered how the week before, on the
+      day of the Holy Mother of Kazan, he had been with his mother to the prison
+      church for the Dedication Feast, and how before that, at Easter, he had
+      gone to the prison with Deniska and Ludmila the cook, and had taken the
+      prisoners Easter bread, eggs, cakes and roast beef. The prisoners had
+      thanked them and made the sign of the cross, and one of them had given
+      Yegorushka a pewter buckle of his own making.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The boy gazed at the familiar places, while the hateful chaise flew by and
+      left them all behind. After the prison he caught glimpses of black grimy
+      foundries, followed by the snug green cemetery surrounded by a wall of
+      cobblestones; white crosses and tombstones, nestling among green
+      cherry-trees and looking in the distance like patches of white, peeped out
+      gaily from behind the wall. Yegorushka remembered that when the cherries
+      were in blossom those white patches melted with the flowers into a sea of
+      white; and that when the cherries were ripe the white tombstones and
+      crosses were dotted with splashes of red like bloodstains. Under the
+      cherry trees in the cemetery Yegorushka&rsquo;s father and granny, Zinaida
+      Danilovna, lay sleeping day and night. When Granny had died she had been
+      put in a long narrow coffin and two pennies had been put upon her eyes,
+      which would not keep shut. Up to the time of her death she had been brisk,
+      and used to bring soft rolls covered with poppy seeds from the market. Now
+      she did nothing but sleep and sleep. . . .
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Beyond the cemetery came the smoking brickyards. From under the long roofs
+      of reeds that looked as though pressed flat to the ground, a thick black
+      smoke rose in great clouds and floated lazily upwards. The sky was murky
+      above the brickyards and the cemetery, and great shadows from the clouds
+      of smoke crept over the fields and across the roads. Men and horses
+      covered with red dust were moving about in the smoke near the roofs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The town ended with the brickyards and the open country began. Yegorushka
+      looked at the town for the last time, pressed his face against Deniska&rsquo;s
+      elbow, and wept bitterly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come, not done howling yet, cry-baby!&rdquo; cried Kuzmitchov. &ldquo;You are
+      blubbering again, little milksop! If you don&rsquo;t want to go, stay behind; no
+      one is taking you by force!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Never mind, never mind, Yegor boy, never mind,&rdquo; Father Christopher
+      muttered rapidly&mdash;&ldquo;never mind, my boy. . . . Call upon God. . . . You
+      are not going for your harm, but for your good. Learning is light, as the
+      saying is, and ignorance is darkness. . . . That is so, truly.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you want to go back?&rdquo; asked Kuzmitchov.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, . . . yes, . . .&rdquo; answered Yegorushka, sobbing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, you&rsquo;d better go back then. Anyway, you are going for nothing; it&rsquo;s
+      a day&rsquo;s journey for a spoonful of porridge.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Never mind, never mind, my boy,&rdquo; Father Christopher went on. &ldquo;Call upon
+      God. . . . Lomonosov set off with the fishermen in the same way, and he
+      became a man famous all over Europe. Learning in conjunction with faith
+      brings forth fruit pleasing to God. What are the words of the prayer? For
+      the glory of our Maker, for the comfort of our parents, for the benefit of
+      our Church and our country. . . . Yes, indeed!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The benefit is not the same in all cases,&rdquo; said Kuzmitchov, lighting a
+      cheap cigar; &ldquo;some will study twenty years and get no sense from it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That does happen.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Learning is a benefit to some, but others only muddle their brains. My
+      sister is a woman who does not understand; she is set upon refinement, and
+      wants to turn Yegorka into a learned man, and she does not understand that
+      with my business I could settle Yegorka happily for the rest of his life.
+      I tell you this, that if everyone were to go in for being learned and
+      refined there would be no one to sow the corn and do the trading; they
+      would all die of hunger.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And if all go in for trading and sowing corn there will be no one to
+      acquire learning.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And considering that each of them had said something weighty and
+      convincing, Kuzmitchov and Father Christopher both looked serious and
+      cleared their throats simultaneously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Deniska, who had been listening to their conversation without
+      understanding a word of it, shook his head and, rising in his seat, lashed
+      at both the bays. A silence followed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Meanwhile a wide boundless plain encircled by a chain of low hills lay
+      stretched before the travellers&rsquo; eyes. Huddling together and peeping out
+      from behind one another, these hills melted together into rising ground,
+      which stretched right to the very horizon and disappeared into the lilac
+      distance; one drives on and on and cannot discern where it begins or where
+      it ends. . . . The sun had already peeped out from beyond the town behind
+      them, and quietly, without fuss, set to its accustomed task. At first in
+      the distance before them a broad, bright, yellow streak of light crept
+      over the ground where the earth met the sky, near the little barrows and
+      the windmills, which in the distance looked like tiny men waving their
+      arms. A minute later a similar streak gleamed a little nearer, crept to
+      the right and embraced the hills. Something warm touched Yegorushka&rsquo;s
+      spine; the streak of light, stealing up from behind, darted between the
+      chaise and the horses, moved to meet the other streak, and soon the whole
+      wide steppe flung off the twilight of early morning, and was smiling and
+      sparkling with dew.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The cut rye, the coarse steppe grass, the milkwort, the wild hemp, all
+      withered from the sultry heat, turned brown and half dead, now washed by
+      the dew and caressed by the sun, revived, to fade again. Arctic petrels
+      flew across the road with joyful cries; marmots called to one another in
+      the grass. Somewhere, far away to the left, lapwings uttered their
+      plaintive notes. A covey of partridges, scared by the chaise, fluttered up
+      and with their soft &ldquo;trrrr!&rdquo; flew off to the hills. In the grass crickets,
+      locusts and grasshoppers kept up their churring, monotonous music.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But a little time passed, the dew evaporated, the air grew stagnant, and
+      the disillusioned steppe began to wear its jaded July aspect. The grass
+      drooped, everything living was hushed. The sun-baked hills, brownish-green
+      and lilac in the distance, with their quiet shadowy tones, the plain with
+      the misty distance and, arched above them, the sky, which seems terribly
+      deep and transparent in the steppes, where there are no woods or high
+      hills, seemed now endless, petrified with dreariness. . . .
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      How stifling and oppressive it was! The chaise raced along, while
+      Yegorushka saw always the same&mdash;the sky, the plain, the low hills . .
+      . . The music in the grass was hushed, the petrels had flown away, the
+      partridges were out of sight, rooks hovered idly over the withered grass;
+      they were all alike and made the steppe even more monotonous.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A hawk flew just above the ground, with an even sweep of its wings,
+      suddenly halted in the air as though pondering on the dreariness of life,
+      then fluttered its wings and flew like an arrow over the steppe, and there
+      was no telling why it flew off and what it wanted. In the distance a
+      windmill waved its sails. . . .
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now and then a glimpse of a white potsherd or a heap of stones broke the
+      monotony; a grey stone stood out for an instant or a parched willow with a
+      blue crow on its top branch; a marmot would run across the road and&mdash;again
+      there flitted before the eyes only the high grass, the low hills, the
+      rooks. . . .
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But at last, thank God, a waggon loaded with sheaves came to meet them; a
+      peasant wench was lying on the very top. Sleepy, exhausted by the heat,
+      she lifted her head and looked at the travellers. Deniska gaped, looking
+      at her; the horses stretched out their noses towards the sheaves; the
+      chaise, squeaking, kissed the waggon, and the pointed ears passed over
+      Father Christopher&rsquo;s hat like a brush.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are driving over folks, fatty!&rdquo; cried Deniska. &ldquo;What a swollen lump
+      of a face, as though a bumble-bee had stung it!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The girl smiled drowsily, and moving her lips lay down again; then a
+      solitary poplar came into sight on the low hill. Someone had planted it,
+      and God only knows why it was there. It was hard to tear the eyes away
+      from its graceful figure and green drapery. Was that lovely creature
+      happy? Sultry heat in summer, in winter frost and snowstorms, terrible
+      nights in autumn when nothing is to be seen but darkness and nothing is to
+      be heard but the senseless angry howling wind, and, worst of all, alone,
+      alone for the whole of life . . . . Beyond the poplar stretches of wheat
+      extended like a bright yellow carpet from the road to the top of the
+      hills. On the hills the corn was already cut and laid up in sheaves, while
+      at the bottom they were still cutting. . . . Six mowers were standing in a
+      row swinging their scythes, and the scythes gleamed gaily and uttered in
+      unison together &ldquo;Vzhee, vzhee!&rdquo; From the movements of the peasant women
+      binding the sheaves, from the faces of the mowers, from the glitter of the
+      scythes, it could be seen that the sultry heat was baking and stifling. A
+      black dog with its tongue hanging out ran from the mowers to meet the
+      chaise, probably with the intention of barking, but stopped halfway and
+      stared indifferently at Deniska, who shook his whip at him; it was too hot
+      to bark! One peasant woman got up and, putting both hands to her aching
+      back, followed Yegorushka&rsquo;s red shirt with her eyes. Whether it was that
+      the colour pleased her or that he reminded her of her children, she stood
+      a long time motionless staring after him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But now the wheat, too, had flashed by; again the parched plain, the
+      sunburnt hills, the sultry sky stretched before them; again a hawk hovered
+      over the earth. In the distance, as before, a windmill whirled its sails,
+      and still it looked like a little man waving his arms. It was wearisome to
+      watch, and it seemed as though one would never reach it, as though it were
+      running away from the chaise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Father Christopher and Kuzmitchov were silent. Deniska lashed the horses
+      and kept shouting to them, while Yegorushka had left off crying, and gazed
+      about him listlessly. The heat and the tedium of the steppes overpowered
+      him. He felt as though he had been travelling and jolting up and down for
+      a very long time, that the sun had been baking his back a long time.
+      Before they had gone eight miles he began to feel &ldquo;It must be time to
+      rest.&rdquo; The geniality gradually faded out of his uncle&rsquo;s face and nothing
+      else was left but the air of business reserve; and to a gaunt shaven face,
+      especially when it is adorned with spectacles and the nose and temples are
+      covered with dust, this reserve gives a relentless, inquisitorial
+      appearance. Father Christopher never left off gazing with wonder at God&rsquo;s
+      world, and smiling. Without speaking, he brooded over something pleasant
+      and nice, and a kindly, genial smile remained imprinted on his face. It
+      seemed as though some nice and pleasant thought were imprinted on his
+      brain by the heat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, Deniska, shall we overtake the waggons to-day?&rdquo; asked Kuzmitchov.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Deniska looked at the sky, rose in his seat, lashed at his horses and then
+      answered:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;By nightfall, please God, we shall overtake them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a sound of dogs barking. Half a dozen steppe sheep-dogs,
+      suddenly leaping out as though from ambush, with ferocious howling barks,
+      flew to meet the chaise. All of them, extraordinarily furious, surrounded
+      the chaise, with their shaggy spider-like muzzles and their eyes red with
+      anger, and jostling against one another in their anger, raised a hoarse
+      howl. They were filled with passionate hatred of the horses, of the
+      chaise, and of the human beings, and seemed ready to tear them into
+      pieces. Deniska, who was fond of teasing and beating, was delighted at the
+      chance of it, and with a malignant expression bent over and lashed at the
+      sheep-dogs with his whip. The brutes growled more than ever, the horses
+      flew on; and Yegorushka, who had difficulty in keeping his seat on the
+      box, realized, looking at the dogs&rsquo; eyes and teeth, that if he fell down
+      they would instantly tear him to bits; but he felt no fear and looked at
+      them as malignantly as Deniska, and regretted that he had no whip in his
+      hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The chaise came upon a flock of sheep.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Stop!&rdquo; cried Kuzmitchov. &ldquo;Pull up! Woa!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Deniska threw his whole body backwards and pulled up the horses.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come here!&rdquo; Kuzmitchov shouted to the shepherd. &ldquo;Call off the dogs, curse
+      them!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The old shepherd, tattered and barefoot, wearing a fur cap, with a dirty
+      sack round his loins and a long crook in his hand&mdash;a regular figure
+      from the Old Testament&mdash;called off the dogs, and taking off his cap,
+      went up to the chaise. Another similar Old Testament figure was standing
+      motionless at the other end of the flock, staring without interest at the
+      travellers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Whose sheep are these?&rdquo; asked Kuzmitchov.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Varlamov&rsquo;s,&rdquo; the old man answered in a loud voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Varlamov&rsquo;s,&rdquo; repeated the shepherd standing at the other end of the
+      flock.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did Varlamov come this way yesterday or not?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He did not; his clerk came. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Drive on!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The chaise rolled on and the shepherds, with their angry dogs, were left
+      behind. Yegorushka gazed listlessly at the lilac distance in front, and it
+      began to seem as though the windmill, waving its sails, were getting
+      nearer. It became bigger and bigger, grew quite large, and now he could
+      distinguish clearly its two sails. One sail was old and patched, the other
+      had only lately been made of new wood and glistened in the sun. The chaise
+      drove straight on, while the windmill, for some reason, began retreating
+      to the left. They drove on and on, and the windmill kept moving away to
+      the left, and still did not disappear.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A fine windmill Boltva has put up for his son,&rdquo; observed Deniska.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And how is it we don&rsquo;t see his farm?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is that way, beyond the creek.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Boltva&rsquo;s farm, too, soon came into sight, but yet the windmill did not
+      retreat, did not drop behind; it still watched Yegorushka with its shining
+      sail and waved. What a sorcerer!
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      II
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      Towards midday the chaise turned off the road to the right; it went on a
+      little way at walking pace and then stopped. Yegorushka heard a soft, very
+      caressing gurgle, and felt a different air breathe on his face with a cool
+      velvety touch. Through a little pipe of hemlock stuck there by some
+      unknown benefactor, water was running in a thin trickle from a low hill,
+      put together by nature of huge monstrous stones. It fell to the ground,
+      and limpid, sparkling gaily in the sun, and softly murmuring as though
+      fancying itself a great tempestuous torrent, flowed swiftly away to the
+      left. Not far from its source the little stream spread itself out into a
+      pool; the burning sunbeams and the parched soil greedily drank it up and
+      sucked away its strength; but a little further on it must have mingled
+      with another rivulet, for a hundred paces away thick reeds showed green
+      and luxuriant along its course, and three snipe flew up from them with a
+      loud cry as the chaise drove by.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The travellers got out to rest by the stream and feed the horses.
+      Kuzmitchov, Father Christopher and Yegorushka sat down on a mat in the
+      narrow strip of shade cast by the chaise and the unharnessed horses. The
+      nice pleasant thought that the heat had imprinted in Father Christopher&rsquo;s
+      brain craved expression after he had had a drink of water and eaten a
+      hard-boiled egg. He bent a friendly look upon Yegorushka, munched, and
+      began:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I studied too, my boy; from the earliest age God instilled into me good
+      sense and understanding, so that while I was just such a lad as you I was
+      beyond others, a comfort to my parents and preceptors by my good sense.
+      Before I was fifteen I could speak and make verses in Latin, just as in
+      Russian. I was the crosier-bearer to his Holiness Bishop Christopher.
+      After mass one day, as I remember it was the patron saint&rsquo;s day of His
+      Majesty Tsar Alexandr Pavlovitch of blessed memory, he unrobed at the
+      altar, looked kindly at me and asked, &lsquo;Puer bone, quam appelaris?&rsquo; And I
+      answered, &lsquo;Christopherus sum;&rsquo; and he said, &lsquo;Ergo connominati sumus&rsquo;&mdash;that
+      is, that we were namesakes. . . Then he asked in Latin, &lsquo;Whose son are
+      you?&rsquo; To which I answered, also in Latin, that I was the son of deacon
+      Sireysky of the village of Lebedinskoe. Seeing my readiness and the
+      clearness of my answers, his Holiness blessed me and said, &lsquo;Write to your
+      father that I will not forget him, and that I will keep you in view.&rsquo; The
+      holy priests and fathers who were standing round the altar, hearing our
+      discussion in Latin, were not a little surprised, and everyone expressed
+      his pleasure in praise of me. Before I had moustaches, my boy, I could
+      read Latin, Greek, and French; I knew philosophy, mathematics, secular
+      history, and all the sciences. The Lord gave me a marvellous memory.
+      Sometimes, if I read a thing once or twice, I knew it by heart. My
+      preceptors and patrons were amazed, and so they expected I should make a
+      learned man, a luminary of the Church. I did think of going to Kiev to
+      continue my studies, but my parents did not approve. &lsquo;You&rsquo;ll be studying
+      all your life,&rsquo; said my father; &lsquo;when shall we see you finished?&rsquo; Hearing
+      such words, I gave up study and took a post. . . . Of course, I did not
+      become a learned man, but then I did not disobey my parents; I was a
+      comfort to them in their old age and gave them a creditable funeral.
+      Obedience is more than fasting and prayer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I suppose you have forgotten all your learning?&rdquo; observed Kuzmitchov.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I should think so! Thank God, I have reached my eightieth year! Something
+      of philosophy and rhetoric I do remember, but languages and mathematics I
+      have quite forgotten.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Father Christopher screwed up his eyes, thought a minute and said in an
+      undertone:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is a substance? A creature is a self-existing object, not requiring
+      anything else for its completion.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He shook his head and laughed with feeling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Spiritual nourishment!&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Of a truth matter nourishes the flesh
+      and spiritual nourishment the soul!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Learning is all very well,&rdquo; sighed Kuzmitchov, &ldquo;but if we don&rsquo;t overtake
+      Varlamov, learning won&rsquo;t do much for us.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A man isn&rsquo;t a needle&mdash;we shall find him. He must be going his rounds
+      in these parts.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Among the sedge were flying the three snipe they had seen before, and in
+      their plaintive cries there was a note of alarm and vexation at having
+      been driven away from the stream. The horses were steadily munching and
+      snorting. Deniska walked about by them and, trying to appear indifferent
+      to the cucumbers, pies, and eggs that the gentry were eating, he
+      concentrated himself on the gadflies and horseflies that were fastening
+      upon the horses&rsquo; backs and bellies; he squashed his victims apathetically,
+      emitting a peculiar, fiendishly triumphant, guttural sound, and when he
+      missed them cleared his throat with an air of vexation and looked after
+      every lucky one that escaped death.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Deniska, where are you? Come and eat,&rdquo; said Kuzmitchov, heaving a deep
+      sigh, a sign that he had had enough.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Deniska diffidently approached the mat and picked out five thick and
+      yellow cucumbers (he did not venture to take the smaller and fresher
+      ones), took two hard-boiled eggs that looked dark and were cracked, then
+      irresolutely, as though afraid he might get a blow on his outstretched
+      hand, touched a pie with his finger.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Take them, take them,&rdquo; Kuzmitchov urged him on.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Deniska took the pies resolutely, and, moving some distance away, sat down
+      on the grass with his back to the chaise. At once there was such a sound
+      of loud munching that even the horses turned round to look suspiciously at
+      Deniska.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After his meal Kuzmitchov took a sack containing something out of the
+      chaise and said to Yegorushka:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am going to sleep, and you mind that no one takes the sack from under
+      my head.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Father Christopher took off his cassock, his girdle, and his full coat,
+      and Yegorushka, looking at him, was dumb with astonishment. He had never
+      imagined that priests wore trousers, and Father Christopher had on real
+      canvas trousers thrust into high boots, and a short striped jacket.
+      Looking at him, Yegorushka thought that in this costume, so unsuitable to
+      his dignified position, he looked with his long hair and beard very much
+      like Robinson Crusoe. After taking off their outer garments Kuzmitchov and
+      Father Christopher lay down in the shade under the chaise, facing one
+      another, and closed their eyes. Deniska, who had finished munching,
+      stretched himself out on his back and also closed his eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You look out that no one takes away the horses!&rdquo; he said to Yegorushka,
+      and at once fell asleep.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Stillness reigned. There was no sound except the munching and snorting of
+      the horses and the snoring of the sleepers; somewhere far away a lapwing
+      wailed, and from time to time there sounded the shrill cries of the three
+      snipe who had flown up to see whether their uninvited visitors had gone
+      away; the rivulet babbled, lisping softly, but all these sounds did not
+      break the stillness, did not stir the stagnation, but, on the contrary,
+      lulled all nature to slumber.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yegorushka, gasping with the heat, which was particularly oppressive after
+      a meal, ran to the sedge and from there surveyed the country. He saw
+      exactly the same as he had in the morning: the plain, the low hills, the
+      sky, the lilac distance; only the hills stood nearer; and he could not see
+      the windmill, which had been left far behind. From behind the rocky hill
+      from which the stream flowed rose another, smoother and broader; a little
+      hamlet of five or six homesteads clung to it. No people, no trees, no
+      shade were to be seen about the huts; it looked as though the hamlet had
+      expired in the burning air and was dried up. To while away the time
+      Yegorushka caught a grasshopper in the grass, held it in his closed hand
+      to his ear, and spent a long time listening to the creature playing on its
+      instrument. When he was weary of its music he ran after a flock of yellow
+      butterflies who were flying towards the sedge on the watercourse, and
+      found himself again beside the chaise, without noticing how he came there.
+      His uncle and Father Christopher were sound asleep; their sleep would be
+      sure to last two or three hours till the horses had rested. . . . How was
+      he to get through that long time, and where was he to get away from the
+      heat? A hard problem. . . . Mechanically Yegorushka put his lips to the
+      trickle that ran from the waterpipe; there was a chilliness in his mouth
+      and there was the smell of hemlock. He drank at first eagerly, then went
+      on with effort till the sharp cold had run from his mouth all over his
+      body and the water was spilt on his shirt. Then he went up to the chaise
+      and began looking at the sleeping figures. His uncle&rsquo;s face wore, as
+      before, an expression of business-like reserve. Fanatically devoted to his
+      work, Kuzmitchov always, even in his sleep and at church when they were
+      singing, &ldquo;Like the cherubim,&rdquo; thought about his business and could never
+      forget it for a moment; and now he was probably dreaming about bales of
+      wool, waggons, prices, Varlamov. . . . Father Christopher, now, a soft,
+      frivolous and absurd person, had never all his life been conscious of
+      anything which could, like a boa-constrictor, coil about his soul and hold
+      it tight. In all the numerous enterprises he had undertaken in his day
+      what attracted him was not so much the business itself, but the bustle and
+      the contact with other people involved in every undertaking. Thus, in the
+      present expedition, he was not so much interested in wool, in Varlamov,
+      and in prices, as in the long journey, the conversations on the way, the
+      sleeping under a chaise, and the meals at odd times. . . . And now,
+      judging from his face, he must have been dreaming of Bishop Christopher,
+      of the Latin discussion, of his wife, of puffs and cream and all sorts of
+      things that Kuzmitchov could not possibly dream of.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While Yegorushka was watching their sleeping faces he suddenly heard a
+      soft singing; somewhere at a distance a woman was singing, and it was
+      difficult to tell where and in what direction. The song was subdued,
+      dreary and melancholy, like a dirge, and hardly audible, and seemed to
+      come first from the right, then from the left, then from above, and then
+      from underground, as though an unseen spirit were hovering over the steppe
+      and singing. Yegorushka looked about him, and could not make out where the
+      strange song came from. Then as he listened he began to fancy that the
+      grass was singing; in its song, withered and half-dead, it was without
+      words, but plaintively and passionately, urging that it was not to blame,
+      that the sun was burning it for no fault of its own; it urged that it
+      ardently longed to live, that it was young and might have been beautiful
+      but for the heat and the drought; it was guiltless, but yet it prayed
+      forgiveness and protested that it was in anguish, sad and sorry for
+      itself. . . .
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yegorushka listened for a little, and it began to seem as though this
+      dreary, mournful song made the air hotter, more suffocating and more
+      stagnant. . . . To drown the singing he ran to the sedge, humming to
+      himself and trying to make a noise with his feet. From there he looked
+      about in all directions and found out who was singing. Near the furthest
+      hut in the hamlet stood a peasant woman in a short petticoat, with long
+      thin legs like a heron. She was sowing something. A white dust floated
+      languidly from her sieve down the hillock. Now it was evident that she was
+      singing. A couple of yards from her a little bare-headed boy in nothing
+      but a smock was standing motionless. As though fascinated by the song, he
+      stood stock-still, staring away into the distance, probably at
+      Yegorushka&rsquo;s crimson shirt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The song ceased. Yegorushka sauntered back to the chaise, and to while
+      away the time went again to the trickle of water.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And again there was the sound of the dreary song. It was the same
+      long-legged peasant woman in the hamlet over the hill. Yegorushka&rsquo;s
+      boredom came back again. He left the pipe and looked upwards. What he saw
+      was so unexpected that he was a little frightened. Just above his head on
+      one of the big clumsy stones stood a chubby little boy, wearing nothing
+      but a shirt, with a prominent stomach and thin legs, the same boy who had
+      been standing before by the peasant woman. He was gazing with open mouth
+      and unblinking eyes at Yegorushka&rsquo;s crimson shirt and at the chaise, with
+      a look of blank astonishment and even fear, as though he saw before him
+      creatures of another world. The red colour of the shirt charmed and
+      allured him. But the chaise and the men sleeping under it excited his
+      curiosity; perhaps he had not noticed how the agreeable red colour and
+      curiosity had attracted him down from the hamlet, and now probably he was
+      surprised at his own boldness. For a long while Yegorushka stared at him,
+      and he at Yegorushka. Both were silent and conscious of some awkwardness.
+      After a long silence Yegorushka asked:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What&rsquo;s your name?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The stranger&rsquo;s cheeks puffed out more than ever; he pressed his back
+      against the rock, opened his eyes wide, moved his lips, and answered in a
+      husky bass: &ldquo;Tit!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The boys said not another word to each other; after a brief silence, still
+      keeping his eyes fixed on Yegorushka, the mysterious Tit kicked up one
+      leg, felt with his heel for a niche and clambered up the rock; from that
+      point he ascended to the next rock, staggering backwards and looking
+      intently at Yegorushka, as though afraid he might hit him from behind, and
+      so made his way upwards till he disappeared altogether behind the crest of
+      the hill.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After watching him out of sight, Yegorushka put his arms round his knees
+      and leaned his head on them. . . . The burning sun scorched the back of
+      his head, his neck, and his spine. The melancholy song died away, then
+      floated again on the stagnant stifling air. The rivulet gurgled
+      monotonously, the horses munched, and time dragged on endlessly, as though
+      it, too, were stagnant and had come to a standstill. It seemed as though a
+      hundred years had passed since the morning. Could it be that God&rsquo;s world,
+      the chaise and the horses would come to a standstill in that air, and,
+      like the hills, turn to stone and remain for ever in one spot? Yegorushka
+      raised his head, and with smarting eyes looked before him; the lilac
+      distance, which till then had been motionless, began heaving, and with the
+      sky floated away into the distance. . . . It drew after it the brown
+      grass, the sedge, and with extraordinary swiftness Yegorushka floated
+      after the flying distance. Some force noiselessly drew him onwards, and
+      the heat and the wearisome song flew after in pursuit. Yegorushka bent his
+      head and shut his eyes. . . .
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Deniska was the first to wake up. Something must have bitten him, for he
+      jumped up, quickly scratched his shoulder and said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Plague take you, cursed idolater!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Then he went to the brook, had a drink and slowly washed. His splashing
+      and puffing roused Yegorushka from his lethargy. The boy looked at his wet
+      face with drops of water and big freckles which made it look like marble,
+      and asked:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Shall we soon be going?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Deniska looked at the height of the sun and answered:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I expect so.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He dried himself with the tail of his shirt and, making a very serious
+      face, hopped on one leg.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I say, which of us will get to the sedge first?&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yegorushka was exhausted by the heat and drowsiness, but he raced off
+      after him all the same. Deniska was in his twentieth year, was a coachman
+      and going to be married, but he had not left off being a boy. He was very
+      fond of flying kites, chasing pigeons, playing knuckle-bones, running
+      races, and always took part in children&rsquo;s games and disputes. No sooner
+      had his master turned his back or gone to sleep than Deniska would begin
+      doing something such as hopping on one leg or throwing stones. It was hard
+      for any grown-up person, seeing the genuine enthusiasm with which he
+      frolicked about in the society of children, to resist saying, &ldquo;What a
+      baby!&rdquo; Children, on the other hand, saw nothing strange in the invasion of
+      their domain by the big coachman. &ldquo;Let him play,&rdquo; they thought, &ldquo;as long
+      as he doesn&rsquo;t fight!&rdquo; In the same way little dogs see nothing strange in
+      it when a simple-hearted big dog joins their company uninvited and begins
+      playing with them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Deniska outstripped Yegorushka, and was evidently very much pleased at
+      having done so. He winked at him, and to show that he could hop on one leg
+      any distance, suggested to Yegorushka that he should hop with him along
+      the road and from there, without resting, back to the chaise. Yegorushka
+      declined this suggestion, for he was very much out of breath and
+      exhausted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All at once Deniska looked very grave, as he did not look even when
+      Kuzmitchov gave him a scolding or threatened him with a stick; listening
+      intently, he dropped quietly on one knee and an expression of sternness
+      and alarm came into his face, such as one sees in people who hear
+      heretical talk. He fixed his eyes on one spot, raised his hand curved into
+      a hollow, and suddenly fell on his stomach on the ground and slapped the
+      hollow of his hand down upon the grass.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Caught!&rdquo; he wheezed triumphantly, and, getting up, lifted a big
+      grasshopper to Yegorushka&rsquo;s eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The two boys stroked the grasshopper&rsquo;s broad green back with their fingers
+      and touched his antenna, supposing that this would please the creature.
+      Then Deniska caught a fat fly that had been sucking blood and offered it
+      to the grasshopper. The latter moved his huge jaws, that were like the
+      visor of a helmet, with the utmost unconcern, as though he had been long
+      acquainted with Deniska, and bit off the fly&rsquo;s stomach. They let him go.
+      With a flash of the pink lining of his wings, he flew down into the grass
+      and at once began his churring notes again. They let the fly go, too. It
+      preened its wings, and without its stomach flew off to the horses.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A loud sigh was heard from under the chaise. It was Kuzmitchov waking up.
+      He quickly raised his head, looked uneasily into the distance, and from
+      that look, which passed by Yegorushka and Deniska without sympathy or
+      interest, it could be seen that his thought on awaking was of the wool and
+      of Varlamov.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Father Christopher, get up; it is time to start,&rdquo; he said anxiously.
+      &ldquo;Wake up; we&rsquo;ve slept too long as it is! Deniska, put the horses in.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Father Christopher woke up with the same smile with which he had fallen
+      asleep; his face looked creased and wrinkled from sleep, and seemed only
+      half the size. After washing and dressing, he proceeded without haste to
+      take out of his pocket a little greasy psalter; and standing with his face
+      towards the east, began in a whisper repeating the psalms of the day and
+      crossing himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Father Christopher,&rdquo; said Kuzmitchov reproachfully, &ldquo;it&rsquo;s time to start;
+      the horses are ready, and here are you, . . . upon my word.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In a minute, in a minute,&rdquo; muttered Father Christopher. &ldquo;I must read the
+      psalms. . . . I haven&rsquo;t read them to-day.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The psalms can wait.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ivan Ivanitch, that is my rule every day. . . . I can&rsquo;t . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;God will overlook it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      For a full quarter of an hour Father Christopher stood facing the east and
+      moving his lips, while Kuzmitchov looked at him almost with hatred and
+      impatiently shrugged his shoulders. He was particularly irritated when,
+      after every &ldquo;Hallelujah,&rdquo; Father Christopher drew a long breath, rapidly
+      crossed himself and repeated three times, intentionally raising his voice
+      so that the others might cross themselves, &ldquo;Hallelujah, hallelujah,
+      hallelujah! Glory be to Thee, O Lord!&rdquo; At last he smiled, looked upwards
+      at the sky, and, putting the psalter in his pocket, said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Finis!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A minute later the chaise had started on the road. As though it were going
+      backwards and not forwards, the travellers saw the same scene as they had
+      before midday.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The low hills were still plunged in the lilac distance, and no end could
+      be seen to them. There were glimpses of high grass and heaps of stones;
+      strips of stubble land passed by them and still the same rooks, the same
+      hawk, moving its wings with slow dignity, moved over the steppe. The air
+      was more sultry than ever; from the sultry heat and the stillness
+      submissive nature was spellbound into silence . . . . No wind, no fresh
+      cheering sound, no cloud.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But at last, when the sun was beginning to sink into the west, the steppe,
+      the hills and the air could bear the oppression no longer, and, driven out
+      of all patience, exhausted, tried to fling off the yoke. A fleecy
+      ashen-grey cloud unexpectedly appeared behind the hills. It exchanged
+      glances with the steppe, as though to say, &ldquo;Here I am,&rdquo; and frowned.
+      Suddenly something burst in the stagnant air; there was a violent squall
+      of wind which whirled round and round, roaring and whistling over the
+      steppe. At once a murmur rose from the grass and last year&rsquo;s dry herbage,
+      the dust curled in spiral eddies over the road, raced over the steppe, and
+      carrying with it straws, dragon flies and feathers, rose up in a whirling
+      black column towards the sky and darkened the sun. Prickly uprooted plants
+      ran stumbling and leaping in all directions over the steppe, and one of
+      them got caught in the whirlwind, turned round and round like a bird, flew
+      towards the sky, and turning into a little black speck, vanished from
+      sight. After it flew another, and then a third, and Yegorushka saw two of
+      them meet in the blue height and clutch at one another as though they were
+      wrestling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A bustard flew up by the very road. Fluttering his wings and his tail, he
+      looked, bathed in the sunshine, like an angler&rsquo;s glittering tin fish or a
+      waterfly flashing so swiftly over the water that its wings cannot be told
+      from its antenna, which seem to be growing before, behind and on all
+      sides. . . . Quivering in the air like an insect with a shimmer of bright
+      colours, the bustard flew high up in a straight line, then, probably
+      frightened by a cloud of dust, swerved to one side, and for a long time
+      the gleam of his wings could be seen. . . .
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then a corncrake flew up from the grass, alarmed by the hurricane and not
+      knowing what was the matter. It flew with the wind and not against it,
+      like all the other birds, so that all its feathers were ruffled up and it
+      was puffed out to the size of a hen and looked very angry and impressive.
+      Only the rooks who had grown old on the steppe and were accustomed to its
+      vagaries hovered calmly over the grass, or taking no notice of anything,
+      went on unconcernedly pecking with their stout beaks at the hard earth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a dull roll of thunder beyond the hills; there came a whiff of
+      fresh air. Deniska gave a cheerful whistle and lashed his horses. Father
+      Christopher and Kuzmitchov held their hats and looked intently towards the
+      hills. . . . How pleasant a shower of rain would have been!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One effort, one struggle more, and it seemed the steppe would have got the
+      upper hand. But the unseen oppressive force gradually riveted its fetters
+      on the wind and the air, laid the dust, and the stillness came back again
+      as though nothing had happened, the cloud hid, the sun-baked hills frowned
+      submissively, the air grew calm, and only somewhere the troubled lapwings
+      wailed and lamented their destiny. . . .
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Soon after that the evening came on.
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      III
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      In the dusk of evening a big house of one storey, with a rusty iron roof
+      and with dark windows, came into sight. This house was called a
+      posting-inn, though it had nothing like a stableyard, and it stood in the
+      middle of the steppe, with no kind of enclosure round it. A little to one
+      side of it a wretched little cherry orchard shut in by a hurdle fence made
+      a dark patch, and under the windows stood sleepy sunflowers drooping their
+      heavy heads. From the orchard came the clatter of a little toy windmill,
+      set there to frighten away hares by the rattle. Nothing more could be seen
+      near the house, and nothing could be heard but the steppe. The chaise had
+      scarcely stopped at the porch with an awning over it, when from the house
+      there came the sound of cheerful voices, one a man&rsquo;s, another a woman&rsquo;s;
+      there was the creak of a swing-door, and in a flash a tall gaunt figure,
+      swinging its arms and fluttering its coat, was standing by the chaise.
+      This was the innkeeper, Moisey Moisevitch, a man no longer young, with a
+      very pale face and a handsome beard as black as charcoal. He was wearing a
+      threadbare black coat, which hung flapping on his narrow shoulders as
+      though on a hatstand, and fluttered its skirts like wings every time
+      Moisey Moisevitch flung up his hands in delight or horror. Besides his
+      coat the innkeeper was wearing full white trousers, not stuck into his
+      boots, and a velvet waistcoat with brown flowers on it that looked like
+      gigantic bugs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Moisey Moisevitch was at first dumb with excess of feeling on recognizing
+      the travellers, then he clasped his hands and uttered a moan. His coat
+      swung its skirts, his back bent into a bow, and his pale face twisted into
+      a smile that suggested that to see the chaise was not merely a pleasure to
+      him, but actually a joy so sweet as to be painful.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh dear! oh dear!&rdquo; he began in a thin sing-song voice, breathless,
+      fussing about and preventing the travellers from getting out of the chaise
+      by his antics. &ldquo;What a happy day for me! Oh, what am I to do now? Ivan
+      Ivanitch! Father Christopher! What a pretty little gentleman sitting on
+      the box, God strike me dead! Oh, my goodness! why am I standing here
+      instead of asking the visitors indoors? Please walk in, I humbly beg you.
+      . . . You are kindly welcome! Give me all your things. . . . Oh, my
+      goodness me!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Moisey Moisevitch, who was rummaging in the chaise and assisting the
+      travellers to alight, suddenly turned back and shouted in a voice as
+      frantic and choking as though he were drowning and calling for help:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Solomon! Solomon!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Solomon! Solomon!&rdquo; a woman&rsquo;s voice repeated indoors.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The swing-door creaked, and in the doorway appeared a rather short young
+      Jew with a big beak-like nose, with a bald patch surrounded by rough red
+      curly hair; he was dressed in a short and very shabby reefer jacket, with
+      rounded lappets and short sleeves, and in short serge trousers, so that he
+      looked skimpy and short-tailed like an unfledged bird. This was Solomon,
+      the brother of Moisey Moisevitch. He went up to the chaise, smiling rather
+      queerly, and did not speak or greet the travellers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ivan Ivanitch and Father Christopher have come,&rdquo; said Moisey Moisevitch
+      in a tone as though he were afraid his brother would not believe him.
+      &ldquo;Dear, dear! What a surprise! Such honoured guests to have come us so
+      suddenly! Come, take their things, Solomon. Walk in, honoured guests.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A little later Kuzmitchov, Father Christopher, and Yegorushka were sitting
+      in a big gloomy empty room at an old oak table. The table was almost in
+      solitude, for, except a wide sofa covered with torn American leather and
+      three chairs, there was no other furniture in the room. And, indeed, not
+      everybody would have given the chairs that name. They were a pitiful
+      semblance of furniture, covered with American leather that had seen its
+      best days, and with backs bent backwards at an unnaturally acute angle, so
+      that they looked like children&rsquo;s sledges. It was hard to imagine what had
+      been the unknown carpenter&rsquo;s object in bending the chairbacks so
+      mercilessly, and one was tempted to imagine that it was not the
+      carpenter&rsquo;s fault, but that some athletic visitor had bent the chairs like
+      this as a feat, then had tried to bend them back again and had made them
+      worse. The room looked gloomy, the walls were grey, the ceilings and the
+      cornices were grimy; on the floor were chinks and yawning holes that were
+      hard to account for (one might have fancied they were made by the heel of
+      the same athlete), and it seemed as though the room would still have been
+      dark if a dozen lamps had hung in it. There was nothing approaching an
+      ornament on the walls or the windows. On one wall, however, there hung a
+      list of regulations of some sort under a two-headed eagle in a grey wooden
+      frame, and on another wall in the same sort of frame an engraving with the
+      inscription, &ldquo;The Indifference of Man.&rdquo; What it was to which men were
+      indifferent it was impossible to make out, as the engraving was very dingy
+      with age and was extensively flyblown. There was a smell of something
+      decayed and sour in the room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As he led the visitors into the room, Moisey Moisevitch went on wriggling,
+      gesticulating, shrugging and uttering joyful exclamations; he considered
+      these antics necessary in order to seem polite and agreeable.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When did our waggons go by?&rdquo; Kuzmitchov asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;One party went by early this morning, and the other, Ivan Ivanitch, put
+      up here for dinner and went on towards evening.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah! . . . Has Varlamov been by or not?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, Ivan Ivanitch. His clerk, Grigory Yegoritch, went by yesterday
+      morning and said that he had to be to-day at the Molokans&rsquo; farm.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good! so we will go after the waggons directly and then on to the
+      Molokans&rsquo;.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mercy on us, Ivan Ivanitch!&rdquo; Moisey Moisevitch cried in horror, flinging
+      up his hands. &ldquo;Where are you going for the night? You will have a nice
+      little supper and stay the night, and to-morrow morning, please God, you
+      can go on and overtake anyone you like.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There is no time for that. . . . Excuse me, Moisey Moisevitch, another
+      time; but now I must make haste. We&rsquo;ll stay a quarter of an hour and then
+      go on; we can stay the night at the Molokans&rsquo;.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A quarter of an hour!&rdquo; squealed Moisey Moisevitch. &ldquo;Have you no fear of
+      God, Ivan Ivanitch? You will compel me to hide your caps and lock the
+      door! You must have a cup of tea and a snack of something, anyway.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We have no time for tea,&rdquo; said Kuzmitchov.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Moisey Moisevitch bent his head on one side, crooked his knees, and put
+      his open hands before him as though warding off a blow, while with a smile
+      of agonized sweetness he began imploring:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ivan Ivanitch! Father Christopher! Do be so good as to take a cup of tea
+      with me. Surely I am not such a bad man that you can&rsquo;t even drink tea in
+      my house? Ivan Ivanitch!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, we may just as well have a cup of tea,&rdquo; said Father Christopher,
+      with a sympathetic smile; &ldquo;that won&rsquo;t keep us long.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very well,&rdquo; Kuzmitchov assented.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Moisey Moisevitch, in a fluster uttered an exclamation of joy, and
+      shrugging as though he had just stepped out of cold weather into warm, ran
+      to the door and cried in the same frantic voice in which he had called
+      Solomon:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Rosa! Rosa! Bring the samovar!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A minute later the door opened, and Solomon came into the room carrying a
+      large tray in his hands. Setting the tray on the table, he looked away
+      sarcastically with the same queer smile as before. Now, by the light of
+      the lamp, it was possible to see his smile distinctly; it was very
+      complex, and expressed a variety of emotions, but the predominant element
+      in it was undisguised contempt. He seemed to be thinking of something
+      ludicrous and silly, to be feeling contempt and dislike, to be pleased at
+      something and waiting for the favourable moment to turn something into
+      ridicule and to burst into laughter. His long nose, his thick lips, and
+      his sly prominent eyes seemed tense with the desire to laugh. Looking at
+      his face, Kuzmitchov smiled ironically and asked:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Solomon, why did you not come to our fair at N. this summer, and act some
+      Jewish scenes?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Two years before, as Yegorushka remembered very well, at one of the booths
+      at the fair at N., Solomon had performed some scenes of Jewish life, and
+      his acting had been a great success. The allusion to this made no
+      impression whatever upon Solomon. Making no answer, he went out and
+      returned a little later with the samovar.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When he had done what he had to do at the table he moved a little aside,
+      and, folding his arms over his chest and thrusting out one leg, fixed his
+      sarcastic eyes on Father Christopher. There was something defiant,
+      haughty, and contemptuous in his attitude, and at the same time it was
+      comic and pitiful in the extreme, because the more impressive his attitude
+      the more vividly it showed up his short trousers, his bobtail coat, his
+      caricature of a nose, and his bird-like plucked-looking little figure.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Moisey Moisevitch brought a footstool from the other room and sat down a
+      little way from the table.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wish you a good appetite! Tea and sugar!&rdquo; he began, trying to entertain
+      his visitors. &ldquo;I hope you will enjoy it. Such rare guests, such rare ones;
+      it is years since I last saw Father Christopher. And will no one tell me
+      who is this nice little gentleman?&rdquo; he asked, looking tenderly at
+      Yegorushka.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He is the son of my sister, Olga Ivanovna,&rdquo; answered Kuzmitchov.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And where is he going?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To school. We are taking him to a high school.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      In his politeness, Moisey Moisevitch put on a look of wonder and wagged
+      his head expressively.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, that is a fine thing,&rdquo; he said, shaking his finger at the samovar.
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s a fine thing. You will come back from the high school such a
+      gentleman that we shall all take off our hats to you. You will be wealthy
+      and wise and so grand that your mamma will be delighted. Oh, that&rsquo;s a fine
+      thing!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He paused a little, stroked his knees, and began again in a jocose and
+      deferential tone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You must excuse me, Father Christopher, but I am thinking of writing to
+      the bishop to tell him you are robbing the merchants of their living. I
+      shall take a sheet of stamped paper and write that I suppose Father
+      Christopher is short of pence, as he has taken up with trade and begun
+      selling wool.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;H&rsquo;m, yes . . . it&rsquo;s a queer notion in my old age,&rdquo; said Father
+      Christopher, and he laughed. &ldquo;I have turned from priest to merchant,
+      brother. I ought to be at home now saying my prayers, instead of galloping
+      about the country like a Pharaoh in his chariot. . . . Vanity!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But it will mean a lot of pence!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, I dare say! More kicks than halfpence, and serve me right. The wool&rsquo;s
+      not mine, but my son-in-law Mikhail&rsquo;s!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why doesn&rsquo;t he go himself?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, because . . . His mother&rsquo;s milk is scarcely dry upon his lips. He
+      can buy wool all right, but when it comes to selling, he has no sense; he
+      is young yet. He has wasted all his money; he wanted to grow rich and cut
+      a dash, but he tried here and there, and no one would give him his price.
+      And so the lad went on like that for a year, and then he came to me and
+      said, &lsquo;Daddy, you sell the wool for me; be kind and do it! I am no good at
+      the business!&rsquo; And that is true enough. As soon as there is anything wrong
+      then it&rsquo;s &lsquo;Daddy,&rsquo; but till then they could get on without their dad. When
+      he was buying he did not consult me, but now when he is in difficulties
+      it&rsquo;s Daddy&rsquo;s turn. And what does his dad know about it? If it were not for
+      Ivan Ivanitch, his dad could do nothing. I have a lot of worry with them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes; one has a lot of worry with one&rsquo;s children, I can tell you that,&rdquo;
+       sighed Moisey Moisevitch. &ldquo;I have six of my own. One needs schooling,
+      another needs doctoring, and a third needs nursing, and when they grow up
+      they are more trouble still. It is not only nowadays, it was the same in
+      Holy Scripture. When Jacob had little children he wept, and when they grew
+      up he wept still more bitterly.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;H&rsquo;m, yes . . .&rdquo; Father Christopher assented pensively, looking at his
+      glass. &ldquo;I have no cause myself to rail against the Lord. I have lived to
+      the end of my days as any man might be thankful to live. . . . I have
+      married my daughters to good men, my sons I have set up in life, and now I
+      am free; I have done my work and can go where I like. I live in peace with
+      my wife. I eat and drink and sleep and rejoice in my grandchildren, and
+      say my prayers and want nothing more. I live on the fat of the land, and
+      don&rsquo;t need to curry favour with anyone. I have never had any trouble from
+      childhood, and now suppose the Tsar were to ask me, &lsquo;What do you need?
+      What would you like?&rsquo; why, I don&rsquo;t need anything. I have everything I want
+      and everything to be thankful for. In the whole town there is no happier
+      man than I am. My only trouble is I have so many sins, but there &mdash;only
+      God is without sin. That&rsquo;s right, isn&rsquo;t it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No doubt it is.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have no teeth, of course; my poor old back aches; there is one thing
+      and another, . . . asthma and that sort of thing. . . . I ache. . . . The
+      flesh is weak, but then think of my age! I am in the eighties! One can&rsquo;t
+      go on for ever; one mustn&rsquo;t outstay one&rsquo;s welcome.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Father Christopher suddenly thought of something, spluttered into his
+      glass and choked with laughter. Moisey Moisevitch laughed, too, from
+      politeness, and he, too, cleared his throat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So funny!&rdquo; said Father Christopher, and he waved his hand. &ldquo;My eldest son
+      Gavrila came to pay me a visit. He is in the medical line, and is a
+      district doctor in the province of Tchernigov. . . . &lsquo;Very well . . .&rsquo; I
+      said to him, &lsquo;here I have asthma and one thing and another. . . . You are
+      a doctor; cure your father!&rsquo; He undressed me on the spot, tapped me,
+      listened, and all sorts of tricks, . . . kneaded my stomach, and then he
+      said, &lsquo;Dad, you ought to be treated with compressed air.&rsquo;&rdquo; Father
+      Christopher laughed convulsively, till the tears came into his eyes, and
+      got up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And I said to him, &lsquo;God bless your compressed air!&rsquo;&rdquo; he brought out
+      through his laughter, waving both hands. &ldquo;God bless your compressed air!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Moisey Moisevitch got up, too, and with his hands on his stomach, went off
+      into shrill laughter like the yap of a lap-dog.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;God bless the compressed air!&rdquo; repeated Father Christopher, laughing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Moisey Moisevitch laughed two notes higher and so violently that he could
+      hardly stand on his feet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh dear!&rdquo; he moaned through his laughter. &ldquo;Let me get my breath . . . .
+      You&rsquo;ll be the death of me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He laughed and talked, though at the same time he was casting timorous and
+      suspicious looks at Solomon. The latter was standing in the same attitude
+      and still smiling. To judge from his eyes and his smile, his contempt and
+      hatred were genuine, but that was so out of keeping with his
+      plucked-looking figure that it seemed to Yegorushka as though he were
+      putting on his defiant attitude and biting sarcastic smile to play the
+      fool for the entertainment of their honoured guests.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After drinking six glasses of tea in silence, Kuzmitchov cleared a space
+      before him on the table, took his bag, the one which he kept under his
+      head when he slept under the chaise, untied the string and shook it. Rolls
+      of paper notes were scattered out of the bag on the table.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;While we have the time, Father Christopher, let us reckon up,&rdquo; said
+      Kuzmitchov.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Moisey Moisevitch was embarrassed at the sight of the money. He got up,
+      and, as a man of delicate feeling unwilling to pry into other people&rsquo;s
+      secrets, he went out of the room on tiptoe, swaying his arms. Solomon
+      remained where he was.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How many are there in the rolls of roubles?&rdquo; Father Christopher began.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The rouble notes are done up in fifties, . . . the three-rouble notes in
+      nineties, the twenty-five and hundred roubles in thousands. You count out
+      seven thousand eight hundred for Varlamov, and I will count out for
+      Gusevitch. And mind you don&rsquo;t make a mistake. . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Yegorushka had never in his life seen so much money as was lying on the
+      table before him. There must have been a great deal of money, for the roll
+      of seven thousand eight hundred, which Father Christopher put aside for
+      Varlamov, seemed very small compared with the whole heap. At any other
+      time such a mass of money would have impressed Yegorushka, and would have
+      moved him to reflect how many cracknels, buns and poppy-cakes could be
+      bought for that money. Now he looked at it listlessly, only conscious of
+      the disgusting smell of kerosene and rotten apples that came from the heap
+      of notes. He was exhausted by the jolting ride in the chaise, tired out
+      and sleepy. His head was heavy, his eyes would hardly keep open and his
+      thoughts were tangled like threads. If it had been possible he would have
+      been relieved to lay his head on the table, so as not to see the lamp and
+      the fingers moving over the heaps of notes, and to have let his tired
+      sleepy thoughts go still more at random. When he tried to keep awake, the
+      light of the lamp, the cups and the fingers grew double, the samovar
+      heaved and the smell of rotten apples seemed even more acrid and
+      disgusting.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, money, money!&rdquo; sighed Father Christopher, smiling. &ldquo;You bring
+      trouble! Now I expect my Mihailo is asleep and dreaming that I am going to
+      bring him a heap of money like this.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your Mihailo Timofevitch is a man who doesn&rsquo;t understand business,&rdquo; said
+      Kuzmitchov in an undertone; &ldquo;he undertakes what isn&rsquo;t his work, but you
+      understand and can judge. You had better hand over your wool to me, as I
+      have said already, and I would give you half a rouble above my own price&mdash;yes,
+      I would, simply out of regard for you. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, Ivan Ivanitch.&rdquo; Father Christopher sighed. &ldquo;I thank you for your
+      kindness. . . . Of course, if it were for me to decide, I shouldn&rsquo;t think
+      twice about it; but as it is, the wool is not mine, as you know. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Moisey Moisevitch came in on tiptoe. Trying from delicacy not to look at
+      the heaps of money, he stole up to Yegorushka and pulled at his shirt from
+      behind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come along, little gentleman,&rdquo; he said in an undertone, &ldquo;come and see the
+      little bear I can show you! Such a queer, cross little bear. Oo-oo!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The sleepy boy got up and listlessly dragged himself after Moisey
+      Moisevitch to see the bear. He went into a little room, where, before he
+      saw anything, he felt he could not breathe from the smell of something
+      sour and decaying, which was much stronger here than in the big room and
+      probably spread from this room all over the house. One part of the room
+      was occupied by a big bed, covered with a greasy quilt and another by a
+      chest of drawers and heaps of rags of all kinds from a woman&rsquo;s stiff
+      petticoat to children&rsquo;s little breeches and braces. A tallow candle stood
+      on the chest of drawers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Instead of the promised bear, Yegorushka saw a big fat Jewess with her
+      hair hanging loose, in a red flannel skirt with black sprigs on it; she
+      turned with difficulty in the narrow space between the bed and the chest
+      of drawers and uttered drawn-out moaning as though she had toothache. On
+      seeing Yegorushka, she made a doleful, woe-begone face, heaved a long
+      drawn-out sigh, and before he had time to look round, put to his lips a
+      slice of bread smeared with honey.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Eat it, dearie, eat it!&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;You are here without your mamma, and
+      no one to look after you. Eat it up.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Yegorushka did eat it, though after the goodies and poppy-cakes he had
+      every day at home, he did not think very much of the honey, which was
+      mixed with wax and bees&rsquo; wings. He ate while Moisey Moisevitch and the
+      Jewess looked at him and sighed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where are you going, dearie?&rdquo; asked the Jewess.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To school,&rdquo; answered Yegorushka.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And how many brothers and sisters have you got?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am the only one; there are no others.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;O-oh!&rdquo; sighed the Jewess, and turned her eyes upward. &ldquo;Poor mamma, poor
+      mamma! How she will weep and miss you! We are going to send our Nahum to
+      school in a year. O-oh!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, Nahum, Nahum!&rdquo; sighed Moisey Moisevitch, and the skin of his pale
+      face twitched nervously. &ldquo;And he is so delicate.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The greasy quilt quivered, and from beneath it appeared a child&rsquo;s curly
+      head on a very thin neck; two black eyes gleamed and stared with curiosity
+      at Yegorushka. Still sighing, Moisey Moisevitch and the Jewess went to the
+      chest of drawers and began talking in Yiddish. Moisey Moisevitch spoke in
+      a low bass undertone, and altogether his talk in Yiddish was like a
+      continual &ldquo;ghaal-ghaal-ghaal-ghaal, . . .&rdquo; while his wife answered him in
+      a shrill voice like a turkeycock&rsquo;s, and the whole effect of her talk was
+      something like &ldquo;Too-too-too-too!&rdquo; While they were consulting, another
+      little curly head on a thin neck peeped out of the greasy quilt, then a
+      third, then a fourth. . . . If Yegorushka had had a fertile imagination he
+      might have imagined that the hundred-headed hydra was hiding under the
+      quilt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ghaal-ghaal-ghaal-ghaal!&rdquo; said Moisey Moisevitch.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Too-too-too-too!&rdquo; answered the Jewess.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The consultation ended in the Jewess&rsquo;s diving with a deep sigh into the
+      chest of drawers, and, unwrapping some sort of green rag there, she took
+      out a big rye cake made in the shape of a heart.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Take it, dearie,&rdquo; she said, giving Yegorushka the cake; &ldquo;you have no
+      mamma now&mdash;no one to give you nice things.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Yegorushka stuck the cake in his pocket and staggered to the door, as he
+      could not go on breathing the foul, sour air in which the innkeeper and
+      his wife lived. Going back to the big room, he settled himself more
+      comfortably on the sofa and gave up trying to check his straying thoughts.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As soon as Kuzmitchov had finished counting out the notes he put them back
+      into the bag. He did not treat them very respectfully and stuffed them
+      into the dirty sack without ceremony, as indifferently as though they had
+      not been money but waste paper.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Father Christopher was talking to Solomon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, Solomon the Wise!&rdquo; he said, yawning and making the sign of the
+      cross over his mouth. &ldquo;How is business?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What sort of business are you talking about?&rdquo; asked Solomon, and he
+      looked as fiendish, as though it were a hint of some crime on his part.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, things in general. What are you doing?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What am I doing?&rdquo; Solomon repeated, and he shrugged his shoulders. &ldquo;The
+      same as everyone else. . . . You see, I am a menial, I am my brother&rsquo;s
+      servant; my brother&rsquo;s the servant of the visitors; the visitors are
+      Varlamov&rsquo;s servants; and if I had ten millions, Varlamov would be my
+      servant.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why would he be your servant?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, because there isn&rsquo;t a gentleman or millionaire who isn&rsquo;t ready to
+      lick the hand of a scabby Jew for the sake of making a kopeck. Now, I am a
+      scabby Jew and a beggar. Everybody looks at me as though I were a dog, but
+      if I had money Varlamov would play the fool before me just as Moisey does
+      before you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Father Christopher and Kuzmitchov looked at each other. Neither of them
+      understood Solomon. Kuzmitchov looked at him sternly and dryly, and asked:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How can you compare yourself with Varlamov, you blockhead?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am not such a fool as to put myself on a level with Varlamov,&rdquo; answered
+      Solomon, looking sarcastically at the speaker. &ldquo;Though Varlamov is a
+      Russian, he is at heart a scabby Jew; money and gain are all he lives for,
+      but I threw my money in the stove! I don&rsquo;t want money, or land, or sheep,
+      and there is no need for people to be afraid of me and to take off their
+      hats when I pass. So I am wiser than your Varlamov and more like a man!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A little later Yegorushka, half asleep, heard Solomon in a hoarse hollow
+      voice choked with hatred, in hurried stuttering phrases, talking about the
+      Jews. At first he talked correctly in Russian, then he fell into the tone
+      of a Jewish recitation, and began speaking as he had done at the fair with
+      an exaggerated Jewish accent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Stop! . . .&rdquo; Father Christopher said to him. &ldquo;If you don&rsquo;t like your
+      religion you had better change it, but to laugh at it is a sin; it is only
+      the lowest of the low who will make fun of his religion.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You don&rsquo;t understand,&rdquo; Solomon cut him short rudely. &ldquo;I am talking of one
+      thing and you are talking of something else. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;One can see you are a foolish fellow,&rdquo; sighed Father Christopher. &ldquo;I
+      admonish you to the best of my ability, and you are angry. I speak to you
+      like an old man quietly, and you answer like a turkeycock: &lsquo;Bla&mdash;-bla&mdash;-bla!&rsquo;
+      You really are a queer fellow. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Moisey Moisevitch came in. He looked anxiously at Solomon and at his
+      visitors, and again the skin on his face quivered nervously. Yegorushka
+      shook his head and looked about him; he caught a passing glimpse of
+      Solomon&rsquo;s face at the very moment when it was turned three-quarters
+      towards him and when the shadow of his long nose divided his left cheek in
+      half; the contemptuous smile mingled with that shadow; the gleaming
+      sarcastic eyes, the haughty expression, and the whole plucked-looking
+      little figure, dancing and doubling itself before Yegorushka&rsquo;s eyes, made
+      him now not like a buffoon, but like something one sometimes dreams of,
+      like an evil spirit.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What a ferocious fellow you&rsquo;ve got here, Moisey Moisevitch! God bless
+      him!&rdquo; said Father Christopher with a smile. &ldquo;You ought to find him a place
+      or a wife or something. . . . There&rsquo;s no knowing what to make of him. . .
+      .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Kuzmitchov frowned angrily. Moisey Moisevitch looked uneasily and
+      inquiringly at his brother and the visitors again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Solomon, go away!&rdquo; he said shortly. &ldquo;Go away!&rdquo; and he added something in
+      Yiddish. Solomon gave an abrupt laugh and went out.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What was it?&rdquo; Moisey Moisevitch asked Father Christopher anxiously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He forgets himself,&rdquo; answered Kuzmitchov. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s rude and thinks too much
+      of himself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I knew it!&rdquo; Moisey Moisevitch cried in horror, clasping his hands. &ldquo;Oh
+      dear, oh dear!&rdquo; he muttered in a low voice. &ldquo;Be so kind as to excuse it,
+      and don&rsquo;t be angry. He is such a queer fellow, such a queer fellow! Oh
+      dear, oh dear! He is my own brother, but I have never had anything but
+      trouble from him. You know he&rsquo;s. . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Moisey Moisevitch crooked his finger by his forehead and went on:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He is not in his right mind; . . . he&rsquo;s hopeless. And I don&rsquo;t know what I
+      am to do with him! He cares for nobody, he respects nobody, and is afraid
+      of nobody. . . . You know he laughs at everybody, he says silly things,
+      speaks familiarly to anyone. You wouldn&rsquo;t believe it, Varlamov came here
+      one day and Solomon said such things to him that he gave us both a taste
+      of his whip. . . . But why whip me? Was it my fault? God has robbed him of
+      his wits, so it is God&rsquo;s will, and how am I to blame?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ten minutes passed and Moisey Moisevitch was still muttering in an
+      undertone and sighing:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He does not sleep at night, and is always thinking and thinking and
+      thinking, and what he is thinking about God only knows. If you go to him
+      at night he is angry and laughs. He doesn&rsquo;t like me either . . . . And
+      there is nothing he wants! When our father died he left us each six
+      thousand roubles. I bought myself an inn, married, and now I have
+      children; and he burnt all his money in the stove. Such a pity, such a
+      pity! Why burn it? If he didn&rsquo;t want it he could give it to me, but why
+      burn it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Suddenly the swing-door creaked and the floor shook under footsteps.
+      Yegorushka felt a draught of cold air, and it seemed to him as though some
+      big black bird had passed by him and had fluttered its wings close in his
+      face. He opened his eyes. . . . His uncle was standing by the sofa with
+      his sack in his hands ready for departure; Father Christopher, holding his
+      broad-brimmed top-hat, was bowing to someone and smiling&mdash;not his
+      usual soft kindly smile, but a respectful forced smile which did not suit
+      his face at all&mdash;while Moisey Moisevitch looked as though his body
+      had been broken into three parts, and he were balancing and doing his
+      utmost not to drop to pieces. Only Solomon stood in the corner with his
+      arms folded, as though nothing had happened, and smiled contemptuously as
+      before.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your Excellency must excuse us for not being tidy,&rdquo; moaned Moisey
+      Moisevitch with the agonizingly sweet smile, taking no more notice of
+      Kuzmitchov or Father Christopher, but swaying his whole person so as to
+      avoid dropping to pieces. &ldquo;We are plain folks, your Excellency.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Yegorushka rubbed his eyes. In the middle of the room there really was
+      standing an Excellency, in the form of a young plump and very beautiful
+      woman in a black dress and a straw hat. Before Yegorushka had time to
+      examine her features the image of the solitary graceful poplar he had seen
+      that day on the hill for some reason came into his mind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Has Varlamov been here to-day?&rdquo; a woman&rsquo;s voice inquired.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, your Excellency,&rdquo; said Moisey Moisevitch.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you see him to-morrow, ask him to come and see me for a minute.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      All at once, quite unexpectedly, Yegorushka saw half an inch from his eyes
+      velvety black eyebrows, big brown eyes, delicate feminine cheeks with
+      dimples, from which smiles seemed radiating all over the face like
+      sunbeams. There was a glorious scent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What a pretty boy!&rdquo; said the lady. &ldquo;Whose boy is it? Kazimir Mihalovitch,
+      look what a charming fellow! Good heavens, he is asleep!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And the lady kissed Yegorushka warmly on both cheeks, and he smiled and,
+      thinking he was asleep, shut his eyes. The swing-door squeaked, and there
+      was the sound of hurried footsteps, coming in and going out.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yegorushka, Yegorushka!&rdquo; he heard two bass voices whisper. &ldquo;Get up; it is
+      time to start.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Somebody, it seemed to be Deniska, set him on his feet and led him by the
+      arm. On the way he half-opened his eyes and once more saw the beautiful
+      lady in the black dress who had kissed him. She was standing in the middle
+      of the room and watched him go out, smiling at him and nodding her head in
+      a friendly way. As he got near the door he saw a handsome, stoutly built,
+      dark man in a bowler hat and in leather gaiters. This must have been the
+      lady&rsquo;s escort.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Woa!&rdquo; he heard from the yard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the front door Yegorushka saw a splendid new carriage and a pair of
+      black horses. On the box sat a groom in livery, with a long whip in his
+      hands. No one but Solomon came to see the travellers off. His face was
+      tense with a desire to laugh; he looked as though he were waiting
+      impatiently for the visitors to be gone, so that he might laugh at them
+      without restraint.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The Countess Dranitsky,&rdquo; whispered Father Christopher, clambering into
+      the chaise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, Countess Dranitsky,&rdquo; repeated Kuzmitchov, also in a whisper.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The impression made by the arrival of the countess was probably very
+      great, for even Deniska spoke in a whisper, and only ventured to lash his
+      bays and shout when the chaise had driven a quarter of a mile away and
+      nothing could be seen of the inn but a dim light.
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      IV
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      Who was this elusive, mysterious Varlamov of whom people talked so much,
+      whom Solomon despised, and whom even the beautiful countess needed?
+      Sitting on the box beside Deniska, Yegorushka, half asleep, thought about
+      this person. He had never seen him. But he had often heard of him and
+      pictured him in his imagination. He knew that Varlamov possessed several
+      tens of thousands of acres of land, about a hundred thousand sheep, and a
+      great deal of money. Of his manner of life and occupation Yegorushka knew
+      nothing, except that he was always &ldquo;going his rounds in these parts,&rdquo; and
+      he was always being looked for.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At home Yegorushka had heard a great deal of the Countess Dranitsky, too.
+      She, too, had some tens of thousands of acres, a great many sheep, a stud
+      farm and a great deal of money, but she did not &ldquo;go rounds,&rdquo; but lived at
+      home in a splendid house and grounds, about which Ivan Ivanitch, who had
+      been more than once at the countess&rsquo;s on business, and other acquaintances
+      told many marvellous tales; thus, for instance, they said that in the
+      countess&rsquo;s drawing-room, where the portraits of all the kings of Poland
+      hung on the walls, there was a big table-clock in the form of a rock, on
+      the rock a gold horse with diamond eyes, rearing, and on the horse the
+      figure of a rider also of gold, who brandished his sword to right and to
+      left whenever the clock struck. They said, too, that twice a year the
+      countess used to give a ball, to which the gentry and officials of the
+      whole province were invited, and to which even Varlamov used to come; all
+      the visitors drank tea from silver samovars, ate all sorts of
+      extraordinary things (they had strawberries and raspberries, for instance,
+      in winter at Christmas), and danced to a band which played day and night.
+      . . .
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And how beautiful she is,&rdquo; thought Yegorushka, remembering her face and
+      smile.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Kuzmitchov, too, was probably thinking about the countess. For when the
+      chaise had driven a mile and a half he said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But doesn&rsquo;t that Kazimir Mihalovitch plunder her right and left! The year
+      before last when, do you remember, I bought some wool from her, he made
+      over three thousand from my purchase alone.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That is just what you would expect from a Pole,&rdquo; said Father Christopher.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And little does it trouble her. Young and foolish, as they say, her head
+      is full of nonsense.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Yegorushka, for some reason, longed to think of nothing but Varlamov and
+      the countess, particularly the latter. His drowsy brain utterly refused
+      ordinary thoughts, was in a cloud and retained only fantastic fairy-tale
+      images, which have the advantage of springing into the brain of themselves
+      without any effort on the part of the thinker, and completely vanishing of
+      themselves at a mere shake of the head; and, indeed, nothing that was
+      around him disposed to ordinary thoughts. On the right there were the dark
+      hills which seemed to be screening something unseen and terrible; on the
+      left the whole sky about the horizon was covered with a crimson glow, and
+      it was hard to tell whether there was a fire somewhere, or whether it was
+      the moon about to rise. As by day the distance could be seen, but its
+      tender lilac tint had gone, quenched by the evening darkness, in which the
+      whole steppe was hidden like Moisey Moisevitch&rsquo;s children under the quilt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Corncrakes and quails do not call in the July nights, the nightingale does
+      not sing in the woodland marsh, and there is no scent of flowers, but
+      still the steppe is lovely and full of life. As soon as the sun goes down
+      and the darkness enfolds the earth, the day&rsquo;s weariness is forgotten,
+      everything is forgiven, and the steppe breathes a light sigh from its
+      broad bosom. As though because the grass cannot see in the dark that it
+      has grown old, a gay youthful twitter rises up from it, such as is not
+      heard by day; chirruping, twittering, whistling, scratching, the basses,
+      tenors and sopranos of the steppe all mingle in an incessant, monotonous
+      roar of sound in which it is sweet to brood on memories and sorrows. The
+      monotonous twitter soothes to sleep like a lullaby; you drive and feel you
+      are falling asleep, but suddenly there comes the abrupt agitated cry of a
+      wakeful bird, or a vague sound like a voice crying out in wonder &ldquo;A-ah,
+      a-ah!&rdquo; and slumber closes one&rsquo;s eyelids again. Or you drive by a little
+      creek where there are bushes and hear the bird, called by the steppe
+      dwellers &ldquo;the sleeper,&rdquo; call &ldquo;Asleep, asleep, asleep!&rdquo; while another
+      laughs or breaks into trills of hysterical weeping&mdash;that is the owl.
+      For whom do they call and who hears them on that plain, God only knows,
+      but there is deep sadness and lamentation in their cry. . . . There is a
+      scent of hay and dry grass and belated flowers, but the scent is heavy,
+      sweetly mawkish and soft.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Everything can be seen through the mist, but it is hard to make out the
+      colours and the outlines of objects. Everything looks different from what
+      it is. You drive on and suddenly see standing before you right in the
+      roadway a dark figure like a monk; it stands motionless, waiting, holding
+      something in its hands. . . . Can it be a robber? The figure comes closer,
+      grows bigger; now it is on a level with the chaise, and you see it is not
+      a man, but a solitary bush or a great stone. Such motionless expectant
+      figures stand on the low hills, hide behind the old barrows, peep out from
+      the high grass, and they all look like human beings and arouse suspicion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And when the moon rises the night becomes pale and dim. The mist seems to
+      have passed away. The air is transparent, fresh and warm; one can see well
+      in all directions and even distinguish the separate stalks of grass by the
+      wayside. Stones and bits of pots can be seen at a long distance. The
+      suspicious figures like monks look blacker against the light background of
+      the night, and seem more sinister. More and more often in the midst of the
+      monotonous chirruping there comes the sound of the &ldquo;A-ah, a-ah!&rdquo; of
+      astonishment troubling the motionless air, and the cry of a sleepless or
+      delirious bird. Broad shadows move across the plain like clouds across the
+      sky, and in the inconceivable distance, if you look long and intently at
+      it, misty monstrous shapes rise up and huddle one against another. . . .
+      It is rather uncanny. One glances at the pale green, star-spangled sky on
+      which there is no cloudlet, no spot, and understands why the warm air is
+      motionless, why nature is on her guard, afraid to stir: she is afraid and
+      reluctant to lose one instant of life. Of the unfathomable depth and
+      infinity of the sky one can only form a conception at sea and on the
+      steppe by night when the moon is shining. It is terribly lonely and
+      caressing; it looks down languid and alluring, and its caressing sweetness
+      makes one giddy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      You drive on for one hour, for a second. . . . You meet upon the way a
+      silent old barrow or a stone figure put up God knows when and by whom; a
+      nightbird floats noiselessly over the earth, and little by little those
+      legends of the steppes, the tales of men you have met, the stories of some
+      old nurse from the steppe, and all the things you have managed to see and
+      treasure in your soul, come back to your mind. And then in the churring of
+      insects, in the sinister figures, in the ancient barrows, in the blue sky,
+      in the moonlight, in the flight of the nightbird, in everything you see
+      and hear, triumphant beauty, youth, the fulness of power, and the
+      passionate thirst for life begin to be apparent; the soul responds to the
+      call of her lovely austere fatherland, and longs to fly over the steppes
+      with the nightbird. And in the triumph of beauty, in the exuberance of
+      happiness you are conscious of yearning and grief, as though the steppe
+      knew she was solitary, knew that her wealth and her inspiration were
+      wasted for the world, not glorified in song, not wanted by anyone; and
+      through the joyful clamour one hears her mournful, hopeless call for
+      singers, singers!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Woa! Good-evening, Panteley! Is everything all right?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;First-rate, Ivan Ivanitch!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Haven&rsquo;t you seen Varlamov, lads?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, we haven&rsquo;t.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Yegorushka woke up and opened his eyes. The chaise had stopped. On the
+      right the train of waggons stretched for a long way ahead on the road, and
+      men were moving to and fro near them. All the waggons being loaded up with
+      great bales of wool looked very high and fat, while the horses looked
+      short-legged and little.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, then, we shall go on to the Molokans&rsquo;!&rdquo; Kuzmitchov said aloud. &ldquo;The
+      Jew told us that Varlamov was putting up for the night at the Molokans&rsquo;.
+      So good-bye, lads! Good luck to you!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good-bye, Ivan Ivanitch,&rdquo; several voices replied.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I say, lads,&rdquo; Kuzmitchov cried briskly, &ldquo;you take my little lad along
+      with you! Why should he go jolting off with us for nothing? You put him on
+      the bales, Panteley, and let him come on slowly, and we shall overtake
+      you. Get down, Yegor! Go on; it&rsquo;s all right. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Yegorushka got down from the box-seat. Several hands caught him, lifted
+      him high into the air, and he found himself on something big, soft, and
+      rather wet with dew. It seemed to him now as though the sky were quite
+      close and the earth far away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hey, take his little coat!&rdquo; Deniska shouted from somewhere far below.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His coat and bundle flung up from far below fell close to Yegorushka.
+      Anxious not to think of anything, he quickly put his bundle under his head
+      and covered himself with his coat, and stretching his legs out and
+      shrinking a little from the dew, he laughed with content.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sleep, sleep, sleep, . . .&rdquo; he thought.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t be unkind to him, you devils!&rdquo; he heard Deniska&rsquo;s voice below.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good-bye, lads; good luck to you,&rdquo; shouted Kuzmitchov. &ldquo;I rely upon you!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t you be uneasy, Ivan Ivanitch!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Deniska shouted to the horses, the chaise creaked and started, not along
+      the road, but somewhere off to the side. For two minutes there was
+      silence, as though the waggons were asleep and there was no sound except
+      the clanking of the pails tied on at the back of the chaise as it slowly
+      died away in the distance. Then someone at the head of the waggons
+      shouted:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Kiruha! Sta-art!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The foremost of the waggons creaked, then the second, then the third. . .
+      . Yegorushka felt the waggon he was on sway and creak also. The waggons
+      were moving. Yegorushka took a tighter hold of the cord with which the
+      bales were tied on, laughed again with content, shifted the cake in his
+      pocket, and fell asleep just as he did in his bed at home. . . .
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When he woke up the sun had risen, it was screened by an ancient barrow,
+      and, trying to shed its light upon the earth, it scattered its beams in
+      all directions and flooded the horizon with gold. It seemed to Yegorushka
+      that it was not in its proper place, as the day before it had risen behind
+      his back, and now it was much more to his left. . . . And the whole
+      landscape was different. There were no hills now, but on all sides,
+      wherever one looked, there stretched the brown cheerless plain; here and
+      there upon it small barrows rose up and rooks flew as they had done the
+      day before. The belfries and huts of some village showed white in the
+      distance ahead; as it was Sunday the Little Russians were at home baking
+      and cooking&mdash;that could be seen by the smoke which rose from every
+      chimney and hung, a dark blue transparent veil, over the village. In
+      between the huts and beyond the church there were blue glimpses of a
+      river, and beyond the river a misty distance. But nothing was so different
+      from yesterday as the road. Something extraordinarily broad, spread out
+      and titanic, stretched over the steppe by way of a road. It was a grey
+      streak well trodden down and covered with dust, like all roads. Its width
+      puzzled Yegorushka and brought thoughts of fairy tales to his mind. Who
+      travelled along that road? Who needed so much space? It was strange and
+      unintelligible. It might have been supposed that giants with immense
+      strides, such as Ilya Muromets and Solovy the Brigand, were still
+      surviving in Russia, and that their gigantic steeds were still alive.
+      Yegorushka, looking at the road, imagined some half a dozen high chariots
+      racing along side by side, like some he used to see in pictures in his
+      Scripture history; these chariots were each drawn by six wild furious
+      horses, and their great wheels raised a cloud of dust to the sky, while
+      the horses were driven by men such as one may see in one&rsquo;s dreams or in
+      imagination brooding over fairy tales. And if those figures had existed,
+      how perfectly in keeping with the steppe and the road they would have
+      been!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Telegraph-poles with two wires on them stretched along the right side of
+      the road to its furthermost limit. Growing smaller and smaller they
+      disappeared near the village behind the huts and green trees, and then
+      again came into sight in the lilac distance in the form of very small thin
+      sticks that looked like pencils stuck into the ground. Hawks, falcons, and
+      crows sat on the wires and looked indifferently at the moving waggons.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yegorushka was lying in the last of the waggons, and so could see the
+      whole string. There were about twenty waggons, and there was a driver to
+      every three waggons. By the last waggon, the one in which Yegorushka was,
+      there walked an old man with a grey beard, as short and lean as Father
+      Christopher, but with a sunburnt, stern and brooding face. It is very
+      possible that the old man was not stern and not brooding, but his red
+      eyelids and his sharp long nose gave his face a stern frigid expression
+      such as is common with people in the habit of continually thinking of
+      serious things in solitude. Like Father Christopher he was wearing a
+      wide-brimmed top-hat, not like a gentleman&rsquo;s, but made of brown felt, and
+      in shape more like a cone with the top cut off than a real top-hat.
+      Probably from a habit acquired in cold winters, when he must more than
+      once have been nearly frozen as he trudged beside the waggons, he kept
+      slapping his thighs and stamping with his feet as he walked. Noticing that
+      Yegorushka was awake, he looked at him and said, shrugging his shoulders
+      as though from the cold:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, you are awake, youngster! So you are the son of Ivan Ivanitch?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No; his nephew. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nephew of Ivan Ivanitch? Here I have taken off my boots and am hopping
+      along barefoot. My feet are bad; they are swollen, and it&rsquo;s easier without
+      my boots . . . easier, youngster . . . without boots, I mean. . . . So you
+      are his nephew? He is a good man; no harm in him. . . . God give him
+      health. . . . No harm in him . . . I mean Ivan Ivanitch. . . . He has gone
+      to the Molokans&rsquo;. . . . O Lord, have mercy upon us!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The old man talked, too, as though it were very cold, pausing and not
+      opening his mouth properly; and he mispronounced the labial consonants,
+      stuttering over them as though his lips were frozen. As he talked to
+      Yegorushka he did not once smile, and he seemed stern.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Two waggons ahead of them there walked a man wearing a long reddish-brown
+      coat, a cap and high boots with sagging bootlegs and carrying a whip in
+      his hand. This was not an old man, only about forty. When he looked round
+      Yegorushka saw a long red face with a scanty goat-beard and a spongy
+      looking swelling under his right eye. Apart from this very ugly swelling,
+      there was another peculiar thing about him which caught the eye at once:
+      in his left hand he carried a whip, while he waved the right as though he
+      were conducting an unseen choir; from time to time he put the whip under
+      his arm, and then he conducted with both hands and hummed something to
+      himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The next driver was a long rectilinear figure with extremely sloping
+      shoulders and a back as flat as a board. He held himself as stiffly erect
+      as though he were marching or had swallowed a yard measure. His hands did
+      not swing as he walked, but hung down as if they were straight sticks, and
+      he strode along in a wooden way, after the manner of toy soldiers, almost
+      without bending his knees, and trying to take as long steps as possible.
+      While the old man or the owner of the spongy swelling were taking two
+      steps he succeeded in taking only one, and so it seemed as though he were
+      walking more slowly than any of them, and would drop behind. His face was
+      tied up in a rag, and on his head something stuck up that looked like a
+      monk&rsquo;s peaked cap; he was dressed in a short Little Russian coat, with
+      full dark blue trousers and bark shoes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yegorushka did not even distinguish those that were farther on. He lay on
+      his stomach, picked a little hole in the bale, and, having nothing better
+      to do, began twisting the wool into a thread. The old man trudging along
+      below him turned out not to be so stern as one might have supposed from
+      his face. Having begun a conversation, he did not let it drop.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where are you going?&rdquo; he asked, stamping with his feet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To school,&rdquo; answered Yegorushka.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To school? Aha! . . . Well, may the Queen of Heaven help you. Yes. One
+      brain is good, but two are better. To one man God gives one brain, to
+      another two brains, and to another three. . . . To another three, that is
+      true. . . . One brain you are born with, one you get from learning, and a
+      third with a good life. So you see, my lad, it is a good thing if a man
+      has three brains. Living is easier for him, and, what&rsquo;s more, dying is,
+      too. Dying is, too. . . . And we shall all die for sure.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The old man scratched his forehead, glanced upwards at Yegorushka with his
+      red eyes, and went on:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Maxim Nikolaitch, the gentleman from Slavyanoserbsk, brought a little lad
+      to school, too, last year. I don&rsquo;t know how he is getting on there in
+      studying the sciences, but he was a nice good little lad. . . . God give
+      them help, they are nice gentlemen. Yes, he, too, brought his boy to
+      school. . . . In Slavyanoserbsk there is no establishment, I suppose, for
+      study. No. . . . But it is a nice town. . . . There&rsquo;s an ordinary school
+      for simple folks, but for the higher studies there is nothing. No, that&rsquo;s
+      true. What&rsquo;s your name? . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yegorushka.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yegory, then. . . . The holy martyr Yegory, the Bearer of Victory, whose
+      day is the twenty-third of April. And my christian name is Panteley, . . .
+      Panteley Zaharov Holodov. . . . We are Holodovs . . . . I am a native of&mdash;maybe
+      you&rsquo;ve heard of it&mdash;Tim in the province of Kursk. My brothers are
+      artisans and work at trades in the town, but I am a peasant. . . . I have
+      remained a peasant. Seven years ago I went there&mdash;home, I mean. I
+      went to the village and to the town. . . . To Tim, I mean. Then, thank
+      God, they were all alive and well; . . . but now I don&rsquo;t know. . . . Maybe
+      some of them are dead. . . . And it&rsquo;s time they did die, for some of them
+      are older than I am. Death is all right; it is good so long, of course, as
+      one does not die without repentance. There is no worse evil than an
+      impenitent death; an impenitent death is a joy to the devil. And if you
+      want to die penitent, so that you may not be forbidden to enter the
+      mansions of the Lord, pray to the holy martyr Varvara. She is the
+      intercessor. She is, that&rsquo;s the truth. . . . For God has given her such a
+      place in the heavens that everyone has the right to pray to her for
+      penitence.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Panteley went on muttering, and apparently did not trouble whether
+      Yegorushka heard him or not. He talked listlessly, mumbling to himself,
+      without raising or dropping his voice, but succeeded in telling him a
+      great deal in a short time. All he said was made up of fragments that had
+      very little connection with one another, and quite uninteresting for
+      Yegorushka. Possibly he talked only in order to reckon over his thoughts
+      aloud after the night spent in silence, in order to see if they were all
+      there. After talking of repentance, he spoke about a certain Maxim
+      Nikolaitch from Slavyanoserbsk.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, he took his little lad; . . . he took him, that&rsquo;s true . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      One of the waggoners walking in front darted from his place, ran to one
+      side and began lashing on the ground with his whip. He was a stalwart,
+      broad-shouldered man of thirty, with curly flaxen hair and a look of great
+      health and vigour. Judging from the movements of his shoulders and the
+      whip, and the eagerness expressed in his attitude, he was beating
+      something alive. Another waggoner, a short stubby little man with a bushy
+      black beard, wearing a waistcoat and a shirt outside his trousers, ran up
+      to him. The latter broke into a deep guffaw of laughter and coughing and
+      said: &ldquo;I say, lads, Dymov has killed a snake!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There are people whose intelligence can be gauged at once by their voice
+      and laughter. The man with the black beard belonged to that class of
+      fortunate individuals; impenetrable stupidity could be felt in his voice
+      and laugh. The flaxen-headed Dymov had finished, and lifting from the
+      ground with his whip something like a cord, flung it with a laugh into the
+      cart.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s not a viper; it&rsquo;s a grass snake!&rdquo; shouted someone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The man with the wooden gait and the bandage round his face strode up
+      quickly to the dead snake, glanced at it and flung up his stick-like arms.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You jail-bird!&rdquo; he cried in a hollow wailing voice. &ldquo;What have you killed
+      a grass snake for? What had he done to you, you damned brute? Look, he has
+      killed a grass snake; how would you like to be treated so?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Grass snakes ought not to be killed, that&rsquo;s true,&rdquo; Panteley muttered
+      placidly, &ldquo;they ought not. . . They are not vipers; though it looks like a
+      snake, it is a gentle, innocent creature. . . . It&rsquo;s friendly to man, the
+      grass snake is.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Dymov and the man with the black beard were probably ashamed, for they
+      laughed loudly, and not answering, slouched lazily back to their waggons.
+      When the hindmost waggon was level with the spot where the dead snake lay,
+      the man with his face tied up standing over it turned to Panteley and
+      asked in a tearful voice:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Grandfather, what did he want to kill the grass snake for?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His eyes, as Yegorushka saw now, were small and dingy looking; his face
+      was grey, sickly and looked somehow dingy too while his chin was red and
+      seemed very much swollen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Grandfather, what did he kill it for?&rdquo; he repeated, striding along beside
+      Panteley.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A stupid fellow. His hands itch to kill, and that is why he does it,&rdquo;
+       answered the old man; &ldquo;but he oughtn&rsquo;t to kill a grass snake, that&rsquo;s true.
+      . . . Dymov is a ruffian, we all know, he kills everything he comes
+      across, and Kiruha did not interfere. He ought to have taken its part, but
+      instead of that, he goes off into &lsquo;Ha-ha-ha!&rsquo; and &lsquo;Ho-ho-ho!&rsquo; . . . But
+      don&rsquo;t be angry, Vassya. . . . Why be angry? They&rsquo;ve killed it&mdash;well,
+      never mind them. Dymov is a ruffian and Kiruha acted from foolishness&mdash;never
+      mind. . . . They are foolish people without understanding&mdash;but there,
+      don&rsquo;t mind them. Emelyan here never touches what he shouldn&rsquo;t; he never
+      does; . . . that is true, . . . because he is a man of education, while
+      they are stupid. . . . Emelyan, he doesn&rsquo;t touch things.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The waggoner in the reddish-brown coat and the spongy swelling on his
+      face, who was conducting an unseen choir, stopped. Hearing his name, and
+      waiting till Panteley and Vassya came up to him, he walked beside them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What are you talking about?&rdquo; he asked in a husky muffled voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, Vassya here is angry,&rdquo; said Panteley. &ldquo;So I have been saying things
+      to him to stop his being angry. . . . Oh, how my swollen feet hurt! Oh,
+      oh! They are more inflamed than ever for Sunday, God&rsquo;s holy day!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s from walking,&rdquo; observed Vassya.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, lad, no. It&rsquo;s not from walking. When I walk it seems easier; when I
+      lie down and get warm, . . . it&rsquo;s deadly. Walking is easier for me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Emelyan, in his reddish-brown coat, walked between Panteley and Vassya and
+      waved his arms, as though they were going to sing. After waving them a
+      little while he dropped them, and croaked out hopelessly:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have no voice. It&rsquo;s a real misfortune. All last night and this morning
+      I have been haunted by the trio &lsquo;Lord, have Mercy&rsquo; that we sang at the
+      wedding at Marionovsky&rsquo;s. It&rsquo;s in my head and in my throat. It seems as
+      though I could sing it, but I can&rsquo;t; I have no voice.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He paused for a minute, thinking, then went on:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;For fifteen years I was in the choir. In all the Lugansky works there
+      was, maybe, no one with a voice like mine. But, confound it, I bathed two
+      years ago in the Donets, and I can&rsquo;t get a single note true ever since. I
+      took cold in my throat. And without a voice I am like a workman without
+      hands.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s true,&rdquo; Panteley agreed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think of myself as a ruined man and nothing more.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At that moment Vassya chanced to catch sight of Yegorushka. His eyes grew
+      moist and smaller than ever.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There&rsquo;s a little gentleman driving with us,&rdquo; and he covered his nose with
+      his sleeve as though he were bashful. &ldquo;What a grand driver! Stay with us
+      and you shall drive the waggons and sell wool.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The incongruity of one person being at once a little gentleman and a
+      waggon driver seemed to strike him as very queer and funny, for he burst
+      into a loud guffaw, and went on enlarging upon the idea. Emelyan glanced
+      upwards at Yegorushka, too, but coldly and cursorily. He was absorbed in
+      his own thoughts, and had it not been for Vassya, would not have noticed
+      Yegorushka&rsquo;s presence. Before five minutes had passed he was waving his
+      arms again, then describing to his companions the beauties of the wedding
+      anthem, &ldquo;Lord, have Mercy,&rdquo; which he had remembered in the night. He put
+      the whip under his arm and waved both hands.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A mile from the village the waggons stopped by a well with a crane.
+      Letting his pail down into the well, black-bearded Kiruha lay on his
+      stomach on the framework and thrust his shaggy head, his shoulders, and
+      part of his chest into the black hole, so that Yegorushka could see
+      nothing but his short legs, which scarcely touched the ground. Seeing the
+      reflection of his head far down at the bottom of the well, he was
+      delighted and went off into his deep bass stupid laugh, and the echo from
+      the well answered him. When he got up his neck and face were as red as
+      beetroot. The first to run up and drink was Dymov. He drank laughing,
+      often turning from the pail to tell Kiruha something funny, then he turned
+      round, and uttered aloud, to be heard all over the steppe, five very bad
+      words. Yegorushka did not understand the meaning of such words, but he
+      knew very well they were bad words. He knew the repulsion his friends and
+      relations silently felt for such words. He himself, without knowing why,
+      shared that feeling and was accustomed to think that only drunk and
+      disorderly people enjoy the privilege of uttering such words aloud. He
+      remembered the murder of the grass snake, listened to Dymov&rsquo;s laughter,
+      and felt something like hatred for the man. And as ill-luck would have it,
+      Dymov at that moment caught sight of Yegorushka, who had climbed down from
+      the waggon and gone up to the well. He laughed aloud and shouted:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I say, lads, the old man has been brought to bed of a boy in the night!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Kiruha laughed his bass laugh till he coughed. Someone else laughed too,
+      while Yegorushka crimsoned and made up his mind finally that Dymov was a
+      very wicked man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With his curly flaxen head, with his shirt opened on his chest and no hat
+      on, Dymov looked handsome and exceptionally strong; in every movement he
+      made one could see the reckless dare-devil and athlete, knowing his value.
+      He shrugged his shoulders, put his arms akimbo, talked and laughed louder
+      than any of the rest, and looked as though he were going to lift up
+      something very heavy with one hand and astonish the whole world by doing
+      so. His mischievous mocking eyes glided over the road, the waggons, and
+      the sky without resting on anything, and seemed looking for someone to
+      kill, just as a pastime, and something to laugh at. Evidently he was
+      afraid of no one, would stick at nothing, and most likely was not in the
+      least interested in Yegorushka&rsquo;s opinion of him. . . . Yegorushka
+      meanwhile hated his flaxen head, his clear face, and his strength with his
+      whole heart, listened with fear and loathing to his laughter, and kept
+      thinking what word of abuse he could pay him out with.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Panteley, too, went up to the pail. He took out of his pocket a little
+      green glass of an ikon lamp, wiped it with a rag, filled it from the pail
+      and drank from it, then filled it again, wrapped the little glass in the
+      rag, and then put it back into his pocket.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Grandfather, why do you drink out of a lamp?&rdquo; Yegorushka asked him,
+      surprised.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;One man drinks out of a pail and another out of a lamp,&rdquo; the old man
+      answered evasively. &ldquo;Every man to his own taste. . . . You drink out of
+      the pail&mdash;well, drink, and may it do you good. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You darling, you beauty!&rdquo; Vassya said suddenly, in a caressing, plaintive
+      voice. &ldquo;You darling!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His eyes were fixed on the distance; they were moist and smiling, and his
+      face wore the same expression as when he had looked at Yegorushka.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who is it you are talking to?&rdquo; asked Kiruha.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A darling fox, . . . lying on her back, playing like a dog.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Everyone began staring into the distance, looking for the fox, but no one
+      could see it, only Vassya with his grey muddy-looking eyes, and he was
+      enchanted by it. His sight was extraordinarily keen, as Yegorushka learnt
+      afterwards. He was so long-sighted that the brown steppe was for him
+      always full of life and interest. He had only to look into the distance to
+      see a fox, a hare, a bustard, or some other animal keeping at a distance
+      from men. There was nothing strange in seeing a hare running away or a
+      flying bustard&mdash;everyone crossing the steppes could see them; but it
+      was not vouchsafed to everyone to see wild animals in their own haunts
+      when they were not running nor hiding, nor looking about them in alarm.
+      Yet Vassya saw foxes playing, hares washing themselves with their paws,
+      bustards preening their wings and hammering out their hollow nests. Thanks
+      to this keenness of sight, Vassya had, besides the world seen by everyone,
+      another world of his own, accessible to no one else, and probably a very
+      beautiful one, for when he saw something and was in raptures over it it
+      was impossible not to envy him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When the waggons set off again, the church bells were ringing for service.
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      V
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      The train of waggons drew up on the bank of a river on one side of a
+      village. The sun was blazing, as it had been the day before; the air was
+      stagnant and depressing. There were a few willows on the bank, but the
+      shade from them did not fall on the earth, but on the water, where it was
+      wasted; even in the shade under the waggon it was stifling and wearisome.
+      The water, blue from the reflection of the sky in it, was alluring.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Styopka, a waggoner whom Yegorushka noticed now for the first time, a
+      Little Russian lad of eighteen, in a long shirt without a belt, and full
+      trousers that flapped like flags as he walked, undressed quickly, ran
+      along the steep bank and plunged into the water. He dived three times,
+      then swam on his back and shut his eyes in his delight. His face was
+      smiling and wrinkled up as though he were being tickled, hurt and amused.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On a hot day when there is nowhere to escape from the sultry, stifling
+      heat, the splash of water and the loud breathing of a man bathing sounds
+      like good music to the ear. Dymov and Kiruha, looking at Styopka,
+      undressed quickly and one after the other, laughing loudly in eager
+      anticipation of their enjoyment, dropped into the water, and the quiet,
+      modest little river resounded with snorting and splashing and shouting.
+      Kiruha coughed, laughed and shouted as though they were trying to drown
+      him, while Dymov chased him and tried to catch him by the leg.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ha-ha-ha!&rdquo; he shouted. &ldquo;Catch him! Hold him!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Kiruha laughed and enjoyed himself, but his expression was the same as it
+      had been on dry land, stupid, with a look of astonishment on it as though
+      someone had, unnoticed, stolen up behind him and hit him on the head with
+      the butt-end of an axe. Yegorushka undressed, too, but did not let himself
+      down by the bank, but took a run and a flying leap from the height of
+      about ten feet. Describing an arc in the air, he fell into the water, sank
+      deep, but did not reach the bottom; some force, cold and pleasant to the
+      touch, seemed to hold him up and bring him back to the surface. He popped
+      out and, snorting and blowing bubbles, opened his eyes; but the sun was
+      reflected in the water quite close to his face. At first blinding spots of
+      light, then rainbow colours and dark patches, flitted before his eyes. He
+      made haste to dive again, opened his eyes in the water and saw something
+      cloudy-green like a sky on a moonlight night. Again the same force would
+      not let him touch the bottom and stay in the coolness, but lifted him to
+      the surface. He popped out and heaved a sigh so deep that he had a feeling
+      of space and freshness, not only in his chest, but in his stomach. Then,
+      to get from the water everything he possibly could get, he allowed himself
+      every luxury; he lay on his back and basked, splashed, frolicked, swam on
+      his face, on his side, on his back and standing up&mdash;just as he
+      pleased till he was exhausted. The other bank was thickly overgrown with
+      reeds; it was golden in the sun, and the flowers of the reeds hung
+      drooping to the water in lovely tassels. In one place the reeds were
+      shaking and nodding, with their flowers rustling&mdash; Styopka and Kiruha
+      were hunting crayfish.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A crayfish, look, lads! A crayfish!&rdquo; Kiruha cried triumphantly and
+      actually showed a crayfish.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yegorushka swam up to the reeds, dived, and began fumbling among their
+      roots. Burrowing in the slimy, liquid mud, he felt something sharp and
+      unpleasant&mdash;perhaps it really was a crayfish. But at that minute
+      someone seized him by the leg and pulled him to the surface. Spluttering
+      and coughing, Yegorushka opened his eyes and saw before him the wet
+      grinning face of the dare-devil Dymov. The impudent fellow was breathing
+      hard, and from a look in his eyes he seemed inclined for further mischief.
+      He held Yegorushka tight by the leg, and was lifting his hand to take hold
+      of his neck. But Yegorushka tore himself away with repulsion and terror,
+      as though disgusted at being touched and afraid that the bully would drown
+      him, and said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Fool! I&rsquo;ll punch you in the face.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Feeling that this was not sufficient to express his hatred, he thought a
+      minute and added:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You blackguard! You son of a bitch!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But Dymov, as though nothing were the matter, took no further notice of
+      Yegorushka, but swam off to Kiruha, shouting:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ha-ha-ha! Let us catch fish! Mates, let us catch fish.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To be sure,&rdquo; Kiruha agreed; &ldquo;there must be a lot of fish here.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Styopka, run to the village and ask the peasants for a net!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They won&rsquo;t give it to me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They will, you ask them. Tell them that they should give it to us for
+      Christ&rsquo;s sake, because we are just the same as pilgrims.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s true.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Styopka clambered out of the water, dressed quickly, and without a cap on
+      he ran, his full trousers flapping, to the village. The water lost all its
+      charm for Yegorushka after his encounter with Dymov. He got out and began
+      dressing. Panteley and Vassya were sitting on the steep bank, with their
+      legs hanging down, looking at the bathers. Emelyan was standing naked, up
+      to his knees in the water, holding on to the grass with one hand to
+      prevent himself from falling while the other stroked his body. With his
+      bony shoulder-blades, with the swelling under his eye, bending down and
+      evidently afraid of the water, he made a ludicrous figure. His face was
+      grave and severe. He looked angrily at the water, as though he were just
+      going to upbraid it for having given him cold in the Donets and robbed him
+      of his voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And why don&rsquo;t you bathe?&rdquo; Yegorushka asked Vassya.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, I don&rsquo;t care for it, . . .&rdquo; answered Vassya.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How is it your chin is swollen?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s bad. . . . I used to work at the match factory, little sir. . . .
+      The doctor used to say that it would make my jaw rot. The air is not
+      healthy there. There were three chaps beside me who had their jaws
+      swollen, and with one of them it rotted away altogether.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Styopka soon came back with the net. Dymov and Kiruha were already turning
+      blue and getting hoarse by being so long in the water, but they set about
+      fishing eagerly. First they went to a deep place beside the reeds; there
+      Dymov was up to his neck, while the water went over squat Kiruha&rsquo;s head.
+      The latter spluttered and blew bubbles, while Dymov stumbling on the
+      prickly roots, fell over and got caught in the net; both flopped about in
+      the water, and made a noise, and nothing but mischief came of their
+      fishing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s deep,&rdquo; croaked Kiruha. &ldquo;You won&rsquo;t catch anything.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t tug, you devil!&rdquo; shouted Dymov trying to put the net in the proper
+      position. &ldquo;Hold it up.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You won&rsquo;t catch anything here,&rdquo; Panteley shouted from the bank. &ldquo;You are
+      only frightening the fish, you stupids! Go more to the left! It&rsquo;s
+      shallower there!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Once a big fish gleamed above the net; they all drew a breath, and Dymov
+      struck the place where it had vanished with his fist, and his face
+      expressed vexation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ugh!&rdquo; cried Panteley, and he stamped his foot. &ldquo;You&rsquo;ve let the perch
+      slip! It&rsquo;s gone!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Moving more to the left, Dymov and Kiruha picked out a shallower place,
+      and then fishing began in earnest. They had wandered off some hundred
+      paces from the waggons; they could be seen silently trying to go as deep
+      as they could and as near the reeds, moving their legs a little at a time,
+      drawing out the nets, beating the water with their fists to drive them
+      towards the nets. From the reeds they got to the further bank; they drew
+      the net out, then, with a disappointed air, lifting their knees high as
+      they walked, went back into the reeds. They were talking about something,
+      but what it was no one could hear. The sun was scorching their backs, the
+      flies were stinging them, and their bodies had turned from purple to
+      crimson. Styopka was walking after them with a pail in his hands; he had
+      tucked his shirt right up under his armpits, and was holding it up by the
+      hem with his teeth. After every successful catch he lifted up some fish,
+      and letting it shine in the sun, shouted:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Look at this perch! We&rsquo;ve five like that!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Every time Dymov, Kiruha and Styopka pulled out the net they could be seen
+      fumbling about in the mud in it, putting some things into the pail and
+      throwing other things away; sometimes they passed something that was in
+      the net from hand to hand, examined it inquisitively, then threw that,
+      too, away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is it?&rdquo; they shouted to them from the bank.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Styopka made some answer, but it was hard to make out his words. Then he
+      climbed out of the water and, holding the pail in both hands, forgetting
+      to let his shirt drop, ran to the waggons.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s full!&rdquo; he shouted, breathing hard. &ldquo;Give us another!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Yegorushka looked into the pail: it was full. A young pike poked its ugly
+      nose out of the water, and there were swarms of crayfish and little fish
+      round about it. Yegorushka put his hand down to the bottom and stirred up
+      the water; the pike vanished under the crayfish and a perch and a tench
+      swam to the surface instead of it. Vassya, too, looked into the pail. His
+      eyes grew moist and his face looked as caressing as before when he saw the
+      fox. He took something out of the pail, put it to his mouth and began
+      chewing it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mates,&rdquo; said Styopka in amazement, &ldquo;Vassya is eating a live gudgeon!
+      Phoo!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s not a gudgeon, but a minnow,&rdquo; Vassya answered calmly, still
+      munching.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He took a fish&rsquo;s tail out of his mouth, looked at it caressingly, and put
+      it back again. While he was chewing and crunching with his teeth it seemed
+      to Yegorushka that he saw before him something not human. Vassya&rsquo;s swollen
+      chin, his lustreless eyes, his extraordinary sharp sight, the fish&rsquo;s tail
+      in his mouth, and the caressing friendliness with which he crunched the
+      gudgeon made him like an animal.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yegorushka felt dreary beside him. And the fishing was over, too. He
+      walked about beside the waggons, thought a little, and, feeling bored,
+      strolled off to the village.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Not long afterwards he was standing in the church, and with his forehead
+      leaning on somebody&rsquo;s back, listened to the singing of the choir. The
+      service was drawing to a close. Yegorushka did not understand church
+      singing and did not care for it. He listened a little, yawned, and began
+      looking at the backs and heads before him. In one head, red and wet from
+      his recent bathe, he recognized Emelyan. The back of his head had been
+      cropped in a straight line higher than is usual; the hair in front had
+      been cut unbecomingly high, and Emelyan&rsquo;s ears stood out like two dock
+      leaves, and seemed to feel themselves out of place. Looking at the back of
+      his head and his ears, Yegorushka, for some reason, thought that Emelyan
+      was probably very unhappy. He remembered the way he conducted with his
+      hands, his husky voice, his timid air when he was bathing, and felt
+      intense pity for him. He longed to say something friendly to him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am here, too,&rdquo; he said, putting out his hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      People who sing tenor or bass in the choir, especially those who have at
+      any time in their lives conducted, are accustomed to look with a stern and
+      unfriendly air at boys. They do not give up this habit, even when they
+      leave off being in a choir. Turning to Yegorushka, Emelyan looked at him
+      from under his brows and said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t play in church!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Then Yegorushka moved forwards nearer to the ikon-stand. Here he saw
+      interesting people. On the right side, in front of everyone, a lady and a
+      gentleman were standing on a carpet. There were chairs behind them. The
+      gentleman was wearing newly ironed shantung trousers; he stood as
+      motionless as a soldier saluting, and held high his bluish shaven chin.
+      There was a very great air of dignity in his stand-up collar, in his blue
+      chin, in his small bald patch and his cane. His neck was so strained from
+      excess of dignity, and his chin was drawn up so tensely, that it looked as
+      though his head were ready to fly off and soar upwards any minute. The
+      lady, who was stout and elderly and wore a white silk shawl, held her head
+      on one side and looked as though she had done someone a favour, and wanted
+      to say: &ldquo;Oh, don&rsquo;t trouble yourself to thank me; I don&rsquo;t like it . . . .&rdquo;
+       A thick wall of Little Russian heads stood all round the carpet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yegorushka went up to the ikon-stand and began kissing the local ikons.
+      Before each image he slowly bowed down to the ground, without getting up,
+      looked round at the congregation, then got up and kissed the ikon. The
+      contact of his forehead with the cold floor afforded him great
+      satisfaction. When the beadle came from the altar with a pair of long
+      snuffers to put out the candles, Yegorushka jumped up quickly from the
+      floor and ran up to him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Have they given out the holy bread?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There is none; there is none,&rdquo; the beadle muttered gruffly. &ldquo;It is no use
+      your. . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The service was over; Yegorushka walked out of the church in a leisurely
+      way, and began strolling about the market-place. He had seen a good many
+      villages, market-places, and peasants in his time, and everything that met
+      his eyes was entirely without interest for him. At a loss for something to
+      do, he went into a shop over the door of which hung a wide strip of red
+      cotton. The shop consisted of two roomy, badly lighted parts; in one half
+      they sold drapery and groceries, in the other there were tubs of tar, and
+      there were horse-collars hanging from the ceiling; from both came the
+      savoury smell of leather and tar. The floor of the shop had been watered;
+      the man who watered it must have been a very whimsical and original
+      person, for it was sprinkled in patterns and mysterious symbols. The
+      shopkeeper, an overfed-looking man with a broad face and round beard,
+      apparently a Great Russian, was standing, leaning his person over the
+      counter. He was nibbling a piece of sugar as he drank his tea, and heaved
+      a deep sigh at every sip. His face expressed complete indifference, but
+      each sigh seemed to be saying:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Just wait a minute; I will give it you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Give me a farthing&rsquo;s worth of sunflower seeds,&rdquo; Yegorushka said,
+      addressing him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The shopkeeper raised his eyebrows, came out from behind the counter, and
+      poured a farthing&rsquo;s worth of sunflower seeds into Yegorushka&rsquo;s pocket,
+      using an empty pomatum pot as a measure. Yegorushka did not want to go
+      away. He spent a long time in examining the box of cakes, thought a little
+      and asked, pointing to some little cakes covered with the mildew of age:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How much are these cakes?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Two for a farthing.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Yegorushka took out of his pocket the cake given him the day before by the
+      Jewess, and asked him:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And how much do you charge for cakes like this?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The shopman took the cake in his hands, looked at it from all sides, and
+      raised one eyebrow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Like that?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then he raised the other eyebrow, thought a minute, and answered:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Two for three farthings. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A silence followed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Whose boy are you?&rdquo; the shopman asked, pouring himself out some tea from
+      a red copper teapot.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The nephew of Ivan Ivanitch.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There are all sorts of Ivan Ivanitchs,&rdquo; the shopkeeper sighed. He looked
+      over Yegorushka&rsquo;s head towards the door, paused a minute and asked:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Would you like some tea?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Please. . . .&rdquo; Yegorushka assented not very readily, though he felt an
+      intense longing for his usual morning tea.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The shopkeeper poured him out a glass and gave him with it a bit of sugar
+      that looked as though it had been nibbled. Yegorushka sat down on the
+      folding chair and began drinking it. He wanted to ask the price of a pound
+      of sugar almonds, and had just broached the subject when a customer walked
+      in, and the shopkeeper, leaving his glass of tea, attended to his
+      business. He led the customer into the other half, where there was a smell
+      of tar, and was there a long time discussing something with him. The
+      customer, a man apparently very obstinate and pig-headed, was continually
+      shaking his head to signify his disapproval, and retreating towards the
+      door. The shopkeeper tried to persuade him of something and began pouring
+      some oats into a big sack for him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you call those oats?&rdquo; the customer said gloomily. &ldquo;Those are not oats,
+      but chaff. It&rsquo;s a mockery to give that to the hens; enough to make the
+      hens laugh. . . . No, I will go to Bondarenko.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      When Yegorushka went back to the river a small camp fire was smoking on
+      the bank. The waggoners were cooking their dinner. Styopka was standing in
+      the smoke, stirring the cauldron with a big notched spoon. A little on one
+      side Kiruha and Vassya, with eyes reddened from the smoke, were sitting
+      cleaning the fish. Before them lay the net covered with slime and water
+      weeds, and on it lay gleaming fish and crawling crayfish.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Emelyan, who had not long been back from the church, was sitting beside
+      Panteley, waving his arm and humming just audibly in a husky voice: &ldquo;To
+      Thee we sing. . . .&rdquo; Dymov was moving about by the horses.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When they had finished cleaning them, Kiruha and Vassya put the fish and
+      the living crayfish together in the pail, rinsed them, and from the pail
+      poured them all into the boiling water.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Shall I put in some fat?&rdquo; asked Styopka, skimming off the froth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No need. The fish will make its own gravy,&rdquo; answered Kiruha.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Before taking the cauldron off the fire Styopka scattered into the water
+      three big handfuls of millet and a spoonful of salt; finally he tried it,
+      smacked his lips, licked the spoon, and gave a self-satisfied grunt, which
+      meant that the grain was done.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All except Panteley sat down near the cauldron and set to work with their
+      spoons.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You there! Give the little lad a spoon!&rdquo; Panteley observed sternly. &ldquo;I
+      dare say he is hungry too!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ours is peasant fare,&rdquo; sighed Kiruha.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Peasant fare is welcome, too, when one is hungry.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They gave Yegorushka a spoon. He began eating, not sitting, but standing
+      close to the cauldron and looking down into it as in a hole. The grain
+      smelt of fish and fish-scales were mixed up with the millet. The crayfish
+      could not be hooked out with a spoon, and the men simply picked them out
+      of the cauldron with their hands; Vassya did so particularly freely, and
+      wetted his sleeves as well as his hands in the mess. But yet the stew
+      seemed to Yegorushka very nice, and reminded him of the crayfish soup
+      which his mother used to make at home on fast-days. Panteley was sitting
+      apart munching bread.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Grandfather, why aren&rsquo;t you eating?&rdquo; Emelyan asked him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t eat crayfish. . . . Nasty things,&rdquo; the old man said, and turned
+      away with disgust.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While they were eating they all talked. From this conversation Yegorushka
+      gathered that all his new acquaintances, in spite of the differences of
+      their ages and their characters, had one point in common which made them
+      all alike: they were all people with a splendid past and a very poor
+      present. Of their past they all&mdash; every one of them&mdash;spoke with
+      enthusiasm; their attitude to the present was almost one of contempt. The
+      Russian loves recalling life, but he does not love living. Yegorushka did
+      not yet know that, and before the stew had been all eaten he firmly
+      believed that the men sitting round the cauldron were the injured victims
+      of fate. Panteley told them that in the past, before there were railways,
+      he used to go with trains of waggons to Moscow and to Nizhni, and used to
+      earn so much that he did not know what to do with his money; and what
+      merchants there used to be in those days! what fish! how cheap everything
+      was! Now the roads were shorter, the merchants were stingier, the peasants
+      were poorer, the bread was dearer, everything had shrunk and was on a
+      smaller scale. Emelyan told them that in old days he had been in the choir
+      in the Lugansky works, and that he had a remarkable voice and read music
+      splendidly, while now he had become a peasant and lived on the charity of
+      his brother, who sent him out with his horses and took half his earnings.
+      Vassya had once worked in a match factory; Kiruha had been a coachman in a
+      good family, and had been reckoned the smartest driver of a three-in-hand
+      in the whole district. Dymov, the son of a well-to-do peasant, lived at
+      ease, enjoyed himself and had known no trouble till he was twenty, when
+      his stern harsh father, anxious to train him to work, and afraid he would
+      be spoiled at home, had sent him to a carrier&rsquo;s to work as a hired
+      labourer. Styopka was the only one who said nothing, but from his
+      beardless face it was evident that his life had been a much better one in
+      the past.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thinking of his father, Dymov frowned and left off eating. Sullenly from
+      under his brows he looked round at his companions and his eye rested upon
+      Yegorushka.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You heathen, take off your cap,&rdquo; he said rudely. &ldquo;You can&rsquo;t eat with your
+      cap on, and you a gentleman too!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Yegorushka took off his hat and did not say a word, but the stew lost all
+      savour for him, and he did not hear Panteley and Vassya intervening on his
+      behalf. A feeling of anger with the insulting fellow was rankling
+      oppressively in his breast, and he made up his mind that he would do him
+      some injury, whatever it cost him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After dinner everyone sauntered to the waggons and lay down in the shade.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are we going to start soon, grandfather?&rdquo; Yegorushka asked Panteley.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In God&rsquo;s good time we shall set off. There&rsquo;s no starting yet; it is too
+      hot. . . . O Lord, Thy will be done. Holy Mother. . . Lie down, little
+      lad.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Soon there was a sound of snoring from under the waggons. Yegorushka meant
+      to go back to the village, but on consideration, yawned and lay down by
+      the old man.
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      VI
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      The waggons remained by the river the whole day, and set off again when
+      the sun was setting.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yegorushka was lying on the bales again; the waggon creaked softly and
+      swayed from side to side. Panteley walked below, stamping his feet,
+      slapping himself on his thighs and muttering. The air was full of the
+      churring music of the steppes, as it had been the day before.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yegorushka lay on his back, and, putting his hands under his head, gazed
+      upwards at the sky. He watched the glow of sunset kindle, then fade away;
+      guardian angels covering the horizon with their gold wings disposed
+      themselves to slumber. The day had passed peacefully; the quiet peaceful
+      night had come, and they could stay tranquilly at home in heaven. . . .
+      Yegorushka saw the sky by degrees grow dark and the mist fall over the
+      earth&mdash;saw the stars light up, one after the other. . . .
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When you gaze a long while fixedly at the deep sky thoughts and feelings
+      for some reason merge in a sense of loneliness. One begins to feel
+      hopelessly solitary, and everything one used to look upon as near and akin
+      becomes infinitely remote and valueless; the stars that have looked down
+      from the sky thousands of years already, the mists and the
+      incomprehensible sky itself, indifferent to the brief life of man, oppress
+      the soul with their silence when one is left face to face with them and
+      tries to grasp their significance. One is reminded of the solitude
+      awaiting each one of us in the grave, and the reality of life seems awful
+      . . . full of despair. . . .
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yegorushka thought of his grandmother, who was sleeping now under the
+      cherry-trees in the cemetery. He remembered how she lay in her coffin with
+      pennies on her eyes, how afterwards she was shut in and let down into the
+      grave; he even recalled the hollow sound of the clods of earth on the
+      coffin lid. . . . He pictured his granny in the dark and narrow coffin,
+      helpless and deserted by everyone. His imagination pictured his granny
+      suddenly awakening, not understanding where she was, knocking upon the lid
+      and calling for help, and in the end swooning with horror and dying again.
+      He imagined his mother dead, Father Christopher, Countess Dranitsky,
+      Solomon. But however much he tried to imagine himself in the dark tomb,
+      far from home, outcast, helpless and dead, he could not succeed; for
+      himself personally he could not admit the possibility of death, and felt
+      that he would never die. . . .
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Panteley, for whom death could not be far away, walked below and went on
+      reckoning up his thoughts.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All right. . . . Nice gentlefolk, . . .&rdquo; he muttered. &ldquo;Took his little
+      lad to school&mdash;but how he is doing now I haven&rsquo;t heard say &mdash;in
+      Slavyanoserbsk. I say there is no establishment for teaching them to be
+      very clever. . . . No, that&rsquo;s true&mdash;a nice little lad, no harm in
+      him. . . . He&rsquo;ll grow up and be a help to his father . . . . You, Yegory,
+      are little now, but you&rsquo;ll grow big and will keep your father and mother.
+      . . . So it is ordained of God, &lsquo;Honour your father and your mother.&rsquo; . .
+      . I had children myself, but they were burnt. . . . My wife was burnt and
+      my children, . . . that&rsquo;s true. . . . The hut caught fire on the night of
+      Epiphany. . . . I was not at home, I was driving in Oryol. In Oryol. . . .
+      Marya dashed out into the street, but remembering that the children were
+      asleep in the hut, ran back and was burnt with her children. . . . Next
+      day they found nothing but bones.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      About midnight Yegorushka and the waggoners were again sitting round a
+      small camp fire. While the dry twigs and stems were burning up, Kiruha and
+      Vassya went off somewhere to get water from a creek; they vanished into
+      the darkness, but could be heard all the time talking and clinking their
+      pails; so the creek was not far away. The light from the fire lay a great
+      flickering patch on the earth; though the moon was bright, yet everything
+      seemed impenetrably black beyond that red patch. The light was in the
+      waggoners&rsquo; eyes, and they saw only part of the great road; almost unseen
+      in the darkness the waggons with the bales and the horses looked like a
+      mountain of undefined shape. Twenty paces from the camp fire at the edge
+      of the road stood a wooden cross that had fallen aslant. Before the camp
+      fire had been lighted, when he could still see things at a distance,
+      Yegorushka had noticed that there was a similar old slanting cross on the
+      other side of the great road.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Coming back with the water, Kiruha and Vassya filled the cauldron and
+      fixed it over the fire. Styopka, with the notched spoon in his hand, took
+      his place in the smoke by the cauldron, gazing dreamily into the water for
+      the scum to rise. Panteley and Emelyan were sitting side by side in
+      silence, brooding over something. Dymov was lying on his stomach, with his
+      head propped on his fists, looking into the fire. . . . Styopka&rsquo;s shadow
+      was dancing over him, so that his handsome face was at one minute covered
+      with darkness, at the next lighted up. . . . Kiruha and Vassya were
+      wandering about at a little distance gathering dry grass and bark for the
+      fire. Yegorushka, with his hands in his pockets, was standing by Panteley,
+      watching how the fire devoured the grass.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All were resting, musing on something, and they glanced cursorily at the
+      cross over which patches of red light were dancing. There is something
+      melancholy, pensive, and extremely poetical about a solitary tomb; one
+      feels its silence, and the silence gives one the sense of the presence of
+      the soul of the unknown man who lies under the cross. Is that soul at
+      peace on the steppe? Does it grieve in the moonlight? Near the tomb the
+      steppe seems melancholy, dreary and mournful; the grass seems more
+      sorrowful, and one fancies the grasshoppers chirrup less freely, and there
+      is no passer-by who would not remember that lonely soul and keep looking
+      back at the tomb, till it was left far behind and hidden in the mists. . .
+      .
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Grandfather, what is that cross for?&rdquo; asked Yegorushka.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Panteley looked at the cross and then at Dymov and asked:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nikola, isn&rsquo;t this the place where the mowers killed the merchants?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Dymov not very readily raised himself on his elbow, looked at the road and
+      said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, it is. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A silence followed. Kiruha broke up some dry stalks, crushed them up
+      together and thrust them under the cauldron. The fire flared up brightly;
+      Styopka was enveloped in black smoke, and the shadow cast by the cross
+      danced along the road in the dusk beside the waggons.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, they were killed,&rdquo; Dymov said reluctantly. &ldquo;Two merchants, father
+      and son, were travelling, selling holy images. They put up in the inn not
+      far from here that is now kept by Ignat Fomin. The old man had a drop too
+      much, and began boasting that he had a lot of money with him. We all know
+      merchants are a boastful set, God preserve us. . . . They can&rsquo;t resist
+      showing off before the likes of us. And at the time some mowers were
+      staying the night at the inn. So they overheard what the merchants said
+      and took note of it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;O Lord! . . . Holy Mother!&rdquo; sighed Panteley.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Next day, as soon as it was light,&rdquo; Dymov went on, &ldquo;the merchants were
+      preparing to set off and the mowers tried to join them. &lsquo;Let us go
+      together, your worships. It will be more cheerful and there will be less
+      danger, for this is an out-of-the-way place. . . .&rsquo; The merchants had to
+      travel at a walking pace to avoid breaking the images, and that just
+      suited the mowers. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Dymov rose into a kneeling position and stretched.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; he went on, yawning. &ldquo;Everything went all right till they reached
+      this spot, and then the mowers let fly at them with their scythes. The
+      son, he was a fine young fellow, snatched the scythe from one of them, and
+      he used it, too. . . . Well, of course, they got the best of it because
+      there were eight of them. They hacked at the merchants so that there was
+      not a sound place left on their bodies; when they had finished they
+      dragged both of them off the road, the father to one side and the son to
+      the other. Opposite that cross there is another cross on this side. . . .
+      Whether it is still standing, I don&rsquo;t know. . . . I can&rsquo;t see from here. .
+      . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is,&rdquo; said Kiruha.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They say they did not find much money afterwards.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; Panteley confirmed; &ldquo;they only found a hundred roubles.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And three of them died afterwards, for the merchant had cut them badly
+      with the scythe, too. They died from loss of blood. One had his hand cut
+      off, so that they say he ran three miles without his hand, and they found
+      him on a mound close to Kurikovo. He was squatting on his heels, with his
+      head on his knees, as though he were lost in thought, but when they looked
+      at him there was no life in him and he was dead. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They found him by the track of blood,&rdquo; said Panteley.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Everyone looked at the cross, and again there was a hush. From somewhere,
+      most likely from the creek, floated the mournful cry of the bird: &ldquo;Sleep!
+      sleep! sleep!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There are a great many wicked people in the world,&rdquo; said Emelyan.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A great many,&rdquo; assented Panteley, and he moved up closer to the fire as
+      though he were frightened. &ldquo;A great many,&rdquo; he went on in a low voice.
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve seen lots and lots of them. . . . Wicked people! . . . I have seen a
+      great many holy and just, too. . . . Queen of Heaven, save us and have
+      mercy on us. I remember once thirty years ago, or maybe more, I was
+      driving a merchant from Morshansk. The merchant was a jolly handsome
+      fellow, with money, too . . . the merchant was . . . a nice man, no harm
+      in him. . . . So we put up for the night at an inn. And in Russia the inns
+      are not what they are in these parts. There the yards are roofed in and
+      look like the ground floor, or let us say like barns in good farms. Only a
+      barn would be a bit higher. So we put up there and were all right. My
+      merchant was in a room, while I was with the horses, and everything was as
+      it should be. So, lads, I said my prayers before going to sleep and began
+      walking about the yard. And it was a dark night, I couldn&rsquo;t see anything;
+      it was no good trying. So I walked about a bit up to the waggons, or
+      nearly, when I saw a light gleaming. What could it mean? I thought the
+      people of the inn had gone to bed long ago, and besides the merchant and
+      me there were no other guests in the inn. . . . Where could the light have
+      come from? I felt suspicious. . . . I went closer . . . towards the light.
+      . . . The Lord have mercy upon me! and save me, Queen of Heaven! I looked
+      and there was a little window with a grating, . . . close to the ground,
+      in the house. . . I lay down on the ground and looked in; as soon as I
+      looked in a cold chill ran all down me. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Kiruha, trying not to make a noise, thrust a handful of twigs into the
+      fire. After waiting for it to leave off crackling and hissing, the old man
+      went on:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I looked in and there was a big cellar, black and dark. . . . There was a
+      lighted lantern on a tub. In the middle of the cellar were about a dozen
+      men in red shirts with their sleeves turned up, sharpening long knives. .
+      . . Ugh! So we had fallen into a nest of robbers. . . . What&rsquo;s to be done?
+      I ran to the merchant, waked him up quietly, and said: &lsquo;Don&rsquo;t be
+      frightened, merchant,&rsquo; said I, &lsquo;but we are in a bad way. We have fallen
+      into a nest of robbers,&rsquo; I said. He turned pale and asked: &lsquo;What are we to
+      do now, Panteley? I have a lot of money that belongs to orphans. As for my
+      life,&rsquo; he said, &lsquo;that&rsquo;s in God&rsquo;s hands. I am not afraid to die, but it&rsquo;s
+      dreadful to lose the orphans&rsquo; money,&rsquo; said he. . . . What were we to do?
+      The gates were locked; there was no getting out. If there had been a fence
+      one could have climbed over it, but with the yard shut up! . . . &lsquo;Come,
+      don&rsquo;t be frightened, merchant,&rsquo; said I; &lsquo;but pray to God. Maybe the Lord
+      will not let the orphans suffer. Stay still.&rsquo; said I, &lsquo;and make no sign,
+      and meanwhile, maybe, I shall think of something. . . .&rsquo; Right! . . . I
+      prayed to God and the Lord put the thought into my mind. . . . I clambered
+      up on my chaise and softly, . . . softly so that no one should hear, began
+      pulling out the straw in the thatch, made a hole and crept out, crept out.
+      . . . Then I jumped off the roof and ran along the road as fast as I
+      could. I ran and ran till I was nearly dead. . . . I ran maybe four miles
+      without taking breath, if not more. Thank God I saw a village. I ran up to
+      a hut and began tapping at a window. &lsquo;Good Christian people,&rsquo; I said, and
+      told them all about it, &lsquo;do not let a Christian soul perish. . . .&rsquo; I
+      waked them all up. . . . The peasants gathered together and went with me,
+      . . one with a cord, one with an oakstick, others with pitchforks. . . .
+      We broke in the gates of the inn-yard and went straight to the cellar. . .
+      . And the robbers had just finished sharpening their knives and were going
+      to kill the merchant. The peasants took them, every one of them, bound
+      them and carried them to the police. The merchant gave them three hundred
+      roubles in his joy, and gave me five gold pieces and put my name down.
+      They said that they found human bones in the cellar afterwards, heaps and
+      heaps of them. . . . Bones! . . . So they robbed people and then buried
+      them, so that there should be no traces. . . . Well, afterwards they were
+      punished at Morshansk.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Panteley had finished his story, and he looked round at his listeners.
+      They were gazing at him in silence. The water was boiling by now and
+      Styopka was skimming off the froth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is the fat ready?&rdquo; Kiruha asked him in a whisper.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wait a little. . . . Directly.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Styopka, his eyes fixed on Panteley as though he were afraid that the
+      latter might begin some story before he was back, ran to the waggons; soon
+      he came back with a little wooden bowl and began pounding some lard in it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I went another journey with a merchant, too, . . .&rdquo; Panteley went on
+      again, speaking as before in a low voice and with fixed unblinking eyes.
+      &ldquo;His name, as I remember now, was Pyotr Grigoritch. He was a nice man, . .
+      . the merchant was. We stopped in the same way at an inn. . . . He indoors
+      and me with the horses. . . . The people of the house, the innkeeper and
+      his wife, seemed friendly good sort of people; the labourers, too, seemed
+      all right; but yet, lads, I couldn&rsquo;t sleep. I had a queer feeling in my
+      heart, . . . a queer feeling, that was just it. The gates were open and
+      there were plenty of people about, and yet I felt afraid and not myself.
+      Everyone had been asleep long ago. It was the middle of the night; it
+      would soon be time to get up, and I was lying alone in my chaise and could
+      not close my eyes, as though I were some owl. And then, lads, I heard this
+      sound, &lsquo;Toop! toop! toop!&rsquo; Someone was creeping up to the chaise. I poke
+      my head out, and there was a peasant woman in nothing but her shift and
+      with her feet bare. . . . &lsquo;What do you want, good woman?&rsquo; I asked. And she
+      was all of a tremble; her face was terror-stricken. . . &lsquo;Get up, good
+      man,&rsquo; said she; &lsquo;the people are plotting evil. . . . They mean to kill
+      your merchant. With my own ears I heard the master whispering with his
+      wife. . . .&rsquo; So it was not for nothing, the foreboding of my heart! &lsquo;And
+      who are you?&rsquo; I asked. &lsquo;I am their cook,&rsquo; she said. . . . Right! . . . So
+      I got out of the chaise and went to the merchant. I waked him up and said:
+      &lsquo;Things aren&rsquo;t quite right, Pyotr Grigoritch. . . . Make haste and rouse
+      yourself from sleep, your worship, and dress now while there is still
+      time,&rsquo; I said; &lsquo;and to save our skins, let us get away from trouble.&rsquo; He
+      had no sooner begun dressing when the door opened and, mercy on us! I saw,
+      Holy Mother! the innkeeper and his wife come into the room with three
+      labourers. . . . So they had persuaded the labourers to join them. &lsquo;The
+      merchant has a lot of money, and we&rsquo;ll go shares,&rsquo; they told them. Every
+      one of the five had a long knife in their hand each a knife. The innkeeper
+      locked the door and said: &lsquo;Say your prayers, travellers, . . . and if you
+      begin screaming,&rsquo; they said, &lsquo;we won&rsquo;t let you say your prayers before you
+      die. . . .&rsquo; As though we could scream! I had such a lump in my throat I
+      could not cry out. . . . The merchant wept and said: &lsquo;Good Christian
+      people! you have resolved to kill me because my money tempts you. Well, so
+      be it; I shall not be the first nor shall I be the last. Many of us
+      merchants have been murdered at inns. But why, good Christian brothers,&rsquo;
+      says he, &lsquo;murder my driver? Why should he have to suffer for my money?&rsquo;
+      And he said that so pitifully! And the innkeeper answered him: &lsquo;If we
+      leave him alive,&rsquo; said he, &lsquo;he will be the first to bear witness against
+      us. One may just as well kill two as one. You can but answer once for
+      seven misdeeds. . . Say your prayers, that&rsquo;s all you can do, and it is no
+      good talking!&rsquo; The merchant and I knelt down side by side and wept and
+      said our prayers. He thought of his children. I was young in those days; I
+      wanted to live. . . . We looked at the images and prayed, and so pitifully
+      that it brings a tear even now. . . . And the innkeeper&rsquo;s wife looks at us
+      and says: &lsquo;Good people,&rsquo; said she, &lsquo;don&rsquo;t bear a grudge against us in the
+      other world and pray to God for our punishment, for it is want that drives
+      us to it.&rsquo; We prayed and wept and prayed and wept, and God heard us. He
+      had pity on us, I suppose. . . . At the very minute when the innkeeper had
+      taken the merchant by the beard to rip open his throat with his knife
+      suddenly someone seemed to tap at the window from the yard! We all
+      started, and the innkeeper&rsquo;s hands dropped. . . . Someone was tapping at
+      the window and shouting: &lsquo;Pyotr Grigoritch,&rsquo; he shouted, &lsquo;are you here?
+      Get ready and let&rsquo;s go!&rsquo; The people saw that someone had come for the
+      merchant; they were terrified and took to their heels. . . . And we made
+      haste into the yard, harnessed the horses, and were out of sight in a
+      minute. . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who was it knocked at the window?&rdquo; asked Dymov.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;At the window? It must have been a holy saint or angel, for there was no
+      one else. . . . When we drove out of the yard there wasn&rsquo;t a soul in the
+      street. . . . It was the Lord&rsquo;s doing.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Panteley told other stories, and in all of them &ldquo;long knives&rdquo; figured and
+      all alike sounded made up. Had he heard these stories from someone else,
+      or had he made them up himself in the remote past, and afterwards, as his
+      memory grew weaker, mixed up his experiences with his imaginations and
+      become unable to distinguish one from the other? Anything is possible, but
+      it is strange that on this occasion and for the rest of the journey,
+      whenever he happened to tell a story, he gave unmistakable preference to
+      fiction, and never told of what he really had experienced. At the time
+      Yegorushka took it all for the genuine thing, and believed every word;
+      later on it seemed to him strange that a man who in his day had travelled
+      all over Russia and seen and known so much, whose wife and children had
+      been burnt to death, so failed to appreciate the wealth of his life that
+      whenever he was sitting by the camp fire he was either silent or talked of
+      what had never been.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Over their porridge they were all silent, thinking of what they had just
+      heard. Life is terrible and marvellous, and so, however terrible a story
+      you tell in Russia, however you embroider it with nests of robbers, long
+      knives and such marvels, it always finds an echo of reality in the soul of
+      the listener, and only a man who has been a good deal affected by
+      education looks askance distrustfully, and even he will be silent. The
+      cross by the roadside, the dark bales of wool, the wide expanse of the
+      plain, and the lot of the men gathered together by the camp fire&mdash;all
+      this was of itself so marvellous and terrible that the fantastic colours
+      of legend and fairy-tale were pale and blended with life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All the others ate out of the cauldron, but Panteley sat apart and ate his
+      porridge out of a wooden bowl. His spoon was not like those the others
+      had, but was made of cypress wood, with a little cross on it. Yegorushka,
+      looking at him, thought of the little ikon glass and asked Styopka softly:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why does Grandfather sit apart?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He is an Old Believer,&rdquo; Styopka and Vassya answered in a whisper. And as
+      they said it they looked as though they were speaking of some secret vice
+      or weakness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All sat silent, thinking. After the terrible stories there was no
+      inclination to speak of ordinary things. All at once in the midst of the
+      silence Vassya drew himself up and, fixing his lustreless eyes on one
+      point, pricked up his ears.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is it?&rdquo; Dymov asked him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Someone is coming,&rdquo; answered Vassya.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where do you see him?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yo-on-der! There&rsquo;s something white. . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was nothing to be seen but darkness in the direction in which Vassya
+      was looking; everyone listened, but they could hear no sound of steps.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is he coming by the highroad?&rdquo; asked Dymov.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, over the open country. . . . He is coming this way.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A minute passed in silence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And maybe it&rsquo;s the merchant who was buried here walking over the steppe,&rdquo;
+       said Dymov.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All looked askance at the cross, exchanged glances and suddenly broke into
+      a laugh. They felt ashamed of their terror.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why should he walk?&rdquo; asked Panteley. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s only those walk at night whom
+      the earth will not take to herself. And the merchants were all right. . .
+      . The merchants have received the crown of martyrs.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But all at once they heard the sound of steps; someone was coming in
+      haste.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He&rsquo;s carrying something,&rdquo; said Vassya.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They could hear the grass rustling and the dry twigs crackling under the
+      feet of the approaching wayfarer. But from the glare of the camp fire
+      nothing could be seen. At last the steps sounded close by, and someone
+      coughed. The flickering light seemed to part; a veil dropped from the
+      waggoners&rsquo; eyes, and they saw a man facing them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Whether it was due to the flickering light or because everyone wanted to
+      make out the man&rsquo;s face first of all, it happened, strangely enough, that
+      at the first glance at him they all saw, first of all, not his face nor
+      his clothes, but his smile. It was an extraordinarily good-natured, broad,
+      soft smile, like that of a baby on waking, one of those infectious smiles
+      to which it is difficult not to respond by smiling too. The stranger, when
+      they did get a good look at him, turned out to be a man of thirty, ugly
+      and in no way remarkable. He was a tall Little Russian, with a long nose,
+      long arms and long legs; everything about him seemed long except his neck,
+      which was so short that it made him seem stooping. He was wearing a clean
+      white shirt with an embroidered collar, white trousers, and new high
+      boots, and in comparison with the waggoners he looked quite a dandy. In
+      his arms he was carrying something big, white, and at the first glance
+      strange-looking, and the stock of a gun also peeped out from behind his
+      shoulder.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Coming from the darkness into the circle of light, he stopped short as
+      though petrified, and for half a minute looked at the waggoners as though
+      he would have said: &ldquo;Just look what a smile I have!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Then he took a step towards the fire, smiled still more radiantly and
+      said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Bread and salt, friends!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are very welcome!&rdquo; Panteley answered for them all.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The stranger put down by the fire what he was carrying in his arms &mdash;it
+      was a dead bustard&mdash;and greeted them once more.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They all went up to the bustard and began examining it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A fine big bird; what did you kill it with?&rdquo; asked Dymov.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Grape-shot. You can&rsquo;t get him with small shot, he won&rsquo;t let you get near
+      enough. Buy it, friends! I will let you have it for twenty kopecks.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What use would it be to us? It&rsquo;s good roast, but I bet it would be tough
+      boiled; you could not get your teeth into it. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, what a pity! I would take it to the gentry at the farm; they would
+      give me half a rouble for it. But it&rsquo;s a long way to go&mdash; twelve
+      miles!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The stranger sat down, took off his gun and laid it beside him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He seemed sleepy and languid; he sat smiling, and, screwing up his eyes at
+      the firelight, apparently thinking of something very agreeable. They gave
+      him a spoon; he began eating.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who are you?&rdquo; Dymov asked him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The stranger did not hear the question; he made no answer, and did not
+      even glance at Dymov. Most likely this smiling man did not taste the
+      flavour of the porridge either, for he seemed to eat it mechanically,
+      lifting the spoon to his lips sometimes very full and sometimes quite
+      empty. He was not drunk, but he seemed to have something nonsensical in
+      his head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I ask you who you are?&rdquo; repeated Dymov.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I?&rdquo; said the unknown, starting. &ldquo;Konstantin Zvonik from Rovno. It&rsquo;s three
+      miles from here.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And anxious to show straight off that he was not quite an ordinary
+      peasant, but something better, Konstantin hastened to add:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We keep bees and fatten pigs.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you live with your father or in a house of your own?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No; now I am living in a house of my own. I have parted. This month, just
+      after St. Peter&rsquo;s Day, I got married. I am a married man now! . . . It&rsquo;s
+      eighteen days since the wedding.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s a good thing,&rdquo; said Panteley. &ldquo;Marriage is a good thing . . . .
+      God&rsquo;s blessing is on it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;His young wife sits at home while he rambles about the steppe,&rdquo; laughed
+      Kiruha. &ldquo;Queer chap!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      As though he had been pinched on the tenderest spot, Konstantin started,
+      laughed and flushed crimson.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But, Lord, she is not at home!&rdquo; he said quickly, taking the spoon out of
+      his mouth and looking round at everyone with an expression of delight and
+      wonder. &ldquo;She is not; she has gone to her mother&rsquo;s for three days! Yes,
+      indeed, she has gone away, and I feel as though I were not married. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Konstantin waved his hand and turned his head; he wanted to go on
+      thinking, but the joy which beamed in his face prevented him. As though he
+      were not comfortable, he changed his attitude, laughed, and again waved
+      his hand. He was ashamed to share his happy thoughts with strangers, but
+      at the same time he had an irresistible longing to communicate his joy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She has gone to Demidovo to see her mother,&rdquo; he said, blushing and moving
+      his gun. &ldquo;She&rsquo;ll be back to-morrow. . . . She said she would be back to
+      dinner.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And do you miss her?&rdquo; said Dymov.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, Lord, yes; I should think so. We have only been married such a little
+      while, and she has gone away. . . . Eh! Oh, but she is a tricky one, God
+      strike me dead! She is such a fine, splendid girl, such a one for laughing
+      and singing, full of life and fire! When she is there your brain is in a
+      whirl, and now she is away I wander about the steppe like a fool, as
+      though I had lost something. I have been walking since dinner.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Konstantin rubbed his eyes, looked at the fire and laughed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You love her, then, . . .&rdquo; said Panteley.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She is so fine and splendid,&rdquo; Konstantin repeated, not hearing him; &ldquo;such
+      a housewife, clever and sensible. You wouldn&rsquo;t find another like her among
+      simple folk in the whole province. She has gone away. . . . But she is
+      missing me, I kno-ow! I know the little magpie. She said she would be back
+      to-morrow by dinner-time. . . . And just think how queer!&rdquo; Konstantin
+      almost shouted, speaking a note higher and shifting his position. &ldquo;Now she
+      loves me and is sad without me, and yet she would not marry me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But eat,&rdquo; said Kiruha.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She would not marry me,&rdquo; Konstantin went on, not heeding him. &ldquo;I have
+      been struggling with her for three years! I saw her at the Kalatchik fair;
+      I fell madly in love with her, was ready to hang myself. . . . I live at
+      Rovno, she at Demidovo, more than twenty miles apart, and there was
+      nothing I could do. I sent match-makers to her, and all she said was: &lsquo;I
+      won&rsquo;t!&rsquo; Ah, the magpie! I sent her one thing and another, earrings and
+      cakes, and twenty pounds of honey&mdash;but still she said: &lsquo;I won&rsquo;t!&rsquo; And
+      there it was. If you come to think of it, I was not a match for her! She
+      was young and lovely, full of fire, while I am old: I shall soon be
+      thirty, and a regular beauty, too; a fine beard like a goat&rsquo;s, a clear
+      complexion all covered with pimples&mdash;how could I be compared with
+      her! The only thing to be said is that we are well off, but then the
+      Vahramenkys are well off, too. They&rsquo;ve six oxen, and they keep a couple of
+      labourers. I was in love, friends, as though I were plague-stricken. I
+      couldn&rsquo;t sleep or eat; my brain was full of thoughts, and in such a maze,
+      Lord preserve us! I longed to see her, and she was in Demidovo. What do
+      you think? God be my witness, I am not lying, three times a week I walked
+      over there on foot just to have a look at her. I gave up my work! I was so
+      frantic that I even wanted to get taken on as a labourer in Demidovo, so
+      as to be near her. I was in misery! My mother called in a witch a dozen
+      times; my father tried thrashing me. For three years I was in this
+      torment, and then I made up my mind. &lsquo;Damn my soul!&rsquo; I said. &lsquo;I will go to
+      the town and be a cabman. . . . It seems it is fated not to be.&rsquo; At Easter
+      I went to Demidovo to have a last look at her. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Konstantin threw back his head and went off into a mirthful tinkling
+      laugh, as though he had just taken someone in very cleverly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I saw her by the river with the lads,&rdquo; he went on. &ldquo;I was overcome with
+      anger. . . . I called her aside and maybe for a full hour I said all
+      manner of things to her. She fell in love with me! For three years she did
+      not like me! she fell in love with me for what I said to her. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What did you say to her?&rdquo; asked Dymov.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What did I say? I don&rsquo;t remember. . . How could one remember? My words
+      flowed at the time like water from a tap, without stopping to take breath.
+      Ta-ta-ta! And now I can&rsquo;t utter a word. . . . Well, so she married me. . .
+      . She&rsquo;s gone now to her mother&rsquo;s, the magpie, and while she is away here I
+      wander over the steppe. I can&rsquo;t stay at home. It&rsquo;s more than I can do!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Konstantin awkwardly released his feet, on which he was sitting, stretched
+      himself on the earth, and propped his head in his fists, then got up and
+      sat down again. Everyone by now thoroughly understood that he was in love
+      and happy, poignantly happy; his smile, his eyes, and every movement,
+      expressed fervent happiness. He could not find a place for himself, and
+      did not know what attitude to take to keep himself from being overwhelmed
+      by the multitude of his delightful thoughts. Having poured out his soul
+      before these strangers, he settled down quietly at last, and, looking at
+      the fire, sank into thought.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the sight of this happy man everyone felt depressed and longed to be
+      happy, too. Everyone was dreamy. Dymov got up, walked about softly by the
+      fire, and from his walk, from the movement of his shoulder-blades, it
+      could be seen that he was weighed down by depression and yearning. He
+      stood still for a moment, looked at Konstantin and sat down.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The camp fire had died down by now; there was no flicker, and the patch of
+      red had grown small and dim. . . . And as the fire went out the moonlight
+      grew clearer and clearer. Now they could see the full width of the road,
+      the bales of wool, the shafts of the waggons, the munching horses; on the
+      further side of the road there was the dim outline of the second cross. .
+      . .
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Dymov leaned his cheek on his hand and softly hummed some plaintive song.
+      Konstantin smiled drowsily and chimed in with a thin voice. They sang for
+      half a minute, then sank into silence. Emelyan started, jerked his elbows
+      and wriggled his fingers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Lads,&rdquo; he said in an imploring voice, &ldquo;let&rsquo;s sing something sacred!&rdquo;
+       Tears came into his eyes. &ldquo;Lads,&rdquo; he repeated, pressing his hands on his
+      heart, &ldquo;let&rsquo;s sing something sacred!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know anything,&rdquo; said Konstantin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Everyone refused, then Emelyan sang alone. He waved both arms, nodded his
+      head, opened his mouth, but nothing came from his throat but a discordant
+      gasp. He sang with his arms, with his head, with his eyes, even with the
+      swelling on his face; he sang passionately with anguish, and the more he
+      strained his chest to extract at least one note from it, the more
+      discordant were his gasps.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yegorushka, like the rest, was overcome with depression. He went to his
+      waggon, clambered up on the bales and lay down. He looked at the sky, and
+      thought of happy Konstantin and his wife. Why did people get married? What
+      were women in the world for? Yegorushka put the vague questions to
+      himself, and thought that a man would certainly be happy if he had an
+      affectionate, merry and beautiful woman continually living at his side.
+      For some reason he remembered the Countess Dranitsky, and thought it would
+      probably be very pleasant to live with a woman like that; he would perhaps
+      have married her with pleasure if that idea had not been so shameful. He
+      recalled her eyebrows, the pupils of her eyes, her carriage, the clock
+      with the horseman. . . . The soft warm night moved softly down upon him
+      and whispered something in his ear, and it seemed to him that it was that
+      lovely woman bending over him, looking at him with a smile and meaning to
+      kiss him. . . .
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nothing was left of the fire but two little red eyes, which kept on
+      growing smaller and smaller. Konstantin and the waggoners were sitting by
+      it, dark motionless figures, and it seemed as though there were many more
+      of them than before. The twin crosses were equally visible, and far, far
+      away, somewhere by the highroad there gleamed a red light&mdash;other
+      people cooking their porridge, most likely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Our Mother Russia is the he-ad of all the world!&rdquo; Kiruha sang out
+      suddenly in a harsh voice, choked and subsided. The steppe echo caught up
+      his voice, carried it on, and it seemed as though stupidity itself were
+      rolling on heavy wheels over the steppe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s time to go,&rdquo; said Panteley. &ldquo;Get up, lads.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      While they were putting the horses in, Konstantin walked by the waggons
+      and talked rapturously of his wife.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good-bye, mates!&rdquo; he cried when the waggons started. &ldquo;Thank you for your
+      hospitality. I shall go on again towards that light. It&rsquo;s more than I can
+      stand.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And he quickly vanished in the mist, and for a long time they could hear
+      him striding in the direction of the light to tell those other strangers
+      of his happiness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When Yegorushka woke up next day it was early morning; the sun had not yet
+      risen. The waggons were at a standstill. A man in a white cap and a suit
+      of cheap grey material, mounted on a little Cossack stallion, was talking
+      to Dymov and Kiruha beside the foremost waggon. A mile and a half ahead
+      there were long low white barns and little houses with tiled roofs; there
+      were neither yards nor trees to be seen beside the little houses.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What village is that, Grandfather?&rdquo; asked Yegorushka.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s the Armenian Settlement, youngster,&rdquo; answered Panteley. &ldquo;The
+      Armenians live there. They are a good sort of people, . . . the Arnienians
+      are.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The man in grey had finished talking to Dymov and Kiruha; he pulled up his
+      little stallion and looked across towards the settlement.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What a business, only think!&rdquo; sighed Panteley, looking towards the
+      settlement, too, and shuddering at the morning freshness. &ldquo;He has sent a
+      man to the settlement for some papers, and he doesn&rsquo;t come . . . . He
+      should have sent Styopka.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who is that, Grandfather?&rdquo; asked Yegorushka.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Varlamov.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      My goodness! Yegorushka jumped up quickly, getting upon his knees, and
+      looked at the white cap. It was hard to recognize the mysterious elusive
+      Varlamov, who was sought by everyone, who was always &ldquo;on his rounds,&rdquo; and
+      who had far more money than Countess Dranitsky, in the short, grey little
+      man in big boots, who was sitting on an ugly little nag and talking to
+      peasants at an hour when all decent people were asleep.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He is all right, a good man,&rdquo; said Panteley, looking towards the
+      settlement. &ldquo;God give him health&mdash;a splendid gentleman, Semyon
+      Alexandritch. . . . It&rsquo;s people like that the earth rests upon. That&rsquo;s
+      true. . . . The cocks are not crowing yet, and he is already up and about.
+      . . . Another man would be asleep, or gallivanting with visitors at home,
+      but he is on the steppe all day, . . . on his rounds. . . . He does not
+      let things slip. . . . No-o! He&rsquo;s a fine fellow. . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Varlamov was talking about something, while he kept his eyes fixed. The
+      little stallion shifted from one leg to another impatiently.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Semyon Alexandritch!&rdquo; cried Panteley, taking off his hat. &ldquo;Allow us to
+      send Styopka! Emelyan, call out that Styopka should be sent.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But now at last a man on horseback could be seen coming from the
+      settlement. Bending very much to one side and brandishing his whip above
+      his head like a gallant young Caucasian, and wanting to astonish everyone
+      by his horsemanship, he flew towards the waggons with the swiftness of a
+      bird.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That must be one of his circuit men,&rdquo; said Panteley. &ldquo;He must have a
+      hundred such horsemen or maybe more.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Reaching the first waggon, he pulled up his horse, and taking off his hat,
+      handed Varlamov a little book. Varlamov took several papers out of the
+      book, read them and cried:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And where is Ivantchuk&rsquo;s letter?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The horseman took the book back, looked at the papers and shrugged his
+      shoulders. He began saying something, probably justifying himself and
+      asking to be allowed to ride back to the settlement again. The little
+      stallion suddenly stirred as though Varlamov had grown heavier. Varlamov
+      stirred too.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Go along!&rdquo; he cried angrily, and he waved his whip at the man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then he turned his horse round and, looking through the papers in the
+      book, moved at a walking pace alongside the waggons. When he reached the
+      hindmost, Yegorushka strained his eyes to get a better look at him.
+      Varlamov was an elderly man. His face, a simple Russian sunburnt face with
+      a small grey beard, was red, wet with dew and covered with little blue
+      veins; it had the same expression of businesslike coldness as Ivan
+      Ivanitch&rsquo;s face, the same look of fanatical zeal for business. But yet
+      what a difference could be felt between him and Kuzmitchov! Uncle Ivan
+      Ivanitch always had on his face, together with his business-like reserve,
+      a look of anxiety and apprehension that he would not find Varlamov, that
+      he would be late, that he would miss a good price; nothing of that sort,
+      so characteristic of small and dependent persons, could be seen in the
+      face or figure of Varlamov. This man made the price himself, was not
+      looking for anyone, and did not depend on anyone; however ordinary his
+      exterior, yet in everything, even in the manner of holding his whip, there
+      was a sense of power and habitual authority over the steppe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As he rode by Yegorushka he did not glance at him. Only the little
+      stallion deigned to notice Yegorushka; he looked at him with his large
+      foolish eyes, and even he showed no interest. Panteley bowed to Varlamov;
+      the latter noticed it, and without taking his eyes off the sheets of
+      paper, said lisping:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How are you, old man?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Varlamov&rsquo;s conversation with the horseman and the way he had brandished
+      his whip had evidently made an overwhelming impression on the whole party.
+      Everyone looked grave. The man on horseback, cast down at the anger of the
+      great man, remained stationary, with his hat off, and the rein loose by
+      the foremost waggon; he was silent, and seemed unable to grasp that the
+      day had begun so badly for him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He is a harsh old man, . .&rdquo; muttered Panteley. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a pity he is so
+      harsh! But he is all right, a good man. . . . He doesn&rsquo;t abuse men for
+      nothing. . . . It&rsquo;s no matter. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      After examining the papers, Varlamov thrust the book into his pocket; the
+      little stallion, as though he knew what was in his mind, without waiting
+      for orders, started and dashed along the highroad.
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      VII
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      On the following night the waggoners had halted and were cooking their
+      porridge. On this occasion there was a sense of overwhelming oppression
+      over everyone. It was sultry; they all drank a great deal, but could not
+      quench their thirst. The moon was intensely crimson and sullen, as though
+      it were sick. The stars, too, were sullen, the mist was thicker, the
+      distance more clouded. Nature seemed as though languid and weighed down by
+      some foreboding.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was not the same liveliness and talk round the camp fire as there
+      had been the day before. All were dreary and spoke listlessly and without
+      interest. Panteley did nothing but sigh and complain of his feet, and
+      continually alluded to impenitent deathbeds.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Dymov was lying on his stomach, chewing a straw in silence; there was an
+      expression of disgust on his face as though the straw smelt unpleasant, a
+      spiteful and exhausted look. . . . Vassya complained that his jaw ached,
+      and prophesied bad weather; Emelyan was not waving his arms, but sitting
+      still and looking gloomily at the fire. Yegorushka, too, was weary. This
+      slow travelling exhausted him, and the sultriness of the day had given him
+      a headache.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While they were cooking the porridge, Dymov, to relieve his boredom, began
+      quarrelling with his companions.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Here he lolls, the lumpy face, and is the first to put his spoon in,&rdquo; he
+      said, looking spitefully at Emelyan. &ldquo;Greedy! always contrives to sit next
+      the cauldron. He&rsquo;s been a church-singer, so he thinks he is a gentleman!
+      There are a lot of singers like you begging along the highroad!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What are you pestering me for?&rdquo; asked Emelyan, looking at him angrily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To teach you not to be the first to dip into the cauldron. Don&rsquo;t think
+      too much of yourself!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are a fool, and that is all about it!&rdquo; wheezed out Emelyan.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Knowing by experience how such conversations usually ended, Panteley and
+      Vassya intervened and tried to persuade Dymov not to quarrel about
+      nothing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A church-singer!&rdquo; The bully would not desist, but laughed contemptuously.
+      &ldquo;Anyone can sing like that&mdash;sit in the church porch and sing &lsquo;Give me
+      alms, for Christ&rsquo;s sake!&rsquo; Ugh! you are a nice fellow!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Emelyan did not speak. His silence had an irritating effect on Dymov. He
+      looked with still greater hatred at the ex-singer and said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t care to have anything to do with you, or I would show you what to
+      think of yourself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But why are you pushing me, you Mazeppa?&rdquo; Emelyan cried, flaring up. &ldquo;Am
+      I interfering with you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What did you call me?&rdquo; asked Dymov, drawing himself up, and his eyes were
+      suffused with blood. &ldquo;Eh! I am a Mazeppa? Yes? Take that, then; go and
+      look for it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Dymov snatched the spoon out of Emelyan&rsquo;s hand and flung it far away.
+      Kiruha, Vassya, and Styopka ran to look for it, while Emelyan fixed an
+      imploring and questioning look on Panteley. His face suddenly became small
+      and wrinkled; it began twitching, and the ex-singer began to cry like a
+      child.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yegorushka, who had long hated Dymov, felt as though the air all at once
+      were unbearably stifling, as though the fire were scorching his face; he
+      longed to run quickly to the waggons in the darkness, but the bully&rsquo;s
+      angry bored eyes drew the boy to him. With a passionate desire to say
+      something extremely offensive, he took a step towards Dymov and brought
+      out, gasping for breath:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are the worst of the lot; I can&rsquo;t bear you!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      After this he ought to have run to the waggons, but he could not stir from
+      the spot and went on:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In the next world you will burn in hell! I&rsquo;ll complain to Ivan Ivanitch.
+      Don&rsquo;t you dare insult Emelyan!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Say this too, please,&rdquo; laughed Dyrnov: &ldquo;&lsquo;every little sucking-pig wants
+      to lay down the law.&rsquo; Shall I pull your ear?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Yegorushka felt that he could not breathe; and something which had never
+      happened to him before&mdash;he suddenly began shaking all over, stamping
+      his feet and crying shrilly:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Beat him, beat him!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Tears gushed from his eyes; he felt ashamed, and ran staggering back to
+      the waggon. The effect produced by his outburst he did not see. Lying on
+      the bales and twitching his arms and legs, he whispered:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mother, mother!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And these men and the shadows round the camp fire, and the dark bales and
+      the far-away lightning, which was flashing every minute in the distance&mdash;all
+      struck him now as terrible and unfriendly. He was overcome with terror and
+      asked himself in despair why and how he had come into this unknown land in
+      the company of terrible peasants? Where was his uncle now, where was
+      Father Christopher, where was Deniska? Why were they so long in coming?
+      Hadn&rsquo;t they forgotten him? At the thought that he was forgotten and cast
+      out to the mercy of fate, he felt such a cold chill of dread that he had
+      several times an impulse to jump off the bales of wool, and run back full
+      speed along the road; but the thought of the huge dark crosses, which
+      would certainly meet him on the way, and the lightning flashing in the
+      distance, stopped him. . . . And only when he whispered, &ldquo;Mother, mother!&rdquo;
+       he felt as it were a little better.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The waggoners must have been full of dread, too. After Yegorushka had run
+      away from the camp fire they sat at first for a long time in silence, then
+      they began speaking in hollow undertones about something, saying that it
+      was coming and that they must make haste and get away from it. . . . They
+      quickly finished supper, put out the fire and began harnessing the horses
+      in silence. From their fluster and the broken phrases they uttered it was
+      apparent they foresaw some trouble. Before they set off on their way,
+      Dymov went up to Panteley and asked softly:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What&rsquo;s his name?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yegory,&rdquo; answered Panteley.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Dymov put one foot on the wheel, caught hold of the cord which was tied
+      round the bales and pulled himself up. Yegorushka saw his face and curly
+      head. The face was pale and looked grave and exhausted, but there was no
+      expression of spite in it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yera!&rdquo; he said softly, &ldquo;here, hit me!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Yegorushka looked at him in surprise. At that instant there was a flash of
+      lightning.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s all right, hit me,&rdquo; repeated Dymov. And without waiting for
+      Yegorushka to hit him or to speak to him, he jumped down and said: &ldquo;How
+      dreary I am!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Then, swaying from one leg to the other and moving his shoulder-blades, he
+      sauntered lazily alongside the string of waggons and repeated in a voice
+      half weeping, half angry:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How dreary I am! O Lord! Don&rsquo;t you take offence, Emelyan,&rdquo; he said as he
+      passed Emelyan. &ldquo;Ours is a wretched cruel life!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a flash of lightning on the right, and, like a reflection in the
+      looking-glass, at once a second flash in the distance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yegory, take this,&rdquo; cried Panteley, throwing up something big and dark.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is it?&rdquo; asked Yegorushka.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A mat. There will be rain, so cover yourself up.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Yegorushka sat up and looked about him. The distance had grown perceptibly
+      blacker, and now oftener than every minute winked with a pale light. The
+      blackness was being bent towards the right as though by its own weight.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Will there be a storm, Grandfather?&rdquo; asked Yegorushka.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, my poor feet, how they ache!&rdquo; Panteley said in a high-pitched voice,
+      stamping his feet and not hearing the boy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the left someone seemed to strike a match in the sky; a pale
+      phosphorescent streak gleamed and went out. There was a sound as though
+      someone very far away were walking over an iron roof, probably barefoot,
+      for the iron gave a hollow rumble.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s set in!&rdquo; cried Kiruha.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Between the distance and the horizon on the right there was a flash of
+      lightning so vivid that it lighted up part of the steppe and the spot
+      where the clear sky met the blackness. A terrible cloud was swooping down,
+      without haste, a compact mass; big black shreds hung from its edge;
+      similar shreds pressing one upon another were piling up on the right and
+      left horizon. The tattered, ragged look of the storm-cloud gave it a
+      drunken disorderly air. There was a distinct, not smothered, growl of
+      thunder. Yegorushka crossed himself and began quickly putting on his
+      great-coat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am dreary!&rdquo; Dymov&rsquo;s shout floated from the foremost waggon, and it
+      could be told from his voice that he was beginning to be ill-humoured
+      again. &ldquo;I am so dreary!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      All at once there was a squall of wind, so violent that it almost snatched
+      away Yegorushka&rsquo;s bundle and mat; the mat fluttered in all directions and
+      flapped on the bale and on Yegorushka&rsquo;s face. The wind dashed whistling
+      over the steppe, whirled round in disorder and raised such an uproar from
+      the grass that neither the thunder nor the creaking of the wheels could be
+      heard; it blew from the black storm-cloud, carrying with it clouds of dust
+      and the scent of rain and wet earth. The moonlight grew mistier, as it
+      were dirtier; the stars were even more overcast; and clouds of dust could
+      be seen hurrying along the edge of the road, followed by their shadows. By
+      now, most likely, the whirlwind eddying round and lifting from the earth
+      dust, dry grass and feathers, was mounting to the very sky; uprooted
+      plants must have been flying by that very black storm-cloud, and how
+      frightened they must have been! But through the dust that clogged the eyes
+      nothing could be seen but the flash of lightning.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yegorushka, thinking it would pour with rain in a minute, knelt up and
+      covered himself with the mat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Panteley-ey!&rdquo; someone shouted in the front. &ldquo;A. . . a. . . va!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can&rsquo;t!&rdquo; Panteley answered in a loud high voice. &ldquo;A . . . a . . . va!
+      Arya . . . a!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was an angry clap of thunder, which rolled across the sky from right
+      to left, then back again, and died away near the foremost waggon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Holy, holy, holy, Lord of Sabaoth,&rdquo; whispered Yegorushka, crossing
+      himself. &ldquo;Fill heaven and earth with Thy glory.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The blackness in the sky yawned wide and breathed white fire. At once
+      there was another clap of thunder. It had scarcely ceased when there was a
+      flash of lightning so broad that Yegorushka suddenly saw through a slit in
+      the mat the whole highroad to the very horizon, all the waggoners and even
+      Kiruha&rsquo;s waistcoat. The black shreds had by now moved upwards from the
+      left, and one of them, a coarse, clumsy monster like a claw with fingers,
+      stretched to the moon. Yegorushka made up his mind to shut his eyes tight,
+      to pay no attention to it, and to wait till it was all over.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The rain was for some reason long in coming. Yegorushka peeped out from
+      the mat in the hope that perhaps the storm-cloud was passing over. It was
+      fearfully dark. Yegorushka could see neither Panteley, nor the bale of
+      wool, nor himself; he looked sideways towards the place where the moon had
+      lately been, but there was the same black darkness there as over the
+      waggons. And in the darkness the flashes of lightning seemed more violent
+      and blinding, so that they hurt his eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Panteley!&rdquo; called Yegorushka.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      No answer followed. But now a gust of wind for the last time flung up the
+      mat and hurried away. A quiet regular sound was heard. A big cold drop
+      fell on Yegorushka&rsquo;s knee, another trickled over his hand. He noticed that
+      his knees were not covered, and tried to rearrange the mat, but at that
+      moment something began pattering on the road, then on the shafts and the
+      bales. It was the rain. As though they understood one another, the rain
+      and the mat began prattling of something rapidly, gaily and most
+      annoyingly like two magpies.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yegorushka knelt up or rather squatted on his boots. While the rain was
+      pattering on the mat, he leaned forward to screen his knees, which were
+      suddenly wet. He succeeded in covering his knees, but in less than a
+      minute was aware of a penetrating, unpleasant dampness behind on his back
+      and the calves of his legs. He returned to his former position, exposing
+      his knees to the rain, and wondered what to do to rearrange the mat which
+      he could not see in the darkness. But his arms were already wet, the water
+      was trickling up his sleeves and down his collar, and his shoulder-blades
+      felt chilly. And he made up his mind to do nothing but sit motionless and
+      wait till it was all over.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Holy, holy, holy!&rdquo; he whispered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Suddenly, exactly over his head, the sky cracked with a fearful deafening
+      din; he huddled up and held his breath, waiting for the fragments to fall
+      upon his head and back. He inadvertently opened his eyes and saw a
+      blinding intense light flare out and flash five times on his fingers, his
+      wet sleeves, and on the trickles of water running from the mat upon the
+      bales and down to the ground. There was a fresh peal of thunder as violent
+      and awful; the sky was not growling and rumbling now, but uttering short
+      crashing sounds like the crackling of dry wood.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Trrah! tah! tah! tah!&rdquo; the thunder rang out distinctly, rolled over the
+      sky, seemed to stumble, and somewhere by the foremost waggons or far
+      behind to fall with an abrupt angry &ldquo;Trrra!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The flashes of lightning had at first been only terrible, but with such
+      thunder they seemed sinister and menacing. Their magic light pierced
+      through closed eyelids and sent a chill all over the body. What could he
+      do not to see them? Yegorushka made up his mind to turn over on his face.
+      Cautiously, as though afraid of being watched, he got on all fours, and
+      his hands slipping on the wet bale, he turned back again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Trrah! tah! tah!&rdquo; floated over his head, rolled under the waggons and
+      exploded &ldquo;Kraa!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Again he inadvertently opened his eyes and saw a new danger: three huge
+      giants with long pikes were following the waggon! A flash of lightning
+      gleamed on the points of their pikes and lighted up their figures very
+      distinctly. They were men of huge proportions, with covered faces, bowed
+      heads, and heavy footsteps. They seemed gloomy and dispirited and lost in
+      thought. Perhaps they were not following the waggons with any harmful
+      intent, and yet there was something awful in their proximity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yegorushka turned quickly forward, and trembling all over cried:
+      &ldquo;Panteley! Grandfather!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Trrah! tah! tah!&rdquo; the sky answered him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He opened his eyes to see if the waggoners were there. There were flashes
+      of lightning in two places, which lighted up the road to the far distance,
+      the whole string of waggons and all the waggoners. Streams of water were
+      flowing along the road and bubbles were dancing. Panteley was walking
+      beside the waggon; his tall hat and his shoulder were covered with a small
+      mat; his figure expressed neither terror nor uneasiness, as though he were
+      deafened by the thunder and blinded by the lightning.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Grandfather, the giants!&rdquo; Yegorushka shouted to him in tears.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But the old man did not hear. Further away walked Emelyan. He was covered
+      from head to foot with a big mat and was triangular in shape. Vassya,
+      without anything over him, was walking with the same wooden step as usual,
+      lifting his feet high and not bending his knees. In the flash of lightning
+      it seemed as though the waggons were not moving and the men were
+      motionless, that Vassya&rsquo;s lifted foot was rigid in the same position. . .
+      .
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yegorushka called the old man once more. Getting no answer, he sat
+      motionless, and no longer waited for it all to end. He was convinced that
+      the thunder would kill him in another minute, that he would accidentally
+      open his eyes and see the terrible giants, and he left off crossing
+      himself, calling the old man and thinking of his mother, and was simply
+      numb with cold and the conviction that the storm would never end.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But at last there was the sound of voices.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yegory, are you asleep?&rdquo; Panteley cried below. &ldquo;Get down! Is he deaf, the
+      silly little thing? . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Something like a storm!&rdquo; said an unfamiliar bass voice, and the stranger
+      cleared his throat as though he had just tossed off a good glass of vodka.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yegorushka opened his eyes. Close to the waggon stood Panteley, Emelyan,
+      looking like a triangle, and the giants. The latter were by now much
+      shorter, and when Yegorushka looked more closely at them they turned out
+      to be ordinary peasants, carrying on their shoulders not pikes but
+      pitchforks. In the space between Panteley and the triangular figure,
+      gleamed the window of a low-pitched hut. So the waggons were halting in
+      the village. Yegorushka flung off the mat, took his bundle and made haste
+      to get off the waggon. Now when close to him there were people talking and
+      a lighted window he no longer felt afraid, though the thunder was crashing
+      as before and the whole sky was streaked with lightning.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It was a good storm, all right, . . .&rdquo; Panteley was muttering. &ldquo;Thank
+      God, . . . my feet are a little softened by the rain. It was all right. .
+      . . Have you got down, Yegory? Well, go into the hut; it is all right. . .
+      .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Holy, holy, holy!&rdquo; wheezed Emelyan, &ldquo;it must have struck something . . .
+      . Are you of these parts?&rdquo; he asked the giants.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, from Glinovo. We belong to Glinovo. We are working at the Platers&rsquo;.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Threshing?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All sorts. Just now we are getting in the wheat. The lightning, the
+      lightning! It is long since we have had such a storm. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Yegorushka went into the hut. He was met by a lean hunchbacked old woman
+      with a sharp chin. She stood holding a tallow candle in her hands,
+      screwing up her eyes and heaving prolonged sighs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What a storm God has sent us!&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;And our lads are out for the
+      night on the steppe; they&rsquo;ll have a bad time, poor dears! Take off your
+      things, little sir, take off your things.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Shivering with cold and shrugging squeamishly, Yegorushka pulled off his
+      drenched overcoat, then stretched out his arms and straddled his legs, and
+      stood a long time without moving. The slightest movement caused an
+      unpleasant sensation of cold and wetness. His sleeves and the back of his
+      shirt were sopped, his trousers stuck to his legs, his head was dripping.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What&rsquo;s the use of standing there, with your legs apart, little lad?&rdquo; said
+      the old woman. &ldquo;Come, sit down.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Holding his legs wide apart, Yegorushka went up to the table and sat down
+      on a bench near somebody&rsquo;s head. The head moved, puffed a stream of air
+      through its nose, made a chewing sound and subsided. A mound covered with
+      a sheepskin stretched from the head along the bench; it was a peasant
+      woman asleep.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The old woman went out sighing, and came back with a big water melon and a
+      little sweet melon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Have something to eat, my dear! I have nothing else to offer you, . . .&rdquo;
+       she said, yawning. She rummaged in the table and took out a long sharp
+      knife, very much like the one with which the brigands killed the merchants
+      in the inn. &ldquo;Have some, my dear!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Yegorushka, shivering as though he were in a fever, ate a slice of sweet
+      melon with black bread and then a slice of water melon, and that made him
+      feel colder still.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Our lads are out on the steppe for the night, . . .&rdquo; sighed the old woman
+      while he was eating. &ldquo;The terror of the Lord! I&rsquo;d light the candle under
+      the ikon, but I don&rsquo;t know where Stepanida has put it. Have some more,
+      little sir, have some more. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The old woman gave a yawn and, putting her right hand behind her,
+      scratched her left shoulder.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It must be two o&rsquo;clock now,&rdquo; she said; &ldquo;it will soon be time to get up.
+      Our lads are out on the steppe for the night; they are all wet through for
+      sure. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Granny,&rdquo; said Yegorushka. &ldquo;I am sleepy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Lie down, my dear, lie down,&rdquo; the old woman sighed, yawning. &ldquo;Lord Jesus
+      Christ! I was asleep, when I heard a noise as though someone were
+      knocking. I woke up and looked, and it was the storm God had sent us. . .
+      . I&rsquo;d have lighted the candle, but I couldn&rsquo;t find it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Talking to herself, she pulled some rags, probably her own bed, off the
+      bench, took two sheepskins off a nail by the stove, and began laying them
+      out for a bed for Yegorushka. &ldquo;The storm doesn&rsquo;t grow less,&rdquo; she muttered.
+      &ldquo;If only nothing&rsquo;s struck in an unlucky hour. Our lads are out on the
+      steppe for the night. Lie down and sleep, my dear. . . . Christ be with
+      you, my child. . . . I won&rsquo;t take away the melon; maybe you&rsquo;ll have a bit
+      when you get up.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The sighs and yawns of the old woman, the even breathing of the sleeping
+      woman, the half-darkness of the hut, and the sound of the rain outside,
+      made one sleepy. Yegorushka was shy of undressing before the old woman. He
+      only took off his boots, lay down and covered himself with the sheepskin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is the little lad lying down?&rdquo; he heard Panteley whisper a little later.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; answered the old woman in a whisper. &ldquo;The terror of the Lord! It
+      thunders and thunders, and there is no end to it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It will soon be over,&rdquo; wheezed Panteley, sitting down; &ldquo;it&rsquo;s getting
+      quieter. . . . The lads have gone into the huts, and two have stayed with
+      the horses. The lads have. . . . They can&rsquo;t; . . . the horses would be
+      taken away. . . . I&rsquo;ll sit here a bit and then go and take my turn. . . .
+      We can&rsquo;t leave them; they would be taken. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Panteley and the old woman sat side by side at Yegorushka&rsquo;s feet, talking
+      in hissing whispers and interspersing their speech with sighs and yawns.
+      And Yegorushka could not get warm. The warm heavy sheepskin lay on him,
+      but he was trembling all over; his arms and legs were twitching, and his
+      whole inside was shivering. . . . He undressed under the sheepskin, but
+      that was no good. His shivering grew more and more acute.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Panteley went out to take his turn with the horses, and afterwards came
+      back again, and still Yegorushka was shivering all over and could not get
+      to sleep. Something weighed upon his head and chest and oppressed him, and
+      he did not know what it was, whether it was the old people whispering, or
+      the heavy smell of the sheepskin. The melon he had eaten had left an
+      unpleasant metallic taste in his mouth. Moreover he was being bitten by
+      fleas.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Grandfather, I am cold,&rdquo; he said, and did not know his own voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Go to sleep, my child, go to sleep,&rdquo; sighed the old woman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Tit came up to the bedside on his thin little legs and waved his arms,
+      then grew up to the ceiling and turned into a windmill. . . . Father
+      Christopher, not as he was in the chaise, but in his full vestments with
+      the sprinkler in his hand, walked round the mill, sprinkling it with holy
+      water, and it left off waving. Yegorushka, knowing this was delirium,
+      opened his eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Grandfather,&rdquo; he called, &ldquo;give me some water.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      No one answered. Yegorushka felt it insufferably stifling and
+      uncomfortable lying down. He got up, dressed, and went out of the hut.
+      Morning was beginning. The sky was overcast, but it was no longer raining.
+      Shivering and wrapping himself in his wet overcoat, Yegorushka walked
+      about the muddy yard and listened to the silence; he caught sight of a
+      little shed with a half-open door made of reeds. He looked into this shed,
+      went into it, and sat down in a dark corner on a heap of dry dung.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a tangle of thoughts in his heavy head; his mouth was dry and
+      unpleasant from the metallic taste. He looked at his hat, straightened the
+      peacock&rsquo;s feather on it, and thought how he had gone with his mother to
+      buy the hat. He put his hand into his pocket and took out a lump of
+      brownish sticky paste. How had that paste come into his pocket? He thought
+      a minute, smelt it; it smelt of honey. Aha! it was the Jewish cake! How
+      sopped it was, poor thing!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yegorushka examined his coat. It was a little grey overcoat with big bone
+      buttons, cut in the shape of a frock-coat. At home, being a new and
+      expensive article, it had not been hung in the hall, but with his mother&rsquo;s
+      dresses in her bedroom; he was only allowed to wear it on holidays.
+      Looking at it, Yegorushka felt sorry for it. He thought that he and the
+      great-coat were both abandoned to the mercy of destiny; he thought that he
+      would never get back home, and began sobbing so violently that he almost
+      fell off the heap of dung.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A big white dog with woolly tufts like curl-papers about its face, sopping
+      from the rain, came into the shed and stared with curiosity at Yegorushka.
+      It seemed to be hesitating whether to bark or not. Deciding that there was
+      no need to bark, it went cautiously up to Yegorushka, ate the sticky
+      plaster and went out again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There are Varlamov&rsquo;s men!&rdquo; someone shouted in the street.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After having his cry out, Yegorushka went out of the shed and, walking
+      round a big puddle, made his way towards the street. The waggons were
+      standing exactly opposite the gateway. The drenched waggoners, with their
+      muddy feet, were sauntering beside them or sitting on the shafts, as
+      listless and drowsy as flies in autumn. Yegorushka looked at them and
+      thought: &ldquo;How dreary and comfortless to be a peasant!&rdquo; He went up to
+      Panteley and sat down beside him on the shaft.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Grandfather, I&rsquo;m cold,&rdquo; he said, shivering and thrusting his hands up his
+      sleeves.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Never mind, we shall soon be there,&rdquo; yawned Panteley. &ldquo;Never mind, you
+      will get warm.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It must have been early when the waggons set off, for it was not hot.
+      Yegorushka lay on the bales of wool and shivered with cold, though the sun
+      soon came out and dried his clothes, the bales, and the earth. As soon as
+      he closed his eyes he saw Tit and the windmill again. Feeling a sickness
+      and heaviness all over, he did his utmost to drive away these images, but
+      as soon as they vanished the dare-devil Dymov, with red eyes and lifted
+      fists, rushed at Yegorushka with a roar, or there was the sound of his
+      complaint: &ldquo;I am so dreary!&rdquo; Varlamov rode by on his little Cossack
+      stallion; happy Konstantin passed, with a smile and the bustard in his
+      arms. And how tedious these people were, how sickening and unbearable!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Once&mdash;it was towards evening&mdash;he raised his head to ask for
+      water. The waggons were standing on a big bridge across a broad river.
+      There was black smoke below over the river, and through it could be seen a
+      steamer with a barge in tow. Ahead of them, beyond the river, was a huge
+      mountain dotted with houses and churches; at the foot of the mountain an
+      engine was being shunted along beside some goods trucks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yegorushka had never before seen steamers, nor engines, nor broad rivers.
+      Glancing at them now, he was not alarmed or surprised; there was not even
+      a look of anything like curiosity in his face. He merely felt sick, and
+      made haste to turn over to the edge of the bale. He was sick. Panteley,
+      seeing this, cleared his throat and shook his head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Our little lad&rsquo;s taken ill,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;He must have got a chill to the
+      stomach. The little lad must. . . away from home; it&rsquo;s a bad lookout!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <h3>
+      VIII
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      The waggons stopped at a big inn for merchants, not far from the quay. As
+      Yegorushka climbed down from the waggon he heard a very familiar voice.
+      Someone was helping him to get down, and saying:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We arrived yesterday evening. . . . We have been expecting you all day.
+      We meant to overtake you yesterday, but it was out of our way; we came by
+      the other road. I say, how you have crumpled your coat! You&rsquo;ll catch it
+      from your uncle!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Yegorushka looked into the speaker&rsquo;s mottled face and remembered that this
+      was Deniska.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your uncle and Father Christopher are in the inn now, drinking tea; come
+      along!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And he led Yegorushka to a big two-storied building, dark and gloomy like
+      the almshouse at N. After going across the entry, up a dark staircase and
+      through a narrow corridor, Yegorushka and Deniska reached a little room in
+      which Ivan Ivanitch and Father Christopher were sitting at the tea-table.
+      Seeing the boy, both the old men showed surprise and pleasure.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Aha! Yegor Ni-ko-la-aitch!&rdquo; chanted Father Christopher. &ldquo;Mr. Lomonosov!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, our gentleman that is to be,&rdquo; said Kuzmitchov, &ldquo;pleased to see you!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Yegorushka took off his great-coat, kissed his uncle&rsquo;s hand and Father
+      Christopher&rsquo;s, and sat down to the table.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, how did you like the journey, puer bone?&rdquo; Father Christopher pelted
+      him with questions as he poured him out some tea, with his radiant smile.
+      &ldquo;Sick of it, I&rsquo;ve no doubt? God save us all from having to travel by
+      waggon or with oxen. You go on and on, God forgive us; you look ahead and
+      the steppe is always lying stretched out the same as it was&mdash;you
+      can&rsquo;t see the end of it! It&rsquo;s not travelling but regular torture. Why
+      don&rsquo;t you drink your tea? Drink it up; and in your absence, while you have
+      been trailing along with the waggons, we have settled all our business
+      capitally. Thank God we have sold our wool to Tcherepahin, and no one
+      could wish to have done better. . . . We have made a good bargain.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At the first sight of his own people Yegorushka felt an overwhelming
+      desire to complain. He did not listen to Father Christopher, but thought
+      how to begin and what exactly to complain of. But Father Christopher&rsquo;s
+      voice, which seemed to him harsh and unpleasant, prevented him from
+      concentrating his attention and confused his thoughts. He had not sat at
+      the table five minutes before he got up, went to the sofa and lay down.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, well,&rdquo; said Father Christopher in surprise. &ldquo;What about your tea?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Still thinking what to complain of, Yegorushka leaned his head against the
+      wall and broke into sobs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, well!&rdquo; repeated Father Christopher, getting up and going to the
+      sofa. &ldquo;Yegory, what is the matter with you? Why are you crying?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;m . . . I&rsquo;m ill,&rdquo; Yegorushka brought out.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ill?&rdquo; said Father Christopher in amazement. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s not the right thing,
+      my boy. . . . One mustn&rsquo;t be ill on a journey. Aie, aie, what are you
+      thinking about, boy . . . eh?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He put his hand to Yegorushka&rsquo;s head, touched his cheek and said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, your head&rsquo;s feverish. . . . You must have caught cold or else have
+      eaten something. . . . Pray to God.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Should we give him quinine? . . .&rdquo; said Ivan Ivanitch, troubled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No; he ought to have something hot. . . . Yegory, have a little drop of
+      soup? Eh?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I . . . don&rsquo;t want any,&rdquo; said Yegorushka.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you feeling chilly?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I was chilly before, but now . . . now I am hot. And I ache all over. . .
+      .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ivan Ivanitch went up to the sofa, touched Yegorushka on the head, cleared
+      his throat with a perplexed air, and went back to the table.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I tell you what, you undress and go to bed,&rdquo; said Father Christopher.
+      &ldquo;What you want is sleep now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He helped Yegorushka to undress, gave him a pillow and covered him with a
+      quilt, and over that Ivan Ivanitch&rsquo;s great-coat. Then he walked away on
+      tiptoe and sat down to the table. Yegorushka shut his eyes, and at once it
+      seemed to him that he was not in the hotel room, but on the highroad
+      beside the camp fire. Emelyan waved his hands, and Dymov with red eyes lay
+      on his stomach and looked mockingly at Yegorushka.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Beat him, beat him!&rdquo; shouted Yegorushka.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He is delirious,&rdquo; said Father Christopher in an undertone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a nuisance!&rdquo; sighed Ivan Ivanitch.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He must be rubbed with oil and vinegar. Please God, he will be better
+      to-morrow.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      To be rid of bad dreams, Yegorushka opened his eyes and began looking
+      towards the fire. Father Christopher and Ivan Ivanitch had now finished
+      their tea and were talking in a whisper. The first was smiling with
+      delight, and evidently could not forget that he had made a good bargain
+      over his wool; what delighted him was not so much the actual profit he had
+      made as the thought that on getting home he would gather round him his big
+      family, wink slyly and go off into a chuckle; at first he would deceive
+      them all, and say that he had sold the wool at a price below its value,
+      then he would give his son-in-law, Mihail, a fat pocket-book and say:
+      &ldquo;Well, take it! that&rsquo;s the way to do business!&rdquo; Kuzmitchov did not seem
+      pleased; his face expressed, as before, a business-like reserve and
+      anxiety.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If I could have known that Tcherepahin would give such a price,&rdquo; he said
+      in a low voice, &ldquo;I wouldn&rsquo;t have sold Makarov those five tons at home. It
+      is vexatious! But who could have told that the price had gone up here?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A man in a white shirt cleared away the samovar and lighted the little
+      lamp before the ikon in the corner. Father Christopher whispered something
+      in his ear; the man looked, made a serious face like a conspirator, as
+      though to say, &ldquo;I understand,&rdquo; went out, and returned a little while
+      afterwards and put something under the sofa. Ivan Ivanitch made himself a
+      bed on the floor, yawned several times, said his prayers lazily, and lay
+      down.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think of going to the cathedral to-morrow,&rdquo; said Father Christopher. &ldquo;I
+      know the sacristan there. I ought to go and see the bishop after mass, but
+      they say he is ill.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He yawned and put out the lamp. Now there was no light in the room but the
+      little lamp before the ikon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They say he can&rsquo;t receive visitors,&rdquo; Father Christopher went on,
+      undressing. &ldquo;So I shall go away without seeing him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He took off his full coat, and Yegorushka saw Robinson Crusoe reappear.
+      Robinson stirred something in a saucer, went up to Yegorushka and
+      whispered:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Lomonosov, are you asleep? Sit up; I&rsquo;m going to rub you with oil and
+      vinegar. It&rsquo;s a good thing, only you must say a prayer.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Yegorushka roused himself quickly and sat up. Father Christopher pulled
+      down the boy&rsquo;s shirt, and shrinking and breathing jerkily, as though he
+      were being tickled himself, began rubbing Yegorushka&rsquo;s chest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost,&rdquo; he whispered,
+      &ldquo;lie with your back upwards&mdash;that&rsquo;s it. . . . You&rsquo;ll be all right
+      to-morrow, but don&rsquo;t do it again. . . . You are as hot as fire. I suppose
+      you were on the road in the storm.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You might well fall ill! In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy
+      Ghost, . . . you might well fall ill!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      After rubbing Yegorushka, Father Christopher put on his shirt again,
+      covered him, made the sign of the cross over him, and walked away. Then
+      Yegorushka saw him saying his prayers. Probably the old man knew a great
+      many prayers by heart, for he stood a long time before the ikon murmuring.
+      After saying his prayers he made the sign of the cross over the window,
+      the door, Yegorushka, and Ivan Ivanitch, lay down on the little sofa
+      without a pillow, and covered himself with his full coat. A clock in the
+      corridor struck ten. Yegorushka thought how long a time it would be before
+      morning; feeling miserable, he pressed his forehead against the back of
+      the sofa and left off trying to get rid of the oppressive misty dreams.
+      But morning came much sooner than he expected.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It seemed to him that he had not been lying long with his head pressed to
+      the back of the sofa, but when he opened his eyes slanting rays of
+      sunlight were already shining on the floor through the two windows of the
+      little hotel room. Father Christopher and Ivan Ivanitch were not in the
+      room. The room had been tidied; it was bright, snug, and smelt of Father
+      Christopher, who always smelt of cypress and dried cornflowers (at home he
+      used to make the holy-water sprinklers and decorations for the ikonstands
+      out of cornflowers, and so he was saturated with the smell of them).
+      Yegorushka looked at the pillow, at the slanting sunbeams, at his boots,
+      which had been cleaned and were standing side by side near the sofa, and
+      laughed. It seemed strange to him that he was not on the bales of wool,
+      that everything was dry around him, and that there was no thunder and
+      lightning on the ceiling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He jumped off the sofa and began dressing. He felt splendid; nothing was
+      left of his yesterday&rsquo;s illness but a slight weakness in his legs and
+      neck. So the vinegar and oil had done good. He remembered the steamer, the
+      railway engine, and the broad river, which he had dimly seen the day
+      before, and now he made haste to dress, to run to the quay and have a look
+      at them. When he had washed and was putting on his red shirt, the latch of
+      the door clicked, and Father Christopher appeared in the doorway, wearing
+      his top-hat and a brown silk cassock over his canvas coat and carrying his
+      staff in his hand. Smiling and radiant (old men are always radiant when
+      they come back from church), he put a roll of holy bread and a parcel of
+      some sort on the table, prayed before the ikon, and said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;God has sent us blessings&mdash;well, how are you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Quite well now,&rdquo; answered Yegorushka, kissing his hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thank God. . . . I have come from mass. I&rsquo;ve been to see a sacristan I
+      know. He invited me to breakfast with him, but I didn&rsquo;t go. I don&rsquo;t like
+      visiting people too early, God bless them!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He took off his cassock, stroked himself on the chest, and without haste
+      undid the parcel. Yegorushka saw a little tin of caviare, a piece of dry
+      sturgeon, and a French loaf.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;See; I passed a fish-shop and brought this,&rdquo; said Father Christopher.
+      &ldquo;There is no need to indulge in luxuries on an ordinary weekday; but I
+      thought, I&rsquo;ve an invalid at home, so it is excusable. And the caviare is
+      good, real sturgeon. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The man in the white shirt brought in the samovar and a tray with
+      tea-things.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Eat some,&rdquo; said Father Christopher, spreading the caviare on a slice of
+      bread and handing it to Yegorushka. &ldquo;Eat now and enjoy yourself, but the
+      time will soon come for you to be studying. Mind you study with attention
+      and application, so that good may come of it. What you have to learn by
+      heart, learn by heart, but when you have to tell the inner sense in your
+      own words, without regard to the outer form, then say it in your own
+      words. And try to master all subjects. One man knows mathematics
+      excellently, but has never heard of Pyotr Mogila; another knows about
+      Pyotr Mogila, but cannot explain about the moon. But you study so as to
+      understand everything. Study Latin, French, German, . . . geography, of
+      course, history, theology, philosophy, mathematics, . . . and when you
+      have mastered everything, not with haste but with prayer and with zeal,
+      then go into the service. When you know everything it will be easy for you
+      in any line of life. . . . You study and strive for the divine blessing,
+      and God will show you what to be. Whether a doctor, a judge or an
+      engineer. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Father Christopher spread a little caviare on a piece of bread, put it in
+      his mouth and said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The Apostle Paul says: &lsquo;Do not apply yourself to strange and diverse
+      studies.&rsquo; Of course, if it is black magic, unlawful arts, or calling up
+      spirits from the other world, like Saul, or studying subjects that can be
+      of no use to yourself or others, better not learn them. You must undertake
+      only what God has blessed. Take example . . . the Holy Apostles spoke in
+      all languages, so you study languages. Basil the Great studied mathematics
+      and philosophy&mdash;so you study them; St. Nestor wrote history&mdash;so
+      you study and write history. Take example from the saints.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Father Christopher sipped the tea from his saucer, wiped his moustaches,
+      and shook his head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good!&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I was educated in the old-fashioned way; I have
+      forgotten a great deal by now, but still I live differently from other
+      people. Indeed, there is no comparison. For instance, in company at a
+      dinner, or at an assembly, one says something in Latin, or makes some
+      allusion from history or philosophy, and it pleases people, and it pleases
+      me myself. . . . Or when the circuit court comes and one has to take the
+      oath, all the other priests are shy, but I am quite at home with the
+      judges, the prosecutors, and the lawyers. I talk intellectually, drink a
+      cup of tea with them, laugh, ask them what I don&rsquo;t know, . . . and they
+      like it. So that&rsquo;s how it is, my boy. Learning is light and ignorance is
+      darkness. Study! It&rsquo;s hard, of course; nowadays study is expensive. . . .
+      Your mother is a widow; she lives on her pension, but there, of course . .
+      .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Father Christopher glanced apprehensively towards the door, and went on in
+      a whisper:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ivan Ivanitch will assist. He won&rsquo;t desert you. He has no children of his
+      own, and he will help you. Don&rsquo;t be uneasy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He looked grave, and whispered still more softly:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Only mind, Yegory, don&rsquo;t forget your mother and Ivan Ivanitch, God
+      preserve you from it. The commandment bids you honour your mother, and
+      Ivan Ivanitch is your benefactor and takes the place of a father to you.
+      If you become learned, God forbid you should be impatient and scornful
+      with people because they are not so clever as you, then woe, woe to you!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Father Christopher raised his hand and repeated in a thin voice:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Woe to you! Woe to you!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Father Christopher&rsquo;s tongue was loosened, and he was, as they say, warming
+      to his subject; he would not have finished till dinnertime but the door
+      opened and Ivan Ivanitch walked in. He said good-morning hurriedly, sat
+      down to the table, and began rapidly swallowing his tea.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, I have settled all our business,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;We might have gone home
+      to-day, but we have still to think about Yegor. We must arrange for him.
+      My sister told me that Nastasya Petrovna, a friend of hers, lives
+      somewhere here, so perhaps she will take him in as a boarder.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He rummaged in his pocket-book, found a crumpled note and read:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;Little Lower Street: Nastasya Petrovna Toskunov, living in a house of
+      her own.&rsquo; We must go at once and try to find her. It&rsquo;s a nuisance!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Soon after breakfast Ivan Ivanitch and Yegorushka left the inn.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a nuisance,&rdquo; muttered his uncle. &ldquo;You are sticking to me like a
+      burr. You and your mother want education and gentlemanly breeding and I
+      have nothing but worry with you both. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      When they crossed the yard, the waggons and the drivers were not there.
+      They had all gone off to the quay early in the morning. In a far-off dark
+      corner of the yard stood the chaise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good-bye, chaise!&rdquo; thought Yegorushka.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At first they had to go a long way uphill by a broad street, then they had
+      to cross a big marketplace; here Ivan Ivanitch asked a policeman for
+      Little Lower Street.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I say,&rdquo; said the policeman, with a grin, &ldquo;it&rsquo;s a long way off, out that
+      way towards the town grazing ground.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They met several cabs but Ivan Ivanitch only permitted himself such a
+      weakness as taking a cab in exceptional cases and on great holidays.
+      Yegorushka and he walked for a long while through paved streets, then
+      along streets where there were only wooden planks at the sides and no
+      pavements, and in the end got to streets where there were neither planks
+      nor pavements. When their legs and their tongues had brought them to
+      Little Lower Street they were both red in the face, and taking off their
+      hats, wiped away the perspiration.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tell me, please,&rdquo; said Ivan Ivanitch, addressing an old man sitting on a
+      little bench by a gate, &ldquo;where is Nastasya Petrovna Toskunov&rsquo;s house?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There is no one called Toskunov here,&rdquo; said the old man, after pondering
+      a moment. &ldquo;Perhaps it&rsquo;s Timoshenko you want.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, Toskunov. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Excuse me, there&rsquo;s no one called Toskunov. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ivan Ivanitch shrugged his shoulders and trudged on farther.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You needn&rsquo;t look,&rdquo; the old man called after them. &ldquo;I tell you there
+      isn&rsquo;t, and there isn&rsquo;t.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Listen, auntie,&rdquo; said Ivan Ivanitch, addressing an old woman who was
+      sitting at a corner with a tray of pears and sunflower seeds, &ldquo;where is
+      Nastasya Petrovna Toskunov&rsquo;s house?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The old woman looked at him with surprise and laughed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, Nastasya Petrovna live in her own house now!&rdquo; she cried. &ldquo;Lord! it
+      is eight years since she married her daughter and gave up the house to her
+      son-in-law! It&rsquo;s her son-in-law lives there now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And her eyes expressed: &ldquo;How is it you didn&rsquo;t know a simple thing like
+      that, you fools?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And where does she live now?&rdquo; Ivan Ivanitch asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, Lord!&rdquo; cried the old woman, flinging up her hands in surprise. &ldquo;She
+      moved ever so long ago! It&rsquo;s eight years since she gave up her house to
+      her son-in-law! Upon my word!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She probably expected Ivan Ivanitch to be surprised, too, and to exclaim:
+      &ldquo;You don&rsquo;t say so,&rdquo; but Ivan Ivanitch asked very calmly:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where does she live now?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The old woman tucked up her sleeves and, stretching out her bare arm to
+      point, shouted in a shrill piercing voice:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Go straight on, straight on, straight on. You will pass a little red
+      house, then you will see a little alley on your left. Turn down that
+      little alley, and it will be the third gate on the right. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ivan Ivanitch and Yegorushka reached the little red house, turned to the
+      left down the little alley, and made for the third gate on the right. On
+      both sides of this very old grey gate there was a grey fence with big gaps
+      in it. The first part of the fence was tilting forwards and threatened to
+      fall, while on the left of the gate it sloped backwards towards the yard.
+      The gate itself stood upright and seemed to be still undecided which would
+      suit it best &mdash;to fall forwards or backwards. Ivan Ivanitch opened
+      the little gate at the side, and he and Yegorushka saw a big yard
+      overgrown with weeds and burdocks. A hundred paces from the gate stood a
+      little house with a red roof and green shutters. A stout woman with her
+      sleeves tucked up and her apron held out was standing in the middle of the
+      yard, scattering something on the ground and shouting in a voice as shrill
+      as that of the woman selling fruit:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Chick! . . . Chick! . . . Chick!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Behind her sat a red dog with pointed ears. Seeing the strangers, he ran
+      to the little gate and broke into a tenor bark (all red dogs have a tenor
+      bark).
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Whom do you want?&rdquo; asked the woman, putting up her hand to shade her eyes
+      from the sun.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good-morning!&rdquo; Ivan Ivanitch shouted, too, waving off the red dog with
+      his stick. &ldquo;Tell me, please, does Nastasya Petrovna Toskunov live here?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes! But what do you want with her?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps you are Nastasya Petrovna?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, yes, I am!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very pleased to see you. . . . You see, your old friend Olga Ivanovna
+      Knyasev sends her love to you. This is her little son. And I, perhaps you
+      remember, am her brother Ivan Ivanitch. . . . You are one of us from N. .
+      . . You were born among us and married there. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A silence followed. The stout woman stared blankly at Ivan Ivanitch, as
+      though not believing or not understanding him, then she flushed all over,
+      and flung up her hands; the oats were scattered out of her apron and tears
+      spurted from her eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Olga Ivanovna!&rdquo; she screamed, breathless with excitement. &ldquo;My own
+      darling! Ah, holy saints, why am I standing here like a fool? My pretty
+      little angel. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She embraced Yegorushka, wetted his face with her tears, and broke down
+      completely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Heavens!&rdquo; she said, wringing her hands, &ldquo;Olga&rsquo;s little boy! How
+      delightful! He is his mother all over! The image of his mother! But why
+      are you standing in the yard? Come indoors.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Crying, gasping for breath and talking as she went, she hurried towards
+      the house. Her visitors trudged after her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The room has not been done yet,&rdquo; she said, ushering the visitors into a
+      stuffy little drawing-room adorned with many ikons and pots of flowers.
+      &ldquo;Oh, Mother of God! Vassilisa, go and open the shutters anyway! My little
+      angel! My little beauty! I did not know that Olitchka had a boy like
+      that!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      When she had calmed down and got over her first surprise Ivan Ivanitch
+      asked to speak to her alone. Yegorushka went into another room; there was
+      a sewing-machine; in the window was a cage with a starling in it, and
+      there were as many ikons and flowers as in the drawing-room. Near the
+      machine stood a little girl with a sunburnt face and chubby cheeks like
+      Tit&rsquo;s, and a clean cotton dress. She stared at Yegorushka without
+      blinking, and apparently felt very awkward. Yegorushka looked at her and
+      after a pause asked:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What&rsquo;s your name?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The little girl moved her lips, looked as if she were going to cry, and
+      answered softly:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Atka. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This meant Katka.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He will live with you,&rdquo; Ivan Ivanitch was whispering in the drawing-room,
+      &ldquo;if you will be so kind, and we will pay ten roubles a month for his keep.
+      He is not a spoilt boy; he is quiet. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I really don&rsquo;t know what to say, Ivan Ivanitch!&rdquo; Nastasya Petrovna sighed
+      tearfully. &ldquo;Ten roubles a month is very good, but it is a dreadful thing
+      to take another person&rsquo;s child! He may fall ill or something. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      When Yegorushka was summoned back to the drawing-room Ivan Ivanitch was
+      standing with his hat in his hands, saying good-bye.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, let him stay with you now, then,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Good-bye! You stay,
+      Yegor!&rdquo; he said, addressing his nephew. &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t be troublesome; mind you
+      obey Nastasya Petrovna. . . . Good-bye; I am coming again to-morrow.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And he went away. Nastasya once more embraced Yegorushka, called him a
+      little angel, and with a tear-stained face began preparing for dinner.
+      Three minutes later Yegorushka was sitting beside her, answering her
+      endless questions and eating hot savoury cabbage soup.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the evening he sat again at the same table and, resting his head on his
+      hand, listened to Nastasya Petrovna. Alternately laughing and crying, she
+      talked of his mother&rsquo;s young days, her own marriage, her children. . . . A
+      cricket chirruped in the stove, and there was a faint humming from the
+      burner of the lamp. Nastasya Petrovna talked in a low voice, and was
+      continually dropping her thimble in her excitement; and Katka her
+      granddaughter, crawled under the table after it and each time sat a long
+      while under the table, probably examining Yegorushka&rsquo;s feet; and
+      Yegorushka listened, half dozing and looking at the old woman&rsquo;s face, her
+      wart with hairs on it, and the stains of tears, and he felt sad, very sad.
+      He was put to sleep on a chest and told that if he were hungry in the
+      night he must go out into the little passage and take some chicken, put
+      there under a plate in the window.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Next morning Ivan Ivanitch and Father Christopher came to say good-bye.
+      Nastasya Petrovna was delighted to see them, and was about to set the
+      samovar; but Ivan Ivanitch, who was in a great hurry, waved his hands and
+      said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We have no time for tea! We are just setting off.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Before parting they all sat down and were silent for a minute. Nastasya
+      Petrovna heaved a deep sigh and looked towards the ikon with tear-stained
+      eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; began Ivan Ivanitch, getting up, &ldquo;so you will stay. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      All at once the look of business-like reserve vanished from his face; he
+      flushed a little and said with a mournful smile:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mind you work hard. . . . Don&rsquo;t forget your mother, and obey Nastasya
+      Petrovna. . . . If you are diligent at school, Yegor, I&rsquo;ll stand by you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He took his purse out of his pocket, turned his back to Yegorushka,
+      fumbled for a long time among the smaller coins, and, finding a ten-kopeck
+      piece, gave it to Yegorushka.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Father Christopher, without haste, blessed Yegorushka.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. . . . Study,&rdquo; he
+      said. &ldquo;Work hard, my lad. If I die, remember me in your prayers. Here is a
+      ten-kopeck piece from me, too. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Yegorushka kissed his hand, and shed tears; something whispered in his
+      heart that he would never see the old man again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have applied at the high school already,&rdquo; said Ivan Ivanitch in a voice
+      as though there were a corpse in the room. &ldquo;You will take him for the
+      entrance examination on the seventh of August. . . . Well, good-bye; God
+      bless you, good-bye, Yegor!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You might at least have had a cup of tea,&rdquo; wailed Nastasya Petrovna.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Through the tears that filled his eyes Yegorushka could not see his uncle
+      and Father Christopher go out. He rushed to the window, but they were not
+      in the yard, and the red dog, who had just been barking, was running back
+      from the gate with the air of having done his duty. When Yegorushka ran
+      out of the gate Ivan Ivanitch and Father Christopher, the former waving
+      his stick with the crook, the latter his staff, were just turning the
+      corner. Yegorushka felt that with these people all that he had known till
+      then had vanished from him for ever. He sank helplessly on to the little
+      bench, and with bitter tears greeted the new unknown life that was
+      beginning for him now. . . .
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What would that life be like?
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 6em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <pre>
+
+
+
+
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+</pre>
+
+  </body>
+</html>
diff --git a/old/13419.txt b/old/13419.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..3e500e5
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/13419.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,8986 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Bishop and Other Stories, by Anton Chekhov
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Bishop and Other Stories
+
+Author: Anton Chekhov
+
+Release Date: September 9, 2004 [EBook #13419]
+[Last updated: January 25, 2014]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BISHOP AND OTHER STORIES ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by James Rusk
+
+
+
+
+
+THE TALES OF CHEKHOV
+
+VOLUME 7
+
+THE BISHOP AND OTHER STORIES
+
+BY
+
+ANTON TCHEKHOV
+
+Translated by CONSTANCE GARNETT
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+THE BISHOP
+THE LETTER
+EASTER EVE
+A NIGHTMARE
+THE MURDER
+UPROOTED
+THE STEPPE
+
+
+
+
+THE BISHOP
+
+I
+
+THE evening service was being celebrated on the eve of Palm Sunday
+in the Old Petrovsky Convent. When they began distributing the palm
+it was close upon ten o'clock, the candles were burning dimly, the
+wicks wanted snuffing; it was all in a sort of mist. In the twilight
+of the church the crowd seemed heaving like the sea, and to Bishop
+Pyotr, who had been unwell for the last three days, it seemed that
+all the faces--old and young, men's and women's--were alike,
+that everyone who came up for the palm had the same expression in
+his eyes. In the mist he could not see the doors; the crowd kept
+moving and looked as though there were no end to it. The female
+choir was singing, a nun was reading the prayers for the day.
+
+How stifling, how hot it was! How long the service went on! Bishop
+Pyotr was tired. His breathing was laboured and rapid, his throat
+was parched, his shoulders ached with weariness, his legs were
+trembling. And it disturbed him unpleasantly when a religious maniac
+uttered occasional shrieks in the gallery. And then all of a sudden,
+as though in a dream or delirium, it seemed to the bishop as though
+his own mother Marya Timofyevna, whom he had not seen for nine
+years, or some old woman just like his mother, came up to him out
+of the crowd, and, after taking a palm branch from him, walked away
+looking at him all the while good-humouredly with a kind, joyful
+smile until she was lost in the crowd. And for some reason tears
+flowed down his face. There was peace in his heart, everything was
+well, yet he kept gazing fixedly towards the left choir, where the
+prayers were being read, where in the dusk of evening you could not
+recognize anyone, and--wept. Tears glistened on his face and on
+his beard. Here someone close at hand was weeping, then someone
+else farther away, then others and still others, and little by
+little the church was filled with soft weeping. And a little later,
+within five minutes, the nuns' choir was singing; no one was weeping
+and everything was as before.
+
+Soon the service was over. When the bishop got into his carriage
+to drive home, the gay, melodious chime of the heavy, costly bells
+was filling the whole garden in the moonlight. The white walls, the
+white crosses on the tombs, the white birch-trees and black shadows,
+and the far-away moon in the sky exactly over the convent, seemed
+now living their own life, apart and incomprehensible, yet very
+near to man. It was the beginning of April, and after the warm
+spring day it turned cool; there was a faint touch of frost, and
+the breath of spring could be felt in the soft, chilly air. The
+road from the convent to the town was sandy, the horses had to go
+at a walking pace, and on both sides of the carriage in the brilliant,
+peaceful moonlight there were people trudging along home from church
+through the sand. And all was silent, sunk in thought; everything
+around seemed kindly, youthful, akin, everything--trees and sky
+and even the moon, and one longed to think that so it would be
+always.
+
+At last the carriage drove into the town and rumbled along the
+principal street. The shops were already shut, but at Erakin's, the
+millionaire shopkeeper's, they were trying the new electric lights,
+which flickered brightly, and a crowd of people were gathered round.
+Then came wide, dark, deserted streets, one after another; then the
+highroad, the open country, the fragrance of pines. And suddenly
+there rose up before the bishop's eyes a white turreted wall, and
+behind it a tall belfry in the full moonlight, and beside it five
+shining, golden cupolas: this was the Pankratievsky Monastery, in
+which Bishop Pyotr lived. And here, too, high above the monastery,
+was the silent, dreamy moon. The carriage drove in at the gate,
+crunching over the sand; here and there in the moonlight there were
+glimpses of dark monastic figures, and there was the sound of
+footsteps on the flag-stones. . . .
+
+"You know, your holiness, your mamma arrived while you were away,"
+the lay brother informed the bishop as he went into his cell.
+
+"My mother? When did she come?"
+
+"Before the evening service. She asked first where you were and
+then she went to the convent."
+
+"Then it was her I saw in the church, just now! Oh, Lord!"
+
+And the bishop laughed with joy.
+
+"She bade me tell your holiness," the lay brother went on, "that
+she would come to-morrow. She had a little girl with her--her
+grandchild, I suppose. They are staying at Ovsyannikov's inn."
+
+"What time is it now?"
+
+"A little after eleven."
+
+"Oh, how vexing!"
+
+The bishop sat for a little while in the parlour, hesitating, and
+as it were refusing to believe it was so late. His arms and legs
+were stiff, his head ached. He was hot and uncomfortable. After
+resting a little he went into his bedroom, and there, too, he sat
+a little, still thinking of his mother; he could hear the lay brother
+going away, and Father Sisoy coughing the other side of the wall.
+The monastery clock struck a quarter.
+
+The bishop changed his clothes and began reading the prayers before
+sleep. He read attentively those old, long familiar prayers, and
+at the same time thought about his mother. She had nine children
+and about forty grandchildren. At one time, she had lived with her
+husband, the deacon, in a poor village; she had lived there a very
+long time from the age of seventeen to sixty. The bishop remembered
+her from early childhood, almost from the age of three, and--how
+he had loved her! Sweet, precious childhood, always fondly remembered!
+Why did it, that long-past time that could never return, why did
+it seem brighter, fuller, and more festive than it had really been?
+When in his childhood or youth he had been ill, how tender and
+sympathetic his mother had been! And now his prayers mingled with
+the memories, which gleamed more and more brightly like a flame,
+and the prayers did not hinder his thinking of his mother.
+
+When he had finished his prayers he undressed and lay down, and at
+once, as soon as it was dark, there rose before his mind his dead
+father, his mother, his native village Lesopolye . . . the creak
+of wheels, the bleat of sheep, the church bells on bright summer
+mornings, the gypsies under the window--oh, how sweet to think
+of it! He remembered the priest of Lesopolye, Father Simeon--mild,
+gentle, kindly; he was a lean little man, while his son, a divinity
+student, was a huge fellow and talked in a roaring bass voice. The
+priest's son had flown into a rage with the cook and abused her:
+"Ah, you Jehud's ass!" and Father Simeon overhearing it, said not
+a word, and was only ashamed because he could not remember where
+such an ass was mentioned in the Bible. After him the priest at
+Lesopolye had been Father Demyan, who used to drink heavily, and
+at times drank till he saw green snakes, and was even nicknamed
+Demyan Snakeseer. The schoolmaster at Lesopolye was Matvey Nikolaitch,
+who had been a divinity student, a kind and intelligent man, but
+he, too, was a drunkard; he never beat the schoolchildren, but for
+some reason he always had hanging on his wall a bunch of birch-twigs,
+and below it an utterly meaningless inscription in Latin: "Betula
+kinderbalsamica secuta." He had a shaggy black dog whom he called
+Syntax.
+
+And his holiness laughed. Six miles from Lesopolye was the village
+Obnino with a wonder-working ikon. In the summer they used to carry
+the ikon in procession about the neighbouring villages and ring the
+bells the whole day long; first in one village and then in another,
+and it used to seem to the bishop then that joy was quivering in
+the air, and he (in those days his name was Pavlusha) used to follow
+the ikon, bareheaded and barefoot, with naive faith, with a naive
+smile, infinitely happy. In Obnino, he remembered now, there were
+always a lot of people, and the priest there, Father Alexey, to
+save time during mass, used to make his deaf nephew Ilarion read
+the names of those for whose health or whose souls' peace prayers
+were asked. Ilarion used to read them, now and then getting a five
+or ten kopeck piece for the service, and only when he was grey and
+bald, when life was nearly over, he suddenly saw written on one of
+the pieces of paper: "What a fool you are, Ilarion." Up to fifteen
+at least Pavlusha was undeveloped and idle at his lessons, so much
+so that they thought of taking him away from the clerical school
+and putting him into a shop; one day, going to the post at Obnino
+for letters, he had stared a long time at the post-office clerks
+and asked: "Allow me to ask, how do you get your salary, every month
+or every day?"
+
+His holiness crossed himself and turned over on the other side,
+trying to stop thinking and go to sleep.
+
+"My mother has come," he remembered and laughed.
+
+The moon peeped in at the window, the floor was lighted up, and
+there were shadows on it. A cricket was chirping. Through the wall
+Father Sisoy was snoring in the next room, and his aged snore had
+a sound that suggested loneliness, forlornness, even vagrancy. Sisoy
+had once been housekeeper to the bishop of the diocese, and was
+called now "the former Father Housekeeper"; he was seventy years
+old, he lived in a monastery twelve miles from the town and stayed
+sometimes in the town, too. He had come to the Pankratievsky Monastery
+three days before, and the bishop had kept him that he might talk
+to him at his leisure about matters of business, about the arrangements
+here. . . .
+
+At half-past one they began ringing for matins. Father Sisoy could
+be heard coughing, muttering something in a discontented voice,
+then he got up and walked barefoot about the rooms.
+
+"Father Sisoy," the bishop called.
+
+Sisoy went back to his room and a little later made his appearance
+in his boots, with a candle; he had on his cassock over his
+underclothes and on his head was an old faded skull-cap.
+
+"I can't sleep," said the bishop, sitting up. "I must be unwell.
+And what it is I don't know. Fever!"
+
+"You must have caught cold, your holiness. You must be rubbed with
+tallow." Sisoy stood a little and yawned. "O Lord, forgive me, a
+sinner."
+
+"They had the electric lights on at Erakin's today," he said; "I
+don't like it!"
+
+Father Sisoy was old, lean, bent, always dissatisfied with something,
+and his eyes were angry-looking and prominent as a crab's.
+
+"I don't like it," he said, going away. "I don't like it. Bother
+it!"
+
+II
+
+Next day, Palm Sunday, the bishop took the service in the cathedral
+in the town, then he visited the bishop of the diocese, then visited
+a very sick old lady, the widow of a general, and at last drove
+home. Between one and two o'clock he had welcome visitors dining
+with him--his mother and his niece Katya, a child of eight years
+old. All dinner-time the spring sunshine was streaming in at the
+windows, throwing bright light on the white tablecloth and on Katya's
+red hair. Through the double windows they could hear the noise of
+the rooks and the notes of the starlings in the garden.
+
+"It is nine years since we have met," said the old lady. "And when
+I looked at you in the monastery yesterday, good Lord! you've not
+changed a bit, except maybe you are thinner and your beard is a
+little longer. Holy Mother, Queen of Heaven! Yesterday at the evening
+service no one could help crying. I, too, as I looked at you,
+suddenly began crying, though I couldn't say why. His Holy Will!"
+
+And in spite of the affectionate tone in which she said this, he
+could see she was constrained as though she were uncertain whether
+to address him formally or familiarly, to laugh or not, and that
+she felt herself more a deacon's widow than his mother. And Katya
+gazed without blinking at her uncle, his holiness, as though trying
+to discover what sort of a person he was. Her hair sprang up from
+under the comb and the velvet ribbon and stood out like a halo; she
+had a turned-up nose and sly eyes. The child had broken a glass
+before sitting down to dinner, and now her grandmother, as she
+talked, moved away from Katya first a wineglass and then a tumbler.
+The bishop listened to his mother and remembered how many, many
+years ago she used to take him and his brothers and sisters to
+relations whom she considered rich; in those days she was taken up
+with the care of her children, now with her grandchildren, and she
+had brought Katya. . . .
+
+"Your sister, Varenka, has four children," she told him; "Katya,
+here, is the eldest. And your brother-in-law Father Ivan fell sick,
+God knows of what, and died three days before the Assumption; and
+my poor Varenka is left a beggar."
+
+"And how is Nikanor getting on?" the bishop asked about his eldest
+brother.
+
+"He is all right, thank God. Though he has nothing much, yet he can
+live. Only there is one thing: his son, my grandson Nikolasha, did
+not want to go into the Church; he has gone to the university to
+be a doctor. He thinks it is better; but who knows! His Holy Will!"
+
+"Nikolasha cuts up dead people," said Katya, spilling water over
+her knees.
+
+"Sit still, child," her grandmother observed calmly, and took the
+glass out of her hand. "Say a prayer, and go on eating."
+
+"How long it is since we have seen each other!" said the bishop,
+and he tenderly stroked his mother's hand and shoulder; "and I
+missed you abroad, mother, I missed you dreadfully."
+
+"Thank you."
+
+"I used to sit in the evenings at the open window, lonely and alone;
+often there was music playing, and all at once I used to be overcome
+with homesickness and felt as though I would give everything only
+to be at home and see you."
+
+His mother smiled, beamed, but at once she made a grave face and
+said:
+
+"Thank you."
+
+His mood suddenly changed. He looked at his mother and could not
+understand how she had come by that respectfulness, that timid
+expression of face: what was it for? And he did not recognize her.
+He felt sad and vexed. And then his head ached just as it had the
+day before; his legs felt fearfully tired, and the fish seemed to
+him stale and tasteless; he felt thirsty all the time. . . .
+
+After dinner two rich ladies, landowners, arrived and sat for an
+hour and a half in silence with rigid countenances; the archimandrite,
+a silent, rather deaf man, came to see him about business. Then
+they began ringing for vespers; the sun was setting behind the wood
+and the day was over. When he returned from church, he hurriedly
+said his prayers, got into bed, and wrapped himself up as warm as
+possible.
+
+It was disagreeable to remember the fish he had eaten at dinner.
+The moonlight worried him, and then he heard talking. In an adjoining
+room, probably in the parlour, Father Sisoy was talking politics:
+
+"There's war among the Japanese now. They are fighting. The Japanese,
+my good soul, are the same as the Montenegrins; they are the same
+race. They were under the Turkish yoke together."
+
+And then he heard the voice of Marya Timofyevna:
+
+"So, having said our prayers and drunk tea, we went, you know, to
+Father Yegor at Novokatnoye, so. . ."
+
+And she kept on saying, "having had tea" or "having drunk tea," and
+it seemed as though the only thing she had done in her life was to
+drink tea.
+
+The bishop slowly, languidly, recalled the seminary, the academy.
+For three years he had been Greek teacher in the seminary: by that
+time he could not read without spectacles. Then he had become a
+monk; he had been made a school inspector. Then he had defended his
+thesis for his degree. When he was thirty-two he had been made
+rector of the seminary, and consecrated archimandrite: and then his
+life had been so easy, so pleasant; it seemed so long, so long, no
+end was in sight. Then he had begun to be ill, had grown very thin
+and almost blind, and by the advice of the doctors had to give up
+everything and go abroad.
+
+"And what then?" asked Sisoy in the next room.
+
+"Then we drank tea . . ." answered Marya Timofyevna.
+
+"Good gracious, you've got a green beard," said Katya suddenly in
+surprise, and she laughed.
+
+The bishop remembered that the grey-headed Father Sisoy's beard
+really had a shade of green in it, and he laughed.
+
+"God have mercy upon us, what we have to put up with with this
+girl!" said Sisoy, aloud, getting angry. "Spoilt child! Sit quiet!"
+
+The bishop remembered the perfectly new white church in which he
+had conducted the services while living abroad, he remembered the
+sound of the warm sea. In his flat he had five lofty light rooms;
+in his study he had a new writing-table, lots of books. He had read
+a great deal and often written. And he remembered how he had pined
+for his native land, how a blind beggar woman had played the guitar
+under his window every day and sung of love, and how, as he listened,
+he had always for some reason thought of the past. But eight years
+had passed and he had been called back to Russia, and now he was a
+suffragan bishop, and all the past had retreated far away into the
+mist as though it were a dream. . . .
+
+Father Sisoy came into the bedroom with a candle.
+
+"I say!" he said, wondering, "are you asleep already, your holiness?"
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"Why, it's still early, ten o'clock or less. I bought a candle
+to-day; I wanted to rub you with tallow."
+
+"I am in a fever . . ." said the bishop, and he sat up. "I really
+ought to have something. My head is bad. . . ."
+
+Sisoy took off the bishop's shirt and began rubbing his chest and
+back with tallow.
+
+"That's the way . . . that's the way . . ." he said. "Lord Jesus
+Christ . . . that's the way. I walked to the town to-day; I was at
+what's-his-name's--the chief priest Sidonsky's. . . . I had tea
+with him. I don't like him. Lord Jesus Christ. . . . That's the
+way. I don't like him."
+
+III
+
+The bishop of the diocese, a very fat old man, was ill with rheumatism
+or gout, and had been in bed for over a month. Bishop Pyotr went
+to see him almost every day, and saw all who came to ask his help.
+And now that he was unwell he was struck by the emptiness, the
+triviality of everything which they asked and for which they wept;
+he was vexed at their ignorance, their timidity; and all this
+useless, petty business oppressed him by the mass of it, and it
+seemed to him that now he understood the diocesan bishop, who had
+once in his young days written on "The Doctrines of the Freedom of
+the Will," and now seemed to be all lost in trivialities, to have
+forgotten everything, and to have no thoughts of religion. The
+bishop must have lost touch with Russian life while he was abroad;
+he did not find it easy; the peasants seemed to him coarse, the
+women who sought his help dull and stupid, the seminarists and their
+teachers uncultivated and at times savage. And the documents coming
+in and going out were reckoned by tens of thousands; and what
+documents they were! The higher clergy in the whole diocese gave
+the priests, young and old, and even their wives and children, marks
+for their behaviour--a five, a four, and sometimes even a three;
+and about this he had to talk and to read and write serious reports.
+And there was positively not one minute to spare; his soul was
+troubled all day long, and the bishop was only at peace when he was
+in church.
+
+He could not get used, either, to the awe which, through no wish
+of his own, he inspired in people in spite of his quiet, modest
+disposition. All the people in the province seemed to him little,
+scared, and guilty when he looked at them. Everyone was timid in
+his presence, even the old chief priests; everyone "flopped" at his
+feet, and not long previously an old lady, a village priest's wife
+who had come to consult him, was so overcome by awe that she could
+not utter a single word, and went empty away. And he, who could
+never in his sermons bring himself to speak ill of people, never
+reproached anyone because he was so sorry for them, was moved to
+fury with the people who came to consult him, lost his temper and
+flung their petitions on the floor. The whole time he had been here,
+not one person had spoken to him genuinely, simply, as to a human
+being; even his old mother seemed now not the same! And why, he
+wondered, did she chatter away to Sisoy and laugh so much; while
+with him, her son, she was grave and usually silent and constrained,
+which did not suit her at all. The only person who behaved freely
+with him and said what he meant was old Sisoy, who had spent his
+whole life in the presence of bishops and had outlived eleven of
+them. And so the bishop was at ease with him, although, of course,
+he was a tedious and nonsensical man.
+
+After the service on Tuesday, his holiness Pyotr was in the diocesan
+bishop's house receiving petitions there; he got excited and angry,
+and then drove home. He was as unwell as before; he longed to be
+in bed, but he had hardly reached home when he was informed that a
+young merchant called Erakin, who subscribed liberally to charities,
+had come to see him about a very important matter. The bishop had
+to see him. Erakin stayed about an hour, talked very loud, almost
+shouted, and it was difficult to understand what he said.
+
+"God grant it may," he said as he went away. "Most essential!
+According to circumstances, your holiness! I trust it may!"
+
+After him came the Mother Superior from a distant convent. And when
+she had gone they began ringing for vespers. He had to go to church.
+
+In the evening the monks sang harmoniously, with inspiration. A
+young priest with a black beard conducted the service; and the
+bishop, hearing of the Bridegroom who comes at midnight and of the
+Heavenly Mansion adorned for the festival, felt no repentance for
+his sins, no tribulation, but peace at heart and tranquillity. And
+he was carried back in thought to the distant past, to his childhood
+and youth, when, too, they used to sing of the Bridegroom and of
+the Heavenly Mansion; and now that past rose up before him--living,
+fair, and joyful as in all likelihood it never had been. And perhaps
+in the other world, in the life to come, we shall think of the
+distant past, of our life here, with the same feeling. Who knows?
+The bishop was sitting near the altar. It was dark; tears flowed
+down his face. He thought that here he had attained everything a
+man in his position could attain; he had faith and yet everything
+was not clear, something was lacking still. He did not want to die;
+and he still felt that he had missed what was most important,
+something of which he had dimly dreamed in the past; and he was
+troubled by the same hopes for the future as he had felt in childhood,
+at the academy and abroad.
+
+"How well they sing to-day!" he thought, listening to the singing.
+"How nice it is!"
+
+IV
+
+On Thursday he celebrated mass in the cathedral; it was the Washing
+of Feet. When the service was over and the people were going home,
+it was sunny, warm; the water gurgled in the gutters, and the
+unceasing trilling of the larks, tender, telling of peace, rose
+from the fields outside the town. The trees were already awakening
+and smiling a welcome, while above them the infinite, fathomless
+blue sky stretched into the distance, God knows whither.
+
+On reaching home his holiness drank some tea, then changed his
+clothes, lay down on his bed, and told the lay brother to close the
+shutters on the windows. The bedroom was darkened. But what weariness,
+what pain in his legs and his back, a chill heavy pain, what a noise
+in his ears! He had not slept for a long time--for a very long
+time, as it seemed to him now, and some trifling detail which haunted
+his brain as soon as his eyes were closed prevented him from sleeping.
+As on the day before, sounds reached him from the adjoining rooms
+through the walls, voices, the jingle of glasses and teaspoons. . . .
+Marya Timofyevna was gaily telling Father Sisoy some story with
+quaint turns of speech, while the latter answered in a grumpy,
+ill-humoured voice: "Bother them! Not likely! What next!" And the
+bishop again felt vexed and then hurt that with other people his
+old mother behaved in a simple, ordinary way, while with him, her
+son, she was shy, spoke little, and did not say what she meant, and
+even, as he fancied, had during all those three days kept trying
+in his presence to find an excuse for standing up, because she was
+embarrassed at sitting before him. And his father? He, too, probably,
+if he had been living, would not have been able to utter a word in
+the bishop's presence. . . .
+
+Something fell down on the floor in the adjoining room and was
+broken; Katya must have dropped a cup or a saucer, for Father Sisoy
+suddenly spat and said angrily:
+
+"What a regular nuisance the child is! Lord forgive my transgressions!
+One can't provide enough for her."
+
+Then all was quiet, the only sounds came from outside. And when the
+bishop opened his eyes he saw Katya in his room, standing motionless,
+staring at him. Her red hair, as usual, stood up from under the
+comb like a halo.
+
+"Is that you, Katya?" he asked. "Who is it downstairs who keeps
+opening and shutting a door?"
+
+"I don't hear it," answered Katya; and she listened.
+
+"There, someone has just passed by."
+
+"But that was a noise in your stomach, uncle."
+
+He laughed and stroked her on the head.
+
+"So you say Cousin Nikolasha cuts up dead people?" he asked after
+a pause.
+
+"Yes, he is studying."
+
+"And is he kind?"
+
+"Oh, yes, he's kind. But he drinks vodka awfully."
+
+"And what was it your father died of?"
+
+"Papa was weak and very, very thin, and all at once his throat was
+bad. I was ill then, too, and brother Fedya; we all had bad throats.
+Papa died, uncle, and we got well."
+
+Her chin began quivering, and tears gleamed in her eyes and trickled
+down her cheeks.
+
+"Your holiness," she said in a shrill voice, by now weeping bitterly,
+"uncle, mother and all of us are left very wretched. . . . Give us
+a little money . . . do be kind . . . uncle darling. . . ."
+
+He, too, was moved to tears, and for a long time was too much touched
+to speak. Then he stroked her on the head, patted her on the shoulder
+and said:
+
+"Very good, very good, my child. When the holy Easter comes, we
+will talk it over. . . . I will help you. . . . I will help you. . . ."
+
+His mother came in quietly, timidly, and prayed before the ikon.
+Noticing that he was not sleeping, she said:
+
+"Won't you have a drop of soup?"
+
+"No, thank you," he answered, "I am not hungry."
+
+"You seem to be unwell, now I look at you. I should think so; you
+may well be ill! The whole day on your legs, the whole day. . . .
+And, my goodness, it makes one's heart ache even to look at you!
+Well, Easter is not far off; you will rest then, please God. Then
+we will have a talk, too, but now I'm not going to disturb you with
+my chatter. Come along, Katya; let his holiness sleep a little."
+
+And he remembered how once very long ago, when he was a boy, she
+had spoken exactly like that, in the same jestingly respectful tone,
+with a Church dignitary. . . . Only from her extraordinarily kind
+eyes and the timid, anxious glance she stole at him as she went out
+of the room could one have guessed that this was his mother. He
+shut his eyes and seemed to sleep, but twice heard the clock strike
+and Father Sisoy coughing the other side of the wall. And once more
+his mother came in and looked timidly at him for a minute. Someone
+drove up to the steps, as he could hear, in a coach or in a chaise.
+Suddenly a knock, the door slammed, the lay brother came into the
+bedroom.
+
+"Your holiness," he called.
+
+"Well?"
+
+"The horses are here; it's time for the evening service."
+
+"What o'clock is it?"
+
+"A quarter past seven."
+
+He dressed and drove to the cathedral. During all the "Twelve
+Gospels" he had to stand in the middle of the church without moving,
+and the first gospel, the longest and the most beautiful, he read
+himself. A mood of confidence and courage came over him. That first
+gospel, "Now is the Son of Man glorified," he knew by heart; and
+as he read he raised his eyes from time to time, and saw on both
+sides a perfect sea of lights and heard the splutter of candles,
+but, as in past years, he could not see the people, and it seemed
+as though these were all the same people as had been round him in
+those days, in his childhood and his youth; that they would always
+be the same every year and till such time as God only knew.
+
+His father had been a deacon, his grandfather a priest, his
+great-grandfather a deacon, and his whole family, perhaps from the
+days when Christianity had been accepted in Russia, had belonged
+to the priesthood; and his love for the Church services, for the
+priesthood, for the peal of the bells, was deep in him, ineradicable,
+innate. In church, particularly when he took part in the service,
+he felt vigorous, of good cheer, happy. So it was now. Only when
+the eighth gospel had been read, he felt that his voice had grown
+weak, even his cough was inaudible. His head had begun to ache
+intensely, and he was troubled by a fear that he might fall down.
+And his legs were indeed quite numb, so that by degrees he ceased
+to feel them and could not understand how or on what he was standing,
+and why he did not fall. . . .
+
+It was a quarter to twelve when the service was over. When he reached
+home, the bishop undressed and went to bed at once without even
+saying his prayers. He could not speak and felt that he could not
+have stood up. When he had covered his head with the quilt he felt
+a sudden longing to be abroad, an insufferable longing! He felt
+that he would give his life not to see those pitiful cheap shutters,
+those low ceilings, not to smell that heavy monastery smell. If
+only there were one person to whom he could have talked, have opened
+his heart!
+
+For a long while he heard footsteps in the next room and could not
+tell whose they were. At last the door opened, and Sisoy came in
+with a candle and a tea-cup in his hand.
+
+"You are in bed already, your holiness?" he asked. "Here I have
+come to rub you with spirit and vinegar. A thorough rubbing does a
+great deal of good. Lord Jesus Christ! . . . That's the way . . .
+that's the way. . . . I've just been in our monastery. . . . I don't
+like it. I'm going away from here to-morrow, your holiness; I don't
+want to stay longer. Lord Jesus Christ. . . . That's the way. . . ."
+
+Sisoy could never stay long in the same place, and he felt as though
+he had been a whole year in the Pankratievsky Monastery. Above all,
+listening to him it was difficult to understand where his home was,
+whether he cared for anyone or anything, whether he believed in
+God. . . . He did not know himself why he was a monk, and, indeed,
+he did not think about it, and the time when he had become a monk
+had long passed out of his memory; it seemed as though he had been
+born a monk.
+
+"I'm going away to-morrow; God be with them all."
+
+"I should like to talk to you. . . . I can't find the time," said
+the bishop softly with an effort. "I don't know anything or anybody
+here. . . ."
+
+"I'll stay till Sunday if you like; so be it, but I don't want to
+stay longer. I am sick of them!"
+
+"I ought not to be a bishop," said the bishop softly. "I ought to
+have been a village priest, a deacon . . . or simply a monk. . . .
+All this oppresses me . . . oppresses me."
+
+"What? Lord Jesus Christ. . . . That's the way. Come, sleep well,
+your holiness! . . . What's the good of talking? It's no use.
+Good-night!"
+
+The bishop did not sleep all night. And at eight o'clock in the
+morning he began to have hemorrhage from the bowels. The lay brother
+was alarmed, and ran first to the archimandrite, then for the
+monastery doctor, Ivan Andreyitch, who lived in the town. The doctor,
+a stout old man with a long grey beard, made a prolonged examination
+of the bishop, and kept shaking his head and frowning, then said:
+
+"Do you know, your holiness, you have got typhoid?"
+
+After an hour or so of hemorrhage the bishop looked much thinner,
+paler, and wasted; his face looked wrinkled, his eyes looked bigger,
+and he seemed older, shorter, and it seemed to him that he was
+thinner, weaker, more insignificant than any one, that everything
+that had been had retreated far, far away and would never go on
+again or be repeated.
+
+"How good," he thought, "how good!"
+
+His old mother came. Seeing his wrinkled face and his big eyes, she
+was frightened, she fell on her knees by the bed and began kissing
+his face, his shoulders, his hands. And to her, too, it seemed that
+he was thinner, weaker, and more insignificant than anyone, and now
+she forgot that he was a bishop, and kissed him as though he were
+a child very near and very dear to her.
+
+"Pavlusha, darling," she said; "my own, my darling son! . . . Why
+are you like this? Pavlusha, answer me!"
+
+Katya, pale and severe, stood beside her, unable to understand what
+was the matter with her uncle, why there was such a look of suffering
+on her grandmother's face, why she was saying such sad and touching
+things. By now he could not utter a word, he could understand
+nothing, and he imagined he was a simple ordinary man, that he was
+walking quickly, cheerfully through the fields, tapping with his
+stick, while above him was the open sky bathed in sunshine, and
+that he was free now as a bird and could go where he liked!
+
+"Pavlusha, my darling son, answer me," the old woman was saying.
+"What is it? My own!"
+
+"Don't disturb his holiness," Sisoy said angrily, walking about the
+room. "Let him sleep . . . what's the use . . . it's no good. . . ."
+
+Three doctors arrived, consulted together, and went away again. The
+day was long, incredibly long, then the night came on and passed
+slowly, slowly, and towards morning on Saturday the lay brother
+went in to the old mother who was lying on the sofa in the parlour,
+and asked her to go into the bedroom: the bishop had just breathed
+his last.
+
+Next day was Easter Sunday. There were forty-two churches and six
+monasteries in the town; the sonorous, joyful clang of the bells
+hung over the town from morning till night unceasingly, setting the
+spring air aquiver; the birds were singing, the sun was shining
+brightly. The big market square was noisy, swings were going, barrel
+organs were playing, accordions were squeaking, drunken voices were
+shouting. After midday people began driving up and down the principal
+street.
+
+In short, all was merriment, everything was satisfactory, just as
+it had been the year before, and as it will be in all likelihood
+next year.
+
+A month later a new suffragan bishop was appointed, and no one
+thought anything more of Bishop Pyotr, and afterwards he was
+completely forgotten. And only the dead man's old mother, who is
+living to-day with her son-in-law the deacon in a remote little
+district town, when she goes out at night to bring her cow in and
+meets other women at the pasture, begins talking of her children
+and her grandchildren, and says that she had a son a bishop, and
+this she says timidly, afraid that she may not be believed. . . .
+
+And, indeed, there are some who do not believe her.
+
+
+THE LETTER
+
+The clerical superintendent of the district, his Reverence Father
+Fyodor Orlov, a handsome, well-nourished man of fifty, grave and
+important as he always was, with an habitual expression of dignity
+that never left his face, was walking to and fro in his little
+drawing-room, extremely exhausted, and thinking intensely about the
+same thing: "When would his visitor go?" The thought worried him
+and did not leave him for a minute. The visitor, Father Anastasy,
+the priest of one of the villages near the town, had come to him
+three hours before on some very unpleasant and dreary business of
+his own, had stayed on and on, was now sitting in the corner at a
+little round table with his elbow on a thick account book, and
+apparently had no thought of going, though it was getting on for
+nine o'clock in the evening.
+
+Not everyone knows when to be silent and when to go. It not
+infrequently happens that even diplomatic persons of good worldly
+breeding fail to observe that their presence is arousing a feeling
+akin to hatred in their exhausted or busy host, and that this feeling
+is being concealed with an effort and disguised with a lie. But
+Father Anastasy perceived it clearly, and realized that his presence
+was burdensome and inappropriate, that his Reverence, who had taken
+an early morning service in the night and a long mass at midday,
+was exhausted and longing for repose; every minute he was meaning
+to get up and go, but he did not get up, he sat on as though he
+were waiting for something. He was an old man of sixty-five,
+prematurely aged, with a bent and bony figure, with a sunken face
+and the dark skin of old age, with red eyelids and a long narrow
+back like a fish's; he was dressed in a smart cassock of a light
+lilac colour, but too big for him (presented to him by the widow
+of a young priest lately deceased), a full cloth coat with a broad
+leather belt, and clumsy high boots the size and hue of which showed
+clearly that Father Anastasy dispensed with goloshes. In spite of
+his position and his venerable age, there was something pitiful,
+crushed and humiliated in his lustreless red eyes, in the strands
+of grey hair with a shade of green in it on the nape of his neck,
+and in the big shoulder-blades on his lean back. . . . He sat without
+speaking or moving, and coughed with circumspection, as though
+afraid that the sound of his coughing might make his presence more
+noticeable.
+
+The old man had come to see his Reverence on business. Two months
+before he had been prohibited from officiating till further notice,
+and his case was being inquired into. His shortcomings were numerous.
+He was intemperate in his habits, fell out with the other clergy
+and the commune, kept the church records and accounts carelessly
+--these were the formal charges against him; but besides all that,
+there had been rumours for a long time past that he celebrated
+unlawful marriages for money and sold certificates of having fasted
+and taken the sacrament to officials and officers who came to him
+from the town. These rumours were maintained the more persistently
+that he was poor and had nine children to keep, who were as incompetent
+and unsuccessful as himself. The sons were spoilt and uneducated,
+and stayed at home doing nothing, while the daughters were ugly and
+did not get married.
+
+Not having the moral force to be open, his Reverence walked up and
+down the room and said nothing or spoke in hints.
+
+"So you are not going home to-night?" he asked, stopping near the
+dark window and poking with his little finger into the cage where
+a canary was asleep with its feathers puffed out.
+
+Father Anastasy started, coughed cautiously and said rapidly:
+
+"Home? I don't care to, Fyodor Ilyitch. I cannot officiate, as you
+know, so what am I to do there? I came away on purpose that I might
+not have to look the people in the face. One is ashamed not to
+officiate, as you know. Besides, I have business here, Fyodor
+Ilyitch. To-morrow after breaking the fast I want to talk things
+over thoroughly with the Father charged with the inquiry."
+
+"Ah! . . ." yawned his Reverence, "and where are you staying?"
+
+"At Zyavkin's."
+
+Father Anastasy suddenly remembered that within two hours his
+Reverence had to take the Easter-night service, and he felt so
+ashamed of his unwelcome burdensome presence that he made up his
+mind to go away at once and let the exhausted man rest. And the old
+man got up to go. But before he began saying good-bye he stood
+clearing his throat for a minute and looking searchingly at his
+Reverence's back, still with the same expression of vague expectation
+in his whole figure; his face was working with shame, timidity, and
+a pitiful forced laugh such as one sees in people who do not respect
+themselves. Waving his hand as it were resolutely, he said with a
+husky quavering laugh:
+
+"Father Fyodor, do me one more kindness: bid them give me at
+leave-taking . . . one little glass of vodka."
+
+"It's not the time to drink vodka now," said his Reverence sternly.
+"One must have some regard for decency."
+
+Father Anastasy was still more overwhelmed by confusion; he laughed,
+and, forgetting his resolution to go away, he dropped back on his
+chair. His Reverence looked at his helpless, embarrassed face and
+his bent figure and he felt sorry for the old man.
+
+"Please God, we will have a drink to-morrow," he said, wishing to
+soften his stem refusal. "Everything is good in due season."
+
+His Reverence believed in people's reforming, but now when a feeling
+of pity had been kindled in him it seemed to him that this disgraced,
+worn-out old man, entangled in a network of sins and weaknesses,
+was hopelessly wrecked, that there was no power on earth that could
+straighten out his spine, give brightness to his eyes and restrain
+the unpleasant timid laugh which he laughed on purpose to smoothe
+over to some slight extent the repulsive impression he made on
+people.
+
+The old man seemed now to Father Fyodor not guilty and not vicious,
+but humiliated, insulted, unfortunate; his Reverence thought of his
+wife, his nine children, the dirty beggarly shelter at Zyavkin's;
+he thought for some reason of the people who are glad to see priests
+drunk and persons in authority detected in crimes; and thought that
+the very best thing Father Anastasy could do now would be to die
+as soon as possible and to depart from this world for ever.
+
+There were a sound of footsteps.
+
+"Father Fyodor, you are not resting?" a bass voice asked from the
+passage.
+
+"No, deacon; come in."
+
+Orlov's colleague, the deacon Liubimov, an elderly man with a big
+bald patch on the top of his head, though his hair was still black
+and he was still vigorous-looking, with thick black eyebrows like
+a Georgian's, walked in. He bowed to Father Anastasy and sat down.
+
+"What good news have you?" asked his Reverence.
+
+"What good news?" answered the deacon, and after a pause he went
+on with a smile: "When your children are little, your trouble is
+small; when your children are big, your trouble is great. Such
+goings on, Father Fyodor, that I don't know what to think of it.
+It's a regular farce, that's what it is."
+
+He paused again for a little, smiled still more broadly and said:
+
+"Nikolay Matveyitch came back from Harkov to-day. He has been telling
+me about my Pyotr. He has been to see him twice, he tells me."
+
+"What has he been telling you, then?"
+
+"He has upset me, God bless him. He meant to please me but when I
+came to think it over, it seems there is not much to be pleased at.
+I ought to grieve rather than be pleased. . . 'Your Petrushka,'
+said he, 'lives in fine style. He is far above us now,' said he.
+'Well thank God for that,' said I. 'I dined with him,' said he,
+'and saw his whole manner of life. He lives like a gentleman,' he
+said; 'you couldn't wish to live better.' I was naturally interested
+and I asked, 'And what did you have for dinner?' 'First,' he said,
+'a fish course something like fish soup, then tongue and peas,' and
+then he said, 'roast turkey.' 'Turkey in Lent? that is something
+to please me,' said I. 'Turkey in Lent? Eh?'"
+
+"Nothing marvellous in that," said his Reverence, screwing up his
+eyes ironically. And sticking both thumbs in his belt, he drew
+himself up and said in the tone in which he usually delivered
+discourses or gave his Scripture lessons to the pupils in the
+district school: "People who do not keep the fasts are divided into
+two different categories: some do not keep them through laxity,
+others through infidelity. Your Pyotr does not keep them through
+infidelity. Yes."
+
+The deacon looked timidly at Father Fyodor's stern face and said:
+
+"There is worse to follow. . . . We talked and discussed one thing
+and another, and it turned out that my infidel of a son is living
+with some madame, another man's wife. She takes the place of wife
+and hostess in his flat, pours out the tea, receives visitors and
+all the rest of it, as though she were his lawful wife. For over
+two years he has been keeping up this dance with this viper. It's
+a regular farce. They have been living together for three years and
+no children."
+
+"I suppose they have been living in chastity!" chuckled Father
+Anastasy, coughing huskily. "There are children, Father Deacon--
+there are, but they don't keep them at home! They send them to the
+Foundling! He-he-he! . . ." Anastasy went on coughing till he choked.
+
+"Don't interfere, Father Anastasy," said his Reverence sternly.
+
+"Nikolay Matveyitch asked him, 'What madame is this helping the
+soup at your table?'" the deacon went on, gloomily scanning
+Anastasy's bent figure. "'That is my wife,' said he. 'When was
+your wedding?' Nikolay Matveyitch asked him, and Pyotr answered,
+'We were married at Kulikov's restaurant.'"
+
+His Reverence's eyes flashed wrathfully and the colour came into
+his temples. Apart from his sinfulness, Pyotr was not a person he
+liked. Father Fyodor had, as they say, a grudge against him. He
+remembered him a boy at school--he remembered him distinctly,
+because even then the boy had seemed to him not normal. As a
+schoolboy, Petrushka had been ashamed to serve at the altar, had
+been offended at being addressed without ceremony, had not crossed
+himself on entering the room, and what was still more noteworthy,
+was fond of talking a great deal and with heat--and, in Father
+Fyodor's opinion, much talking was unseemly in children and pernicious
+to them; moreover Petrushka had taken up a contemptuous and critical
+attitude to fishing, a pursuit to which both his Reverence and the
+deacon were greatly addicted. As a student Pyotr had not gone to
+church at all, had slept till midday, had looked down on people,
+and had been given to raising delicate and insoluble questions with
+a peculiarly provoking zest.
+
+"What would you have?" his Reverence asked, going up to the deacon
+and looking at him angrily. "What would you have? This was to be
+expected! I always knew and was convinced that nothing good would
+come of your Pyotr! I told you so, and I tell you so now. What you
+have sown, that now you must reap! Reap it!"
+
+"But what have I sown, Father Fyodor?" the deacon asked softly,
+looking up at his Reverence.
+
+"Why, who is to blame if not you? You're his father, he is your
+offspring! You ought to have admonished him, have instilled the
+fear of God into him. A child must be taught! You have brought him
+into the world, but you haven't trained him up in the right way.
+It's a sin! It's wrong! It's a shame!"
+
+His Reverence forgot his exhaustion, paced to and fro and went on
+talking. Drops of perspiration came out on the deacon's bald head
+and forehead. He raised his eyes to his Reverence with a look of
+guilt, and said:
+
+"But didn't I train him, Father Fyodor? Lord have mercy on us,
+haven't I been a father to my children? You know yourself I spared
+nothing for his good; I have prayed and done my best all my life
+to give him a thorough education. He went to the high school and I
+got him tutors, and he took his degree at the University. And as
+to my not being able to influence his mind, Father Fyodor, why, you
+can judge for yourself that I am not qualified to do so! Sometimes
+when he used to come here as a student, I would begin admonishing
+him in my way, and he wouldn't heed me. I'd say to him, 'Go to
+church,' and he would answer, 'What for?' I would begin explaining,
+and he would say, 'Why? what for?' Or he would slap me on the
+shoulder and say, 'Everything in this world is relative, approximate
+and conditional. I don't know anything, and you don't know anything
+either, dad.'"
+
+Father Anastasy laughed huskily, cleared his throat and waved his
+fingers in the air as though preparing to say something. His Reverence
+glanced at him and said sternly:
+
+"Don't interfere, Father Anastasy."
+
+The old man laughed, beamed, and evidently listened with pleasure
+to the deacon as though he were glad there were other sinful persons
+in this world besides himself. The deacon spoke sincerely, with an
+aching heart, and tears actually came into his eyes. Father Fyodor
+felt sorry for him.
+
+"You are to blame, deacon, you are to blame," he said, but not so
+sternly and heatedly as before. "If you could beget him, you ought
+to know how to instruct him. You ought to have trained him in his
+childhood; it's no good trying to correct a student."
+
+A silence followed; the deacon clasped his hands and said with a
+sigh:
+
+"But you know I shall have to answer for him!"
+
+"To be sure you will!"
+
+After a brief silence his Reverence yawned and sighed at the same
+moment and asked:
+
+"Who is reading the 'Acts'?"
+
+"Yevstrat. Yevstrat always reads them."
+
+The deacon got up and, looking imploringly at his Reverence, asked:
+
+"Father Fyodor, what am I to do now?"
+
+"Do as you please; you are his father, not I. You ought to know
+best."
+
+"I don't know anything, Father Fyodor! Tell me what to do, for
+goodness' sake! Would you believe it, I am sick at heart! I can't
+sleep now, nor keep quiet, and the holiday will be no holiday to
+me. Tell me what to do, Father Fyodor!"
+
+"Write him a letter."
+
+"What am I to write to him?"
+
+"Write that he mustn't go on like that. Write shortly, but sternly
+and circumstantially, without softening or smoothing away his guilt.
+It is your parental duty; if you write, you will have done your
+duty and will be at peace."
+
+"That's true. But what am I to write to him, to what effect? If I
+write to him, he will answer, 'Why? what for? Why is it a sin?'"
+
+Father Anastasy laughed hoarsely again, and brandished his fingers.
+
+"Why? what for? why is it a sin?" he began shrilly. "I was once
+confessing a gentleman, and I told him that excessive confidence
+in the Divine Mercy is a sin; and he asked, 'Why?' I tried to answer
+him, but----" Anastasy slapped himself on the forehead. "I had
+nothing here. He-he-he-he! . . ."
+
+Anastasy's words, his hoarse jangling laugh at what was not laughable,
+had an unpleasant effect on his Reverence and on the deacon. The
+former was on the point of saying, "Don't interfere" again, but he
+did not say it, he only frowned.
+
+"I can't write to him," sighed the deacon.
+
+"If you can't, who can?"
+
+"Father Fyodor!" said the deacon, putting his head on one side and
+pressing his hand to his heart. "I am an uneducated slow-witted
+man, while the Lord has vouchsafed you judgment and wisdom. You
+know everything and understand everything. You can master anything,
+while I don't know how to put my words together sensibly. Be generous.
+Instruct me how to write the letter. Teach me what to say and how
+to say it. . . ."
+
+"What is there to teach? There is nothing to teach. Sit down and
+write."
+
+"Oh, do me the favour, Father Fyodor! I beseech you! I know he will
+be frightened and will attend to your letter, because, you see, you
+are a cultivated man too. Do be so good! I'll sit down, and you'll
+dictate to me. It will be a sin to write to-morrow, but now would
+be the very time; my mind would be set at rest."
+
+His Reverence looked at the deacon's imploring face, thought of the
+disagreeable Pyotr, and consented to dictate. He made the deacon
+sit down to his table and began.
+
+"Well, write . . . 'Christ is risen, dear son . . .' exclamation
+mark. 'Rumours have reached me, your father,' then in parenthesis,
+'from what source is no concern of yours . . .' close the parenthesis.
+. . . Have you written it? 'That you are leading a life inconsistent
+with the laws both of God and of man. Neither the luxurious comfort,
+nor the worldly splendour, nor the culture with which you seek
+outwardly to disguise it, can hide your heathen manner of life. In
+name you are a Christian, but in your real nature a heathen as
+pitiful and wretched as all other heathens--more wretched, indeed,
+seeing that those heathens who know not Christ are lost from
+ignorance, while you are lost in that, possessing a treasure, you
+neglect it. I will not enumerate here your vices, which you know
+well enough; I will say that I see the cause of your ruin in your
+infidelity. You imagine yourself to be wise, boast of your knowledge
+of science, but refuse to see that science without faith, far from
+elevating a man, actually degrades him to the level of a lower
+animal, inasmuch as. . .'" The whole letter was in this strain.
+
+When he had finished writing it the deacon read it aloud, beamed
+all over and jumped up.
+
+"It's a gift, it's really a gift!" he said, clasping his hands and
+looking enthusiastically at his Reverence. "To think of the Lord's
+bestowing a gift like that! Eh? Holy Mother! I do believe I couldn't
+write a letter like that in a hundred years. Lord save you!"
+
+Father Anastasy was enthusiastic too.
+
+"One couldn't write like that without a gift," he said, getting up
+and wagging his fingers--"that one couldn't! His rhetoric would
+trip any philosopher and shut him up. Intellect. Brilliant intellect!
+If you weren't married, Father Fyodor, you would have been a bishop
+long ago, you would really!"
+
+Having vented his wrath in a letter, his Reverence felt relieved;
+his fatigue and exhaustion came back to him. The deacon was an old
+friend, and his Reverence did not hesitate to say to him:
+
+"Well deacon, go, and God bless you. I'll have half an hour's nap
+on the sofa; I must rest."
+
+The deacon went away and took Anastasy with him. As is always the
+case on Easter Eve, it was dark in the street, but the whole sky
+was sparkling with bright luminous stars. There was a scent of
+spring and holiday in the soft still air.
+
+"How long was he dictating?" the deacon said admiringly. "Ten
+minutes, not more! It would have taken someone else a month to
+compose such a letter. Eh! What a mind! Such a mind that I don't
+know what to call it! It's a marvel! It's really a marvel!"
+
+"Education!" sighed Anastasy as he crossed the muddy street; holding
+up his cassock to his waist. "It's not for us to compare ourselves
+with him. We come of the sacristan class, while he has had a learned
+education. Yes, he's a real man, there is no denying that."
+
+"And you listen how he'll read the Gospel in Latin at mass to-day!
+He knows Latin and he knows Greek. . . . Ah Petrushka, Petrushka!"
+the deacon said, suddenly remembering. "Now that will make him
+scratch his head! That will shut his mouth, that will bring it home
+to him! Now he won't ask 'Why.' It is a case of one wit to outwit
+another! Haha-ha!"
+
+The deacon laughed gaily and loudly. Since the letter had been
+written to Pyotr he had become serene and more cheerful. The
+consciousness of having performed his duty as a father and his faith
+in the power of the letter had brought back his mirthfulness and
+good-humour.
+
+"Pyotr means a stone," said he, as he went into his house. "My Pyotr
+is not a stone, but a rag. A viper has fastened upon him and he
+pampers her, and hasn't the pluck to kick her out. Tfoo! To think
+there should be women like that, God forgive me! Eh? Has she no
+shame? She has fastened upon the lad, sticking to him, and keeps
+him tied to her apron strings. . . . Fie upon her!"
+
+"Perhaps it's not she keeps hold of him, but he of her?"
+
+"She is a shameless one anyway! Not that I am defending Pyotr. . . .
+He'll catch it. He'll read the letter and scratch his head! He'll
+burn with shame!"
+
+"It's a splendid letter, only you know I wouldn't send it, Father
+Deacon. Let him alone."
+
+"What?" said the deacon, disconcerted.
+
+"Why. . . . Don't send it, deacon! What's the sense of it? Suppose
+you send it; he reads it, and . . . and what then? You'll only upset
+him. Forgive him. Let him alone!"
+
+The deacon looked in surprise at Anastasy's dark face, at his
+unbuttoned cassock, which looked in the dusk like wings, and shrugged
+his shoulders.
+
+"How can I forgive him like that?" he asked. "Why I shall have to
+answer for him to God!"
+
+"Even so, forgive him all the same. Really! And God will forgive
+you for your kindness to him."
+
+"But he is my son, isn't he? Ought I not to teach him?"
+
+"Teach him? Of course--why not? You can teach him, but why call
+him a heathen? It will hurt his feelings, you know, deacon. . . ."
+
+The deacon was a widower, and lived in a little house with three
+windows. His elder sister, an old maid, looked after his house for
+him, though she had three years before lost the use of her legs and
+was confined to her bed; he was afraid of her, obeyed her, and did
+nothing without her advice. Father Anastasy went in with him. Seeing
+his table already laid with Easter cakes and red eggs, he began
+weeping for some reason, probably thinking of his own home, and to
+turn these tears into a jest, he at once laughed huskily.
+
+"Yes, we shall soon be breaking the fast," he said. "Yes . . . it
+wouldn't come amiss, deacon, to have a little glass now. Can we?
+I'll drink it so that the old lady does not hear," he whispered,
+glancing sideways towards the door.
+
+Without a word the deacon moved a decanter and wineglass towards
+him. He unfolded the letter and began reading it aloud. And now the
+letter pleased him just as much as when his Reverence had dictated
+it to him. He beamed with pleasure and wagged his head, as though
+he had been tasting something very sweet.
+
+"A-ah, what a letter!" he said. "Petrushka has never dreamt of such
+a letter. It's just what he wants, something to throw him into a
+fever. . ."
+
+"Do you know, deacon, don't send it!" said Anastasy, pouring himself
+out a second glass of vodka as though unconsciously. "Forgive him,
+let him alone! I am telling you . . . what I really think. If his
+own father can't forgive him, who will forgive him? And so he'll
+live without forgiveness. Think, deacon: there will be plenty to
+chastise him without you, but you should look out for some who will
+show mercy to your son! I'll . . . I'll . . . have just one more.
+The last, old man. . . . Just sit down and write straight off to
+him, 'I forgive you Pyotr!' He will under-sta-and! He will fe-el
+it! I understand it from myself, you see old man . . . deacon, I
+mean. When I lived like other people, I hadn't much to trouble
+about, but now since I lost the image and semblance, there is only
+one thing I care about, that good people should forgive me. And
+remember, too, it's not the righteous but sinners we must forgive.
+Why should you forgive your old woman if she is not sinful? No, you
+must forgive a man when he is a sad sight to look at . . . yes!"
+
+Anastasy leaned his head on his fist and sank into thought.
+
+"It's a terrible thing, deacon," he sighed, evidently struggling
+with the desire to take another glass--"a terrible thing! In sin
+my mother bore me, in sin I have lived, in sin I shall die. . . .
+God forgive me, a sinner! I have gone astray, deacon! There is no
+salvation for me! And it's not as though I had gone astray in my
+life, but in old age--at death's door . . . I . . ."
+
+The old man, with a hopeless gesture, drank off another glass, then
+got up and moved to another seat. The deacon, still keeping the
+letter in his hand, was walking up and down the room. He was thinking
+of his son. Displeasure, distress and anxiety no longer troubled
+him; all that had gone into the letter. Now he was simply picturing
+Pyotr; he imagined his face, he thought of the past years when his
+son used to come to stay with him for the holidays. His thoughts
+were only of what was good, warm, touching, of which one might think
+for a whole lifetime without wearying. Longing for his son, he read
+the letter through once more and looked questioningly at Anastasy.
+
+"Don't send it," said the latter, with a wave of his hand.
+
+"No, I must send it anyway; I must . . . bring him to his senses a
+little, all the same. It's just as well. . . ."
+
+The deacon took an envelope from the table, but before putting the
+letter into it he sat down to the table, smiled and added on his
+own account at the bottom of the letter:
+
+"They have sent us a new inspector. He's much friskier than the old
+one. He's a great one for dancing and talking, and there's nothing
+he can't do, so that all the Govorovsky girls are crazy over him.
+Our military chief, Kostyrev, will soon get the sack too, they say.
+High time he did!" And very well pleased, without the faintest idea
+that with this postscript he had completely spoiled the stern letter,
+the deacon addressed the envelope and laid it in the most conspicuous
+place on the table.
+
+
+EASTER EVE
+
+I was standing on the bank of the River Goltva, waiting for the
+ferry-boat from the other side. At ordinary times the Goltva is a
+humble stream of moderate size, silent and pensive, gently glimmering
+from behind thick reeds; but now a regular lake lay stretched out
+before me. The waters of spring, running riot, had overflowed both
+banks and flooded both sides of the river for a long distance,
+submerging vegetable gardens, hayfields and marshes, so that it was
+no unusual thing to meet poplars and bushes sticking out above the
+surface of the water and looking in the darkness like grim solitary
+crags.
+
+The weather seemed to me magnificent. It was dark, yet I could see
+the trees, the water and the people. . . . The world was lighted
+by the stars, which were scattered thickly all over the sky. I don't
+remember ever seeing so many stars. Literally one could not have
+put a finger in between them. There were some as big as a goose's
+egg, others tiny as hempseed. . . . They had come out for the
+festival procession, every one of them, little and big, washed,
+renewed and joyful, and everyone of them was softly twinkling its
+beams. The sky was reflected in the water; the stars were bathing
+in its dark depths and trembling with the quivering eddies. The air
+was warm and still. . . . Here and there, far away on the further
+bank in the impenetrable darkness, several bright red lights were
+gleaming. . . .
+
+A couple of paces from me I saw the dark silhouette of a peasant
+in a high hat, with a thick knotted stick in his hand.
+
+"How long the ferry-boat is in coming!" I said.
+
+"It is time it was here," the silhouette answered.
+
+"You are waiting for the ferry-boat, too?"
+
+"No I am not," yawned the peasant--"I am waiting for the illumination.
+I should have gone, but to tell you the truth, I haven't the five
+kopecks for the ferry."
+
+"I'll give you the five kopecks."
+
+"No; I humbly thank you. . . . With that five kopecks put up a
+candle for me over there in the monastery. . . . That will be more
+interesting, and I will stand here. What can it mean, no ferry-boat,
+as though it had sunk in the water!"
+
+The peasant went up to the water's edge, took the rope in his hands,
+and shouted; "Ieronim! Ieron--im!"
+
+As though in answer to his shout, the slow peal of a great bell
+floated across from the further bank. The note was deep and low,
+as from the thickest string of a double bass; it seemed as though
+the darkness itself had hoarsely uttered it. At once there was the
+sound of a cannon shot. It rolled away in the darkness and ended
+somewhere in the far distance behind me. The peasant took off his
+hat and crossed himself.
+
+'"Christ is risen," he said.
+
+Before the vibrations of the first peal of the bell had time to die
+away in the air a second sounded, after it at once a third, and the
+darkness was filled with an unbroken quivering clamour. Near the
+red lights fresh lights flashed, and all began moving together and
+twinkling restlessly.
+
+"Ieron--im!" we heard a hollow prolonged shout.
+
+"They are shouting from the other bank," said the peasant, "so there
+is no ferry there either. Our Ieronim has gone to sleep."
+
+The lights and the velvety chimes of the bell drew one towards them.
+. . . I was already beginning to lose patience and grow anxious,
+but behold at last, staring into the dark distance, I saw the outline
+of something very much like a gibbet. It was the long-expected
+ferry. It moved towards us with such deliberation that if it had
+not been that its lines grew gradually more definite, one might
+have supposed that it was standing still or moving to the other
+bank.
+
+"Make haste! Ieronim!" shouted my peasant. "The gentleman's tired
+of waiting!"
+
+The ferry crawled to the bank, gave a lurch and stopped with a
+creak. A tall man in a monk's cassock and a conical cap stood on
+it, holding the rope.
+
+"Why have you been so long?" I asked jumping upon the ferry.
+
+"Forgive me, for Christ's sake," Ieronim answered gently. "Is there
+no one else?"
+
+"No one. . . ."
+
+Ieronim took hold of the rope in both hands, bent himself to the
+figure of a mark of interrogation, and gasped. The ferry-boat creaked
+and gave a lurch. The outline of the peasant in the high hat began
+slowly retreating from me--so the ferry was moving off. Ieronim
+soon drew himself up and began working with one hand only. We were
+silent, gazing towards the bank to which we were floating. There
+the illumination for which the peasant was waiting had begun. At
+the water's edge barrels of tar were flaring like huge camp fires.
+Their reflections, crimson as the rising moon, crept to meet us in
+long broad streaks. The burning barrels lighted up their own smoke
+and the long shadows of men flitting about the fire; but further
+to one side and behind them from where the velvety chime floated
+there was still the same unbroken black gloom. All at once, cleaving
+the darkness, a rocket zigzagged in a golden ribbon up the sky; it
+described an arc and, as though broken to pieces against the sky,
+was scattered crackling into sparks. There was a roar from the bank
+like a far-away hurrah.
+
+"How beautiful!" I said.
+
+"Beautiful beyond words!" sighed Ieronim. "Such a night, sir! Another
+time one would pay no attention to the fireworks, but to-day one
+rejoices in every vanity. Where do you come from?"
+
+I told him where I came from.
+
+"To be sure . . . a joyful day to-day. . . ." Ieronim went on in a
+weak sighing tenor like the voice of a convalescent. "The sky is
+rejoicing and the earth and what is under the earth. All the creatures
+are keeping holiday. Only tell me kind sir, why, even in the time
+of great rejoicing, a man cannot forget his sorrows?"
+
+I fancied that this unexpected question was to draw me into one of
+those endless religious conversations which bored and idle monks
+are so fond of. I was not disposed to talk much, and so I only
+asked:
+
+"What sorrows have you, father?"
+
+"As a rule only the same as all men, kind sir, but to-day a special
+sorrow has happened in the monastery: at mass, during the reading
+of the Bible, the monk and deacon Nikolay died."
+
+"Well, it's God's will!" I said, falling into the monastic tone.
+"We must all die. To my mind, you ought to rejoice indeed. . . .
+They say if anyone dies at Easter he goes straight to the kingdom
+of heaven."
+
+"That's true."
+
+We sank into silence. The figure of the peasant in the high hat
+melted into the lines of the bank. The tar barrels were flaring up
+more and more.
+
+"The Holy Scripture points clearly to the vanity of sorrow and so
+does reflection," said Ieronim, breaking the silence, "but why does
+the heart grieve and refuse to listen to reason? Why does one want
+to weep bitterly?"
+
+Ieronim shrugged his shoulders, turned to me and said quickly:
+
+"If I died, or anyone else, it would not be worth notice perhaps;
+but, you see, Nikolay is dead! No one else but Nikolay! Indeed,
+it's hard to believe that he is no more! I stand here on my ferry-boat
+and every minute I keep fancying that he will lift up his voice
+from the bank. He always used to come to the bank and call to me
+that I might not be afraid on the ferry. He used to get up from his
+bed at night on purpose for that. He was a kind soul. My God! how
+kindly and gracious! Many a mother is not so good to her child as
+Nikolay was to me! Lord, save his soul!"
+
+Ieronim took hold of the rope, but turned to me again at once.
+
+"And such a lofty intelligence, your honour," he said in a vibrating
+voice. "Such a sweet and harmonious tongue! Just as they will sing
+immediately at early matins: 'Oh lovely! oh sweet is Thy Voice!'
+Besides all other human qualities, he had, too, an extraordinary
+gift!"
+
+"What gift?" I asked.
+
+The monk scrutinized me, and as though he had convinced himself
+that he could trust me with a secret, he laughed good-humouredly.
+
+"He had a gift for writing hymns of praise," he said. "It was a
+marvel, sir; you couldn't call it anything else! You would be amazed
+if I tell you about it. Our Father Archimandrite comes from Moscow,
+the Father Sub-Prior studied at the Kazan academy, we have wise
+monks and elders, but, would you believe it, no one could write
+them; while Nikolay, a simple monk, a deacon, had not studied
+anywhere, and had not even any outer appearance of it, but he wrote
+them! A marvel! A real marvel!" Ieronim clasped his hands and,
+completely forgetting the rope, went on eagerly:
+
+"The Father Sub-Prior has great difficulty in composing sermons;
+when he wrote the history of the monastery he worried all the
+brotherhood and drove a dozen times to town, while Nikolay wrote
+canticles! Hymns of praise! That's a very different thing from a
+sermon or a history!"
+
+"Is it difficult to write them?" I asked.
+
+"There's great difficulty!" Ieronim wagged his head. "You can do
+nothing by wisdom and holiness if God has not given you the gift.
+The monks who don't understand argue that you only need to know the
+life of the saint for whom you are writing the hymn, and to make
+it harmonize with the other hymns of praise. But that's a mistake,
+sir. Of course, anyone who writes canticles must know the life of
+the saint to perfection, to the least trivial detail. To be sure,
+one must make them harmonize with the other canticles and know where
+to begin and what to write about. To give you an instance, the first
+response begins everywhere with 'the chosen' or 'the elect.' . . .
+The first line must always begin with the 'angel.' In the canticle
+of praise to Jesus the Most Sweet, if you are interested in the
+subject, it begins like this: 'Of angels Creator and Lord of all
+powers!' In the canticle to the Holy Mother of God: 'Of angels the
+foremost sent down from on high,' to Nikolay, the Wonder-worker--
+'An angel in semblance, though in substance a man,' and so on.
+Everywhere you begin with the angel. Of course, it would be impossible
+without making them harmonize, but the lives of the saints and
+conformity with the others is not what matters; what matters is the
+beauty and sweetness of it. Everything must be harmonious, brief
+and complete. There must be in every line softness, graciousness
+and tenderness; not one word should be harsh or rough or unsuitable.
+It must be written so that the worshipper may rejoice at heart and
+weep, while his mind is stirred and he is thrown into a tremor. In
+the canticle to the Holy Mother are the words: 'Rejoice, O Thou too
+high for human thought to reach! Rejoice, O Thou too deep for angels'
+eyes to fathom!' In another place in the same canticle: 'Rejoice,
+O tree that bearest the fair fruit of light that is the food of the
+faithful! Rejoice, O tree of gracious spreading shade, under which
+there is shelter for multitudes!'"
+
+Ieronim hid his face in his hands, as though frightened at something
+or overcome with shame, and shook his head.
+
+"Tree that bearest the fair fruit of light . . . tree of gracious
+spreading shade. . . ." he muttered. "To think that a man should
+find words like those! Such a power is a gift from God! For brevity
+he packs many thoughts into one phrase, and how smooth and complete
+it all is! 'Light-radiating torch to all that be . . .' comes in
+the canticle to Jesus the Most Sweet. 'Light-radiating!' There is
+no such word in conversation or in books, but you see he invented
+it, he found it in his mind! Apart from the smoothness and grandeur
+of language, sir, every line must be beautified in every way, there
+must be flowers and lightning and wind and sun and all the objects
+of the visible world. And every exclamation ought to be put so as
+to be smooth and easy for the ear. 'Rejoice, thou flower of heavenly
+growth!' comes in the hymn to Nikolay the Wonder-worker. It's not
+simply 'heavenly flower,' but 'flower of heavenly growth.' It's
+smoother so and sweet to the ear. That was just as Nikolay wrote
+it! Exactly like that! I can't tell you how he used to write!"
+
+"Well, in that case it is a pity he is dead," I said; "but let us
+get on, father, or we shall be late."
+
+Ieronim started and ran to the rope; they were beginning to peal
+all the bells. Probably the procession was already going on near
+the monastery, for all the dark space behind the tar barrels was
+now dotted with moving lights.
+
+"Did Nikolay print his hymns?" I asked Ieronim.
+
+"How could he print them?" he sighed. "And indeed, it would be
+strange to print them. What would be the object? No one in the
+monastery takes any interest in them. They don't like them. They
+knew Nikolay wrote them, but they let it pass unnoticed. No one
+esteems new writings nowadays, sir!"
+
+"Were they prejudiced against him?"
+
+"Yes, indeed. If Nikolay had been an elder perhaps the brethren
+would have been interested, but he wasn't forty, you know. There
+were some who laughed and even thought his writing a sin."
+
+"What did he write them for?"
+
+"Chiefly for his own comfort. Of all the brotherhood, I was the
+only one who read his hymns. I used to go to him in secret, that
+no one else might know of it, and he was glad that I took an interest
+in them. He would embrace me, stroke my head, speak to me in caressing
+words as to a little child. He would shut his cell, make me sit
+down beside him, and begin to read. . . ."
+
+Ieronim left the rope and came up to me.
+
+"We were dear friends in a way," he whispered, looking at me with
+shining eyes. "Where he went I would go. If I were not there he
+would miss me. And he cared more for me than for anyone, and all
+because I used to weep over his hymns. It makes me sad to remember.
+Now I feel just like an orphan or a widow. You know, in our monastery
+they are all good people, kind and pious, but . . . there is no one
+with softness and refinement, they are just like peasants. They all
+speak loudly, and tramp heavily when they walk; they are noisy,
+they clear their throats, but Nikolay always talked softly,
+caressingly, and if he noticed that anyone was asleep or praying
+he would slip by like a fly or a gnat. His face was tender,
+compassionate. . . ."
+
+Ieronim heaved a deep sigh and took hold of the rope again. We were
+by now approaching the bank. We floated straight out of the darkness
+and stillness of the river into an enchanted realm, full of stifling
+smoke, crackling lights and uproar. By now one could distinctly see
+people moving near the tar barrels. The flickering of the lights
+gave a strange, almost fantastic, expression to their figures and
+red faces. From time to time one caught among the heads and faces
+a glimpse of a horse's head motionless as though cast in copper.
+
+"They'll begin singing the Easter hymn directly, . . ." said Ieronim,
+"and Nikolay is gone; there is no one to appreciate it. . . . There
+was nothing written dearer to him than that hymn. He used to take
+in every word! You'll be there, sir, so notice what is sung; it
+takes your breath away!"
+
+"Won't you be in church, then?"
+
+"I can't; . . . I have to work the ferry. . . ."
+
+"But won't they relieve you?"
+
+"I don't know. . . . I ought to have been relieved at eight; but,
+as you see, they don't come! . . . And I must own I should have liked
+to be in the church. . . ."
+
+"Are you a monk?"
+
+"Yes . . . that is, I am a lay-brother."
+
+The ferry ran into the bank and stopped. I thrust a five-kopeck
+piece into Ieronim's hand for taking me across and jumped on land.
+Immediately a cart with a boy and a sleeping woman in it drove
+creaking onto the ferry. Ieronim, with a faint glow from the lights
+on his figure, pressed on the rope, bent down to it, and started
+the ferry back. . . .
+
+I took a few steps through mud, but a little farther walked on a
+soft freshly trodden path. This path led to the dark monastery
+gates, that looked like a cavern through a cloud of smoke, through
+a disorderly crowd of people, unharnessed horses, carts and chaises.
+All this crowd was rattling, snorting, laughing, and the crimson
+light and wavering shadows from the smoke flickered over it all
+. . . . A perfect chaos! And in this hubbub the people yet found room
+to load a little cannon and to sell cakes. There was no less commotion
+on the other side of the wall in the monastery precincts, but there
+was more regard for decorum and order. Here there was a smell of
+juniper and incense. They talked loudly, but there was no sound of
+laughter or snorting. Near the tombstones and crosses people pressed
+close to one another with Easter cakes and bundles in their arms.
+Apparently many had come from a long distance for their cakes to
+be blessed and now were exhausted. Young lay brothers, making a
+metallic sound with their boots, ran busily along the iron slabs
+that paved the way from the monastery gates to the church door.
+They were busy and shouting on the belfry, too.
+
+"What a restless night!" I thought. "How nice!"
+
+One was tempted to see the same unrest and sleeplessness in all
+nature, from the night darkness to the iron slabs, the crosses on
+the tombs and the trees under which the people were moving to and
+fro. But nowhere was the excitement and restlessness so marked as
+in the church. An unceasing struggle was going on in the entrance
+between the inflowing stream and the outflowing stream. Some were
+going in, others going out and soon coming back again to stand still
+for a little and begin moving again. People were scurrying from
+place to place, lounging about as though they were looking for
+something. The stream flowed from the entrance all round the church,
+disturbing even the front rows, where persons of weight and dignity
+were standing. There could be no thought of concentrated prayer.
+There were no prayers at all, but a sort of continuous, childishly
+irresponsible joy, seeking a pretext to break out and vent itself
+in some movement, even in senseless jostling and shoving.
+
+The same unaccustomed movement is striking in the Easter service
+itself. The altar gates are flung wide open, thick clouds of incense
+float in the air near the candelabra; wherever one looks there are
+lights, the gleam and splutter of candles. . . . There is no reading;
+restless and lighthearted singing goes on to the end without ceasing.
+After each hymn the clergy change their vestments and come out to
+burn the incense, which is repeated every ten minutes.
+
+I had no sooner taken a place, when a wave rushed from in front and
+forced me back. A tall thick-set deacon walked before me with a
+long red candle; the grey-headed archimandrite in his golden mitre
+hurried after him with the censer. When they had vanished from sight
+the crowd squeezed me back to my former position. But ten minutes
+had not passed before a new wave burst on me, and again the deacon
+appeared. This time he was followed by the Father Sub-Prior, the
+man who, as Ieronim had told me, was writing the history of the
+monastery.
+
+As I mingled with the crowd and caught the infection of the universal
+joyful excitement, I felt unbearably sore on Ieronim's account. Why
+did they not send someone to relieve him? Why could not someone of
+less feeling and less susceptibility go on the ferry? 'Lift up thine
+eyes, O Sion, and look around,' they sang in the choir, 'for thy
+children have come to thee as to a beacon of divine light from north
+and south, and from east and from the sea. . . .'
+
+I looked at the faces; they all had a lively expression of triumph,
+but not one was listening to what was being sung and taking it in,
+and not one was 'holding his breath.' Why was not Ieronim released?
+I could fancy Ieronim standing meekly somewhere by the wall, bending
+forward and hungrily drinking in the beauty of the holy phrase. All
+this that glided by the ears of the people standing by me he would
+have eagerly drunk in with his delicately sensitive soul, and would
+have been spell-bound to ecstasy, to holding his breath, and there
+would not have been a man happier than he in all the church. Now
+he was plying to and fro over the dark river and grieving for his
+dead friend and brother.
+
+The wave surged back. A stout smiling monk, playing with his rosary
+and looking round behind him, squeezed sideways by me, making way
+for a lady in a hat and velvet cloak. A monastery servant hurried
+after the lady, holding a chair over our heads.
+
+I came out of the church. I wanted to have a look at the dead
+Nikolay, the unknown canticle writer. I walked about the monastery
+wall, where there was a row of cells, peeped into several windows,
+and, seeing nothing, came back again. I do not regret now that I
+did not see Nikolay; God knows, perhaps if I had seen him I should
+have lost the picture my imagination paints for me now. I imagine
+the lovable poetical figure solitary and not understood, who went
+out at nights to call to Ieronim over the water, and filled his
+hymns with flowers, stars and sunbeams, as a pale timid man with
+soft mild melancholy features. His eyes must have shone, not only
+with intelligence, but with kindly tenderness and that hardly
+restrained childlike enthusiasm which I could hear in Ieronim's
+voice when he quoted to me passages from the hymns.
+
+When we came out of church after mass it was no longer night. The
+morning was beginning. The stars had gone out and the sky was a
+morose greyish blue. The iron slabs, the tombstones and the buds
+on the trees were covered with dew There was a sharp freshness in
+the air. Outside the precincts I did not find the same animated
+scene as I had beheld in the night. Horses and men looked exhausted,
+drowsy, scarcely moved, while nothing was left of the tar barrels
+but heaps of black ash. When anyone is exhausted and sleepy he
+fancies that nature, too, is in the same condition. It seemed to
+me that the trees and the young grass were asleep. It seemed as
+though even the bells were not pealing so loudly and gaily as at
+night. The restlessness was over, and of the excitement nothing was
+left but a pleasant weariness, a longing for sleep and warmth.
+
+Now I could see both banks of the river; a faint mist hovered over
+it in shifting masses. There was a harsh cold breath from the water.
+When I jumped on to the ferry, a chaise and some two dozen men and
+women were standing on it already. The rope, wet and as I fancied
+drowsy, stretched far away across the broad river and in places
+disappeared in the white mist.
+
+"Christ is risen! Is there no one else?" asked a soft voice.
+
+I recognized the voice of Ieronim. There was no darkness now to
+hinder me from seeing the monk. He was a tall narrow-shouldered man
+of five-and-thirty, with large rounded features, with half-closed
+listless-looking eyes and an unkempt wedge-shaped beard. He had an
+extraordinarily sad and exhausted look.
+
+"They have not relieved you yet?" I asked in surprise.
+
+"Me?" he answered, turning to me his chilled and dewy face with a
+smile. "There is no one to take my place now till morning. They'll
+all be going to the Father Archimandrite's to break the fast
+directly."
+
+With the help of a little peasant in a hat of reddish fur that
+looked like the little wooden tubs in which honey is sold, he threw
+his weight on the rope; they gasped simultaneously, and the ferry
+started.
+
+We floated across, disturbing on the way the lazily rising mist.
+Everyone was silent. Ieronim worked mechanically with one hand. He
+slowly passed his mild lustreless eyes over us; then his glance
+rested on the rosy face of a young merchant's wife with black
+eyebrows, who was standing on the ferry beside me silently shrinking
+from the mist that wrapped her about. He did not take his eyes off
+her face all the way.
+
+There was little that was masculine in that prolonged gaze. It
+seemed to me that Ieronim was looking in the woman's face for the
+soft and tender features of his dead friend.
+
+
+A NIGHTMARE
+
+Kunin, a young man of thirty, who was a permanent member of the
+Rural Board, on returning from Petersburg to his district, Borisovo,
+immediately sent a mounted messenger to Sinkino, for the priest
+there, Father Yakov Smirnov.
+
+Five hours later Father Yakov appeared.
+
+"Very glad to make your acquaintance," said Kunin, meeting him in
+the entry. "I've been living and serving here for a year; it seems
+as though we ought to have been acquainted before. You are very
+welcome! But . . . how young you are!" Kunin added in surprise.
+"What is your age?"
+
+"Twenty-eight, . . ." said Father Yakov, faintly pressing Kunin's
+outstretched hand, and for some reason turning crimson.
+
+Kunin led his visitor into his study and began looking at him more
+attentively.
+
+"What an uncouth womanish face!" he thought.
+
+There certainly was a good deal that was womanish in Father Yakov's
+face: the turned-up nose, the bright red cheeks, and the large
+grey-blue eyes with scanty, scarcely perceptible eyebrows. His long
+reddish hair, smooth and dry, hung down in straight tails on to his
+shoulders. The hair on his upper lip was only just beginning to
+form into a real masculine moustache, while his little beard belonged
+to that class of good-for-nothing beards which among divinity
+students are for some reason called "ticklers." It was scanty and
+extremely transparent; it could not have been stroked or combed,
+it could only have been pinched. . . . All these scanty decorations
+were put on unevenly in tufts, as though Father Yakov, thinking to
+dress up as a priest and beginning to gum on the beard, had been
+interrupted halfway through. He had on a cassock, the colour of
+weak coffee with chicory in it, with big patches on both elbows.
+
+"A queer type," thought Kunin, looking at his muddy skirts. "Comes
+to the house for the first time and can't dress decently.
+
+"Sit down, Father," he began more carelessly than cordially, as he
+moved an easy-chair to the table. "Sit down, I beg you."
+
+Father Yakov coughed into his fist, sank awkwardly on to the edge
+of the chair, and laid his open hands on his knees. With his short
+figure, his narrow chest, his red and perspiring face, he made from
+the first moment a most unpleasant impression on Kunin. The latter
+could never have imagined that there were such undignified and
+pitiful-looking priests in Russia; and in Father Yakov's attitude,
+in the way he held his hands on his knees and sat on the very edge
+of his chair, he saw a lack of dignity and even a shade of servility.
+
+"I have invited you on business, Father. . . ." Kunin began, sinking
+back in his low chair. "It has fallen to my lot to perform the
+agreeable duty of helping you in one of your useful undertakings.
+. . . On coming back from Petersburg, I found on my table a letter
+from the Marshal of Nobility. Yegor Dmitrevitch suggests that I
+should take under my supervision the church parish school which is
+being opened in Sinkino. I shall be very glad to, Father, with all
+my heart. . . . More than that, I accept the proposition with
+enthusiasm."
+
+Kunin got up and walked about the study.
+
+"Of course, both Yegor Dmitrevitch and probably you, too, are aware
+that I have not great funds at my disposal. My estate is mortgaged,
+and I live exclusively on my salary as the permanent member. So
+that you cannot reckon on very much assistance, but I will do all
+that is in my power. . . . And when are you thinking of opening the
+school Father?"
+
+"When we have the money, . . ." answered Father Yakov.
+
+"You have some funds at your disposal already?"
+
+"Scarcely any. . . . The peasants settled at their meeting that
+they would pay, every man of them, thirty kopecks a year; but that's
+only a promise, you know! And for the first beginning we should
+need at least two hundred roubles. . . ."
+
+"M'yes. . . . Unhappily, I have not that sum now," said Kunin with
+a sigh. "I spent all I had on my tour and got into debt, too. Let
+us try and think of some plan together."
+
+Kunin began planning aloud. He explained his views and watched
+Father Yakov's face, seeking signs of agreement or approval in it.
+But the face was apathetic and immobile, and expressed nothing but
+constrained shyness and uneasiness. Looking at it, one might have
+supposed that Kunin was talking of matters so abstruse that Father
+Yakov did not understand and only listened from good manners, and
+was at the same time afraid of being detected in his failure to
+understand.
+
+"The fellow is not one of the brightest, that's evident . . ."
+thought Kunin. "He's rather shy and much too stupid."
+
+Father Yakov revived somewhat and even smiled only when the footman
+came into the study bringing in two glasses of tea on a tray and a
+cake-basket full of biscuits. He took his glass and began drinking
+at once.
+
+"Shouldn't we write at once to the bishop?" Kunin went on, meditating
+aloud. "To be precise, you know, it is not we, not the Zemstvo, but
+the higher ecclesiastical authorities, who have raised the question
+of the church parish schools. They ought really to apportion the
+funds. I remember I read that a sum of money had been set aside for
+the purpose. Do you know nothing about it?"
+
+Father Yakov was so absorbed in drinking tea that he did not answer
+this question at once. He lifted his grey-blue eyes to Kunin, thought
+a moment, and as though recalling his question, he shook his head
+in the negative. An expression of pleasure and of the most ordinary
+prosaic appetite overspread his face from ear to ear. He drank and
+smacked his lips over every gulp. When he had drunk it to the very
+last drop, he put his glass on the table, then took his glass back
+again, looked at the bottom of it, then put it back again. The
+expression of pleasure faded from his face. . . . Then Kunin saw
+his visitor take a biscuit from the cake-basket, nibble a little
+bit off it, then turn it over in his hand and hurriedly stick it
+in his pocket.
+
+"Well, that's not at all clerical!" thought Kunin, shrugging his
+shoulders contemptuously. "What is it, priestly greed or childishness?"
+
+After giving his visitor another glass of tea and seeing him to the
+entry, Kunin lay down on the sofa and abandoned himself to the
+unpleasant feeling induced in him by the visit of Father Yakov.
+
+"What a strange wild creature!" he thought. "Dirty, untidy, coarse,
+stupid, and probably he drinks. . . . My God, and that's a priest,
+a spiritual father! That's a teacher of the people! I can fancy the
+irony there must be in the deacon's face when before every mass he
+booms out: 'Thy blessing, Reverend Father!' A fine reverend Father!
+A reverend Father without a grain of dignity or breeding, hiding
+biscuits in his pocket like a schoolboy. . . . Fie! Good Lord, where
+were the bishop's eyes when he ordained a man like that? What can
+he think of the people if he gives them a teacher like that? One
+wants people here who . . ."
+
+And Kunin thought what Russian priests ought to be like.
+
+"If I were a priest, for instance. . . . An educated priest fond
+of his work might do a great deal. . . . I should have had the
+school opened long ago. And the sermons? If the priest is sincere
+and is inspired by love for his work, what wonderful rousing sermons
+he might give!"
+
+Kunin shut his eyes and began mentally composing a sermon. A little
+later he sat down to the table and rapidly began writing.
+
+"I'll give it to that red-haired fellow, let him read it in church,
+. . ." he thought.
+
+The following Sunday Kunin drove over to Sinkino in the morning to
+settle the question of the school, and while he was there to make
+acquaintance with the church of which he was a parishioner. In spite
+of the awful state of the roads, it was a glorious morning. The sun
+was shining brightly and cleaving with its rays the layers of white
+snow still lingering here and there. The snow as it took leave of
+the earth glittered with such diamonds that it hurt the eyes to
+look, while the young winter corn was hastily thrusting up its green
+beside it. The rooks floated with dignity over the fields. A rook
+would fly, drop to earth, and give several hops before standing
+firmly on its feet. . . .
+
+The wooden church up to which Kunin drove was old and grey; the
+columns of the porch had once been painted white, but the colour
+had now completely peeled off, and they looked like two ungainly
+shafts. The ikon over the door looked like a dark smudged blur. But
+its poverty touched and softened Kunin. Modestly dropping his eyes,
+he went into the church and stood by the door. The service had only
+just begun. An old sacristan, bent into a bow, was reading the
+"Hours" in a hollow indistinct tenor. Father Yakov, who conducted
+the service without a deacon, was walking about the church, burning
+incense. Had it not been for the softened mood in which Kunin found
+himself on entering the poverty-stricken church, he certainly would
+have smiled at the sight of Father Yakov. The short priest was
+wearing a crumpled and extremely long robe of some shabby yellow
+material; the hem of the robe trailed on the ground.
+
+The church was not full. Looking at the parishioners, Kunin was
+struck at the first glance by one strange circumstance: he saw
+nothing but old people and children. . . . Where were the men of
+working age? Where was the youth and manhood? But after he had stood
+there a little and looked more attentively at the aged-looking
+faces, Kunin saw that he had mistaken young people for old. He did
+not, however, attach any significance to this little optical illusion.
+
+The church was as cold and grey inside as outside. There was not
+one spot on the ikons nor on the dark brown walls which was not
+begrimed and defaced by time. There were many windows, but the
+general effect of colour was grey, and so it was twilight in the
+church.
+
+"Anyone pure in soul can pray here very well," thought Kunin. "Just
+as in St. Peter's in Rome one is impressed by grandeur, here one
+is touched by the lowliness and simplicity."
+
+But his devout mood vanished like smoke as soon as Father Yakov
+went up to the altar and began mass. Being still young and having
+come straight from the seminary bench to the priesthood, Father
+Yakov had not yet formed a set manner of celebrating the service.
+As he read he seemed to be vacillating between a high tenor and a
+thin bass; he bowed clumsily, walked quickly, and opened and shut
+the gates abruptly. . . . The old sacristan, evidently deaf and
+ailing, did not hear the prayers very distinctly, and this very
+often led to slight misunderstandings. Before Father Yakov had time
+to finish what he had to say, the sacristan began chanting his
+response, or else long after Father Yakov had finished the old man
+would be straining his ears, listening in the direction of the altar
+and saying nothing till his skirt was pulled. The old man had a
+sickly hollow voice and an asthmatic quavering lisp. . . . The
+complete lack of dignity and decorum was emphasized by a very small
+boy who seconded the sacristan and whose head was hardly visible
+over the railing of the choir. The boy sang in a shrill falsetto
+and seemed to be trying to avoid singing in tune. Kunin stayed a
+little while, listened and went out for a smoke. He was disappointed,
+and looked at the grey church almost with dislike.
+
+"They complain of the decline of religious feeling among the people
+. . ." he sighed. "I should rather think so! They'd better foist a
+few more priests like this one on them!"
+
+Kunin went back into the church three times, and each time he felt
+a great temptation to get out into the open air again. Waiting till
+the end of the mass, he went to Father Yakov's. The priest's house
+did not differ outwardly from the peasants' huts, but the thatch
+lay more smoothly on the roof and there were little white curtains
+in the windows. Father Yakov led Kunin into a light little room
+with a clay floor and walls covered with cheap paper; in spite of
+some painful efforts towards luxury in the way of photographs in
+frames and a clock with a pair of scissors hanging on the weight
+the furnishing of the room impressed him by its scantiness. Looking
+at the furniture, one might have supposed that Father Yakov had
+gone from house to house and collected it in bits; in one place
+they had given him a round three-legged table, in another a stool,
+in a third a chair with a back bent violently backwards; in a fourth
+a chair with an upright back, but the seat smashed in; while in a
+fifth they had been liberal and given him a semblance of a sofa
+with a flat back and a lattice-work seat. This semblance had been
+painted dark red and smelt strongly of paint. Kunin meant at first
+to sit down on one of the chairs, but on second thoughts he sat
+down on the stool.
+
+"This is the first time you have been to our church?" asked Father
+Yakov, hanging his hat on a huge misshapen nail.
+
+"Yes it is. I tell you what, Father, before we begin on business,
+will you give me some tea? My soul is parched."
+
+Father Yakov blinked, gasped, and went behind the partition wall.
+There was a sound of whispering.
+
+"With his wife, I suppose," thought Kunin; "it would be interesting
+to see what the red-headed fellow's wife is like."
+
+A little later Father Yakov came back, red and perspiring and with
+an effort to smile, sat down on the edge of the sofa.
+
+"They will heat the samovar directly," he said, without looking at
+his visitor.
+
+"My goodness, they have not heated the samovar yet!" Kunin thought
+with horror. "A nice time we shall have to wait."
+
+"I have brought you," he said, "the rough draft of the letter I
+have written to the bishop. I'll read it after tea; perhaps you may
+find something to add. . . ."
+
+"Very well."
+
+A silence followed. Father Yakov threw furtive glances at the
+partition wall, smoothed his hair, and blew his nose.
+
+"It's wonderful weather, . . ." he said.
+
+"Yes. I read an interesting thing yesterday. . . . the Volsky Zemstvo
+have decided to give their schools to the clergy, that's typical."
+
+Kunin got up, and pacing up and down the clay floor, began to give
+expression to his reflections.
+
+"That would be all right," he said, "if only the clergy were equal
+to their high calling and recognized their tasks. I am so unfortunate
+as to know priests whose standard of culture and whose moral qualities
+make them hardly fit to be army secretaries, much less priests. You
+will agree that a bad teacher does far less harm than a bad priest."
+
+Kunin glanced at Father Yakov; he was sitting bent up, thinking
+intently about something and apparently not listening to his visitor.
+
+"Yasha, come here!" a woman's voice called from behind the partition.
+Father Yakov started and went out. Again a whispering began.
+
+Kunin felt a pang of longing for tea.
+
+"No; it's no use my waiting for tea here," he thought, looking at
+his watch. "Besides I fancy I am not altogether a welcome visitor.
+My host has not deigned to say one word to me; he simply sits and
+blinks."
+
+Kunin took up his hat, waited for Father Yakov to return, and said
+good-bye to him.
+
+"I have simply wasted the morning," he thought wrathfully on the
+way home. "The blockhead! The dummy! He cares no more about the
+school than I about last year's snow. . . . No, I shall never get
+anything done with him! We are bound to fail! If the Marshal knew
+what the priest here was like, he wouldn't be in such a hurry to
+talk about a school. We ought first to try and get a decent priest,
+and then think about the school."
+
+By now Kunin almost hated Father Yakov. The man, his pitiful,
+grotesque figure in the long crumpled robe, his womanish face, his
+manner of officiating, his way of life and his formal restrained
+respectfulness, wounded the tiny relic of religious feeling which
+was stored away in a warm corner of Kunin's heart together with his
+nurse's other fairy tales. The coldness and lack of attention with
+which Father Yakov had met Kunin's warm and sincere interest in
+what was the priest's own work was hard for the former's vanity to
+endure. . . .
+
+On the evening of the same day Kunin spent a long time walking about
+his rooms and thinking. Then he sat down to the table resolutely
+and wrote a letter to the bishop. After asking for money and a
+blessing for the school, he set forth genuinely, like a son, his
+opinion of the priest at Sinkino.
+
+"He is young," he wrote, "insufficiently educated, leads, I fancy,
+an intemperate life, and altogether fails to satisfy the ideals
+which the Russian people have in the course of centuries formed of
+what a pastor should be."
+
+After writing this letter Kunin heaved a deep sigh, and went to bed
+with the consciousness that he had done a good deed.
+
+On Monday morning, while he was still in bed, he was informed that
+Father Yakov had arrived. He did not want to get up, and instructed
+the servant to say he was not at home. On Tuesday he went away to
+a sitting of the Board, and when he returned on Saturday he was
+told by the servants that Father Yakov had called every day in his
+absence.
+
+"He liked my biscuits, it seems," he thought.
+
+Towards evening on Sunday Father Yakov arrived. This time not only
+his skirts, but even his hat, was bespattered with mud. Just as on
+his first visit, he was hot and perspiring, and sat down on the
+edge of his chair as he had done then. Kunin determined not to talk
+about the school--not to cast pearls.
+
+"I have brought you a list of books for the school, Pavel Mihailovitch,
+. . ." Father Yakov began.
+
+"Thank you."
+
+But everything showed that Father Yakov had come for something else
+besides the list. Has whole figure was expressive of extreme
+embarrassment, and at the same time there was a look of determination
+upon his face, as on the face of a man suddenly inspired by an idea.
+He struggled to say something important, absolutely necessary, and
+strove to overcome his timidity.
+
+"Why is he dumb?" Kunin thought wrathfully. "He's settled himself
+comfortably! I haven't time to be bothered with him."
+
+To smoothe over the awkwardness of his silence and to conceal the
+struggle going on within him, the priest began to smile constrainedly,
+and this slow smile, wrung out on his red perspiring face, and out
+of keeping with the fixed look in his grey-blue eyes, made Kunin
+turn away. He felt moved to repulsion.
+
+"Excuse me, Father, I have to go out," he said.
+
+Father Yakov started like a man asleep who has been struck a blow,
+and, still smiling, began in his confusion wrapping round him the
+skirts of his cassock. In spite of his repulsion for the man, Kunin
+felt suddenly sorry for him, and he wanted to soften his cruelty.
+
+"Please come another time, Father," he said, "and before we part I
+want to ask you a favour. I was somehow inspired to write two sermons
+the other day. . . . I will give them to you to look at. If they
+are suitable, use them."
+
+"Very good," said Father Yakov, laying his open hand on Kunin's
+sermons which were lying on the table. "I will take them."
+
+After standing a little, hesitating and still wrapping his cassock
+round him, he suddenly gave up the effort to smile and lifted his
+head resolutely.
+
+"Pavel Mihailovitch," he said, evidently trying to speak loudly and
+distinctly.
+
+"What can I do for you?"
+
+"I have heard that you . . . er . . . have dismissed your secretary,
+and . . . and are looking for a new one. . . ."
+
+"Yes, I am. . . . Why, have you someone to recommend?"
+
+"I. . . er . . . you see . . . I . . . Could you not give the post
+to me?"
+
+"Why, are you giving up the Church?" said Kunin in amazement.
+
+"No, no," Father Yakov brought out quickly, for some reason turning
+pale and trembling all over. "God forbid! If you feel doubtful,
+then never mind, never mind. You see, I could do the work between
+whiles, . . so as to increase my income. . . . Never mind, don't
+disturb yourself!"
+
+"H'm! . . . your income. . . . But you know, I only pay my secretary
+twenty roubles a month."
+
+"Good heavens! I would take ten," whispered Father Yakov, looking
+about him. "Ten would be enough! You . . . you are astonished, and
+everyone is astonished. The greedy priest, the grasping priest,
+what does he do with his money? I feel myself I am greedy, . . .
+and I blame myself, I condemn myself. . . . I am ashamed to look
+people in the face. . . . I tell you on my conscience, Pavel
+Mihailovitch. . . . I call the God of truth to witness. . . ."
+
+Father Yakov took breath and went on:
+
+"On the way here I prepared a regular confession to make you, but
+. . . I've forgotten it all; I cannot find a word now. I get a
+hundred and fifty roubles a year from my parish, and everyone wonders
+what I do with the money. . . . But I'll explain it all truly. . . .
+I pay forty roubles a year to the clerical school for my brother
+Pyotr. He has everything found there, except that I have to provide
+pens and paper."
+
+"Oh, I believe you; I believe you! But what's the object of all
+this?" said Kunin, with a wave of the hand, feeling terribly oppressed
+by this outburst of confidence on the part of his visitor, and not
+knowing how to get away from the tearful gleam in his eyes.
+
+"Then I have not yet paid up all that I owe to the consistory for
+my place here. They charged me two hundred roubles for the living,
+and I was to pay ten roubles a month. . . . You can judge what is
+left! And, besides, I must allow Father Avraamy at least three
+roubles a month."
+
+"What Father Avraamy?"
+
+"Father Avraamy who was priest at Sinkino before I came. He was
+deprived of the living on account of . . . his failing, but you
+know, he is still living at Sinkino! He has nowhere to go. There
+is no one to keep him. Though he is old, he must have a corner, and
+food and clothing--I can't let him go begging on the roads in his
+position! It would be on my conscience if anything happened! It
+would be my fault! He is. . . in debt all round; but, you see, I
+am to blame for not paying for him."
+
+Father Yakov started up from his seat and, looking frantically at
+the floor, strode up and down the room.
+
+"My God, my God!" he muttered, raising his hands and dropping them
+again. "Lord, save us and have mercy upon us! Why did you take such
+a calling on yourself if you have so little faith and no strength?
+There is no end to my despair! Save me, Queen of Heaven!"
+
+"Calm yourself, Father," said Kunin.
+
+"I am worn out with hunger, Pavel Mihailovitch," Father Yakov went
+on. "Generously forgive me, but I am at the end of my strength
+. . . . I know if I were to beg and to bow down, everyone would help,
+but . . . I cannot! I am ashamed. How can I beg of the peasants?
+You are on the Board here, so you know. . . . How can one beg of a
+beggar? And to beg of richer people, of landowners, I cannot! I
+have pride! I am ashamed!"
+
+Father Yakov waved his hand, and nervously scratched his head with
+both hands.
+
+"I am ashamed! My God, I am ashamed! I am proud and can't bear
+people to see my poverty! When you visited me, Pavel Mihailovitch,
+I had no tea in the house! There wasn't a pinch of it, and you know
+it was pride prevented me from telling you! I am ashamed of my
+clothes, of these patches here. . . . I am ashamed of my vestments,
+of being hungry. . . . And is it seemly for a priest to be proud?"
+
+Father Yakov stood still in the middle of the study, and, as though
+he did not notice Kunin's presence, began reasoning with himself.
+
+"Well, supposing I endure hunger and disgrace--but, my God, I
+have a wife! I took her from a good home! She is not used to hard
+work; she is soft; she is used to tea and white bread and sheets
+on her bed. . . . At home she used to play the piano. . . . She is
+young, not twenty yet. . . . She would like, to be sure, to be
+smart, to have fun, go out to see people. . . . And she is worse
+off with me than any cook; she is ashamed to show herself in the
+street. My God, my God! Her only treat is when I bring an apple or
+some biscuit from a visit. . . ."
+
+Father Yakov scratched his head again with both hands.
+
+"And it makes us feel not love but pity for each other. . . . I
+cannot look at her without compassion! And the things that happen
+in this life, O Lord! Such things that people would not believe
+them if they saw them in the newspaper. . . . And when will there
+be an end to it all!"
+
+"Hush, Father!" Kunin almost shouted, frightened at his tone. "Why
+take such a gloomy view of life?"
+
+"Generously forgive me, Pavel Mihailovitch . . ." muttered Father
+Yakov as though he were drunk, "Forgive me, all this . . . doesn't
+matter, and don't take any notice of it. . . . Only I do blame
+myself, and always shall blame myself . . . always."
+
+Father Yakov looked about him and began whispering:
+
+"One morning early I was going from Sinkino to Lutchkovo; I saw a
+woman standing on the river bank, doing something. . . . I went up
+close and could not believe my eyes. . . . It was horrible! The
+wife of the doctor, Ivan Sergeitch, was sitting there washing her
+linen. . . . A doctor's wife, brought up at a select boarding-school!
+She had got up you see, early and gone half a mile from the village
+that people should not see her. . . . She couldn't get over her
+pride! When she saw that I was near her and noticed her poverty,
+she turned red all over. . . . I was flustered--I was frightened,
+and ran up to help her, but she hid her linen from me; she was
+afraid I should see her ragged chemises. . . ."
+
+"All this is positively incredible," said Kunin, sitting down and
+looking almost with horror at Father Yakov's pale face.
+
+"Incredible it is! It's a thing that has never been! Pavel Mihailovitch,
+that a doctor's wife should be rinsing the linen in the river! Such
+a thing does not happen in any country! As her pastor and spiritual
+father, I ought not to allow it, but what can I do? What? Why, I
+am always trying to get treated by her husband for nothing myself!
+It is true that, as you say, it is all incredible! One can hardly
+believe one's eyes. During Mass, you know, when I look out from the
+altar and see my congregation, Avraamy starving, and my wife, and
+think of the doctor's wife--how blue her hands were from the cold
+water--would you believe it, I forget myself and stand senseless
+like a fool, until the sacristan calls to me. . . . It's awful!"
+
+Father Yakov began walking about again.
+
+"Lord Jesus!" he said, waving his hands, "holy Saints! I can't
+officiate properly. . . . Here you talk to me about the school, and
+I sit like a dummy and don't understand a word, and think of nothing
+but food. . . . Even before the altar. . . . But . . . what am I
+doing?" Father Yakov pulled himself up suddenly. "You want to go
+out. Forgive me, I meant nothing. . . . Excuse . . ."
+
+Kunin shook hands with Father Yakov without speaking, saw him into
+the hall, and going back into his study, stood at the window. He
+saw Father Yakov go out of the house, pull his wide-brimmed
+rusty-looking hat over his eyes, and slowly, bowing his head, as
+though ashamed of his outburst, walk along the road.
+
+"I don't see his horse," thought Kunin.
+
+Kunin did not dare to think that the priest had come on foot every
+day to see him; it was five or six miles to Sinkino, and the mud
+on the road was impassable. Further on he saw the coachman Andrey
+and the boy Paramon, jumping over the puddles and splashing Father
+Yakov with mud, run up to him for his blessing. Father Yakov took
+off his hat and slowly blessed Andrey, then blessed the boy and
+stroked his head.
+
+Kunin passed his hand over his eyes, and it seemed to him that his
+hand was moist. He walked away from the window and with dim eyes
+looked round the room in which he still seemed to hear the timid
+droning voice. He glanced at the table. Luckily, Father Yakov, in
+his haste, had forgotten to take the sermons. Kunin rushed up to
+them, tore them into pieces, and with loathing thrust them under
+the table.
+
+"And I did not know!" he moaned, sinking on to the sofa. "After
+being here over a year as member of the Rural Board, Honorary Justice
+of the Peace, member of the School Committee! Blind puppet, egregious
+idiot! I must make haste and help them, I must make haste!"
+
+He turned from side to side uneasily, pressed his temples and racked
+his brains.
+
+"On the twentieth I shall get my salary, two hundred roubles. . . .
+On some good pretext I will give him some, and some to the doctor's
+wife. . . . I will ask them to perform a special service here, and
+will get up an illness for the doctor. . . . In that way I shan't
+wound their pride. And I'll help Father Avraamy too. . . ."
+
+He reckoned his money on his fingers, and was afraid to own to
+himself that those two hundred roubles would hardly be enough for
+him to pay his steward, his servants, the peasant who brought the
+meat. . . . He could not help remembering the recent past when he
+was senselessly squandering his father's fortune, when as a puppy
+of twenty he had given expensive fans to prostitutes, had paid ten
+roubles a day to Kuzma, his cab-driver, and in his vanity had made
+presents to actresses. Oh, how useful those wasted rouble, three-rouble,
+ten-rouble notes would have been now!
+
+"Father Avraamy lives on three roubles a month!" thought Kunin.
+"For a rouble the priest's wife could get herself a chemise, and
+the doctor's wife could hire a washerwoman. But I'll help them,
+anyway! I must help them."
+
+Here Kunin suddenly recalled the private information he had sent
+to the bishop, and he writhed as from a sudden draught of cold air.
+This remembrance filled him with overwhelming shame before his inner
+self and before the unseen truth.
+
+So had begun and had ended a sincere effort to be of public service
+on the part of a well-intentioned but unreflecting and over-comfortable
+person.
+
+
+THE MURDER
+
+I
+
+The evening service was being celebrated at Progonnaya Station.
+Before the great ikon, painted in glaring colours on a background
+of gold, stood the crowd of railway servants with their wives and
+children, and also of the timbermen and sawyers who worked close
+to the railway line. All stood in silence, fascinated by the glare
+of the lights and the howling of the snow-storm which was aimlessly
+disporting itself outside, regardless of the fact that it was the
+Eve of the Annunciation. The old priest from Vedenyapino conducted
+the service; the sacristan and Matvey Terehov were singing.
+
+Matvey's face was beaming with delight; he sang stretching out his
+neck as though he wanted to soar upwards. He sang tenor and chanted
+the "Praises" too in a tenor voice with honied sweetness and
+persuasiveness. When he sang "Archangel Voices" he waved his arms
+like a conductor, and trying to second the sacristan's hollow bass
+with his tenor, achieved something extremely complex, and from his
+face it could be seen that he was experiencing great pleasure.
+
+At last the service was over, and they all quietly dispersed, and
+it was dark and empty again, and there followed that hush which is
+only known in stations that stand solitary in the open country or
+in the forest when the wind howls and nothing else is heard and
+when all the emptiness around, all the dreariness of life slowly
+ebbing away is felt.
+
+Matvey lived not far from the station at his cousin's tavern. But
+he did not want to go home. He sat down at the refreshment bar and
+began talking to the waiter in a low voice.
+
+"We had our own choir in the tile factory. And I must tell you that
+though we were only workmen, our singing was first-rate, splendid.
+We were often invited to the town, and when the Deputy Bishop,
+Father Ivan, took the service at Trinity Church, the bishop's singers
+sang in the right choir and we in the left. Only they complained
+in the town that we kept the singing on too long: 'the factory choir
+drag it out,' they used to say. It is true we began St. Andrey's
+prayers and the Praises between six and seven, and it was past
+eleven when we finished, so that it was sometimes after midnight
+when we got home to the factory. It was good," sighed Matvey. "Very
+good it was, indeed, Sergey Nikanoritch! But here in my father's
+house it is anything but joyful. The nearest church is four miles
+away; with my weak health I can't get so far; there are no singers
+there. And there is no peace or quiet in our family; day in day
+out, there is an uproar, scolding, uncleanliness; we all eat out
+of one bowl like peasants; and there are beetles in the cabbage
+soup. . . . God has not given me health, else I would have gone
+away long ago, Sergey Nikanoritch."
+
+Matvey Terehov was a middle-aged man about forty-five, but he had
+a look of ill-health; his face was wrinkled and his lank, scanty
+beard was quite grey, and that made him seem many years older. He
+spoke in a weak voice, circumspectly, and held his chest when he
+coughed, while his eyes assumed the uneasy and anxious look one
+sees in very apprehensive people. He never said definitely what was
+wrong with him, but he was fond of describing at length how once
+at the factory he had lifted a heavy box and had ruptured himself,
+and how this had led to "the gripes," and had forced him to give
+up his work in the tile factory and come back to his native place;
+but he could not explain what he meant by "the gripes."
+
+"I must own I am not fond of my cousin," he went on, pouring himself
+out some tea. "He is my elder; it is a sin to censure him, and I
+fear the Lord, but I cannot bear it in patience. He is a haughty,
+surly, abusive man; he is the torment of his relations and workmen,
+and constantly out of humour. Last Sunday I asked him in an amiable
+way, 'Brother, let us go to Pahomovo for the Mass!' but he said 'I
+am not going; the priest there is a gambler;' and he would not come
+here to-day because, he said, the priest from Vedenyapino smokes
+and drinks vodka. He doesn't like the clergy! He reads Mass himself
+and the Hours and the Vespers, while his sister acts as sacristan;
+he says, 'Let us pray unto the Lord'! and she, in a thin little
+voice like a turkey-hen, 'Lord, have mercy upon us! . . .' It's a
+sin, that's what it is. Every day I say to him, 'Think what you are
+doing, brother! Repent, brother!' and he takes no notice."
+
+Sergey Nikanoritch, the waiter, poured out five glasses of tea and
+carried them on a tray to the waiting-room. He had scarcely gone
+in when there was a shout:
+
+"Is that the way to serve it, pig's face? You don't know how to
+wait!"
+
+It was the voice of the station-master. There was a timid mutter,
+then again a harsh and angry shout:
+
+"Get along!"
+
+The waiter came back greatly crestfallen.
+
+"There was a time when I gave satisfaction to counts and princes,"
+he said in a low voice; "but now I don't know how to serve tea. . . .
+He called me names before the priest and the ladies!"
+
+The waiter, Sergey Nikanoritch, had once had money of his own, and
+had kept a buffet at a first-class station, which was a junction,
+in the principal town of a province. There he had worn a swallow-tail
+coat and a gold chain. But things had gone ill with him; he had
+squandered all his own money over expensive fittings and service;
+he had been robbed by his staff, and getting gradually into
+difficulties, had moved to another station less bustling. Here his
+wife had left him, taking with her all the silver, and he moved to
+a third station of a still lower class, where no hot dishes were
+served. Then to a fourth. Frequently changing his situation and
+sinking lower and lower, he had at last come to Progonnaya, and
+here he used to sell nothing but tea and cheap vodka, and for lunch
+hard-boiled eggs and dry sausages, which smelt of tar, and which
+he himself sarcastically said were only fit for the orchestra. He
+was bald all over the top of his head, and had prominent blue eyes
+and thick bushy whiskers, which he often combed out, looking into
+the little looking-glass. Memories of the past haunted him continually;
+he could never get used to sausage "only fit for the orchestra,"
+to the rudeness of the station-master, and to the peasants who used
+to haggle over the prices, and in his opinion it was as unseemly
+to haggle over prices in a refreshment room as in a chemist's shop.
+He was ashamed of his poverty and degradation, and that shame was
+now the leading interest of his life.
+
+"Spring is late this year," said Matvey, listening. "It's a good
+job; I don't like spring. In spring it is very muddy, Sergey
+Nikanoritch. In books they write: Spring, the birds sing, the sun
+is setting, but what is there pleasant in that? A bird is a bird,
+and nothing more. I am fond of good company, of listening to folks,
+of talking of religion or singing something agreeable in chorus;
+but as for nightingales and flowers--bless them, I say!"
+
+He began again about the tile factory, about the choir, but Sergey
+Nikanoritch could not get over his mortification, and kept shrugging
+his shoulders and muttering. Matvey said good-bye and went home.
+
+There was no frost, and the snow was already melting on the roofs,
+though it was still falling in big flakes; they were whirling rapidly
+round and round in the air and chasing one another in white clouds
+along the railway line. And the oak forest on both sides of the
+line, in the dim light of the moon which was hidden somewhere high
+up in the clouds, resounded with a prolonged sullen murmur. When a
+violent storm shakes the trees, how terrible they are! Matvey walked
+along the causeway beside the line, covering his face and his hands,
+while the wind beat on his back. All at once a little nag, plastered
+all over with snow, came into sight; a sledge scraped along the
+bare stones of the causeway, and a peasant, white all over, too,
+with his head muffled up, cracked his whip. Matvey looked round
+after him, but at once, as though it had been a vision, there was
+neither sledge nor peasant to be seen, and he hastened his steps,
+suddenly scared, though he did not know why.
+
+Here was the crossing and the dark little house where the signalman
+lived. The barrier was raised, and by it perfect mountains had
+drifted and clouds of snow were whirling round like witches on
+broomsticks. At that point the line was crossed by an old highroad,
+which was still called "the track." On the right, not far from the
+crossing, by the roadside stood Terehov's tavern, which had been a
+posting inn. Here there was always a light twinkling at night.
+
+When Matvey reached home there was a strong smell of incense in all
+the rooms and even in the entry. His cousin Yakov Ivanitch was still
+reading the evening service. In the prayer-room where this was going
+on, in the corner opposite the door, there stood a shrine of
+old-fashioned ancestral ikons in gilt settings, and both walls to
+right and to left were decorated with ikons of ancient and modern
+fashion, in shrines and without them. On the table, which was draped
+to the floor, stood an ikon of the Annunciation, and close by a
+cyprus-wood cross and the censer; wax candles were burning. Beside
+the table was a reading desk. As he passed by the prayer-room,
+Matvey stopped and glanced in at the door. Yakov Ivanitch was reading
+at the desk at that moment, his sister Aglaia, a tall lean old woman
+in a dark-blue dress and white kerchief, was praying with him. Yakov
+Ivanitch's daughter Dashutka, an ugly freckled girl of eighteen,
+was there, too, barefoot as usual, and wearing the dress in which
+she had at nightfall taken water to the cattle.
+
+"Glory to Thee Who hast shown us the light!" Yakov Ivanitch boomed
+out in a chant, bowing low.
+
+Aglaia propped her chin on her hand and chanted in a thin, shrill,
+drawling voice. And upstairs, above the ceiling, there was the sound
+of vague voices which seemed menacing or ominous of evil. No one
+had lived on the storey above since a fire there a long time ago.
+The windows were boarded up, and empty bottles lay about on the
+floor between the beams. Now the wind was banging and droning, and
+it seemed as though someone were running and stumbling over the
+beams.
+
+Half of the lower storey was used as a tavern, while Terehov's
+family lived in the other half, so that when drunken visitors were
+noisy in the tavern every word they said could be heard in the
+rooms. Matvey lived in a room next to the kitchen, with a big stove,
+in which, in old days, when this had been a posting inn, bread had
+been baked every day. Dashutka, who had no room of her own, lived
+in the same room behind the stove. A cricket chirped there always
+at night and mice ran in and out.
+
+Matvey lighted a candle and began reading a book which he had
+borrowed from the station policeman. While he was sitting over it
+the service ended, and they all went to bed. Dashutka lay down,
+too. She began snoring at once, but soon woke up and said, yawning:
+
+"You shouldn't burn a candle for nothing, Uncle Matvey."
+
+"It's my candle," answered Matvey; "I bought it with my own money."
+
+Dashutka turned over a little and fell asleep again. Matvey sat up
+a good time longer--he was not sleepy--and when he had finished
+the last page he took a pencil out of a box and wrote on the book:
+
+"I, Matvey Terehov, have read this book, and think it the very best
+of all the books I have read, for which I express my gratitude to
+the non-commissioned officer of the Police Department of Railways,
+Kuzma Nikolaev Zhukov, as the possessor of this priceless book."
+
+He considered it an obligation of politeness to make such inscriptions
+in other people's books.
+
+II
+
+On Annunciation Day, after the mail train had been sent off, Matvey
+was sitting in the refreshment bar, talking and drinking tea with
+lemon in it.
+
+The waiter and Zhukov the policeman were listening to him.
+
+"I was, I must tell you," Matvey was saying, "inclined to religion
+from my earliest childhood. I was only twelve years old when I used
+to read the epistle in church, and my parents were greatly delighted,
+and every summer I used to go on a pilgrimage with my dear mother.
+Sometimes other lads would be singing songs and catching crayfish,
+while I would be all the time with my mother. My elders commended
+me, and, indeed, I was pleased myself that I was of such good
+behaviour. And when my mother sent me with her blessing to the
+factory, I used between working hours to sing tenor there in our
+choir, and nothing gave me greater pleasure. I needn't say, I drank
+no vodka, I smoked no tobacco, and lived in chastity; but we all
+know such a mode of life is displeasing to the enemy of mankind,
+and he, the unclean spirit, once tried to ruin me and began to
+darken my mind, just as now with my cousin. First of all, I took a
+vow to fast every Monday and not to eat meat any day, and as time
+went on all sorts of fancies came over me. For the first week of
+Lent down to Saturday the holy fathers have ordained a diet of dry
+food, but it is no sin for the weak or those who work hard even to
+drink tea, yet not a crumb passed into my mouth till the Sunday,
+and afterwards all through Lent I did not allow myself a drop of
+oil, and on Wednesdays and Fridays I did not touch a morsel at all.
+It was the same in the lesser fasts. Sometimes in St. Peter's fast
+our factory lads would have fish soup, while I would sit a little
+apart from them and suck a dry crust. Different people have different
+powers, of course, but I can say of myself I did not find fast days
+hard, and, indeed, the greater the zeal the easier it seems. You
+are only hungry on the first days of the fast, and then you get
+used to it; it goes on getting easier, and by the end of a week you
+don't mind it at all, and there is a numb feeling in your legs as
+though you were not on earth, but in the clouds. And, besides that,
+I laid all sorts of penances on myself; I used to get up in the
+night and pray, bowing down to the ground, used to drag heavy stones
+from place to place, used to go out barefoot in the snow, and I
+even wore chains, too. Only, as time went on, you know, I was
+confessing one day to the priest and suddenly this reflection
+occurred to me: why, this priest, I thought, is married, he eats
+meat and smokes tobacco--how can he confess me, and what power
+has he to absolve my sins if he is more sinful that I? I even scruple
+to eat Lenten oil, while he eats sturgeon, I dare say. I went to
+another priest, and he, as ill luck would have it, was a fat fleshy
+man, in a silk cassock; he rustled like a lady, and he smelt of
+tobacco too. I went to fast and confess in the monastery, and my
+heart was not at ease even there; I kept fancying the monks were
+not living according to their rules. And after that I could not
+find a service to my mind: in one place they read the service too
+fast, in another they sang the wrong prayer, in a third the sacristan
+stammered. Sometimes, the Lord forgive me a sinner, I would stand
+in church and my heart would throb with anger. How could one pray,
+feeling like that? And I fancied that the people in the church did
+not cross themselves properly, did not listen properly; wherever I
+looked it seemed to me that they were all drunkards, that they broke
+the fast, smoked, lived loose lives and played cards. I was the
+only one who lived according to the commandments. The wily spirit
+did not slumber; it got worse as it went on. I gave up singing in
+the choir and I did not go to church at all; since my notion was
+that I was a righteous man and that the church did not suit me owing
+to its imperfections--that is, indeed, like a fallen angel, I was
+puffed up in my pride beyond all belief. After this I began attempting
+to make a church for myself. I hired from a deaf woman a tiny little
+room, a long way out of town near the cemetery, and made a prayer-room
+like my cousin's, only I had big church candlesticks, too, and a
+real censer. In this prayer-room of mine I kept the rules of holy
+Mount Athos--that is, every day my matins began at midnight without
+fail, and on the eve of the chief of the twelve great holy days my
+midnight service lasted ten hours and sometimes even twelve. Monks
+are allowed by rule to sit during the singing of the Psalter and
+the reading of the Bible, but I wanted to be better than the monks,
+and so I used to stand all through. I used to read and sing slowly,
+with tears and sighing, lifting up my hands, and I used to go
+straight from prayer to work without sleeping; and, indeed, I was
+always praying at my work, too. Well, it got all over the town
+'Matvey is a saint; Matvey heals the sick and senseless.' I never
+had healed anyone, of course, but we all know wherever any heresy
+or false doctrine springs up there's no keeping the female sex away.
+They are just like flies on the honey. Old maids and females of all
+sorts came trailing to me, bowing down to my feet, kissing my hands
+and crying out I was a saint and all the rest of it, and one even
+saw a halo round my head. It was too crowded in the prayer-room. I
+took a bigger room, and then we had a regular tower of Babel. The
+devil got hold of me completely and screened the light from my eyes
+with his unclean hoofs. We all behaved as though we were frantic.
+I read, while the old maids and other females sang, and then after
+standing on their legs for twenty-four hours or longer without
+eating or drinking, suddenly a trembling would come over them as
+though they were in a fever; after that, one would begin screaming
+and then another--it was horrible! I, too, would shiver all over
+like a Jew in a frying-pan, I don't know myself why, and our legs
+began to prance about. It's a strange thing, indeed: you don't want
+to, but you prance about and waggle your arms; and after that,
+screaming and shrieking, we all danced and ran after one another
+--ran till we dropped; and in that way, in wild frenzy, I fell
+into fornication."
+
+The policeman laughed, but, noticing that no one else was laughing,
+became serious and said:
+
+"That's Molokanism. I have heard they are all like that in the
+Caucasus."
+
+"But I was not killed by a thunderbolt," Matvey went on, crossing
+himself before the ikon and moving his lips. "My dead mother must
+have been praying for me in the other world. When everyone in the
+town looked upon me as a saint, and even the ladies and gentlemen
+of good family used to come to me in secret for consolation, I
+happened to go into our landlord, Osip Varlamitch, to ask forgiveness
+--it was the Day of Forgiveness--and he fastened the door with
+the hook, and we were left alone face to face. And he began to
+reprove me, and I must tell you Osip Varlamitch was a man of brains,
+though without education, and everyone respected and feared him,
+for he was a man of stern, God-fearing life and worked hard. He had
+been the mayor of the town, and a warden of the church for twenty
+years maybe, and had done a great deal of good; he had covered all
+the New Moscow Road with gravel, had painted the church, and had
+decorated the columns to look like malachite. Well, he fastened the
+door, and--'I have been wanting to get at you for a long time,
+you rascal, . . .' he said. 'You think you are a saint,' he said.
+'No you are not a saint, but a backslider from God, a heretic and
+an evildoer! . . .' And he went on and on. . . . I can't tell you
+how he said it, so eloquently and cleverly, as though it were all
+written down, and so touchingly. He talked for two hours. His words
+penetrated my soul; my eyes were opened. I listened, listened and
+--burst into sobs! 'Be an ordinary man,' he said, 'eat and drink,
+dress and pray like everyone else. All that is above the ordinary
+is of the devil. Your chains,' he said, 'are of the devil; your
+fasting is of the devil; your prayer-room is of the devil. It is
+all pride,' he said. Next day, on Monday in Holy Week, it pleased
+God I should fall ill. I ruptured myself and was taken to the
+hospital. I was terribly worried, and wept bitterly and trembled.
+I thought there was a straight road before me from the hospital to
+hell, and I almost died. I was in misery on a bed of sickness for
+six months, and when I was discharged the first thing I did I
+confessed, and took the sacrament in the regular way and became a
+man again. Osip Varlamitch saw me off home and exhorted me: 'Remember,
+Matvey, that anything above the ordinary is of the devil.' And now
+I eat and drink like everyone else and pray like everyone else
+. . . . If it happens now that the priest smells of tobacco or vodka I
+don't venture to blame him, because the priest, too, of course, is
+an ordinary man. But as soon as I am told that in the town or in
+the village a saint has set up who does not eat for weeks, and makes
+rules of his own, I know whose work it is. So that is how I carried
+on in the past, gentlemen. Now, like Osip Varlamitch, I am continually
+exhorting my cousins and reproaching them, but I am a voice crying
+in the wilderness. God has not vouchsafed me the gift."
+
+Matvey's story evidently made no impression whatever. Sergey
+Nikanoritch said nothing, but began clearing the refreshments off
+the counter, while the policeman began talking of how rich Matvey's
+cousin was.
+
+"He must have thirty thousand at least," he said.
+
+Zhukov the policeman, a sturdy, well-fed, red-haired man with a
+full face (his cheeks quivered when he walked), usually sat lolling
+and crossing his legs when not in the presence of his superiors.
+As he talked he swayed to and fro and whistled carelessly, while
+his face had a self-satisfied replete air, as though he had just
+had dinner. He was making money, and he always talked of it with
+the air of a connoisseur. He undertook jobs as an agent, and when
+anyone wanted to sell an estate, a horse or a carriage, they applied
+to him.
+
+"Yes, it will be thirty thousand, I dare say," Sergey Nikanoritch
+assented. "Your grandfather had an immense fortune," he said,
+addressing Matvey. "Immense it was; all left to your father and
+your uncle. Your father died as a young man and your uncle got hold
+of it all, and afterwards, of course, Yakov Ivanitch. While you
+were going pilgrimages with your mama and singing tenor in the
+factory, they didn't let the grass grow under their feet."
+
+"Fifteen thousand comes to your share," said the policeman swaying
+from side to side. "The tavern belongs to you in common, so the
+capital is in common. Yes. If I were in your place I should have
+taken it into court long ago. I would have taken it into court for
+one thing, and while the case was going on I'd have knocked his
+face to a jelly."
+
+Yakov Ivanitch was disliked because, when anyone believes differently
+from others, it upsets even people who are indifferent to religion.
+The policeman disliked him also because he, too, sold horses and
+carriages.
+
+"You don't care about going to law with your cousin because you
+have plenty of money of your own," said the waiter to Matvey, looking
+at him with envy. "It is all very well for anyone who has means,
+but here I shall die in this position, I suppose. . . ."
+
+Matvey began declaring that he hadn't any money at all, but Sergey
+Nikanoritch was not listening. Memories of the past and of the
+insults which he endured every day came showering upon him. His
+bald head began to perspire; he flushed and blinked.
+
+"A cursed life!" he said with vexation, and he banged the sausage
+on the floor.
+
+III
+
+The story ran that the tavern had been built in the time of Alexander
+I, by a widow who had settled here with her son; her name was Avdotya
+Terehov. The dark roofed-in courtyard and the gates always kept
+locked excited, especially on moonlight nights, a feeling of
+depression and unaccountable uneasiness in people who drove by with
+posting-horses, as though sorcerers or robbers were living in it;
+and the driver always looked back after he passed, and whipped up
+his horses. Travellers did not care to put up here, as the people
+of the house were always unfriendly and charged heavily. The yard
+was muddy even in summer; huge fat pigs used to lie there in the
+mud, and the horses in which the Terehovs dealt wandered about
+untethered, and often it happened that they ran out of the yard and
+dashed along the road like mad creatures, terrifying the pilgrim
+women. At that time there was a great deal of traffic on the road;
+long trains of loaded waggons trailed by, and all sorts of adventures
+happened, such as, for instance, that thirty years ago some waggoners
+got up a quarrel with a passing merchant and killed him, and a
+slanting cross is standing to this day half a mile from the tavern;
+posting-chaises with bells and the heavy _dormeuses_ of country
+gentlemen drove by; and herds of horned cattle passed bellowing and
+stirring up clouds of dust.
+
+When the railway came there was at first at this place only a
+platform, which was called simply a halt; ten years afterwards the
+present station, Progonnaya, was built. The traffic on the old
+posting-road almost ceased, and only local landowners and peasants
+drove along it now, but the working people walked there in crowds
+in spring and autumn. The posting-inn was transformed into a
+restaurant; the upper storey was destroyed by fire, the roof had
+grown yellow with rust, the roof over the yard had fallen by degrees,
+but huge fat pigs, pink and revolting, still wallowed in the mud
+in the yard. As before, the horses sometimes ran away and, lashing
+their tails dashed madly along the road. In the tavern they sold
+tea, hay oats and flour, as well as vodka and beer, to be drunk on
+the premises and also to be taken away; they sold spirituous liquors
+warily, for they had never taken out a licence.
+
+The Terehovs had always been distinguished by their piety, so much
+so that they had even been given the nickname of the "Godlies." But
+perhaps because they lived apart like bears, avoided people and
+thought out all their ideas for themselves, they were given to
+dreams and to doubts and to changes of faith and almost each
+generation had a peculiar faith of its own. The grandmother Avdotya,
+who had built the inn, was an Old Believer; her son and both her
+grandsons (the fathers of Matvey and Yakov) went to the Orthodox
+church, entertained the clergy, and worshipped before the new ikons
+as devoutly as they had done before the old. The son in old age
+refused to eat meat and imposed upon himself the rule of silence,
+considering all conversation as sin; it was the peculiarity of the
+grandsons that they interpreted the Scripture not simply, but sought
+in it a hidden meaning, declaring that every sacred word must contain
+a mystery.
+
+Avdotya's great-grandson Matvey had struggled from early childhood
+with all sorts of dreams and fancies and had been almost ruined by
+it; the other great-grandson, Yakov Ivanitch, was orthodox, but
+after his wife's death he gave up going to church and prayed at
+home. Following his example, his sister Aglaia had turned, too; she
+did not go to church herself, and did not let Dashutka go. Of Aglaia
+it was told that in her youth she used to attend the Flagellant
+meetings in Vedenyapino, and that she was still a Flagellant in
+secret, and that was why she wore a white kerchief.
+
+Yakov Ivanitch was ten years older than Matvey--he was a very
+handsome tall old man with a big grey beard almost to his waist,
+and bushy eyebrows which gave his face a stern, even ill-natured
+expression. He wore a long jerkin of good cloth or a black sheepskin
+coat, and altogether tried to be clean and neat in dress; he wore
+goloshes even in dry weather. He did not go to church, because, to
+his thinking, the services were not properly celebrated and because
+the priests drank wine at unlawful times and smoked tobacco. Every
+day he read and sang the service at home with Aglaia. At Vedenyapino
+they left out the "Praises" at early matins, and had no evening
+service even on great holidays, but he used to read through at home
+everything that was laid down for every day, without hurrying or
+leaving out a single line, and even in his spare time read aloud
+the Lives of the Saints. And in everyday life he adhered strictly
+to the rules of the church; thus, if wine were allowed on some day
+in Lent "for the sake of the vigil," then he never failed to drink
+wine, even if he were not inclined.
+
+He read, sang, burned incense and fasted, not for the sake of
+receiving blessings of some sort from God, but for the sake of good
+order. Man cannot live without religion, and religion ought to be
+expressed from year to year and from day to day in a certain order,
+so that every morning and every evening a man might turn to God
+with exactly those words and thoughts that were befitting that
+special day and hour. One must live, and, therefore, also pray as
+is pleasing to God, and so every day one must read and sing what
+is pleasing to God--that is, what is laid down in the rule of the
+church. Thus the first chapter of St. John must only be read on
+Easter Day, and "It is most meet" must not be sung from Easter to
+Ascension, and so on. The consciousness of this order and its
+importance afforded Yakov Ivanitch great gratification during his
+religious exercises. When he was forced to break this order by some
+necessity--to drive to town or to the bank, for instance his
+conscience was uneasy and he felt miserable.
+
+When his cousin Matvey had returned unexpectedly from the factory
+and settled in the tavern as though it were his home, he had from
+the very first day disturbed his settled order. He refused to pray
+with them, had meals and drank tea at wrong times, got up late,
+drank milk on Wednesdays and Fridays on the pretext of weak health;
+almost every day he went into the prayer-room while they were at
+prayers and cried: "Think what you are doing, brother! Repent,
+brother!" These words threw Yakov into a fury, while Aglaia could
+not refrain from beginning to scold; or at night Matvey would steal
+into the prayer-room and say softly: "Cousin, your prayer is not
+pleasing to God. For it is written, First be reconciled with thy
+brother and then offer thy gift. You lend money at usury, you deal
+in vodka--repent!"
+
+In Matvey's words Yakov saw nothing but the usual evasions of
+empty-headed and careless people who talk of loving your neighbour,
+of being reconciled with your brother, and so on, simply to avoid
+praying, fasting and reading holy books, and who talk contemptuously
+of profit and interest simply because they don't like working. Of
+course, to be poor, save nothing, and put by nothing was a great
+deal easier than being rich.
+
+But yet he was troubled and could not pray as before. As soon as
+he went into the prayer-room and opened the book he began to be
+afraid his cousin would come in and hinder him; and, in fact, Matvey
+did soon appear and cry in a trembling voice: "Think what you are
+doing, brother! Repent, brother!" Aglaia stormed and Yakov, too,
+flew into a passion and shouted: "Go out of my house!" while Matvey
+answered him: "The house belongs to both of us."
+
+Yakov would begin singing and reading again, but he could not regain
+his calm, and unconsciously fell to dreaming over his book. Though
+he regarded his cousin's words as nonsense, yet for some reason it
+had of late haunted his memory that it is hard for a rich man to
+enter the kingdom of heaven, that the year before last he had made
+a very good bargain over buying a stolen horse, that one day when
+his wife was alive a drunkard had died of vodka in his tavern. . . .
+
+He slept badly at nights now and woke easily, and he could hear
+that Matvey, too, was awake, and continually sighing and pining for
+his tile factory. And while Yakov turned over from one side to
+another at night he thought of the stolen horse and the drunken
+man, and what was said in the gospels about the camel.
+
+It looked as though his dreaminess were coming over him again. And
+as ill-luck would have it, although it was the end of March, every
+day it kept snowing, and the forest roared as though it were winter,
+and there was no believing that spring would ever come. The weather
+disposed one to depression, and to quarrelling and to hatred and
+in the night, when the wind droned over the ceiling, it seemed as
+though someone were living overhead in the empty storey; little by
+little the broodings settled like a burden on his mind, his head
+burned and he could not sleep.
+
+IV
+
+On the morning of the Monday before Good Friday, Matvey heard from
+his room Dashutka say to Aglaia:
+
+"Uncle Matvey said, the other day, that there is no need to fast."
+
+Matvey remembered the whole conversation he had had the evening
+before with Dashutka, and he felt hurt all at once.
+
+"Girl, don't do wrong!" he said in a moaning voice, like a sick
+man. "You can't do without fasting; our Lord Himself fasted forty
+days. I only explained that fasting does a bad man no good."
+
+"You should just listen to the factory hands; they can teach you
+goodness," Aglaia said sarcastically as she washed the floor (she
+usually washed the floors on working days and was always angry with
+everyone when she did it). "We know how they keep the fasts in the
+factory. You had better ask that uncle of yours--ask him about
+his 'Darling,' how he used to guzzle milk on fast days with her,
+the viper. He teaches others; he forgets about his viper. But ask
+him who was it he left his money with--who was it?"
+
+Matvey had carefully concealed from everyone, as though it were a
+foul sore, that during that period of his life when old women and
+unmarried girls had danced and run about with him at their prayers
+he had formed a connection with a working woman and had had a child
+by her. When he went home he had given this woman all he had saved
+at the factory, and had borrowed from his landlord for his journey,
+and now he had only a few roubles which he spent on tea and candles.
+The "Darling" had informed him later on that the child was dead,
+and asked him in a letter what she should do with the money. This
+letter was brought from the station by the labourer. Aglaia intercepted
+it and read it, and had reproached Matvey with his "Darling" every
+day since.
+
+"Just fancy, nine hundred roubles," Aglaia went on. "You gave nine
+hundred roubles to a viper, no relation, a factory jade, blast you!"
+She had flown into a passion by now and was shouting shrilly: "Can't
+you speak? I could tear you to pieces, wretched creature! Nine
+hundred roubles as though it were a farthing. You might have left
+it to Dashutka--she is a relation, not a stranger--or else have
+it sent to Byelev for Marya's poor orphans. And your viper did not
+choke, may she be thrice accursed, the she-devil! May she never
+look upon the light of day!"
+
+Yakov Ivanitch called to her: it was time to begin the "Hours." She
+washed, put on a white kerchief, and by now quiet and meek, went
+into the prayer-room to the brother she loved. When she spoke to
+Matvey or served peasants in the tavern with tea she was a gaunt,
+keen-eyed, ill-humoured old woman; in the prayer-room her face was
+serene and softened, she looked younger altogether, she curtsied
+affectedly, and even pursed up her lips.
+
+Yakov Ivanitch began reading the service softly and dolefully, as
+he always did in Lent. After he had read a little he stopped to
+listen to the stillness that reigned through the house, and then
+went on reading again, with a feeling of gratification; he folded
+his hands in supplication, rolled his eyes, shook his head, sighed.
+But all at once there was the sound of voices. The policeman and
+Sergey Nikanoritch had come to see Matvey. Yakov Ivanitch was
+embarrassed at reading aloud and singing when there were strangers
+in the house, and now, hearing voices, he began reading in a whisper
+and slowly. He could hear in the prayer-room the waiter say:
+
+"The Tatar at Shtchepovo is selling his business for fifteen hundred.
+He'll take five hundred down and an I.O.U. for the rest. And so,
+Matvey Vassilitch, be so kind as to lend me that five hundred
+roubles. I will pay you two per cent a month."
+
+"What money have I got?" cried Matvey, amazed. "I have no money!"
+
+"Two per cent a month will be a godsend to you," the policeman
+explained. "While lying by, your money is simply eaten by the moth,
+and that's all that you get from it."
+
+Afterwards the visitors went out and a silence followed. But Yakov
+Ivanitch had hardly begun reading and singing again when a voice
+was heard outside the door:
+
+"Brother, let me have a horse to drive to Vedenyapino."
+
+It was Matvey. And Yakov was troubled again. "Which can you go
+with?" he asked after a moment's thought. "The man has gone with
+the sorrel to take the pig, and I am going with the little stallion
+to Shuteykino as soon as I have finished."
+
+"Brother, why is it you can dispose of the horses and not I?" Matvey
+asked with irritation.
+
+"Because I am not taking them for pleasure, but for work."
+
+"Our property is in common, so the horses are in common, too, and
+you ought to understand that, brother."
+
+A silence followed. Yakov did not go on praying, but waited for
+Matvey to go away from the door.
+
+"Brother," said Matvey, "I am a sick man. I don't want possession
+--let them go; you have them, but give me a small share to keep
+me in my illness. Give it me and I'll go away."
+
+Yakov did not speak. He longed to be rid of Matvey, but he could
+not give him money, since all the money was in the business; besides,
+there had never been a case of the family dividing in the whole
+history of the Terehovs. Division means ruin.
+
+Yakov said nothing, but still waited for Matvey to go away, and
+kept looking at his sister, afraid that she would interfere, and
+that there would be a storm of abuse again, as there had been in
+the morning. When at last Matvey did go Yakov went on reading, but
+now he had no pleasure in it. There was a heaviness in his head and
+a darkness before his eyes from continually bowing down to the
+ground, and he was weary of the sound of his soft dejected voice.
+When such a depression of spirit came over him at night, he put it
+down to not being able to sleep; by day it frightened him, and he
+began to feel as though devils were sitting on his head and shoulders.
+
+Finishing the service after a fashion, dissatisfied and ill-humoured,
+he set off for Shuteykino. In the previous autumn a gang of navvies
+had dug a boundary ditch near Progonnaya, and had run up a bill at
+the tavern for eighteen roubles, and now he had to find their foreman
+in Shuteykino and get the money from him. The road had been spoilt
+by the thaw and the snowstorm; it was of a dark colour and full of
+holes, and in parts it had given way altogether. The snow had sunk
+away at the sides below the road, so that he had to drive, as it
+were, upon a narrow causeway, and it was very difficult to turn off
+it when he met anything. The sky had been overcast ever since the
+morning and a damp wind was blowing. . . .
+
+A long train of sledges met him; peasant women were carting bricks.
+Yakov had to turn off the road. His horse sank into the snow up to
+its belly; the sledge lurched over to the right, and to avoid falling
+out he bent over to the left, and sat so all the time the sledges
+moved slowly by him. Through the wind he heard the creaking of the
+sledge poles and the breathing of the gaunt horses, and the women
+saying about him, "There's Godly coming," while one, gazing with
+compassion at his horse, said quickly:
+
+"It looks as though the snow will be lying till Yegory's Day! They
+are worn out with it!"
+
+Yakov sat uncomfortably huddled up, screwing up his eyes on account
+of the wind, while horses and red bricks kept passing before him.
+And perhaps because he was uncomfortable and his side ached, he
+felt all at once annoyed, and the business he was going about seemed
+to him unimportant, and he reflected that he might send the labourer
+next day to Shuteykino. Again, as in the previous sleepless night,
+he thought of the saying about the camel, and then memories of all
+sorts crept into his mind; of the peasant who had sold him the
+stolen horse, of the drunken man, of the peasant women who had
+brought their samovars to him to pawn. Of course, every merchant
+tries to get as much as he can, but Yakov felt depressed that he
+was in trade; he longed to get somewhere far away from this routine,
+and he felt dreary at the thought that he would have to read the
+evening service that day. The wind blew straight into his face and
+soughed in his collar; and it seemed as though it were whispering
+to him all these thoughts, bringing them from the broad white plain
+. . . . Looking at that plain, familiar to him from childhood, Yakov
+remembered that he had had just this same trouble and these same
+thoughts in his young days when dreams and imaginings had come upon
+him and his faith had wavered.
+
+He felt miserable at being alone in the open country; he turned
+back and drove slowly after the sledges, and the women laughed and
+said:
+
+"Godly has turned back."
+
+At home nothing had been cooked and the samovar was not heated on
+account of the fast, and this made the day seem very long. Yakov
+Ivanitch had long ago taken the horse to the stable, dispatched the
+flour to the station, and twice taken up the Psalms to read, and
+yet the evening was still far off. Aglaia has already washed all
+the floors, and, having nothing to do, was tidying up her chest,
+the lid of which was pasted over on the inside with labels off
+bottles. Matvey, hungry and melancholy, sat reading, or went up to
+the Dutch stove and slowly scrutinized the tiles which reminded him
+of the factory. Dashutka was asleep; then, waking up, she went to
+take water to the cattle. When she was getting water from the well
+the cord broke and the pail fell in. The labourer began looking for
+a boathook to get the pail out, and Dashutka, barefooted, with legs
+as red as a goose's, followed him about in the muddy snow, repeating:
+"It's too far!" She meant to say that the well was too deep for the
+hook to reach the bottom, but the labourer did not understand her,
+and evidently she bothered him, so that he suddenly turned around
+and abused her in unseemly language. Yakov Ivanitch, coming out
+that moment into the yard, heard Dashutka answer the labourer in a
+long rapid stream of choice abuse, which she could only have learned
+from drunken peasants in the tavern.
+
+"What are you saying, shameless girl!" he cried to her, and he was
+positively aghast. "What language!"
+
+And she looked at her father in perplexity, dully, not understanding
+why she should not use those words. He would have admonished her,
+but she struck him as so savage and benighted; and for the first
+time he realized that she had no religion. And all this life in the
+forest, in the snow, with drunken peasants, with coarse oaths,
+seemed to him as savage and benighted as this girl, and instead of
+giving her a lecture he only waved his hand and went back into the
+room.
+
+At that moment the policeman and Sergey Nikanoritch came in again
+to see Matvey. Yakov Ivanitch thought that these people, too, had
+no religion, and that that did not trouble them in the least; and
+human life began to seem to him as strange, senseless and unenlightened
+as a dog's. Bareheaded he walked about the yard, then he went out
+on to the road, clenching his fists. Snow was falling in big flakes
+at the time. His beard was blown about in the wind. He kept shaking
+his head, as though there were something weighing upon his head and
+shoulders, as though devils were sitting on them; and it seemed to
+him that it was not himself walking about, but some wild beast, a
+huge terrible beast, and that if he were to cry out his voice would
+be a roar that would sound all over the forest and the plain, and
+would frighten everyone. . . .
+
+V
+
+When he went back into the house the policeman was no longer there,
+but the waiter was sitting with Matvey, counting something on the
+reckoning beads. He was in the habit of coming often, almost every
+day, to the tavern; in old days he had come to see Yakov Ivanitch,
+now he came to see Matvey. He was continually reckoning on the
+beads, while his face perspired and looked strained, or he would
+ask for money or, stroking his whiskers, would describe how he had
+once been in a first-class station and used to prepare champagne-punch
+for officers, and at grand dinners served the sturgeon-soup with
+his own hands. Nothing in this world interested him but refreshment
+bars, and he could only talk about things to eat, about wines and
+the paraphernalia of the dinner-table. On one occasion, handing a
+cup of tea to a young woman who was nursing her baby and wishing
+to say something agreeable to her, he expressed himself in this
+way:
+
+"The mother's breast is the baby's refreshment bar."
+
+Reckoning with the beads in Matvey's room, he asked for money; said
+he could not go on living at Progonnaya, and several times repeated
+in a tone of voice that sounded as though he were just going to
+cry:
+
+"Where am I to go? Where am I to go now? Tell me that, please."
+
+Then Matvey went into the kitchen and began peeling some boiled
+potatoes which he had probably put away from the day before. It was
+quiet, and it seemed to Yakov Ivanitch that the waiter was gone.
+It was past the time for evening service; he called Aglaia, and,
+thinking there was no one else in the house sang out aloud without
+embarrassment. He sang and read, but was inwardly pronouncing other
+words, "Lord, forgive me! Lord, save me!" and, one after another,
+without ceasing, he made low bows to the ground as though he wanted
+to exhaust himself, and he kept shaking his head, so that Aglaia
+looked at him with wonder. He was afraid Matvey would come in, and
+was certain that he would come in, and felt an anger against him
+which he could overcome neither by prayer nor by continually bowing
+down to the ground.
+
+Matvey opened the door very softly and went into the prayer-room.
+
+"It's a sin, such a sin!" he said reproachfully, and heaved a sigh.
+"Repent! Think what you are doing, brother!"
+
+Yakov Ivanitch, clenching his fists and not looking at him for fear
+of striking him, went quickly out of the room. Feeling himself a
+huge terrible wild beast, just as he had done before on the road,
+he crossed the passage into the grey, dirty room, reeking with smoke
+and fog, in which the peasants usually drank tea, and there he spent
+a long time walking from one corner to the other, treading heavily,
+so that the crockery jingled on the shelves and the tables shook.
+It was clear to him now that he was himself dissatisfied with his
+religion, and could not pray as he used to do. He must repent, he
+must think things over, reconsider, live and pray in some other
+way. But how pray? And perhaps all this was a temptation of the
+devil, and nothing of this was necessary? . . . How was it to be?
+What was he to do? Who could guide him? What helplessness! He stopped
+and, clutching at his head, began to think, but Matvey's being near
+him prevented him from reflecting calmly. And he went rapidly into
+the room.
+
+Matvey was sitting in the kitchen before a bowl of potato, eating.
+Close by, near the stove, Aglaia and Dashutka were sitting facing
+one another, spinning yarn. Between the stove and the table at which
+Matvey was sitting was stretched an ironing-board; on it stood a
+cold iron.
+
+"Sister," Matvey asked, "let me have a little oil!"
+
+"Who eats oil on a day like this?" asked Aglaia.
+
+"I am not a monk, sister, but a layman. And in my weak health I may
+take not only oil but milk."
+
+"Yes, at the factory you may have anything."
+
+Aglaia took a bottle of Lenten oil from the shelf and banged it
+angrily down before Matvey, with a malignant smile evidently pleased
+that he was such a sinner.
+
+"But I tell you, you can't eat oil!" shouted Yakov.
+
+Aglaia and Dashutka started, but Matvey poured the oil into the
+bowl and went on eating as though he had not heard.
+
+"I tell you, you can't eat oil!" Yakov shouted still more loudly;
+he turned red all over, snatched up the bowl, lifted it higher than
+his head, and dashed it with all his force to the ground, so that
+it flew into fragments. "Don't dare to speak!" he cried in a furious
+voice, though Matvey had not said a word. "Don't dare!" he repeated,
+and struck his fist on the table.
+
+Matvey turned pale and got up.
+
+"Brother!" he said, still munching--"brother, think what you are
+about!"
+
+"Out of my house this minute!" shouted Yakov; he loathed Matvey's
+wrinkled face, and his voice, and the crumbs on his moustache, and
+the fact that he was munching. "Out, I tell you!"
+
+"Brother, calm yourself! The pride of hell has confounded you!"
+
+"Hold your tongue!" (Yakov stamped.) "Go away, you devil!"
+
+"If you care to know," Matvey went on in a loud voice, as he, too,
+began to get angry, "you are a backslider from God and a heretic.
+The accursed spirits have hidden the true light from you; your
+prayer is not acceptable to God. Repent before it is too late! The
+deathbed of the sinner is terrible! Repent, brother!"
+
+Yakov seized him by the shoulders and dragged him away from the
+table, while he turned whiter than ever, and frightened and bewildered,
+began muttering, "What is it? What's the matter?" and, struggling
+and making efforts to free himself from Yakov's hands, he accidentally
+caught hold of his shirt near the neck and tore the collar; and it
+seemed to Aglaia that he was trying to beat Yakov. She uttered a
+shriek, snatched up the bottle of Lenten oil and with all her force
+brought it down straight on the skull of the cousin she hated.
+Matvey reeled, and in one instant his face became calm and indifferent.
+Yakov, breathing heavily, excited, and feeling pleasure at the
+gurgle the bottle had made, like a living thing, when it had struck
+the head, kept him from falling and several times (he remembered
+this very distinctly) motioned Aglaia towards the iron with his
+finger; and only when the blood began trickling through his hands
+and he heard Dashutka's loud wail, and when the ironing-board fell
+with a crash, and Matvey rolled heavily on it, Yakov left off feeling
+anger and understood what had happened.
+
+"Let him rot, the factory buck!" Aglaia brought out with repulsion,
+still keeping the iron in her hand. The white bloodstained kerchief
+slipped on to her shoulders and her grey hair fell in disorder.
+"He's got what he deserved!"
+
+Everything was terrible. Dashutka sat on the floor near the stove
+with the yarn in her hands, sobbing, and continually bowing down,
+uttering at each bow a gasping sound. But nothing was so terrible
+to Yakov as the potato in the blood, on which he was afraid of
+stepping, and there was something else terrible which weighed upon
+him like a bad dream and seemed the worst danger, though he could
+not take it in for the first minute. This was the waiter, Sergey
+Nikanoritch, who was standing in the doorway with the reckoning
+beads in his hands, very pale, looking with horror at what was
+happening in the kitchen. Only when he turned and went quickly into
+the passage and from there outside, Yakov grasped who it was and
+followed him.
+
+Wiping his hands on the snow as he went, he reflected. The idea
+flashed through his mind that their labourer had gone away long
+before and had asked leave to stay the night at home in the village;
+the day before they had killed a pig, and there were huge bloodstains
+in the snow and on the sledge, and even one side of the top of the
+well was splattered with blood, so that it could not have seemed
+suspicious even if the whole of Yakov's family had been stained
+with blood. To conceal the murder would be agonizing, but for the
+policeman, who would whistle and smile ironically, to come from the
+station, for the peasants to arrive and bind Yakov's and Aglaia's
+hands, and take them solemnly to the district courthouse and from
+there to the town, while everyone on the way would point at them
+and say mirthfully, "They are taking the Godlies!"--this seemed
+to Yakov more agonizing than anything, and he longed to lengthen
+out the time somehow, so as to endure this shame not now, but later,
+in the future.
+
+"I can lend you a thousand roubles, . . ." he said, overtaking
+Sergey Nikanoritch. "If you tell anyone, it will do no good. . . .
+There's no bringing the man back, anyway;" and with difficulty
+keeping up with the waiter, who did not look round, but tried to
+walk away faster than ever, he went on: "I can give you fifteen
+hundred. . . ."
+
+He stopped because he was out of breath, while Sergey Nikanoritch
+walked on as quickly as ever, probably afraid that he would be
+killed, too. Only after passing the railway crossing and going half
+the way from the crossing to the station, he furtively looked round
+and walked more slowly. Lights, red and green, were already gleaming
+in the station and along the line; the wind had fallen, but flakes
+of snow were still coming down and the road had turned white again.
+But just at the station Sergey Nikanoritch stopped, thought a minute,
+and turned resolutely back. It was growing dark.
+
+"Oblige me with the fifteen hundred, Yakov Ivanitch," he said,
+trembling all over. "I agree."
+
+VI
+
+Yakov Ivanitch's money was in the bank of the town and was invested
+in second mortgages; he only kept a little at home, Just what was
+wanted for necessary expenses. Going into the kitchen he felt for
+the matchbox, and while the sulphur was burning with a blue light
+he had time to make out the figure of Matvey, which was still lying
+on the floor near the table, but now it was covered with a white
+sheet, and nothing could be seen but his boots. A cricket was
+chirruping. Aglaia and Dashutka were not in the room, they were
+both sitting behind the counter in the tea-room, spinning yarn in
+silence. Yakov Ivanitch crossed to his own room with a little lamp
+in his hand, and pulled from under the bed a little box in which
+he kept his money. This time there were in it four hundred and
+twenty one-rouble notes and silver to the amount of thirty-five
+roubles; the notes had an unpleasant heavy smell. Putting the money
+together in his cap, Yakov Ivanitch went out into the yard and then
+out of the gate. He walked, looking from side to side, but there
+was no sign of the waiter.
+
+"Hi!" cried Yakov.
+
+A dark figure stepped out from the barrier at the railway crossing
+and came irresolutely towards him.
+
+"Why do you keep walking about?" said Yakov with vexation, as he
+recognized the waiter. "Here you are; there is a little less than
+five hundred. . . . I've no more in the house."
+
+"Very well; . . . very grateful to you," muttered Sergey Nikanoritch,
+taking the money greedily and stuffing it into his pockets. He was
+trembling all over, and that was perceptible in spite of the darkness.
+"Don't worry yourself, Yakov Ivanitch. . . . What should I chatter
+for: I came and went away, that's all I've had to do with it. As
+the saying is, I know nothing and I can tell nothing . . ." And at
+once he added with a sigh "Cursed life!"
+
+For a minute they stood in silence, without looking at each other.
+
+"So it all came from a trifle, goodness knows how, . . ." said the
+waiter, trembling. "I was sitting counting to myself when all at
+once a noise. . . . I looked through the door, and just on account
+of Lenten oil you. . . . Where is he now?"
+
+"Lying there in the kitchen."
+
+"You ought to take him somewhere. . . . Why put it off?"
+
+Yakov accompanied him to the station without a word, then went home
+again and harnessed the horse to take Matvey to Limarovo. He had
+decided to take him to the forest of Limarovo, and to leave him
+there on the road, and then he would tell everyone that Matvey had
+gone off to Vedenyapino and had not come back, and then everyone
+would think that he had been killed by someone on the road. He knew
+there was no deceiving anyone by this, but to move, to do something,
+to be active, was not as agonizing as to sit still and wait. He
+called Dashutka, and with her carried Matvey out. Aglaia stayed
+behind to clean up the kitchen.
+
+When Yakov and Dashutka turned back they were detained at the railway
+crossing by the barrier being let down. A long goods train was
+passing, dragged by two engines, breathing heavily, and flinging
+puffs of crimson fire out of their funnels.
+
+The foremost engine uttered a piercing whistle at the crossing in
+sight of the station.
+
+"It's whistling, . . ." said Dashutka.
+
+The train had passed at last, and the signalman lifted the barrier
+without haste.
+
+"Is that you, Yakov Ivanitch? I didn't know you, so you'll be rich."
+
+And then when they had reached home they had to go to bed.
+
+Aglaia and Dashutka made themselves a bed in the tea-room and lay
+down side by side, while Yakov stretched himself on the counter.
+They neither said their prayers nor lighted the ikon lamp before
+lying down to sleep. All three lay awake till morning, but did not
+utter a single word, and it seemed to them that all night someone
+was walking about in the empty storey overhead.
+
+Two days later a police inspector and the examining magistrate came
+from the town and made a search, first in Matvey's room and then
+in the whole tavern. They questioned Yakov first of all, and he
+testified that on the Monday Matvey had gone to Vedenyapino to
+confess, and that he must have been killed by the sawyers who were
+working on the line.
+
+And when the examining magistrate had asked him how it had happened
+that Matvey was found on the road, while his cap had turned up at
+home--surely he had not gone to Vedenyapino without his cap?--
+and why they had not found a single drop of blood beside him in the
+snow on the road, though his head was smashed in and his face and
+chest were black with blood, Yakov was confused, lost his head and
+answered:
+
+"I cannot tell."
+
+And just what Yakov had so feared happened: the policeman came, the
+district police officer smoked in the prayer-room and Aglaia fell
+upon him with abuse and was rude to the police inspector; and
+afterwards when Yakov and Aglaia were led out to the yard, the
+peasants crowded at the gates and said, "They are taking the Godlies!"
+and it seemed that they were all glad.
+
+At the inquiry the policeman stated positively that Yakov and Aglaia
+had killed Matvey in order not to share with him, and that Matvey
+had money of his own, and that if it was not found at the search
+evidently Yakov and Aglaia had got hold of it. And Dashutka was
+questioned. She said that Uncle Matvey and Aunt Aglaia quarrelled
+and almost fought every day over money, and that Uncle Matvey was
+rich, so much so that he had given someone--"his Darling"--nine
+hundred roubles.
+
+Dashutka was left alone in the tavern. No one came now to drink tea
+or vodka, and she divided her time between cleaning up the rooms,
+drinking mead and eating rolls; but a few days later they questioned
+the signalman at the railway crossing, and he said that late on
+Monday evening he had seen Yakov and Dashutka driving from Limarovo.
+Dashutka, too, was arrested, taken to the town and put in prison.
+It soon became known, from what Aglaia said, that Sergey Nikanoritch
+had been present at the murder. A search was made in his room, and
+money was found in an unusual place, in his snowboots under the
+stove, and the money was all in small change, three hundred one-rouble
+notes. He swore he had made this money himself, and that he hadn't
+been in the tavern for a year, but witnesses testified that he was
+poor and had been in great want of money of late, and that he used
+to go every day to the tavern to borrow from Matvey; and the policeman
+described how on the day of the murder he had himself gone twice
+to the tavern with the waiter to help him to borrow. It was recalled
+at this juncture that on Monday evening Sergey Nikanoritch had not
+been there to meet the passenger train, but had gone off somewhere.
+And he, too, was arrested and taken to the town.
+
+The trial took place eleven months later.
+
+Yakov Ivanitch looked much older and much thinner, and spoke in a
+low voice like a sick man. He felt weak, pitiful, lower in stature
+that anyone else, and it seemed as though his soul, too, like his
+body, had grown older and wasted, from the pangs of his conscience
+and from the dreams and imaginings which never left him all the
+while he was in prison. When it came out that he did not go to
+church the president of the court asked him:
+
+"Are you a dissenter?"
+
+"I can't tell," he answered.
+
+He had no religion at all now; he knew nothing and understood
+nothing; and his old belief was hateful to him now, and seemed to
+him darkness and folly. Aglaia was not in the least subdued, and
+she still went on abusing the dead man, blaming him for all their
+misfortunes. Sergey Nikanoritch had grown a beard instead of whiskers.
+At the trial he was red and perspiring, and was evidently ashamed
+of his grey prison coat and of sitting on the same bench with humble
+peasants. He defended himself awkwardly, and, trying to prove that
+he had not been to the tavern for a whole year, got into an altercation
+with every witness, and the spectators laughed at him. Dashutka had
+grown fat in prison. At the trial she did not understand the questions
+put to her, and only said that when they killed Uncle Matvey she
+was dreadfully frightened, but afterwards she did not mind.
+
+All four were found guilty of murder with mercenary motives. Yakov
+Ivanitch was sentenced to penal servitude for twenty years; Aglaia
+for thirteen and a half; Sergey Nikanoritch to ten; Dashutka to
+six.
+
+VII
+
+Late one evening a foreign steamer stopped in the roads of Due in
+Sahalin and asked for coal. The captain was asked to wait till
+morning, but he did not want to wait over an hour, saying that if
+the weather changed for the worse in the night there would be a
+risk of his having to go off without coal. In the Gulf of Tartary
+the weather is liable to violent changes in the course of half an
+hour, and then the shores of Sahalin are dangerous. And already it
+had turned fresh, and there was a considerable sea running.
+
+A gang of convicts were sent to the mine from the Voevodsky prison,
+the grimmest and most forbidding of all the prisons in Sahalin. The
+coal had to be loaded upon barges, and then they had to be towed
+by a steam-cutter alongside the steamer which was anchored more
+than a quarter of a mile from the coast, and then the unloading and
+reloading had to begin--an exhausting task when the barge kept
+rocking against the steamer and the men could scarcely keep on their
+legs for sea-sickness. The convicts, only just roused from their
+sleep, still drowsy, went along the shore, stumbling in the darkness
+and clanking their fetters. On the left, scarcely visible, was a
+tall, steep, extremely gloomy-looking cliff, while on the right
+there was a thick impenetrable mist, in which the sea moaned with
+a prolonged monotonous sound, "Ah! . . . ah! . . . ah! . . . ah!
+. . ." And it was only when the overseer was lighting his pipe,
+casting as he did so a passing ray of light on the escort with a
+gun and on the coarse faces of two or three of the nearest convicts,
+or when he went with his lantern close to the water that the white
+crests of the foremost waves could be discerned.
+
+One of this gang was Yakov Ivanitch, nicknamed among the convicts
+the "Brush," on account of his long beard. No one had addressed him
+by his name or his father's name for a long time now; they called
+him simply Yashka.
+
+He was here in disgrace, as, three months after coming to Siberia,
+feeling an intense irresistible longing for home, he had succumbed
+to temptation and run away; he had soon been caught, had been
+sentenced to penal servitude for life and given forty lashes. Then
+he was punished by flogging twice again for losing his prison
+clothes, though on each occasion they were stolen from him. The
+longing for home had begun from the very time he had been brought
+to Odessa, and the convict train had stopped in the night at
+Progonnaya; and Yakov, pressing to the window, had tried to see his
+own home, and could see nothing in the darkness. He had no one with
+whom to talk of home. His sister Aglaia had been sent right across
+Siberia, and he did not know where she was now. Dashutka was in
+Sahalin, but she had been sent to live with some ex-convict in a
+far away settlement; there was no news of her except that once a
+settler who had come to the Voevodsky Prison told Yakov that Dashutka
+had three children. Sergey Nikanoritch was serving as a footman at
+a government official's at Due, but he could not reckon on ever
+seeing him, as he was ashamed of being acquainted with convicts of
+the peasant class.
+
+The gang reached the mine, and the men took their places on the
+quay. It was said there would not be any loading, as the weather
+kept getting worse and the steamer was meaning to set off. They
+could see three lights. One of them was moving: that was the
+steam-cutter going to the steamer, and it seemed to be coming back
+to tell them whether the work was to be done or not. Shivering with
+the autumn cold and the damp sea mist, wrapping himself in his short
+torn coat, Yakov Ivanitch looked intently without blinking in the
+direction in which lay his home. Ever since he had lived in prison
+together with men banished here from all ends of the earth--with
+Russians, Ukrainians, Tatars, Georgians, Chinese, Gypsies, Jews--
+and ever since he had listened to their talk and watched their
+sufferings, he had begun to turn again to God, and it seemed to him
+at last that he had learned the true faith for which all his family,
+from his grandmother Avdotya down, had so thirsted, which they had
+sought so long and which they had never found. He knew it all now
+and understood where God was, and how He was to be served, and the
+only thing he could not understand was why men's destinies were so
+diverse, why this simple faith which other men receive from God for
+nothing and together with their lives, had cost him such a price
+that his arms and legs trembled like a drunken man's from all the
+horrors and agonies which as far as he could see would go on without
+a break to the day of his death. He looked with strained eyes into
+the darkness, and it seemed to him that through the thousand miles
+of that mist he could see home, could see his native province, his
+district, Progonnaya, could see the darkness, the savagery, the
+heartlessness, and the dull, sullen, animal indifference of the men
+he had left there. His eyes were dimmed with tears; but still he
+gazed into the distance where the pale lights of the steamer faintly
+gleamed, and his heart ached with yearning for home, and he longed
+to live, to go back home to tell them there of his new faith and
+to save from ruin if only one man, and to live without suffering
+if only for one day.
+
+The cutter arrived, and the overseer announced in a loud voice that
+there would be no loading.
+
+"Back!" he commanded. "Steady!"
+
+They could hear the hoisting of the anchor chain on the steamer. A
+strong piercing wind was blowing by now; somewhere on the steep
+cliff overhead the trees were creaking. Most likely a storm was
+coming.
+
+
+UPROOTED
+
+_An Incident of My Travels_
+
+I WAS on my way back from evening service. The clock in the belfry
+of the Svyatogorsky Monastery pealed out its soft melodious chimes
+by way of prelude and then struck twelve. The great courtyard of
+the monastery stretched out at the foot of the Holy Mountains on
+the banks of the Donets, and, enclosed by the high hostel buildings
+as by a wall, seemed now in the night, when it was lighted up only
+by dim lanterns, lights in the windows, and the stars, a living
+hotch-potch full of movement, sound, and the most original confusion.
+From end to end, so far as the eye could see, it was all choked up
+with carts, old-fashioned coaches and chaises, vans, tilt-carts,
+about which stood crowds of horses, dark and white, and horned oxen,
+while people bustled about, and black long-skirted lay brothers
+threaded their way in and out in all directions. Shadows and streaks
+of light cast from the windows moved over the carts and the heads
+of men and horses, and in the dense twilight this all assumed the
+most monstrous capricious shapes: here the tilted shafts stretched
+upwards to the sky, here eyes of fire appeared in the face of a
+horse, there a lay brother grew a pair of black wings. . . . There
+was the noise of talk, the snorting and munching of horses, the
+creaking of carts, the whimpering of children. Fresh crowds kept
+walking in at the gate and belated carts drove up.
+
+The pines which were piled up on the overhanging mountain, one above
+another, and leaned towards the roof of the hostel, gazed into the
+courtyard as into a deep pit, and listened in wonder; in their dark
+thicket the cuckoos and nightingales never ceased calling. . . .
+Looking at the confusion, listening to the uproar, one fancied that
+in this living hotch-potch no one understood anyone, that everyone
+was looking for something and would not find it, and that this
+multitude of carts, chaises and human beings could not ever succeed
+in getting off.
+
+More than ten thousand people flocked to the Holy Mountains for the
+festivals of St. John the Divine and St. Nikolay the wonder-worker.
+Not only the hostel buildings, but even the bakehouse, the tailoring
+room, the carpenter's shop, the carriage house, were filled to
+overflowing. . . . Those who had arrived towards night clustered
+like flies in autumn, by the walls, round the wells in the yard,
+or in the narrow passages of the hostel, waiting to be shown a
+resting-place for the night. The lay brothers, young and old, were
+in an incessant movement, with no rest or hope of being relieved.
+By day or late at night they produced the same impression of men
+hastening somewhere and agitated by something, yet, in spite of
+their extreme exhaustion, their faces remained full of courage and
+kindly welcome, their voices friendly, their movements rapid. . . .
+For everyone who came they had to find a place to sleep, and to
+provide food and drink; to those who were deaf, slow to understand,
+or profuse in questions, they had to give long and wearisome
+explanations, to tell them why there were no empty rooms, at what
+o'clock the service was to be where holy bread was sold, and so on.
+They had to run, to carry, to talk incessantly, but more than that,
+they had to be polite, too, to be tactful, to try to arrange that
+the Greeks from Mariupol, accustomed to live more comfortably than
+the Little Russians, should be put with other Greeks, that some
+shopkeeper from Bahmut or Lisitchansk, dressed like a lady, should
+not be offended by being put with peasants. There were continual
+cries of: "Father, kindly give us some kvass! Kindly give us some
+hay!" or "Father, may I drink water after confession?" And the lay
+brother would have to give out kvass or hay or to answer: "Address
+yourself to the priest, my good woman, we have not the authority
+to give permission." Another question would follow, "Where is the
+priest then?" and the lay brother would have to explain where was
+the priest's cell. With all this bustling activity, he yet had to
+make time to go to service in the church, to serve in the part
+devoted to the gentry, and to give full answers to the mass of
+necessary and unnecessary questions which pilgrims of the educated
+class are fond of showering about them. Watching them during the
+course of twenty-four hours, I found it hard to imagine when these
+black moving figures sat down and when they slept.
+
+When, coming back from the evening service, I went to the hostel
+in which a place had been assigned me, the monk in charge of the
+sleeping quarters was standing in the doorway, and beside him, on
+the steps, was a group of several men and women dressed like
+townsfolk.
+
+"Sir," said the monk, stopping me, "will you be so good as to allow
+this young man to pass the night in your room? If you would do us
+the favour! There are so many people and no place left--it is
+really dreadful!"
+
+And he indicated a short figure in a light overcoat and a straw
+hat. I consented, and my chance companion followed me. Unlocking
+the little padlock on my door, I was always, whether I wanted to
+or not, obliged to look at the picture that hung on the doorpost
+on a level with my face. This picture with the title, "A Meditation
+on Death," depicted a monk on his knees, gazing at a coffin and at
+a skeleton laying in it. Behind the man's back stood another skeleton,
+somewhat more solid and carrying a scythe.
+
+"There are no bones like that," said my companion, pointing to the
+place in the skeleton where there ought to have been a pelvis.
+"Speaking generally, you know, the spiritual fare provided for the
+people is not of the first quality," he added, and heaved through
+his nose a long and very melancholy sigh, meant to show me that I
+had to do with a man who really knew something about spiritual fare.
+
+While I was looking for the matches to light a candle he sighed
+once more and said:
+
+"When I was in Harkov I went several times to the anatomy theatre
+and saw the bones there; I have even been in the mortuary. Am I not
+in your way?"
+
+My room was small and poky, with neither table nor chairs in it,
+but quite filled up with a chest of drawers by the window, the stove
+and two little wooden sofas which stood against the walls, facing
+one another, leaving a narrow space to walk between them. Thin
+rusty-looking little mattresses lay on the little sofas, as well
+as my belongings. There were two sofas, so this room was evidently
+intended for two, and I pointed out the fact to my companion.
+
+"They will soon be ringing for mass, though," he said, "and I shan't
+have to be in your way very long."
+
+Still under the impression that he was in my way and feeling awkward,
+he moved with a guilty step to his little sofa, sighed guiltily and
+sat down. When the tallow candle with its dim, dilatory flame had
+left off flickering and burned up sufficiently to make us both
+visible, I could make out what he was like. He was a young man of
+two-and-twenty, with a round and pleasing face, dark childlike eyes,
+dressed like a townsman in grey cheap clothes, and as one could
+judge from his complexion and narrow shoulders, not used to manual
+labour. He was of a very indefinite type; one could take him neither
+for a student nor for a man in trade, still less for a workman. But
+looking at his attractive face and childlike friendly eyes, I was
+unwilling to believe he was one of those vagabond impostors with
+whom every conventual establishment where they give food and lodging
+is flooded, and who give themselves out as divinity students,
+expelled for standing up for justice, or for church singers who
+have lost their voice. . . . There was something characteristic,
+typical, very familiar in his face, but what exactly, I could not
+remember nor make out.
+
+For a long time he sat silent, pondering. Probably because I had
+not shown appreciation of his remarks about bones and the mortuary,
+he thought that I was ill-humoured and displeased at his presence.
+Pulling a sausage out of his pocket, he turned it about before his
+eyes and said irresolutely:
+
+"Excuse my troubling you, . . . have you a knife?"
+
+I gave him a knife.
+
+"The sausage is disgusting," he said, frowning and cutting himself
+off a little bit. "In the shop here they sell you rubbish and fleece
+you horribly. . . . I would offer you a piece, but you would scarcely
+care to consume it. Will you have some?"
+
+In his language, too, there was something typical that had a very
+great deal in common with what was characteristic in his face, but
+what it was exactly I still could not decide. To inspire confidence
+and to show that I was not ill-humoured, I took some of the proffered
+sausage. It certainly was horrible; one needed the teeth of a good
+house-dog to deal with it. As we worked our jaws we got into
+conversation; we began complaining to each other of the lengthiness
+of the service.
+
+"The rule here approaches that of Mount Athos," I said; "but at
+Athos the night services last ten hours, and on great feast-days
+--fourteen! You should go there for prayers!"
+
+"Yes," answered my companion, and he wagged his head, "I have been
+here for three weeks. And you know, every day services, every day
+services. On ordinary days at midnight they ring for matins, at
+five o'clock for early mass, at nine o'clock for late mass. Sleep
+is utterly out of the question. In the daytime there are hymns of
+praise, special prayers, vespers. . . . And when I was preparing
+for the sacrament I was simply dropping from exhaustion." He sighed
+and went on: "And it's awkward not to go to church. . . . The monks
+give one a room, feed one, and, you know, one is ashamed not to go.
+One wouldn't mind standing it for a day or two, perhaps, but three
+weeks is too much--much too much! Are you here for long?"
+
+"I am going to-morrow evening."
+
+"But I am staying another fortnight."
+
+"But I thought it was not the rule to stay for so long here?" I
+said.
+
+"Yes, that's true: if anyone stays too long, sponging on the monks,
+he is asked to go. Judge for yourself, if the proletariat were
+allowed to stay on here as long as they liked there would never be
+a room vacant, and they would eat up the whole monastery. That's
+true. But the monks make an exception for me, and I hope they won't
+turn me out for some time. You know I am a convert."
+
+"You mean?"
+
+"I am a Jew baptized. . . . Only lately I have embraced orthodoxy."
+
+Now I understood what I had before been utterly unable to understand
+from his face: his thick lips, and his way of twitching up the right
+corner of his mouth and his right eyebrow, when he was talking, and
+that peculiar oily brilliance of his eyes which is only found in
+Jews. I understood, too, his phraseology. . . . From further
+conversation I learned that his name was Alexandr Ivanitch, and had
+in the past been Isaac, that he was a native of the Mogilev province,
+and that he had come to the Holy Mountains from Novotcherkassk,
+where he had adopted the orthodox faith.
+
+Having finished his sausage, Alexandr Ivanitch got up, and, raising
+his right eyebrow, said his prayer before the ikon. The eyebrow
+remained up when he sat down again on the little sofa and began
+giving me a brief account of his long biography.
+
+"From early childhood I cherished a love for learning," he began
+in a tone which suggested he was not speaking of himself, but of
+some great man of the past. "My parents were poor Hebrews; they
+exist by buying and selling in a small way; they live like beggars,
+you know, in filth. In fact, all the people there are poor and
+superstitious; they don't like education, because education, very
+naturally, turns a man away from religion. . . . They are fearful
+fanatics. . . . Nothing would induce my parents to let me be educated,
+and they wanted me to take to trade, too, and to know nothing but
+the Talmud. . . . But you will agree, it is not everyone who can
+spend his whole life struggling for a crust of bread, wallowing in
+filth, and mumbling the Talmud. At times officers and country
+gentlemen would put up at papa's inn, and they used to talk a great
+deal of things which in those days I had never dreamed of; and, of
+course, it was alluring and moved me to envy. I used to cry and
+entreat them to send me to school, but they taught me to read Hebrew
+and nothing more. Once I found a Russian newspaper, and took it
+home with me to make a kite of it. I was beaten for it, though I
+couldn't read Russian. Of course, fanaticism is inevitable, for
+every people instinctively strives to preserve its nationality, but
+I did not know that then and was very indignant. . . ."
+
+Having made such an intellectual observation, Isaac, as he had been,
+raised his right eyebrow higher than ever in his satisfaction and
+looked at me, as it were, sideways, like a cock at a grain of corn,
+with an air as though he would say: "Now at last you see for certain
+that I am an intellectual man, don't you?" After saying something
+more about fanaticism and his irresistible yearning for enlightenment,
+he went on:
+
+"What could I do? I ran away to Smolensk. And there I had a cousin
+who relined saucepans and made tins. Of course, I was glad to work
+under him, as I had nothing to live upon; I was barefoot and in
+rags. . . . I thought I could work by day and study at night and
+on Saturdays. And so I did, but the police found out I had no
+passport and sent me back by stages to my father. . . ."
+
+Alexandr Ivanitch shrugged one shoulder and sighed.
+
+"What was one to do?" he went on, and the more vividly the past
+rose up before his mind, the more marked his Jewish accent became.
+"My parents punished me and handed me over to my grandfather, a
+fanatical old Jew, to be reformed. But I went off at night to Shklov.
+And when my uncle tried to catch me in Shklov, I went off to Mogilev;
+there I stayed two days and then I went off to Starodub with a
+comrade."
+
+Later on he mentioned in his story Gonel, Kiev, Byelaya, Tserkov,
+Uman, Balt, Bendery and at last reached Odessa.
+
+"In Odessa I wandered about for a whole week, out of work and hungry,
+till I was taken in by some Jews who went about the town buying
+second-hand clothes. I knew how to read and write by then, and had
+done arithmetic up to fractions, and I wanted to go to study
+somewhere, but I had not the means. What was I to do? For six months
+I went about Odessa buying old clothes, but the Jews paid me no
+wages, the rascals. I resented it and left them. Then I went by
+steamer to Perekop."
+
+"What for?"
+
+"Oh, nothing. A Greek promised me a job there. In short, till I was
+sixteen I wandered about like that with no definite work and no
+roots till I got to Poltava. There a student, a Jew, found out that
+I wanted to study, and gave me a letter to the Harkov students. Of
+course, I went to Harkov. The students consulted together and began
+to prepare me for the technical school. And, you know, I must say
+the students that I met there were such that I shall never forget
+them to the day of my death. To say nothing of their giving me food
+and lodging, they set me on the right path, they made me think,
+showed me the object of life. Among them were intellectual remarkable
+people who by now are celebrated. For instance, you have heard of
+Grumaher, haven't you?"
+
+"No, I haven't."
+
+"You haven't! He wrote very clever articles in the _Harkov Gazette_,
+and was preparing to be a professor. Well, I read a great deal and
+attended the student's societies, where you hear nothing that is
+commonplace. I was working up for six months, but as one has to
+have been through the whole high-school course of mathematics to
+enter the technical school, Grumaher advised me to try for the
+veterinary institute, where they admit high-school boys from the
+sixth form. Of course, I began working for it. I did not want to
+be a veterinary surgeon but they told me that after finishing the
+course at the veterinary institute I should be admitted to the
+faculty of medicine without examination. I learnt all Kuehner; I
+could read Cornelius Nepos, _a livre ouvert_; and in Greek I read
+through almost all Curtius. But, you know, one thing and another,
+. . . the students leaving and the uncertainty of my position, and
+then I heard that my mamma had come and was looking for me all over
+Harkov. Then I went away. What was I to do? But luckily I learned
+that there was a school of mines here on the Donets line. Why should
+I not enter that? You know the school of mines qualifies one as a
+mining foreman--a splendid berth. I know of mines where the foremen
+get a salary of fifteen hundred a year. Capital. . . . I entered
+it. . . ."
+
+With an expression of reverent awe on his face Alexandr Ivanitch
+enumerated some two dozen abstruse sciences in which instruction
+was given at the school of mines; he described the school itself,
+the construction of the shafts, and the condition of the miners. . . .
+Then he told me a terrible story which sounded like an invention,
+though I could not help believing it, for his tone in telling it
+was too genuine and the expression of horror on his Semitic face
+was too evidently sincere.
+
+"While I was doing the practical work, I had such an accident one
+day!" he said, raising both eyebrows. "I was at a mine here in the
+Donets district. You have seen, I dare say, how people are let down
+into the mine. You remember when they start the horse and set the
+gates moving one bucket on the pulley goes down into the mine, while
+the other comes up; when the first begins to come up, then the
+second goes down--exactly like a well with two pails. Well, one
+day I got into the bucket, began going down, and can you fancy, all
+at once I heard, Trrr! The chain had broken and I flew to the devil
+together with the bucket and the broken bit of chain. . . . I fell
+from a height of twenty feet, flat on my chest and stomach, while
+the bucket, being heavier, reached the bottom before me, and I hit
+this shoulder here against its edge. I lay, you know, stunned. I
+thought I was killed, and all at once I saw a fresh calamity: the
+other bucket, which was going up, having lost the counter-balancing
+weight, was coming down with a crash straight upon me. . . . What
+was I to do? Seeing the position, I squeezed closer to the wall,
+crouching and waiting for the bucket to come full crush next minute
+on my head. I thought of papa and mamma and Mogilev and Grumaher.
+. . . I prayed. . . . But happily . . . it frightens me even to
+think of it. . . ."
+
+Alexandr Ivanitch gave a constrained smile and rubbed his forehead
+with his hand.
+
+"But happily it fell beside me and only caught this side a little.
+. . . It tore off coat, shirt and skin, you know, from this side.
+. . . The force of it was terrific. I was unconscious after it.
+They got me out and sent me to the hospital. I was there four months,
+and the doctors there said I should go into consumption. I always
+have a cough now and a pain in my chest. And my psychic condition
+is terrible. . . . When I am alone in a room I feel overcome with
+terror. Of course, with my health in that state, to be a mining
+foreman is out of the question. I had to give up the school of
+mines. . . ."
+
+"And what are you doing now?" I asked.
+
+"I have passed my examination as a village schoolmaster. Now I
+belong to the orthodox church, and I have a right to be a teacher.
+In Novotcherkassk, where I was baptized, they took a great interest
+in me and promised me a place in a church parish school. I am going
+there in a fortnight, and shall ask again."
+
+Alexandr Ivanitch took off his overcoat and remained in a shirt
+with an embroidered Russian collar and a worsted belt.
+
+"It is time for bed," he said, folding his overcoat for a pillow,
+and yawning. "Till lately, you know, I had no knowledge of God at
+all. I was an atheist. When I was lying in the hospital I thought
+of religion, and began reflecting on that subject. In my opinion,
+there is only one religion possible for a thinking man, and that
+is the Christian religion. If you don't believe in Christ, then
+there is nothing else to believe in, . . . is there? Judaism has
+outlived its day, and is preserved only owing to the peculiarities
+of the Jewish race. When civilization reaches the Jews there will
+not be a trace of Judaism left. All young Jews are atheists now,
+observe. The New Testament is the natural continuation of the Old,
+isn't it?"
+
+I began trying to find out the reasons which had led him to take
+so grave and bold a step as the change of religion, but he kept
+repeating the same, "The New Testament is the natural continuation
+of the Old"--a formula obviously not his own, but acquired--
+which did not explain the question in the least. In spite of my
+efforts and artifices, the reasons remained obscure. If one could
+believe that he had embraced Orthodoxy from conviction, as he said
+he had done, what was the nature and foundation of this conviction
+it was impossible to grasp from his words. It was equally impossible
+to assume that he had changed his religion from interested motives:
+his cheap shabby clothes, his going on living at the expense of the
+convent, and the uncertainty of his future, did not look like
+interested motives. There was nothing for it but to accept the idea
+that my companion had been impelled to change his religion by the
+same restless spirit which had flung him like a chip of wood from
+town to town, and which he, using the generally accepted formula,
+called the craving for enlightenment.
+
+Before going to bed I went into the corridor to get a drink of
+water. When I came back my companion was standing in the middle of
+the room, and he looked at me with a scared expression. His face
+looked a greyish white, and there were drops of perspiration on his
+forehead.
+
+"My nerves are in an awful state," he muttered with a sickly smile,"
+awful! It's acute psychological disturbance. But that's of no
+consequence."
+
+And he began reasoning again that the New Testament was a natural
+continuation of the Old, that Judaism has outlived its day. . . .
+Picking out his phrases, he seemed to be trying to put together the
+forces of his conviction and to smother with them the uneasiness
+of his soul, and to prove to himself that in giving up the religion
+of his fathers he had done nothing dreadful or peculiar, but had
+acted as a thinking man free from prejudice, and that therefore he
+could boldly remain in a room all alone with his conscience. He was
+trying to convince himself, and with his eyes besought my assistance.
+
+Meanwhile a big clumsy wick had burned up on our tallow candle. It
+was by now getting light. At the gloomy little window, which was
+turning blue, we could distinctly see both banks of the Donets River
+and the oak copse beyond the river. It was time to sleep.
+
+"It will be very interesting here to-morrow," said my companion
+when I put out the candle and went to bed. "After early mass, the
+procession will go in boats from the Monastery to the Hermitage."
+
+Raising his right eyebrow and putting his head on one side, he
+prayed before the ikons, and, without undressing, lay down on his
+little sofa.
+
+"Yes," he said, turning over on the other side.
+
+"Why yes?" I asked.
+
+"When I accepted orthodoxy in Novotcherkassk my mother was looking
+for me in Rostov. She felt that I meant to change my religion," he
+sighed, and went on: "It is six years since I was there in the
+province of Mogilev. My sister must be married by now."
+
+After a short silence, seeing that I was still awake, he began
+talking quietly of how they soon, thank God, would give him a job,
+and that at last he would have a home of his own, a settled position,
+his daily bread secure. . . . And I was thinking that this man would
+never have a home of his own, nor a settled position, nor his daily
+bread secure. He dreamed aloud of a village school as of the Promised
+Land; like the majority of people, he had a prejudice against a
+wandering life, and regarded it as something exceptional, abnormal
+and accidental, like an illness, and was looking for salvation in
+ordinary workaday life. The tone of his voice betrayed that he was
+conscious of his abnormal position and regretted it. He seemed as
+it were apologizing and justifying himself.
+
+Not more than a yard from me lay a homeless wanderer; in the rooms
+of the hostels and by the carts in the courtyard among the pilgrims
+some hundreds of such homeless wanderers were waiting for the
+morning, and further away, if one could picture to oneself the whole
+of Russia, a vast multitude of such uprooted creatures was pacing
+at that moment along highroads and side-tracks, seeking something
+better, or were waiting for the dawn, asleep in wayside inns and
+little taverns, or on the grass under the open sky. . . . As I fell
+asleep I imagined how amazed and perhaps even overjoyed all these
+people would have been if reasoning and words could be found to
+prove to them that their life was as little in need of justification
+as any other. In my sleep I heard a bell ring outside as plaintively
+as though shedding bitter tears, and the lay brother calling out
+several times:
+
+"Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy upon us! Come to mass!"
+
+When I woke up my companion was not in the room. It was sunny and
+there was a murmur of the crowds through the window. Going out, I
+learned that mass was over and that the procession had set off for
+the Hermitage some time before. The people were wandering in crowds
+upon the river bank and, feeling at liberty, did not know what to
+do with themselves: they could not eat or drink, as the late mass
+was not yet over at the Hermitage; the Monastery shops where pilgrims
+are so fond of crowding and asking prices were still shut. In spite
+of their exhaustion, many of them from sheer boredom were trudging
+to the Hermitage. The path from the Monastery to the Hermitage,
+towards which I directed my steps, twined like a snake along the
+high steep bank, going up and down and threading in and out among
+the oaks and pines. Below, the Donets gleamed, reflecting the sun;
+above, the rugged chalk cliff stood up white with bright green on
+the top from the young foliage of oaks and pines, which, hanging
+one above another, managed somehow to grow on the vertical cliff
+without falling. The pilgrims trailed along the path in single file,
+one behind another. The majority of them were Little Russians from
+the neighbouring districts, but there were many from a distance,
+too, who had come on foot from the provinces of Kursk and Orel; in
+the long string of varied colours there were Greek settlers, too,
+from Mariupol, strongly built, sedate and friendly people, utterly
+unlike their weakly and degenerate compatriots who fill our southern
+seaside towns. There were men from the Donets, too, with red stripes
+on their breeches, and emigrants from the Tavritchesky province.
+There were a good many pilgrims of a nondescript class, like my
+Alexandr Ivanitch; what sort of people they were and where they
+came from it was impossible to tell from their faces, from their
+clothes, or from their speech. The path ended at the little
+landing-stage, from which a narrow road went to the left to the
+Hermitage, cutting its way through the mountain. At the landing-stage
+stood two heavy big boats of a forbidding aspect, like the New
+Zealand pirogues which one may see in the works of Jules Verne. One
+boat with rugs on the seats was destined for the clergy and the
+singers, the other without rugs for the public. When the procession
+was returning I found myself among the elect who had succeeded in
+squeezing themselves into the second. There were so many of the
+elect that the boat scarcely moved, and one had to stand all the
+way without stirring and to be careful that one's hat was not
+crushed. The route was lovely. Both banks--one high, steep and
+white, with overhanging pines and oaks, with the crowds hurrying
+back along the path, and the other shelving, with green meadows and
+an oak copse bathed in sunshine--looked as happy and rapturous
+as though the May morning owed its charm only to them. The reflection
+of the sun in the rapidly flowing Donets quivered and raced away
+in all directions, and its long rays played on the chasubles, on
+the banners and on the drops splashed up by the oars. The singing
+of the Easter hymns, the ringing of the bells, the splash of the
+oars in the water, the calls of the birds, all mingled in the air
+into something tender and harmonious. The boat with the priests and
+the banners led the way; at its helm the black figure of a lay
+brother stood motionless as a statue.
+
+When the procession was getting near the Monastery, I noticed
+Alexandr Ivanitch among the elect. He was standing in front of them
+all, and, his mouth wide open with pleasure and his right eyebrow
+cocked up, was gazing at the procession. His face was beaming;
+probably at such moments, when there were so many people round him
+and it was so bright, he was satisfied with himself, his new religion,
+and his conscience.
+
+When a little later we were sitting in our room, drinking tea, he
+still beamed with satisfaction; his face showed that he was satisfied
+both with the tea and with me, that he fully appreciated my being
+an intellectual, but that he would know how to play his part with
+credit if any intellectual topic turned up. . . .
+
+"Tell me, what psychology ought I to read?" he began an intellectual
+conversation, wrinkling up his nose.
+
+"Why, what do you want it for?"
+
+"One cannot be a teacher without a knowledge of psychology. Before
+teaching a boy I ought to understand his soul."
+
+I told him that psychology alone would not be enough to make one
+understand a boy's soul, and moreover psychology for a teacher who
+had not yet mastered the technical methods of instruction in reading,
+writing, and arithmetic would be a luxury as superfluous as the
+higher mathematics. He readily agreed with me, and began describing
+how hard and responsible was the task of a teacher, how hard it was
+to eradicate in the boy the habitual tendency to evil and superstition,
+to make him think honestly and independently, to instil into him
+true religion, the ideas of personal dignity, of freedom, and so
+on. In answer to this I said something to him. He agreed again. He
+agreed very readily, in fact. Obviously his brain had not a very
+firm grasp of all these "intellectual subjects."
+
+Up to the time of my departure we strolled together about the
+Monastery, whiling away the long hot day. He never left my side a
+minute; whether he had taken a fancy to me or was afraid of solitude,
+God only knows! I remember we sat together under a clump of yellow
+acacia in one of the little gardens that are scattered on the
+mountain side.
+
+"I am leaving here in a fortnight," he said; "it is high time."
+
+"Are you going on foot?"
+
+"From here to Slavyansk I shall walk, then by railway to Nikitovka;
+from Nikitovka the Donets line branches off, and along that branch
+line I shall walk as far as Hatsepetovka, and there a railway guard,
+I know, will help me on my way."
+
+I thought of the bare, deserted steppe between Nikitovka and
+Hatsepetovka, and pictured to myself Alexandr Ivanitch striding
+along it, with his doubts, his homesickness, and his fear of solitude
+. . . . He read boredom in my face, and sighed.
+
+"And my sister must be married by now," he said, thinking aloud,
+and at once, to shake off melancholy thoughts, pointed to the top
+of the rock and said:
+
+"From that mountain one can see Izyum."
+
+As we were walking up the mountain he had a little misfortune. I
+suppose he stumbled, for he slit his cotton trousers and tore the
+sole of his shoe.
+
+"Tss!" he said, frowning as he took off a shoe and exposed a bare
+foot without a stocking. "How unpleasant! . . . That's a complication,
+you know, which . . . Yes!"
+
+Turning the shoe over and over before his eyes, as though unable
+to believe that the sole was ruined for ever, he spent a long time
+frowning, sighing, and clicking with his tongue.
+
+I had in my trunk a pair of boots, old but fashionable, with pointed
+toes and laces. I had brought them with me in case of need, and
+only wore them in wet weather. When we got back to our room I made
+up a phrase as diplomatic as I could and offered him these boots.
+He accepted them and said with dignity:
+
+"I should thank you, but I know that you consider thanks a convention."
+
+He was pleased as a child with the pointed toes and the laces, and
+even changed his plans.
+
+"Now I shall go to Novotcherkassk in a week, and not in a fortnight,"
+he said, thinking aloud. "In shoes like these I shall not be ashamed
+to show myself to my godfather. I was not going away from here just
+because I hadn't any decent clothes. . . ."
+
+When the coachman was carrying out my trunk, a lay brother with a
+good ironical face came in to sweep out the room. Alexandr Ivanitch
+seemed flustered and embarrassed and asked him timidly:
+
+"Am I to stay here or go somewhere else?"
+
+He could not make up his mind to occupy a whole room to himself,
+and evidently by now was feeling ashamed of living at the expense
+of the Monastery. He was very reluctant to part from me; to put off
+being lonely as long as possible, he asked leave to see me on my
+way.
+
+The road from the Monastery, which had been excavated at the cost
+of no little labour in the chalk mountain, moved upwards, going
+almost like a spiral round the mountain, over roots and under sullen
+overhanging pines. . . .
+
+The Donets was the first to vanish from our sight, after it the
+Monastery yard with its thousands of people, and then the green
+roofs. . . . Since I was mounting upwards everything seemed vanishing
+into a pit. The cross on the church, burnished by the rays of the
+setting sun, gleamed brightly in the abyss and vanished. Nothing
+was left but the oaks, the pines, and the white road. But then our
+carriage came out on a level country, and that was all left below
+and behind us. Alexandr Ivanitch jumped out and, smiling mournfully,
+glanced at me for the last time with his childish eyes, and vanished
+from me for ever. . . .
+
+The impressions of the Holy Mountains had already become memories,
+and I saw something new: the level plain, the whitish-brown distance,
+the way side copse, and beyond it a windmill which stood with out
+moving, and seemed bored at not being allowed to wave its sails
+because it was a holiday.
+
+
+THE STEPPE
+
+_The Story of a Journey_
+
+I
+
+EARLY one morning in July a shabby covered chaise, one of those
+antediluvian chaises without springs in which no one travels in
+Russia nowadays, except merchant's clerks, dealers and the less
+well-to-do among priests, drove out of N., the principal town of
+the province of Z., and rumbled noisily along the posting-track.
+It rattled and creaked at every movement; the pail, hanging on
+behind, chimed in gruffly, and from these sounds alone and from the
+wretched rags of leather hanging loose about its peeling body one
+could judge of its decrepit age and readiness to drop to pieces.
+
+Two of the inhabitants of N. were sitting in the chaise; they were
+a merchant of N. called Ivan Ivanitch Kuzmitchov, a man with a
+shaven face wearing glasses and a straw hat, more like a government
+clerk than a merchant, and Father Christopher Sireysky, the priest
+of the Church of St. Nikolay at N., a little old man with long hair,
+in a grey canvas cassock, a wide-brimmed top-hat and a coloured
+embroidered girdle. The former was absorbed in thought, and kept
+tossing his head to shake off drowsiness; in his countenance an
+habitual business-like reserve was struggling with the genial
+expression of a man who has just said good-bye to his relatives and
+has had a good drink at parting. The latter gazed with moist eyes
+wonderingly at God's world, and his smile was so broad that it
+seemed to embrace even the brim of his hat; his face was red and
+looked frozen. Both of them, Father Christopher as well as Kuzmitchov,
+were going to sell wool. At parting with their families they had
+just eaten heartily of pastry puffs and cream, and although it was
+so early in the morning had had a glass or two. . . . Both were in
+the best of humours.
+
+Apart from the two persons described above and the coachman Deniska,
+who lashed the pair of frisky bay horses, there was another figure
+in the chaise--a boy of nine with a sunburnt face, wet with tears.
+This was Yegorushka, Kuzmitchov's nephew. With the sanction of his
+uncle and the blessing of Father Christopher, he was now on his way
+to go to school. His mother, Olga Ivanovna, the widow of a collegiate
+secretary, and Kuzmitchov's sister, who was fond of educated people
+and refined society, had entreated her brother to take Yegorushka
+with him when he went to sell wool and to put him to school; and
+now the boy was sitting on the box beside the coachman Deniska,
+holding on to his elbow to keep from falling off, and dancing up
+and down like a kettle on the hob, with no notion where he was going
+or what he was going for. The rapid motion through the air blew out
+his red shirt like a balloon on his back and made his new hat with
+a peacock's feather in it, like a coachman's, keep slipping on to
+the back of his head. He felt himself an intensely unfortunate
+person, and had an inclination to cry.
+
+When the chaise drove past the prison, Yegorushka glanced at the
+sentinels pacing slowly by the high white walls, at the little
+barred windows, at the cross shining on the roof, and remembered
+how the week before, on the day of the Holy Mother of Kazan, he had
+been with his mother to the prison church for the Dedication Feast,
+and how before that, at Easter, he had gone to the prison with
+Deniska and Ludmila the cook, and had taken the prisoners Easter
+bread, eggs, cakes and roast beef. The prisoners had thanked them
+and made the sign of the cross, and one of them had given Yegorushka
+a pewter buckle of his own making.
+
+The boy gazed at the familiar places, while the hateful chaise flew
+by and left them all behind. After the prison he caught glimpses
+of black grimy foundries, followed by the snug green cemetery
+surrounded by a wall of cobblestones; white crosses and tombstones,
+nestling among green cherry-trees and looking in the distance like
+patches of white, peeped out gaily from behind the wall. Yegorushka
+remembered that when the cherries were in blossom those white patches
+melted with the flowers into a sea of white; and that when the
+cherries were ripe the white tombstones and crosses were dotted
+with splashes of red like bloodstains. Under the cherry trees in
+the cemetery Yegorushka's father and granny, Zinaida Danilovna, lay
+sleeping day and night. When Granny had died she had been put in a
+long narrow coffin and two pennies had been put upon her eyes, which
+would not keep shut. Up to the time of her death she had been brisk,
+and used to bring soft rolls covered with poppy seeds from the
+market. Now she did nothing but sleep and sleep. . . .
+
+Beyond the cemetery came the smoking brickyards. From under the
+long roofs of reeds that looked as though pressed flat to the ground,
+a thick black smoke rose in great clouds and floated lazily upwards.
+The sky was murky above the brickyards and the cemetery, and great
+shadows from the clouds of smoke crept over the fields and across
+the roads. Men and horses covered with red dust were moving about
+in the smoke near the roofs.
+
+The town ended with the brickyards and the open country began.
+Yegorushka looked at the town for the last time, pressed his face
+against Deniska's elbow, and wept bitterly.
+
+"Come, not done howling yet, cry-baby!" cried Kuzmitchov. "You are
+blubbering again, little milksop! If you don't want to go, stay
+behind; no one is taking you by force!
+
+"Never mind, never mind, Yegor boy, never mind," Father Christopher
+muttered rapidly--"never mind, my boy. . . . Call upon God. . . .
+You are not going for your harm, but for your good. Learning is
+light, as the saying is, and ignorance is darkness. . . . That is
+so, truly."
+
+"Do you want to go back?" asked Kuzmitchov.
+
+"Yes, . . . yes, . . ." answered Yegorushka, sobbing.
+
+"Well, you'd better go back then. Anyway, you are going for nothing;
+it's a day's journey for a spoonful of porridge."
+
+"Never mind, never mind, my boy," Father Christopher went on. "Call
+upon God. . . . Lomonosov set off with the fishermen in the same
+way, and he became a man famous all over Europe. Learning in
+conjunction with faith brings forth fruit pleasing to God. What are
+the words of the prayer? For the glory of our Maker, for the comfort
+of our parents, for the benefit of our Church and our country. . . .
+Yes, indeed!"
+
+"The benefit is not the same in all cases," said Kuzmitchov, lighting
+a cheap cigar; "some will study twenty years and get no sense from
+it."
+
+"That does happen."
+
+"Learning is a benefit to some, but others only muddle their brains.
+My sister is a woman who does not understand; she is set upon
+refinement, and wants to turn Yegorka into a learned man, and she
+does not understand that with my business I could settle Yegorka
+happily for the rest of his life. I tell you this, that if everyone
+were to go in for being learned and refined there would be no one
+to sow the corn and do the trading; they would all die of hunger."
+
+"And if all go in for trading and sowing corn there will be no one
+to acquire learning."
+
+And considering that each of them had said something weighty and
+convincing, Kuzmitchov and Father Christopher both looked serious
+and cleared their throats simultaneously.
+
+Deniska, who had been listening to their conversation without
+understanding a word of it, shook his head and, rising in his seat,
+lashed at both the bays. A silence followed.
+
+Meanwhile a wide boundless plain encircled by a chain of low hills
+lay stretched before the travellers' eyes. Huddling together and
+peeping out from behind one another, these hills melted together
+into rising ground, which stretched right to the very horizon and
+disappeared into the lilac distance; one drives on and on and cannot
+discern where it begins or where it ends. . . . The sun had already
+peeped out from beyond the town behind them, and quietly, without
+fuss, set to its accustomed task. At first in the distance before
+them a broad, bright, yellow streak of light crept over the ground
+where the earth met the sky, near the little barrows and the
+windmills, which in the distance looked like tiny men waving their
+arms. A minute later a similar streak gleamed a little nearer, crept
+to the right and embraced the hills. Something warm touched
+Yegorushka's spine; the streak of light, stealing up from behind,
+darted between the chaise and the horses, moved to meet the other
+streak, and soon the whole wide steppe flung off the twilight of
+early morning, and was smiling and sparkling with dew.
+
+The cut rye, the coarse steppe grass, the milkwort, the wild hemp,
+all withered from the sultry heat, turned brown and half dead, now
+washed by the dew and caressed by the sun, revived, to fade again.
+Arctic petrels flew across the road with joyful cries; marmots
+called to one another in the grass. Somewhere, far away to the left,
+lapwings uttered their plaintive notes. A covey of partridges,
+scared by the chaise, fluttered up and with their soft "trrrr!"
+flew off to the hills. In the grass crickets, locusts and grasshoppers
+kept up their churring, monotonous music.
+
+But a little time passed, the dew evaporated, the air grew stagnant,
+and the disillusioned steppe began to wear its jaded July aspect.
+The grass drooped, everything living was hushed. The sun-baked
+hills, brownish-green and lilac in the distance, with their quiet
+shadowy tones, the plain with the misty distance and, arched above
+them, the sky, which seems terribly deep and transparent in the
+steppes, where there are no woods or high hills, seemed now endless,
+petrified with dreariness. . . .
+
+How stifling and oppressive it was! The chaise raced along, while
+Yegorushka saw always the same--the sky, the plain, the low hills
+. . . . The music in the grass was hushed, the petrels had flown away,
+the partridges were out of sight, rooks hovered idly over the
+withered grass; they were all alike and made the steppe even more
+monotonous.
+
+A hawk flew just above the ground, with an even sweep of its wings,
+suddenly halted in the air as though pondering on the dreariness
+of life, then fluttered its wings and flew like an arrow over the
+steppe, and there was no telling why it flew off and what it wanted.
+In the distance a windmill waved its sails. . . .
+
+Now and then a glimpse of a white potsherd or a heap of stones broke
+the monotony; a grey stone stood out for an instant or a parched
+willow with a blue crow on its top branch; a marmot would run across
+the road and--again there flitted before the eyes only the high
+grass, the low hills, the rooks. . . .
+
+But at last, thank God, a waggon loaded with sheaves came to meet
+them; a peasant wench was lying on the very top. Sleepy, exhausted
+by the heat, she lifted her head and looked at the travellers.
+Deniska gaped, looking at her; the horses stretched out their noses
+towards the sheaves; the chaise, squeaking, kissed the waggon, and
+the pointed ears passed over Father Christopher's hat like a brush.
+
+"You are driving over folks, fatty!" cried Deniska. "What a swollen
+lump of a face, as though a bumble-bee had stung it!"
+
+The girl smiled drowsily, and moving her lips lay down again; then
+a solitary poplar came into sight on the low hill. Someone had
+planted it, and God only knows why it was there. It was hard to
+tear the eyes away from its graceful figure and green drapery. Was
+that lovely creature happy? Sultry heat in summer, in winter frost
+and snowstorms, terrible nights in autumn when nothing is to be
+seen but darkness and nothing is to be heard but the senseless angry
+howling wind, and, worst of all, alone, alone for the whole of life
+. . . . Beyond the poplar stretches of wheat extended like a bright
+yellow carpet from the road to the top of the hills. On the hills
+the corn was already cut and laid up in sheaves, while at the bottom
+they were still cutting. . . . Six mowers were standing in a row
+swinging their scythes, and the scythes gleamed gaily and uttered
+in unison together "Vzhee, vzhee!" From the movements of the peasant
+women binding the sheaves, from the faces of the mowers, from the
+glitter of the scythes, it could be seen that the sultry heat was
+baking and stifling. A black dog with its tongue hanging out ran
+from the mowers to meet the chaise, probably with the intention of
+barking, but stopped halfway and stared indifferently at Deniska,
+who shook his whip at him; it was too hot to bark! One peasant woman
+got up and, putting both hands to her aching back, followed
+Yegorushka's red shirt with her eyes. Whether it was that the colour
+pleased her or that he reminded her of her children, she stood a
+long time motionless staring after him.
+
+But now the wheat, too, had flashed by; again the parched plain,
+the sunburnt hills, the sultry sky stretched before them; again a
+hawk hovered over the earth. In the distance, as before, a windmill
+whirled its sails, and still it looked like a little man waving his
+arms. It was wearisome to watch, and it seemed as though one would
+never reach it, as though it were running away from the chaise.
+
+Father Christopher and Kuzmitchov were silent. Deniska lashed the
+horses and kept shouting to them, while Yegorushka had left off
+crying, and gazed about him listlessly. The heat and the tedium of
+the steppes overpowered him. He felt as though he had been travelling
+and jolting up and down for a very long time, that the sun had been
+baking his back a long time. Before they had gone eight miles he
+began to feel "It must be time to rest." The geniality gradually
+faded out of his uncle's face and nothing else was left but the air
+of business reserve; and to a gaunt shaven face, especially when
+it is adorned with spectacles and the nose and temples are covered
+with dust, this reserve gives a relentless, inquisitorial appearance.
+Father Christopher never left off gazing with wonder at God's world,
+and smiling. Without speaking, he brooded over something pleasant
+and nice, and a kindly, genial smile remained imprinted on his face.
+It seemed as though some nice and pleasant thought were imprinted
+on his brain by the heat.
+
+"Well, Deniska, shall we overtake the waggons to-day?" asked
+Kuzmitchov.
+
+Deniska looked at the sky, rose in his seat, lashed at his horses
+and then answered:
+
+"By nightfall, please God, we shall overtake them."
+
+There was a sound of dogs barking. Half a dozen steppe sheep-dogs,
+suddenly leaping out as though from ambush, with ferocious howling
+barks, flew to meet the chaise. All of them, extraordinarily furious,
+surrounded the chaise, with their shaggy spider-like muzzles and
+their eyes red with anger, and jostling against one another in their
+anger, raised a hoarse howl. They were filled with passionate hatred
+of the horses, of the chaise, and of the human beings, and seemed
+ready to tear them into pieces. Deniska, who was fond of teasing
+and beating, was delighted at the chance of it, and with a malignant
+expression bent over and lashed at the sheep-dogs with his whip.
+The brutes growled more than ever, the horses flew on; and Yegorushka,
+who had difficulty in keeping his seat on the box, realized, looking
+at the dogs' eyes and teeth, that if he fell down they would instantly
+tear him to bits; but he felt no fear and looked at them as malignantly
+as Deniska, and regretted that he had no whip in his hand.
+
+The chaise came upon a flock of sheep.
+
+"Stop!" cried Kuzmitchov. "Pull up! Woa!"
+
+Deniska threw his whole body backwards and pulled up the horses.
+
+"Come here!" Kuzmitchov shouted to the shepherd. "Call off the dogs,
+curse them!"
+
+The old shepherd, tattered and barefoot, wearing a fur cap, with a
+dirty sack round his loins and a long crook in his hand--a regular
+figure from the Old Testament--called off the dogs, and taking
+off his cap, went up to the chaise. Another similar Old Testament
+figure was standing motionless at the other end of the flock, staring
+without interest at the travellers.
+
+"Whose sheep are these?" asked Kuzmitchov.
+
+"Varlamov's," the old man answered in a loud voice.
+
+"Varlamov's," repeated the shepherd standing at the other end of
+the flock.
+
+"Did Varlamov come this way yesterday or not?"
+
+"He did not; his clerk came. . . ."
+
+"Drive on!"
+
+The chaise rolled on and the shepherds, with their angry dogs, were
+left behind. Yegorushka gazed listlessly at the lilac distance in
+front, and it began to seem as though the windmill, waving its
+sails, were getting nearer. It became bigger and bigger, grew quite
+large, and now he could distinguish clearly its two sails. One sail
+was old and patched, the other had only lately been made of new
+wood and glistened in the sun. The chaise drove straight on, while
+the windmill, for some reason, began retreating to the left. They
+drove on and on, and the windmill kept moving away to the left, and
+still did not disappear.
+
+"A fine windmill Boltva has put up for his son," observed Deniska.
+
+"And how is it we don't see his farm?"
+
+"It is that way, beyond the creek."
+
+Boltva's farm, too, soon came into sight, but yet the windmill did
+not retreat, did not drop behind; it still watched Yegorushka with
+its shining sail and waved. What a sorcerer!
+
+II
+
+Towards midday the chaise turned off the road to the right; it went
+on a little way at walking pace and then stopped. Yegorushka heard
+a soft, very caressing gurgle, and felt a different air breathe on
+his face with a cool velvety touch. Through a little pipe of hemlock
+stuck there by some unknown benefactor, water was running in a thin
+trickle from a low hill, put together by nature of huge monstrous
+stones. It fell to the ground, and limpid, sparkling gaily in the
+sun, and softly murmuring as though fancying itself a great tempestuous
+torrent, flowed swiftly away to the left. Not far from its source
+the little stream spread itself out into a pool; the burning sunbeams
+and the parched soil greedily drank it up and sucked away its
+strength; but a little further on it must have mingled with another
+rivulet, for a hundred paces away thick reeds showed green and
+luxuriant along its course, and three snipe flew up from them with
+a loud cry as the chaise drove by.
+
+The travellers got out to rest by the stream and feed the horses.
+Kuzmitchov, Father Christopher and Yegorushka sat down on a mat in
+the narrow strip of shade cast by the chaise and the unharnessed
+horses. The nice pleasant thought that the heat had imprinted in
+Father Christopher's brain craved expression after he had had a
+drink of water and eaten a hard-boiled egg. He bent a friendly look
+upon Yegorushka, munched, and began:
+
+"I studied too, my boy; from the earliest age God instilled into
+me good sense and understanding, so that while I was just such a
+lad as you I was beyond others, a comfort to my parents and preceptors
+by my good sense. Before I was fifteen I could speak and make verses
+in Latin, just as in Russian. I was the crosier-bearer to his
+Holiness Bishop Christopher. After mass one day, as I remember it
+was the patron saint's day of His Majesty Tsar Alexandr Pavlovitch
+of blessed memory, he unrobed at the altar, looked kindly at me and
+asked, 'Puer bone, quam appelaris?' And I answered, 'Christopherus
+sum;' and he said, 'Ergo connominati sumus'--that is, that we
+were namesakes. . . Then he asked in Latin, 'Whose son are you?'
+To which I answered, also in Latin, that I was the son of deacon
+Sireysky of the village of Lebedinskoe. Seeing my readiness and the
+clearness of my answers, his Holiness blessed me and said, 'Write
+to your father that I will not forget him, and that I will keep you
+in view.' The holy priests and fathers who were standing round the
+altar, hearing our discussion in Latin, were not a little surprised,
+and everyone expressed his pleasure in praise of me. Before I had
+moustaches, my boy, I could read Latin, Greek, and French; I knew
+philosophy, mathematics, secular history, and all the sciences. The
+Lord gave me a marvellous memory. Sometimes, if I read a thing once
+or twice, I knew it by heart. My preceptors and patrons were amazed,
+and so they expected I should make a learned man, a luminary of the
+Church. I did think of going to Kiev to continue my studies, but
+my parents did not approve. 'You'll be studying all your life,'
+said my father; 'when shall we see you finished?' Hearing such
+words, I gave up study and took a post. . . . Of course, I did not
+become a learned man, but then I did not disobey my parents; I was
+a comfort to them in their old age and gave them a creditable
+funeral. Obedience is more than fasting and prayer.
+
+"I suppose you have forgotten all your learning?" observed Kuzmitchov.
+
+"I should think so! Thank God, I have reached my eightieth year!
+Something of philosophy and rhetoric I do remember, but languages
+and mathematics I have quite forgotten."
+
+Father Christopher screwed up his eyes, thought a minute and said
+in an undertone:
+
+"What is a substance? A creature is a self-existing object, not
+requiring anything else for its completion."
+
+He shook his head and laughed with feeling.
+
+"Spiritual nourishment!" he said. "Of a truth matter nourishes the
+flesh and spiritual nourishment the soul!"
+
+"Learning is all very well," sighed Kuzmitchov, "but if we don't
+overtake Varlamov, learning won't do much for us."
+
+"A man isn't a needle--we shall find him. He must be going his
+rounds in these parts."
+
+Among the sedge were flying the three snipe they had seen before,
+and in their plaintive cries there was a note of alarm and vexation
+at having been driven away from the stream. The horses were steadily
+munching and snorting. Deniska walked about by them and, trying to
+appear indifferent to the cucumbers, pies, and eggs that the gentry
+were eating, he concentrated himself on the gadflies and horseflies
+that were fastening upon the horses' backs and bellies; he squashed
+his victims apathetically, emitting a peculiar, fiendishly triumphant,
+guttural sound, and when he missed them cleared his throat with an
+air of vexation and looked after every lucky one that escaped death.
+
+"Deniska, where are you? Come and eat," said Kuzmitchov, heaving a
+deep sigh, a sign that he had had enough.
+
+Deniska diffidently approached the mat and picked out five thick
+and yellow cucumbers (he did not venture to take the smaller and
+fresher ones), took two hard-boiled eggs that looked dark and were
+cracked, then irresolutely, as though afraid he might get a blow
+on his outstretched hand, touched a pie with his finger.
+
+"Take them, take them," Kuzmitchov urged him on.
+
+Deniska took the pies resolutely, and, moving some distance away,
+sat down on the grass with his back to the chaise. At once there
+was such a sound of loud munching that even the horses turned round
+to look suspiciously at Deniska.
+
+After his meal Kuzmitchov took a sack containing something out of
+the chaise and said to Yegorushka:
+
+"I am going to sleep, and you mind that no one takes the sack from
+under my head."
+
+Father Christopher took off his cassock, his girdle, and his full
+coat, and Yegorushka, looking at him, was dumb with astonishment.
+He had never imagined that priests wore trousers, and Father
+Christopher had on real canvas trousers thrust into high boots, and
+a short striped jacket. Looking at him, Yegorushka thought that in
+this costume, so unsuitable to his dignified position, he looked
+with his long hair and beard very much like Robinson Crusoe. After
+taking off their outer garments Kuzmitchov and Father Christopher
+lay down in the shade under the chaise, facing one another, and
+closed their eyes. Deniska, who had finished munching, stretched
+himself out on his back and also closed his eyes.
+
+"You look out that no one takes away the horses!" he said to
+Yegorushka, and at once fell asleep.
+
+Stillness reigned. There was no sound except the munching and
+snorting of the horses and the snoring of the sleepers; somewhere
+far away a lapwing wailed, and from time to time there sounded the
+shrill cries of the three snipe who had flown up to see whether
+their uninvited visitors had gone away; the rivulet babbled, lisping
+softly, but all these sounds did not break the stillness, did not
+stir the stagnation, but, on the contrary, lulled all nature to
+slumber.
+
+Yegorushka, gasping with the heat, which was particularly oppressive
+after a meal, ran to the sedge and from there surveyed the country.
+He saw exactly the same as he had in the morning: the plain, the
+low hills, the sky, the lilac distance; only the hills stood nearer;
+and he could not see the windmill, which had been left far behind.
+From behind the rocky hill from which the stream flowed rose another,
+smoother and broader; a little hamlet of five or six homesteads
+clung to it. No people, no trees, no shade were to be seen about
+the huts; it looked as though the hamlet had expired in the burning
+air and was dried up. To while away the time Yegorushka caught a
+grasshopper in the grass, held it in his closed hand to his ear,
+and spent a long time listening to the creature playing on its
+instrument. When he was weary of its music he ran after a flock of
+yellow butterflies who were flying towards the sedge on the
+watercourse, and found himself again beside the chaise, without
+noticing how he came there. His uncle and Father Christopher were
+sound asleep; their sleep would be sure to last two or three hours
+till the horses had rested. . . . How was he to get through that
+long time, and where was he to get away from the heat? A hard
+problem. . . . Mechanically Yegorushka put his lips to the trickle
+that ran from the waterpipe; there was a chilliness in his mouth
+and there was the smell of hemlock. He drank at first eagerly, then
+went on with effort till the sharp cold had run from his mouth all
+over his body and the water was spilt on his shirt. Then he went
+up to the chaise and began looking at the sleeping figures. His
+uncle's face wore, as before, an expression of business-like reserve.
+Fanatically devoted to his work, Kuzmitchov always, even in his
+sleep and at church when they were singing, "Like the cherubim,"
+thought about his business and could never forget it for a moment;
+and now he was probably dreaming about bales of wool, waggons,
+prices, Varlamov. . . . Father Christopher, now, a soft, frivolous
+and absurd person, had never all his life been conscious of anything
+which could, like a boa-constrictor, coil about his soul and hold
+it tight. In all the numerous enterprises he had undertaken in his
+day what attracted him was not so much the business itself, but the
+bustle and the contact with other people involved in every undertaking.
+Thus, in the present expedition, he was not so much interested in
+wool, in Varlamov, and in prices, as in the long journey, the
+conversations on the way, the sleeping under a chaise, and the meals
+at odd times. . . . And now, judging from his face, he must have
+been dreaming of Bishop Christopher, of the Latin discussion, of
+his wife, of puffs and cream and all sorts of things that Kuzmitchov
+could not possibly dream of.
+
+While Yegorushka was watching their sleeping faces he suddenly heard
+a soft singing; somewhere at a distance a woman was singing, and
+it was difficult to tell where and in what direction. The song was
+subdued, dreary and melancholy, like a dirge, and hardly audible,
+and seemed to come first from the right, then from the left, then
+from above, and then from underground, as though an unseen spirit
+were hovering over the steppe and singing. Yegorushka looked about
+him, and could not make out where the strange song came from. Then
+as he listened he began to fancy that the grass was singing; in its
+song, withered and half-dead, it was without words, but plaintively
+and passionately, urging that it was not to blame, that the sun was
+burning it for no fault of its own; it urged that it ardently longed
+to live, that it was young and might have been beautiful but for
+the heat and the drought; it was guiltless, but yet it prayed
+forgiveness and protested that it was in anguish, sad and sorry for
+itself. . . .
+
+Yegorushka listened for a little, and it began to seem as though
+this dreary, mournful song made the air hotter, more suffocating
+and more stagnant. . . . To drown the singing he ran to the sedge,
+humming to himself and trying to make a noise with his feet. From
+there he looked about in all directions and found out who was
+singing. Near the furthest hut in the hamlet stood a peasant woman
+in a short petticoat, with long thin legs like a heron. She was
+sowing something. A white dust floated languidly from her sieve
+down the hillock. Now it was evident that she was singing. A couple
+of yards from her a little bare-headed boy in nothing but a smock
+was standing motionless. As though fascinated by the song, he stood
+stock-still, staring away into the distance, probably at Yegorushka's
+crimson shirt.
+
+The song ceased. Yegorushka sauntered back to the chaise, and to
+while away the time went again to the trickle of water.
+
+And again there was the sound of the dreary song. It was the same
+long-legged peasant woman in the hamlet over the hill. Yegorushka's
+boredom came back again. He left the pipe and looked upwards. What
+he saw was so unexpected that he was a little frightened. Just above
+his head on one of the big clumsy stones stood a chubby little boy,
+wearing nothing but a shirt, with a prominent stomach and thin legs,
+the same boy who had been standing before by the peasant woman. He
+was gazing with open mouth and unblinking eyes at Yegorushka's
+crimson shirt and at the chaise, with a look of blank astonishment
+and even fear, as though he saw before him creatures of another
+world. The red colour of the shirt charmed and allured him. But the
+chaise and the men sleeping under it excited his curiosity; perhaps
+he had not noticed how the agreeable red colour and curiosity had
+attracted him down from the hamlet, and now probably he was surprised
+at his own boldness. For a long while Yegorushka stared at him, and
+he at Yegorushka. Both were silent and conscious of some awkwardness.
+After a long silence Yegorushka asked:
+
+"What's your name?"
+
+The stranger's cheeks puffed out more than ever; he pressed his
+back against the rock, opened his eyes wide, moved his lips, and
+answered in a husky bass: "Tit!"
+
+The boys said not another word to each other; after a brief silence,
+still keeping his eyes fixed on Yegorushka, the mysterious Tit
+kicked up one leg, felt with his heel for a niche and clambered up
+the rock; from that point he ascended to the next rock, staggering
+backwards and looking intently at Yegorushka, as though afraid he
+might hit him from behind, and so made his way upwards till he
+disappeared altogether behind the crest of the hill.
+
+After watching him out of sight, Yegorushka put his arms round his
+knees and leaned his head on them. . . . The burning sun scorched
+the back of his head, his neck, and his spine. The melancholy song
+died away, then floated again on the stagnant stifling air. The
+rivulet gurgled monotonously, the horses munched, and time dragged
+on endlessly, as though it, too, were stagnant and had come to a
+standstill. It seemed as though a hundred years had passed since
+the morning. Could it be that God's world, the chaise and the horses
+would come to a standstill in that air, and, like the hills, turn
+to stone and remain for ever in one spot? Yegorushka raised his
+head, and with smarting eyes looked before him; the lilac distance,
+which till then had been motionless, began heaving, and with the
+sky floated away into the distance. . . . It drew after it the brown
+grass, the sedge, and with extraordinary swiftness Yegorushka floated
+after the flying distance. Some force noiselessly drew him onwards,
+and the heat and the wearisome song flew after in pursuit. Yegorushka
+bent his head and shut his eyes. . . .
+
+Deniska was the first to wake up. Something must have bitten him,
+for he jumped up, quickly scratched his shoulder and said:
+
+"Plague take you, cursed idolater!"
+
+Then he went to the brook, had a drink and slowly washed. His
+splashing and puffing roused Yegorushka from his lethargy. The boy
+looked at his wet face with drops of water and big freckles which
+made it look like marble, and asked:
+
+"Shall we soon be going?"
+
+Deniska looked at the height of the sun and answered:
+
+"I expect so."
+
+He dried himself with the tail of his shirt and, making a very
+serious face, hopped on one leg.
+
+"I say, which of us will get to the sedge first?" he said.
+
+Yegorushka was exhausted by the heat and drowsiness, but he raced
+off after him all the same. Deniska was in his twentieth year, was
+a coachman and going to be married, but he had not left off being
+a boy. He was very fond of flying kites, chasing pigeons, playing
+knuckle-bones, running races, and always took part in children's
+games and disputes. No sooner had his master turned his back or
+gone to sleep than Deniska would begin doing something such as
+hopping on one leg or throwing stones. It was hard for any grown-up
+person, seeing the genuine enthusiasm with which he frolicked about
+in the society of children, to resist saying, "What a baby!" Children,
+on the other hand, saw nothing strange in the invasion of their
+domain by the big coachman. "Let him play," they thought, "as long
+as he doesn't fight!" In the same way little dogs see nothing strange
+in it when a simple-hearted big dog joins their company uninvited
+and begins playing with them.
+
+Deniska outstripped Yegorushka, and was evidently very much pleased
+at having done so. He winked at him, and to show that he could hop
+on one leg any distance, suggested to Yegorushka that he should hop
+with him along the road and from there, without resting, back to
+the chaise. Yegorushka declined this suggestion, for he was very
+much out of breath and exhausted.
+
+All at once Deniska looked very grave, as he did not look even when
+Kuzmitchov gave him a scolding or threatened him with a stick;
+listening intently, he dropped quietly on one knee and an expression
+of sternness and alarm came into his face, such as one sees in
+people who hear heretical talk. He fixed his eyes on one spot,
+raised his hand curved into a hollow, and suddenly fell on his
+stomach on the ground and slapped the hollow of his hand down upon
+the grass.
+
+"Caught!" he wheezed triumphantly, and, getting up, lifted a big
+grasshopper to Yegorushka's eyes.
+
+The two boys stroked the grasshopper's broad green back with their
+fingers and touched his antenna, supposing that this would please
+the creature. Then Deniska caught a fat fly that had been sucking
+blood and offered it to the grasshopper. The latter moved his huge
+jaws, that were like the visor of a helmet, with the utmost unconcern,
+as though he had been long acquainted with Deniska, and bit off the
+fly's stomach. They let him go. With a flash of the pink lining of
+his wings, he flew down into the grass and at once began his churring
+notes again. They let the fly go, too. It preened its wings, and
+without its stomach flew off to the horses.
+
+A loud sigh was heard from under the chaise. It was Kuzmitchov
+waking up. He quickly raised his head, looked uneasily into the
+distance, and from that look, which passed by Yegorushka and Deniska
+without sympathy or interest, it could be seen that his thought on
+awaking was of the wool and of Varlamov.
+
+"Father Christopher, get up; it is time to start," he said anxiously.
+"Wake up; we've slept too long as it is! Deniska, put the horses
+in."
+
+Father Christopher woke up with the same smile with which he had
+fallen asleep; his face looked creased and wrinkled from sleep, and
+seemed only half the size. After washing and dressing, he proceeded
+without haste to take out of his pocket a little greasy psalter;
+and standing with his face towards the east, began in a whisper
+repeating the psalms of the day and crossing himself.
+
+"Father Christopher," said Kuzmitchov reproachfully, "it's time to
+start; the horses are ready, and here are you, . . . upon my word."
+
+"In a minute, in a minute," muttered Father Christopher. "I must
+read the psalms. . . . I haven't read them to-day."
+
+"The psalms can wait."
+
+"Ivan Ivanitch, that is my rule every day. . . . I can't . . ."
+
+"God will overlook it."
+
+For a full quarter of an hour Father Christopher stood facing the
+east and moving his lips, while Kuzmitchov looked at him almost
+with hatred and impatiently shrugged his shoulders. He was particularly
+irritated when, after every "Hallelujah," Father Christopher drew
+a long breath, rapidly crossed himself and repeated three times,
+intentionally raising his voice so that the others might cross
+themselves, "Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah! Glory be to Thee,
+O Lord!" At last he smiled, looked upwards at the sky, and, putting
+the psalter in his pocket, said:
+
+"Finis!"
+
+A minute later the chaise had started on the road. As though it
+were going backwards and not forwards, the travellers saw the same
+scene as they had before midday.
+
+The low hills were still plunged in the lilac distance, and no end
+could be seen to them. There were glimpses of high grass and heaps
+of stones; strips of stubble land passed by them and still the same
+rooks, the same hawk, moving its wings with slow dignity, moved
+over the steppe. The air was more sultry than ever; from the sultry
+heat and the stillness submissive nature was spellbound into silence
+. . . . No wind, no fresh cheering sound, no cloud.
+
+But at last, when the sun was beginning to sink into the west, the
+steppe, the hills and the air could bear the oppression no longer,
+and, driven out of all patience, exhausted, tried to fling off the
+yoke. A fleecy ashen-grey cloud unexpectedly appeared behind the
+hills. It exchanged glances with the steppe, as though to say, "Here
+I am," and frowned. Suddenly something burst in the stagnant air;
+there was a violent squall of wind which whirled round and round,
+roaring and whistling over the steppe. At once a murmur rose from
+the grass and last year's dry herbage, the dust curled in spiral
+eddies over the road, raced over the steppe, and carrying with it
+straws, dragon flies and feathers, rose up in a whirling black
+column towards the sky and darkened the sun. Prickly uprooted plants
+ran stumbling and leaping in all directions over the steppe, and
+one of them got caught in the whirlwind, turned round and round
+like a bird, flew towards the sky, and turning into a little black
+speck, vanished from sight. After it flew another, and then a third,
+and Yegorushka saw two of them meet in the blue height and clutch
+at one another as though they were wrestling.
+
+A bustard flew up by the very road. Fluttering his wings and his
+tail, he looked, bathed in the sunshine, like an angler's glittering
+tin fish or a waterfly flashing so swiftly over the water that its
+wings cannot be told from its antenna, which seem to be growing
+before, behind and on all sides. . . . Quivering in the air like
+an insect with a shimmer of bright colours, the bustard flew high
+up in a straight line, then, probably frightened by a cloud of dust,
+swerved to one side, and for a long time the gleam of his wings
+could be seen. . . .
+
+Then a corncrake flew up from the grass, alarmed by the hurricane
+and not knowing what was the matter. It flew with the wind and not
+against it, like all the other birds, so that all its feathers were
+ruffled up and it was puffed out to the size of a hen and looked
+very angry and impressive. Only the rooks who had grown old on the
+steppe and were accustomed to its vagaries hovered calmly over the
+grass, or taking no notice of anything, went on unconcernedly pecking
+with their stout beaks at the hard earth.
+
+There was a dull roll of thunder beyond the hills; there came a
+whiff of fresh air. Deniska gave a cheerful whistle and lashed his
+horses. Father Christopher and Kuzmitchov held their hats and looked
+intently towards the hills. . . . How pleasant a shower of rain
+would have been!
+
+One effort, one struggle more, and it seemed the steppe would have
+got the upper hand. But the unseen oppressive force gradually riveted
+its fetters on the wind and the air, laid the dust, and the stillness
+came back again as though nothing had happened, the cloud hid, the
+sun-baked hills frowned submissively, the air grew calm, and only
+somewhere the troubled lapwings wailed and lamented their destiny. . . .
+
+Soon after that the evening came on.
+
+III
+
+In the dusk of evening a big house of one storey, with a rusty iron
+roof and with dark windows, came into sight. This house was called
+a posting-inn, though it had nothing like a stableyard, and it stood
+in the middle of the steppe, with no kind of enclosure round it. A
+little to one side of it a wretched little cherry orchard shut in
+by a hurdle fence made a dark patch, and under the windows stood
+sleepy sunflowers drooping their heavy heads. From the orchard came
+the clatter of a little toy windmill, set there to frighten away
+hares by the rattle. Nothing more could be seen near the house, and
+nothing could be heard but the steppe. The chaise had scarcely
+stopped at the porch with an awning over it, when from the house
+there came the sound of cheerful voices, one a man's, another a
+woman's; there was the creak of a swing-door, and in a flash a tall
+gaunt figure, swinging its arms and fluttering its coat, was standing
+by the chaise. This was the innkeeper, Moisey Moisevitch, a man no
+longer young, with a very pale face and a handsome beard as black
+as charcoal. He was wearing a threadbare black coat, which hung
+flapping on his narrow shoulders as though on a hatstand, and
+fluttered its skirts like wings every time Moisey Moisevitch flung
+up his hands in delight or horror. Besides his coat the innkeeper
+was wearing full white trousers, not stuck into his boots, and a
+velvet waistcoat with brown flowers on it that looked like gigantic
+bugs.
+
+Moisey Moisevitch was at first dumb with excess of feeling on
+recognizing the travellers, then he clasped his hands and uttered
+a moan. His coat swung its skirts, his back bent into a bow, and
+his pale face twisted into a smile that suggested that to see the
+chaise was not merely a pleasure to him, but actually a joy so sweet
+as to be painful.
+
+"Oh dear! oh dear!" he began in a thin sing-song voice, breathless,
+fussing about and preventing the travellers from getting out of the
+chaise by his antics. "What a happy day for me! Oh, what am I to
+do now? Ivan Ivanitch! Father Christopher! What a pretty little
+gentleman sitting on the box, God strike me dead! Oh, my goodness!
+why am I standing here instead of asking the visitors indoors?
+Please walk in, I humbly beg you. . . . You are kindly welcome!
+Give me all your things. . . . Oh, my goodness me!"
+
+Moisey Moisevitch, who was rummaging in the chaise and assisting
+the travellers to alight, suddenly turned back and shouted in a
+voice as frantic and choking as though he were drowning and calling
+for help:
+
+"Solomon! Solomon!"
+
+"Solomon! Solomon!" a woman's voice repeated indoors.
+
+The swing-door creaked, and in the doorway appeared a rather short
+young Jew with a big beak-like nose, with a bald patch surrounded
+by rough red curly hair; he was dressed in a short and very shabby
+reefer jacket, with rounded lappets and short sleeves, and in short
+serge trousers, so that he looked skimpy and short-tailed like an
+unfledged bird. This was Solomon, the brother of Moisey Moisevitch.
+He went up to the chaise, smiling rather queerly, and did not speak
+or greet the travellers.
+
+"Ivan Ivanitch and Father Christopher have come," said Moisey
+Moisevitch in a tone as though he were afraid his brother would not
+believe him. "Dear, dear! What a surprise! Such honoured guests to
+have come us so suddenly! Come, take their things, Solomon. Walk
+in, honoured guests."
+
+A little later Kuzmitchov, Father Christopher, and Yegorushka were
+sitting in a big gloomy empty room at an old oak table. The table
+was almost in solitude, for, except a wide sofa covered with torn
+American leather and three chairs, there was no other furniture in
+the room. And, indeed, not everybody would have given the chairs
+that name. They were a pitiful semblance of furniture, covered with
+American leather that had seen its best days, and with backs bent
+backwards at an unnaturally acute angle, so that they looked like
+children's sledges. It was hard to imagine what had been the unknown
+carpenter's object in bending the chairbacks so mercilessly, and
+one was tempted to imagine that it was not the carpenter's fault,
+but that some athletic visitor had bent the chairs like this as a
+feat, then had tried to bend them back again and had made them
+worse. The room looked gloomy, the walls were grey, the ceilings
+and the cornices were grimy; on the floor were chinks and yawning
+holes that were hard to account for (one might have fancied they
+were made by the heel of the same athlete), and it seemed as though
+the room would still have been dark if a dozen lamps had hung in
+it. There was nothing approaching an ornament on the walls or the
+windows. On one wall, however, there hung a list of regulations of
+some sort under a two-headed eagle in a grey wooden frame, and on
+another wall in the same sort of frame an engraving with the
+inscription, "The Indifference of Man." What it was to which men
+were indifferent it was impossible to make out, as the engraving
+was very dingy with age and was extensively flyblown. There was a
+smell of something decayed and sour in the room.
+
+As he led the visitors into the room, Moisey Moisevitch went on
+wriggling, gesticulating, shrugging and uttering joyful exclamations;
+he considered these antics necessary in order to seem polite and
+agreeable.
+
+"When did our waggons go by?" Kuzmitchov asked.
+
+"One party went by early this morning, and the other, Ivan Ivanitch,
+put up here for dinner and went on towards evening."
+
+"Ah! . . . Has Varlamov been by or not?"
+
+"No, Ivan Ivanitch. His clerk, Grigory Yegoritch, went by yesterday
+morning and said that he had to be to-day at the Molokans' farm."
+
+"Good! so we will go after the waggons directly and then on to the
+Molokans'."
+
+"Mercy on us, Ivan Ivanitch!" Moisey Moisevitch cried in horror,
+flinging up his hands. "Where are you going for the night? You will
+have a nice little supper and stay the night, and to-morrow morning,
+please God, you can go on and overtake anyone you like."
+
+"There is no time for that. . . . Excuse me, Moisey Moisevitch,
+another time; but now I must make haste. We'll stay a quarter of
+an hour and then go on; we can stay the night at the Molokans'."
+
+"A quarter of an hour!" squealed Moisey Moisevitch. "Have you no
+fear of God, Ivan Ivanitch? You will compel me to hide your caps
+and lock the door! You must have a cup of tea and a snack of
+something, anyway."
+
+"We have no time for tea," said Kuzmitchov.
+
+Moisey Moisevitch bent his head on one side, crooked his knees, and
+put his open hands before him as though warding off a blow, while
+with a smile of agonized sweetness he began imploring:
+
+"Ivan Ivanitch! Father Christopher! Do be so good as to take a cup
+of tea with me. Surely I am not such a bad man that you can't even
+drink tea in my house? Ivan Ivanitch!"
+
+"Well, we may just as well have a cup of tea," said Father Christopher,
+with a sympathetic smile; "that won't keep us long."
+
+"Very well," Kuzmitchov assented.
+
+Moisey Moisevitch, in a fluster uttered an exclamation of joy, and
+shrugging as though he had just stepped out of cold weather into
+warm, ran to the door and cried in the same frantic voice in which
+he had called Solomon:
+
+"Rosa! Rosa! Bring the samovar!"
+
+A minute later the door opened, and Solomon came into the room
+carrying a large tray in his hands. Setting the tray on the table,
+he looked away sarcastically with the same queer smile as before.
+Now, by the light of the lamp, it was possible to see his smile
+distinctly; it was very complex, and expressed a variety of emotions,
+but the predominant element in it was undisguised contempt. He
+seemed to be thinking of something ludicrous and silly, to be feeling
+contempt and dislike, to be pleased at something and waiting for
+the favourable moment to turn something into ridicule and to burst
+into laughter. His long nose, his thick lips, and his sly prominent
+eyes seemed tense with the desire to laugh. Looking at his face,
+Kuzmitchov smiled ironically and asked:
+
+"Solomon, why did you not come to our fair at N. this summer, and
+act some Jewish scenes?"
+
+Two years before, as Yegorushka remembered very well, at one of the
+booths at the fair at N., Solomon had performed some scenes of
+Jewish life, and his acting had been a great success. The allusion
+to this made no impression whatever upon Solomon. Making no answer,
+he went out and returned a little later with the samovar.
+
+When he had done what he had to do at the table he moved a little
+aside, and, folding his arms over his chest and thrusting out one
+leg, fixed his sarcastic eyes on Father Christopher. There was
+something defiant, haughty, and contemptuous in his attitude, and
+at the same time it was comic and pitiful in the extreme, because
+the more impressive his attitude the more vividly it showed up his
+short trousers, his bobtail coat, his caricature of a nose, and his
+bird-like plucked-looking little figure.
+
+Moisey Moisevitch brought a footstool from the other room and sat
+down a little way from the table.
+
+"I wish you a good appetite! Tea and sugar!" he began, trying to
+entertain his visitors. "I hope you will enjoy it. Such rare guests,
+such rare ones; it is years since I last saw Father Christopher.
+And will no one tell me who is this nice little gentleman?" he
+asked, looking tenderly at Yegorushka.
+
+"He is the son of my sister, Olga Ivanovna," answered Kuzmitchov.
+
+"And where is he going?"
+
+"To school. We are taking him to a high school."
+
+In his politeness, Moisey Moisevitch put on a look of wonder and
+wagged his head expressively.
+
+"Ah, that is a fine thing," he said, shaking his finger at the
+samovar. "That's a fine thing. You will come back from the high
+school such a gentleman that we shall all take off our hats to you.
+You will be wealthy and wise and so grand that your mamma will be
+delighted. Oh, that's a fine thing!"
+
+He paused a little, stroked his knees, and began again in a jocose
+and deferential tone.
+
+"You must excuse me, Father Christopher, but I am thinking of writing
+to the bishop to tell him you are robbing the merchants of their
+living. I shall take a sheet of stamped paper and write that I
+suppose Father Christopher is short of pence, as he has taken up
+with trade and begun selling wool."
+
+"H'm, yes . . . it's a queer notion in my old age," said Father
+Christopher, and he laughed. "I have turned from priest to merchant,
+brother. I ought to be at home now saying my prayers, instead of
+galloping about the country like a Pharaoh in his chariot. . . .
+Vanity!"
+
+"But it will mean a lot of pence!"
+
+"Oh, I dare say! More kicks than halfpence, and serve me right. The
+wool's not mine, but my son-in-law Mikhail's!"
+
+"Why doesn't he go himself?"
+
+"Why, because . . . His mother's milk is scarcely dry upon his lips.
+He can buy wool all right, but when it comes to selling, he has no
+sense; he is young yet. He has wasted all his money; he wanted to
+grow rich and cut a dash, but he tried here and there, and no one
+would give him his price. And so the lad went on like that for a
+year, and then he came to me and said, 'Daddy, you sell the wool
+for me; be kind and do it! I am no good at the business!' And that
+is true enough. As soon as there is anything wrong then it's 'Daddy,'
+but till then they could get on without their dad. When he was
+buying he did not consult me, but now when he is in difficulties
+it's Daddy's turn. And what does his dad know about it? If it were
+not for Ivan Ivanitch, his dad could do nothing. I have a lot of
+worry with them."
+
+"Yes; one has a lot of worry with one's children, I can tell you
+that," sighed Moisey Moisevitch. "I have six of my own. One needs
+schooling, another needs doctoring, and a third needs nursing, and
+when they grow up they are more trouble still. It is not only
+nowadays, it was the same in Holy Scripture. When Jacob had little
+children he wept, and when they grew up he wept still more bitterly."
+
+"H'm, yes . . ." Father Christopher assented pensively, looking at
+his glass. "I have no cause myself to rail against the Lord. I have
+lived to the end of my days as any man might be thankful to live.
+. . . I have married my daughters to good men, my sons I have set
+up in life, and now I am free; I have done my work and can go where
+I like. I live in peace with my wife. I eat and drink and sleep and
+rejoice in my grandchildren, and say my prayers and want nothing
+more. I live on the fat of the land, and don't need to curry favour
+with anyone. I have never had any trouble from childhood, and now
+suppose the Tsar were to ask me, 'What do you need? What would you
+like?' why, I don't need anything. I have everything I want and
+everything to be thankful for. In the whole town there is no happier
+man than I am. My only trouble is I have so many sins, but there
+--only God is without sin. That's right, isn't it?"
+
+"No doubt it is."
+
+"I have no teeth, of course; my poor old back aches; there is one
+thing and another, . . . asthma and that sort of thing. . . . I
+ache. . . . The flesh is weak, but then think of my age! I am in
+the eighties! One can't go on for ever; one mustn't outstay one's
+welcome."
+
+Father Christopher suddenly thought of something, spluttered into
+his glass and choked with laughter. Moisey Moisevitch laughed, too,
+from politeness, and he, too, cleared his throat.
+
+"So funny!" said Father Christopher, and he waved his hand. "My
+eldest son Gavrila came to pay me a visit. He is in the medical
+line, and is a district doctor in the province of Tchernigov. . . .
+'Very well . . .' I said to him, 'here I have asthma and one thing
+and another. . . . You are a doctor; cure your father!' He undressed
+me on the spot, tapped me, listened, and all sorts of tricks, . . .
+kneaded my stomach, and then he said, 'Dad, you ought to be treated
+with compressed air.'" Father Christopher laughed convulsively,
+till the tears came into his eyes, and got up.
+
+"And I said to him, 'God bless your compressed air!'" he brought
+out through his laughter, waving both hands. "God bless your
+compressed air!"
+
+Moisey Moisevitch got up, too, and with his hands on his stomach,
+went off into shrill laughter like the yap of a lap-dog.
+
+"God bless the compressed air!" repeated Father Christopher, laughing.
+
+Moisey Moisevitch laughed two notes higher and so violently that
+he could hardly stand on his feet.
+
+"Oh dear!" he moaned through his laughter. "Let me get my breath
+. . . . You'll be the death of me."
+
+He laughed and talked, though at the same time he was casting
+timorous and suspicious looks at Solomon. The latter was standing
+in the same attitude and still smiling. To judge from his eyes and
+his smile, his contempt and hatred were genuine, but that was so
+out of keeping with his plucked-looking figure that it seemed to
+Yegorushka as though he were putting on his defiant attitude and
+biting sarcastic smile to play the fool for the entertainment of
+their honoured guests.
+
+After drinking six glasses of tea in silence, Kuzmitchov cleared a
+space before him on the table, took his bag, the one which he kept
+under his head when he slept under the chaise, untied the string
+and shook it. Rolls of paper notes were scattered out of the bag
+on the table.
+
+"While we have the time, Father Christopher, let us reckon up,"
+said Kuzmitchov.
+
+Moisey Moisevitch was embarrassed at the sight of the money. He got
+up, and, as a man of delicate feeling unwilling to pry into other
+people's secrets, he went out of the room on tiptoe, swaying his
+arms. Solomon remained where he was.
+
+"How many are there in the rolls of roubles?" Father Christopher
+began.
+
+"The rouble notes are done up in fifties, . . . the three-rouble
+notes in nineties, the twenty-five and hundred roubles in thousands.
+You count out seven thousand eight hundred for Varlamov, and I will
+count out for Gusevitch. And mind you don't make a mistake. . ."
+
+Yegorushka had never in his life seen so much money as was lying
+on the table before him. There must have been a great deal of money,
+for the roll of seven thousand eight hundred, which Father Christopher
+put aside for Varlamov, seemed very small compared with the whole
+heap. At any other time such a mass of money would have impressed
+Yegorushka, and would have moved him to reflect how many cracknels,
+buns and poppy-cakes could be bought for that money. Now he looked
+at it listlessly, only conscious of the disgusting smell of kerosene
+and rotten apples that came from the heap of notes. He was exhausted
+by the jolting ride in the chaise, tired out and sleepy. His head
+was heavy, his eyes would hardly keep open and his thoughts were
+tangled like threads. If it had been possible he would have been
+relieved to lay his head on the table, so as not to see the lamp
+and the fingers moving over the heaps of notes, and to have let his
+tired sleepy thoughts go still more at random. When he tried to
+keep awake, the light of the lamp, the cups and the fingers grew
+double, the samovar heaved and the smell of rotten apples seemed
+even more acrid and disgusting.
+
+"Ah, money, money!" sighed Father Christopher, smiling. "You bring
+trouble! Now I expect my Mihailo is asleep and dreaming that I am
+going to bring him a heap of money like this."
+
+"Your Mihailo Timofevitch is a man who doesn't understand business,"
+said Kuzmitchov in an undertone; "he undertakes what isn't his work,
+but you understand and can judge. You had better hand over your
+wool to me, as I have said already, and I would give you half a
+rouble above my own price--yes, I would, simply out of regard for
+you. . . ."
+
+"No, Ivan Ivanitch." Father Christopher sighed. "I thank you for
+your kindness. . . . Of course, if it were for me to decide, I
+shouldn't think twice about it; but as it is, the wool is not mine,
+as you know. . . ."
+
+Moisey Moisevitch came in on tiptoe. Trying from delicacy not to
+look at the heaps of money, he stole up to Yegorushka and pulled
+at his shirt from behind.
+
+"Come along, little gentleman," he said in an undertone, "come and
+see the little bear I can show you! Such a queer, cross little bear.
+Oo-oo!"
+
+The sleepy boy got up and listlessly dragged himself after Moisey
+Moisevitch to see the bear. He went into a little room, where,
+before he saw anything, he felt he could not breathe from the smell
+of something sour and decaying, which was much stronger here than
+in the big room and probably spread from this room all over the
+house. One part of the room was occupied by a big bed, covered with
+a greasy quilt and another by a chest of drawers and heaps of rags
+of all kinds from a woman's stiff petticoat to children's little
+breeches and braces. A tallow candle stood on the chest of drawers.
+
+Instead of the promised bear, Yegorushka saw a big fat Jewess with
+her hair hanging loose, in a red flannel skirt with black sprigs
+on it; she turned with difficulty in the narrow space between the
+bed and the chest of drawers and uttered drawn-out moaning as though
+she had toothache. On seeing Yegorushka, she made a doleful,
+woe-begone face, heaved a long drawn-out sigh, and before he had
+time to look round, put to his lips a slice of bread smeared with
+honey.
+
+"Eat it, dearie, eat it!" she said. "You are here without your
+mamma, and no one to look after you. Eat it up."
+
+Yegorushka did eat it, though after the goodies and poppy-cakes he
+had every day at home, he did not think very much of the honey,
+which was mixed with wax and bees' wings. He ate while Moisey
+Moisevitch and the Jewess looked at him and sighed.
+
+"Where are you going, dearie?" asked the Jewess.
+
+"To school," answered Yegorushka.
+
+"And how many brothers and sisters have you got?"
+
+"I am the only one; there are no others."
+
+"O-oh!" sighed the Jewess, and turned her eyes upward. "Poor mamma,
+poor mamma! How she will weep and miss you! We are going to send
+our Nahum to school in a year. O-oh!"
+
+"Ah, Nahum, Nahum!" sighed Moisey Moisevitch, and the skin of his
+pale face twitched nervously. "And he is so delicate."
+
+The greasy quilt quivered, and from beneath it appeared a child's
+curly head on a very thin neck; two black eyes gleamed and stared
+with curiosity at Yegorushka. Still sighing, Moisey Moisevitch and
+the Jewess went to the chest of drawers and began talking in Yiddish.
+Moisey Moisevitch spoke in a low bass undertone, and altogether his
+talk in Yiddish was like a continual "ghaal-ghaal-ghaal-ghaal, . . ."
+while his wife answered him in a shrill voice like a turkeycock's,
+and the whole effect of her talk was something like "Too-too-too-too!"
+While they were consulting, another little curly head on a thin
+neck peeped out of the greasy quilt, then a third, then a fourth.
+. . . If Yegorushka had had a fertile imagination he might have
+imagined that the hundred-headed hydra was hiding under the quilt.
+
+"Ghaal-ghaal-ghaal-ghaal!" said Moisey Moisevitch.
+
+"Too-too-too-too!" answered the Jewess.
+
+The consultation ended in the Jewess's diving with a deep sigh into
+the chest of drawers, and, unwrapping some sort of green rag there,
+she took out a big rye cake made in the shape of a heart.
+
+"Take it, dearie," she said, giving Yegorushka the cake; "you have
+no mamma now--no one to give you nice things."
+
+Yegorushka stuck the cake in his pocket and staggered to the door,
+as he could not go on breathing the foul, sour air in which the
+innkeeper and his wife lived. Going back to the big room, he settled
+himself more comfortably on the sofa and gave up trying to check
+his straying thoughts.
+
+As soon as Kuzmitchov had finished counting out the notes he put
+them back into the bag. He did not treat them very respectfully and
+stuffed them into the dirty sack without ceremony, as indifferently
+as though they had not been money but waste paper.
+
+Father Christopher was talking to Solomon.
+
+"Well, Solomon the Wise!" he said, yawning and making the sign of
+the cross over his mouth. "How is business?"
+
+"What sort of business are you talking about?" asked Solomon, and
+he looked as fiendish, as though it were a hint of some crime on
+his part.
+
+"Oh, things in general. What are you doing?"
+
+"What am I doing?" Solomon repeated, and he shrugged his shoulders.
+"The same as everyone else. . . . You see, I am a menial, I am my
+brother's servant; my brother's the servant of the visitors; the
+visitors are Varlamov's servants; and if I had ten millions, Varlamov
+would be my servant."
+
+"Why would he be your servant?"
+
+"Why, because there isn't a gentleman or millionaire who isn't ready
+to lick the hand of a scabby Jew for the sake of making a kopeck.
+Now, I am a scabby Jew and a beggar. Everybody looks at me as though
+I were a dog, but if I had money Varlamov would play the fool before
+me just as Moisey does before you."
+
+Father Christopher and Kuzmitchov looked at each other. Neither of
+them understood Solomon. Kuzmitchov looked at him sternly and dryly,
+and asked:
+
+"How can you compare yourself with Varlamov, you blockhead?"
+
+"I am not such a fool as to put myself on a level with Varlamov,"
+answered Solomon, looking sarcastically at the speaker. "Though
+Varlamov is a Russian, he is at heart a scabby Jew; money and gain
+are all he lives for, but I threw my money in the stove! I don't
+want money, or land, or sheep, and there is no need for people to
+be afraid of me and to take off their hats when I pass. So I am
+wiser than your Varlamov and more like a man!"
+
+A little later Yegorushka, half asleep, heard Solomon in a hoarse
+hollow voice choked with hatred, in hurried stuttering phrases,
+talking about the Jews. At first he talked correctly in Russian,
+then he fell into the tone of a Jewish recitation, and began speaking
+as he had done at the fair with an exaggerated Jewish accent.
+
+"Stop! . . ." Father Christopher said to him. "If you don't like
+your religion you had better change it, but to laugh at it is a
+sin; it is only the lowest of the low who will make fun of his
+religion."
+
+"You don't understand," Solomon cut him short rudely. "I am talking
+of one thing and you are talking of something else. . . ."
+
+"One can see you are a foolish fellow," sighed Father Christopher.
+"I admonish you to the best of my ability, and you are angry. I
+speak to you like an old man quietly, and you answer like a turkeycock:
+'Bla---bla---bla!' You really are a queer fellow. . . ."
+
+Moisey Moisevitch came in. He looked anxiously at Solomon and at
+his visitors, and again the skin on his face quivered nervously.
+Yegorushka shook his head and looked about him; he caught a passing
+glimpse of Solomon's face at the very moment when it was turned
+three-quarters towards him and when the shadow of his long nose
+divided his left cheek in half; the contemptuous smile mingled with
+that shadow; the gleaming sarcastic eyes, the haughty expression,
+and the whole plucked-looking little figure, dancing and doubling
+itself before Yegorushka's eyes, made him now not like a buffoon,
+but like something one sometimes dreams of, like an evil spirit.
+
+"What a ferocious fellow you've got here, Moisey Moisevitch! God
+bless him!" said Father Christopher with a smile. "You ought to
+find him a place or a wife or something. . . . There's no knowing
+what to make of him. . . ."
+
+Kuzmitchov frowned angrily. Moisey Moisevitch looked uneasily and
+inquiringly at his brother and the visitors again.
+
+"Solomon, go away!" he said shortly. "Go away!" and he added something
+in Yiddish. Solomon gave an abrupt laugh and went out.
+
+"What was it?" Moisey Moisevitch asked Father Christopher anxiously.
+
+"He forgets himself," answered Kuzmitchov. "He's rude and thinks
+too much of himself."
+
+"I knew it!" Moisey Moisevitch cried in horror, clasping his hands.
+"Oh dear, oh dear!" he muttered in a low voice. "Be so kind as to
+excuse it, and don't be angry. He is such a queer fellow, such a
+queer fellow! Oh dear, oh dear! He is my own brother, but I have
+never had anything but trouble from him. You know he's. . ."
+
+Moisey Moisevitch crooked his finger by his forehead and went on:
+
+"He is not in his right mind; . . . he's hopeless. And I don't know
+what I am to do with him! He cares for nobody, he respects nobody,
+and is afraid of nobody. . . . You know he laughs at everybody, he
+says silly things, speaks familiarly to anyone. You wouldn't believe
+it, Varlamov came here one day and Solomon said such things to him
+that he gave us both a taste of his whip. . . . But why whip me?
+Was it my fault? God has robbed him of his wits, so it is God's
+will, and how am I to blame?"
+
+Ten minutes passed and Moisey Moisevitch was still muttering in an
+undertone and sighing:
+
+"He does not sleep at night, and is always thinking and thinking
+and thinking, and what he is thinking about God only knows. If you
+go to him at night he is angry and laughs. He doesn't like me either
+. . . . And there is nothing he wants! When our father died he left
+us each six thousand roubles. I bought myself an inn, married, and
+now I have children; and he burnt all his money in the stove. Such
+a pity, such a pity! Why burn it? If he didn't want it he could
+give it to me, but why burn it?"
+
+Suddenly the swing-door creaked and the floor shook under footsteps.
+Yegorushka felt a draught of cold air, and it seemed to him as
+though some big black bird had passed by him and had fluttered its
+wings close in his face. He opened his eyes. . . . His uncle was
+standing by the sofa with his sack in his hands ready for departure;
+Father Christopher, holding his broad-brimmed top-hat, was bowing
+to someone and smiling--not his usual soft kindly smile, but a
+respectful forced smile which did not suit his face at all--while
+Moisey Moisevitch looked as though his body had been broken into
+three parts, and he were balancing and doing his utmost not to drop
+to pieces. Only Solomon stood in the corner with his arms folded,
+as though nothing had happened, and smiled contemptuously as before.
+
+"Your Excellency must excuse us for not being tidy," moaned Moisey
+Moisevitch with the agonizingly sweet smile, taking no more notice
+of Kuzmitchov or Father Christopher, but swaying his whole person
+so as to avoid dropping to pieces. "We are plain folks, your
+Excellency."
+
+Yegorushka rubbed his eyes. In the middle of the room there really
+was standing an Excellency, in the form of a young plump and very
+beautiful woman in a black dress and a straw hat. Before Yegorushka
+had time to examine her features the image of the solitary graceful
+poplar he had seen that day on the hill for some reason came into
+his mind.
+
+"Has Varlamov been here to-day?" a woman's voice inquired.
+
+"No, your Excellency," said Moisey Moisevitch.
+
+"If you see him to-morrow, ask him to come and see me for a minute."
+
+All at once, quite unexpectedly, Yegorushka saw half an inch from
+his eyes velvety black eyebrows, big brown eyes, delicate feminine
+cheeks with dimples, from which smiles seemed radiating all over
+the face like sunbeams. There was a glorious scent.
+
+"What a pretty boy!" said the lady. "Whose boy is it? Kazimir
+Mihalovitch, look what a charming fellow! Good heavens, he is
+asleep!"
+
+And the lady kissed Yegorushka warmly on both cheeks, and he smiled
+and, thinking he was asleep, shut his eyes. The swing-door squeaked,
+and there was the sound of hurried footsteps, coming in and going
+out.
+
+"Yegorushka, Yegorushka!" he heard two bass voices whisper. "Get
+up; it is time to start."
+
+Somebody, it seemed to be Deniska, set him on his feet and led him
+by the arm. On the way he half-opened his eyes and once more saw
+the beautiful lady in the black dress who had kissed him. She was
+standing in the middle of the room and watched him go out, smiling
+at him and nodding her head in a friendly way. As he got near the
+door he saw a handsome, stoutly built, dark man in a bowler hat and
+in leather gaiters. This must have been the lady's escort.
+
+"Woa!" he heard from the yard.
+
+At the front door Yegorushka saw a splendid new carriage and a pair
+of black horses. On the box sat a groom in livery, with a long whip
+in his hands. No one but Solomon came to see the travellers off.
+His face was tense with a desire to laugh; he looked as though he
+were waiting impatiently for the visitors to be gone, so that he
+might laugh at them without restraint.
+
+"The Countess Dranitsky," whispered Father Christopher, clambering
+into the chaise.
+
+"Yes, Countess Dranitsky," repeated Kuzmitchov, also in a whisper.
+
+The impression made by the arrival of the countess was probably
+very great, for even Deniska spoke in a whisper, and only ventured
+to lash his bays and shout when the chaise had driven a quarter of
+a mile away and nothing could be seen of the inn but a dim light.
+
+IV
+
+Who was this elusive, mysterious Varlamov of whom people talked so
+much, whom Solomon despised, and whom even the beautiful countess
+needed? Sitting on the box beside Deniska, Yegorushka, half asleep,
+thought about this person. He had never seen him. But he had often
+heard of him and pictured him in his imagination. He knew that
+Varlamov possessed several tens of thousands of acres of land, about
+a hundred thousand sheep, and a great deal of money. Of his manner
+of life and occupation Yegorushka knew nothing, except that he was
+always "going his rounds in these parts," and he was always being
+looked for.
+
+At home Yegorushka had heard a great deal of the Countess Dranitsky,
+too. She, too, had some tens of thousands of acres, a great many
+sheep, a stud farm and a great deal of money, but she did not "go
+rounds," but lived at home in a splendid house and grounds, about
+which Ivan Ivanitch, who had been more than once at the countess's
+on business, and other acquaintances told many marvellous tales;
+thus, for instance, they said that in the countess's drawing-room,
+where the portraits of all the kings of Poland hung on the walls,
+there was a big table-clock in the form of a rock, on the rock a
+gold horse with diamond eyes, rearing, and on the horse the figure
+of a rider also of gold, who brandished his sword to right and to
+left whenever the clock struck. They said, too, that twice a year
+the countess used to give a ball, to which the gentry and officials
+of the whole province were invited, and to which even Varlamov used
+to come; all the visitors drank tea from silver samovars, ate all
+sorts of extraordinary things (they had strawberries and raspberries,
+for instance, in winter at Christmas), and danced to a band which
+played day and night. . . .
+
+"And how beautiful she is," thought Yegorushka, remembering her
+face and smile.
+
+Kuzmitchov, too, was probably thinking about the countess. For when
+the chaise had driven a mile and a half he said:
+
+"But doesn't that Kazimir Mihalovitch plunder her right and left!
+The year before last when, do you remember, I bought some wool from
+her, he made over three thousand from my purchase alone."
+
+"That is just what you would expect from a Pole," said Father
+Christopher.
+
+"And little does it trouble her. Young and foolish, as they say,
+her head is full of nonsense."
+
+Yegorushka, for some reason, longed to think of nothing but Varlamov
+and the countess, particularly the latter. His drowsy brain utterly
+refused ordinary thoughts, was in a cloud and retained only fantastic
+fairy-tale images, which have the advantage of springing into the
+brain of themselves without any effort on the part of the thinker,
+and completely vanishing of themselves at a mere shake of the head;
+and, indeed, nothing that was around him disposed to ordinary
+thoughts. On the right there were the dark hills which seemed to
+be screening something unseen and terrible; on the left the whole
+sky about the horizon was covered with a crimson glow, and it was
+hard to tell whether there was a fire somewhere, or whether it was
+the moon about to rise. As by day the distance could be seen, but
+its tender lilac tint had gone, quenched by the evening darkness,
+in which the whole steppe was hidden like Moisey Moisevitch's
+children under the quilt.
+
+Corncrakes and quails do not call in the July nights, the nightingale
+does not sing in the woodland marsh, and there is no scent of
+flowers, but still the steppe is lovely and full of life. As soon
+as the sun goes down and the darkness enfolds the earth, the day's
+weariness is forgotten, everything is forgiven, and the steppe
+breathes a light sigh from its broad bosom. As though because the
+grass cannot see in the dark that it has grown old, a gay youthful
+twitter rises up from it, such as is not heard by day; chirruping,
+twittering, whistling, scratching, the basses, tenors and sopranos
+of the steppe all mingle in an incessant, monotonous roar of sound
+in which it is sweet to brood on memories and sorrows. The monotonous
+twitter soothes to sleep like a lullaby; you drive and feel you are
+falling asleep, but suddenly there comes the abrupt agitated cry
+of a wakeful bird, or a vague sound like a voice crying out in
+wonder "A-ah, a-ah!" and slumber closes one's eyelids again. Or you
+drive by a little creek where there are bushes and hear the bird,
+called by the steppe dwellers "the sleeper," call "Asleep, asleep,
+asleep!" while another laughs or breaks into trills of hysterical
+weeping--that is the owl. For whom do they call and who hears
+them on that plain, God only knows, but there is deep sadness and
+lamentation in their cry. . . . There is a scent of hay and dry
+grass and belated flowers, but the scent is heavy, sweetly mawkish
+and soft.
+
+Everything can be seen through the mist, but it is hard to make out
+the colours and the outlines of objects. Everything looks different
+from what it is. You drive on and suddenly see standing before you
+right in the roadway a dark figure like a monk; it stands motionless,
+waiting, holding something in its hands. . . . Can it be a robber?
+The figure comes closer, grows bigger; now it is on a level with
+the chaise, and you see it is not a man, but a solitary bush or a
+great stone. Such motionless expectant figures stand on the low
+hills, hide behind the old barrows, peep out from the high grass,
+and they all look like human beings and arouse suspicion.
+
+And when the moon rises the night becomes pale and dim. The mist
+seems to have passed away. The air is transparent, fresh and warm;
+one can see well in all directions and even distinguish the separate
+stalks of grass by the wayside. Stones and bits of pots can be seen
+at a long distance. The suspicious figures like monks look blacker
+against the light background of the night, and seem more sinister.
+More and more often in the midst of the monotonous chirruping there
+comes the sound of the "A-ah, a-ah!" of astonishment troubling the
+motionless air, and the cry of a sleepless or delirious bird. Broad
+shadows move across the plain like clouds across the sky, and in
+the inconceivable distance, if you look long and intently at it,
+misty monstrous shapes rise up and huddle one against another. . . .
+It is rather uncanny. One glances at the pale green, star-spangled
+sky on which there is no cloudlet, no spot, and understands why the
+warm air is motionless, why nature is on her guard, afraid to stir:
+she is afraid and reluctant to lose one instant of life. Of the
+unfathomable depth and infinity of the sky one can only form a
+conception at sea and on the steppe by night when the moon is
+shining. It is terribly lonely and caressing; it looks down languid
+and alluring, and its caressing sweetness makes one giddy.
+
+You drive on for one hour, for a second. . . . You meet upon the
+way a silent old barrow or a stone figure put up God knows when and
+by whom; a nightbird floats noiselessly over the earth, and little
+by little those legends of the steppes, the tales of men you have
+met, the stories of some old nurse from the steppe, and all the
+things you have managed to see and treasure in your soul, come back
+to your mind. And then in the churring of insects, in the sinister
+figures, in the ancient barrows, in the blue sky, in the moonlight,
+in the flight of the nightbird, in everything you see and hear,
+triumphant beauty, youth, the fulness of power, and the passionate
+thirst for life begin to be apparent; the soul responds to the call
+of her lovely austere fatherland, and longs to fly over the steppes
+with the nightbird. And in the triumph of beauty, in the exuberance
+of happiness you are conscious of yearning and grief, as though the
+steppe knew she was solitary, knew that her wealth and her inspiration
+were wasted for the world, not glorified in song, not wanted by
+anyone; and through the joyful clamour one hears her mournful,
+hopeless call for singers, singers!
+
+"Woa! Good-evening, Panteley! Is everything all right?"
+
+"First-rate, Ivan Ivanitch!
+
+"Haven't you seen Varlamov, lads?"
+
+"No, we haven't."
+
+Yegorushka woke up and opened his eyes. The chaise had stopped. On
+the right the train of waggons stretched for a long way ahead on
+the road, and men were moving to and fro near them. All the waggons
+being loaded up with great bales of wool looked very high and fat,
+while the horses looked short-legged and little.
+
+"Well, then, we shall go on to the Molokans'!" Kuzmitchov said
+aloud. "The Jew told us that Varlamov was putting up for the night
+at the Molokans'. So good-bye, lads! Good luck to you!"
+
+"Good-bye, Ivan Ivanitch," several voices replied.
+
+"I say, lads," Kuzmitchov cried briskly, "you take my little lad
+along with you! Why should he go jolting off with us for nothing?
+You put him on the bales, Panteley, and let him come on slowly, and
+we shall overtake you. Get down, Yegor! Go on; it's all right. . . ."
+
+Yegorushka got down from the box-seat. Several hands caught him,
+lifted him high into the air, and he found himself on something
+big, soft, and rather wet with dew. It seemed to him now as though
+the sky were quite close and the earth far away.
+
+"Hey, take his little coat!" Deniska shouted from somewhere far
+below.
+
+His coat and bundle flung up from far below fell close to Yegorushka.
+Anxious not to think of anything, he quickly put his bundle under
+his head and covered himself with his coat, and stretching his legs
+out and shrinking a little from the dew, he laughed with content.
+
+"Sleep, sleep, sleep, . . ." he thought.
+
+"Don't be unkind to him, you devils!" he heard Deniska's voice
+below.
+
+"Good-bye, lads; good luck to you," shouted Kuzmitchov. "I rely
+upon you!"
+
+"Don't you be uneasy, Ivan Ivanitch!"
+
+Deniska shouted to the horses, the chaise creaked and started, not
+along the road, but somewhere off to the side. For two minutes there
+was silence, as though the waggons were asleep and there was no
+sound except the clanking of the pails tied on at the back of the
+chaise as it slowly died away in the distance. Then someone at the
+head of the waggons shouted:
+
+"Kiruha! Sta-art!"
+
+The foremost of the waggons creaked, then the second, then the
+third. . . . Yegorushka felt the waggon he was on sway and creak
+also. The waggons were moving. Yegorushka took a tighter hold of
+the cord with which the bales were tied on, laughed again with
+content, shifted the cake in his pocket, and fell asleep just as
+he did in his bed at home. . . .
+
+When he woke up the sun had risen, it was screened by an ancient
+barrow, and, trying to shed its light upon the earth, it scattered
+its beams in all directions and flooded the horizon with gold. It
+seemed to Yegorushka that it was not in its proper place, as the
+day before it had risen behind his back, and now it was much more
+to his left. . . . And the whole landscape was different. There
+were no hills now, but on all sides, wherever one looked, there
+stretched the brown cheerless plain; here and there upon it small
+barrows rose up and rooks flew as they had done the day before. The
+belfries and huts of some village showed white in the distance
+ahead; as it was Sunday the Little Russians were at home baking and
+cooking--that could be seen by the smoke which rose from every
+chimney and hung, a dark blue transparent veil, over the village.
+In between the huts and beyond the church there were blue glimpses
+of a river, and beyond the river a misty distance. But nothing was
+so different from yesterday as the road. Something extraordinarily
+broad, spread out and titanic, stretched over the steppe by way of
+a road. It was a grey streak well trodden down and covered with
+dust, like all roads. Its width puzzled Yegorushka and brought
+thoughts of fairy tales to his mind. Who travelled along that road?
+Who needed so much space? It was strange and unintelligible. It
+might have been supposed that giants with immense strides, such as
+Ilya Muromets and Solovy the Brigand, were still surviving in Russia,
+and that their gigantic steeds were still alive. Yegorushka, looking
+at the road, imagined some half a dozen high chariots racing along
+side by side, like some he used to see in pictures in his Scripture
+history; these chariots were each drawn by six wild furious horses,
+and their great wheels raised a cloud of dust to the sky, while the
+horses were driven by men such as one may see in one's dreams or
+in imagination brooding over fairy tales. And if those figures had
+existed, how perfectly in keeping with the steppe and the road they
+would have been!
+
+Telegraph-poles with two wires on them stretched along the right
+side of the road to its furthermost limit. Growing smaller and
+smaller they disappeared near the village behind the huts and green
+trees, and then again came into sight in the lilac distance in the
+form of very small thin sticks that looked like pencils stuck into
+the ground. Hawks, falcons, and crows sat on the wires and looked
+indifferently at the moving waggons.
+
+Yegorushka was lying in the last of the waggons, and so could see
+the whole string. There were about twenty waggons, and there was a
+driver to every three waggons. By the last waggon, the one in which
+Yegorushka was, there walked an old man with a grey beard, as short
+and lean as Father Christopher, but with a sunburnt, stern and
+brooding face. It is very possible that the old man was not stern
+and not brooding, but his red eyelids and his sharp long nose gave
+his face a stern frigid expression such as is common with people
+in the habit of continually thinking of serious things in solitude.
+Like Father Christopher he was wearing a wide-brimmed top-hat, not
+like a gentleman's, but made of brown felt, and in shape more like
+a cone with the top cut off than a real top-hat. Probably from a
+habit acquired in cold winters, when he must more than once have
+been nearly frozen as he trudged beside the waggons, he kept slapping
+his thighs and stamping with his feet as he walked. Noticing that
+Yegorushka was awake, he looked at him and said, shrugging his
+shoulders as though from the cold:
+
+"Ah, you are awake, youngster! So you are the son of Ivan Ivanitch?"
+
+"No; his nephew. . . ."
+
+"Nephew of Ivan Ivanitch? Here I have taken off my boots and am
+hopping along barefoot. My feet are bad; they are swollen, and it's
+easier without my boots . . . easier, youngster . . . without boots,
+I mean. . . . So you are his nephew? He is a good man; no harm in
+him. . . . God give him health. . . . No harm in him . . . I mean
+Ivan Ivanitch. . . . He has gone to the Molokans'. . . . O Lord,
+have mercy upon us!"
+
+The old man talked, too, as though it were very cold, pausing and
+not opening his mouth properly; and he mispronounced the labial
+consonants, stuttering over them as though his lips were frozen.
+As he talked to Yegorushka he did not once smile, and he seemed
+stern.
+
+Two waggons ahead of them there walked a man wearing a long
+reddish-brown coat, a cap and high boots with sagging bootlegs and
+carrying a whip in his hand. This was not an old man, only about
+forty. When he looked round Yegorushka saw a long red face with a
+scanty goat-beard and a spongy looking swelling under his right
+eye. Apart from this very ugly swelling, there was another peculiar
+thing about him which caught the eye at once: in his left hand he
+carried a whip, while he waved the right as though he were conducting
+an unseen choir; from time to time he put the whip under his arm,
+and then he conducted with both hands and hummed something to
+himself.
+
+The next driver was a long rectilinear figure with extremely sloping
+shoulders and a back as flat as a board. He held himself as stiffly
+erect as though he were marching or had swallowed a yard measure.
+His hands did not swing as he walked, but hung down as if they were
+straight sticks, and he strode along in a wooden way, after the
+manner of toy soldiers, almost without bending his knees, and trying
+to take as long steps as possible. While the old man or the owner
+of the spongy swelling were taking two steps he succeeded in taking
+only one, and so it seemed as though he were walking more slowly
+than any of them, and would drop behind. His face was tied up in a
+rag, and on his head something stuck up that looked like a monk's
+peaked cap; he was dressed in a short Little Russian coat, with
+full dark blue trousers and bark shoes.
+
+Yegorushka did not even distinguish those that were farther on. He
+lay on his stomach, picked a little hole in the bale, and, having
+nothing better to do, began twisting the wool into a thread. The
+old man trudging along below him turned out not to be so stern as
+one might have supposed from his face. Having begun a conversation,
+he did not let it drop.
+
+"Where are you going?" he asked, stamping with his feet.
+
+"To school," answered Yegorushka.
+
+"To school? Aha! . . . Well, may the Queen of Heaven help you. Yes.
+One brain is good, but two are better. To one man God gives one
+brain, to another two brains, and to another three. . . . To another
+three, that is true. . . . One brain you are born with, one you get
+from learning, and a third with a good life. So you see, my lad,
+it is a good thing if a man has three brains. Living is easier for
+him, and, what's more, dying is, too. Dying is, too. . . . And we
+shall all die for sure."
+
+The old man scratched his forehead, glanced upwards at Yegorushka
+with his red eyes, and went on:
+
+"Maxim Nikolaitch, the gentleman from Slavyanoserbsk, brought a
+little lad to school, too, last year. I don't know how he is getting
+on there in studying the sciences, but he was a nice good little
+lad. . . . God give them help, they are nice gentlemen. Yes, he,
+too, brought his boy to school. . . . In Slavyanoserbsk there is
+no establishment, I suppose, for study. No. . . . But it is a nice
+town. . . . There's an ordinary school for simple folks, but for
+the higher studies there is nothing. No, that's true. What's your
+name? . . ."
+
+"Yegorushka."
+
+"Yegory, then. . . . The holy martyr Yegory, the Bearer of Victory,
+whose day is the twenty-third of April. And my christian name is
+Panteley, . . . Panteley Zaharov Holodov. . . . We are Holodovs
+. . . . I am a native of--maybe you've heard of it--Tim in the
+province of Kursk. My brothers are artisans and work at trades in
+the town, but I am a peasant. . . . I have remained a peasant. Seven
+years ago I went there--home, I mean. I went to the village and
+to the town. . . . To Tim, I mean. Then, thank God, they were all
+alive and well; . . . but now I don't know. . . . Maybe some of
+them are dead. . . . And it's time they did die, for some of them
+are older than I am. Death is all right; it is good so long, of
+course, as one does not die without repentance. There is no worse
+evil than an impenitent death; an impenitent death is a joy to the
+devil. And if you want to die penitent, so that you may not be
+forbidden to enter the mansions of the Lord, pray to the holy martyr
+Varvara. She is the intercessor. She is, that's the truth. . . .
+For God has given her such a place in the heavens that everyone has
+the right to pray to her for penitence."
+
+Panteley went on muttering, and apparently did not trouble whether
+Yegorushka heard him or not. He talked listlessly, mumbling to
+himself, without raising or dropping his voice, but succeeded in
+telling him a great deal in a short time. All he said was made up
+of fragments that had very little connection with one another, and
+quite uninteresting for Yegorushka. Possibly he talked only in order
+to reckon over his thoughts aloud after the night spent in silence,
+in order to see if they were all there. After talking of repentance,
+he spoke about a certain Maxim Nikolaitch from Slavyanoserbsk.
+
+"Yes, he took his little lad; . . . he took him, that's true . . ."
+
+One of the waggoners walking in front darted from his place, ran
+to one side and began lashing on the ground with his whip. He was
+a stalwart, broad-shouldered man of thirty, with curly flaxen hair
+and a look of great health and vigour. Judging from the movements
+of his shoulders and the whip, and the eagerness expressed in his
+attitude, he was beating something alive. Another waggoner, a short
+stubby little man with a bushy black beard, wearing a waistcoat and
+a shirt outside his trousers, ran up to him. The latter broke into
+a deep guffaw of laughter and coughing and said: "I say, lads, Dymov
+has killed a snake!"
+
+There are people whose intelligence can be gauged at once by their
+voice and laughter. The man with the black beard belonged to that
+class of fortunate individuals; impenetrable stupidity could be
+felt in his voice and laugh. The flaxen-headed Dymov had finished,
+and lifting from the ground with his whip something like a cord,
+flung it with a laugh into the cart.
+
+"That's not a viper; it's a grass snake!" shouted someone.
+
+The man with the wooden gait and the bandage round his face strode
+up quickly to the dead snake, glanced at it and flung up his
+stick-like arms.
+
+"You jail-bird!" he cried in a hollow wailing voice. "What have you
+killed a grass snake for? What had he done to you, you damned brute?
+Look, he has killed a grass snake; how would you like to be treated
+so?"
+
+"Grass snakes ought not to be killed, that's true," Panteley muttered
+placidly, "they ought not. . . They are not vipers; though it looks
+like a snake, it is a gentle, innocent creature. . . . It's friendly
+to man, the grass snake is."
+
+Dymov and the man with the black beard were probably ashamed, for
+they laughed loudly, and not answering, slouched lazily back to
+their waggons. When the hindmost waggon was level with the spot
+where the dead snake lay, the man with his face tied up standing
+over it turned to Panteley and asked in a tearful voice:
+
+"Grandfather, what did he want to kill the grass snake for?"
+
+His eyes, as Yegorushka saw now, were small and dingy looking; his
+face was grey, sickly and looked somehow dingy too while his chin
+was red and seemed very much swollen.
+
+"Grandfather, what did he kill it for?" he repeated, striding along
+beside Panteley.
+
+"A stupid fellow. His hands itch to kill, and that is why he does
+it," answered the old man; "but he oughtn't to kill a grass snake,
+that's true. . . . Dymov is a ruffian, we all know, he kills
+everything he comes across, and Kiruha did not interfere. He ought
+to have taken its part, but instead of that, he goes off into
+'Ha-ha-ha!' and 'Ho-ho-ho!' . . . But don't be angry, Vassya. . . .
+Why be angry? They've killed it--well, never mind them. Dymov
+is a ruffian and Kiruha acted from foolishness--never mind. . . .
+They are foolish people without understanding--but there, don't
+mind them. Emelyan here never touches what he shouldn't; he never
+does; . . . that is true, . . . because he is a man of education,
+while they are stupid. . . . Emelyan, he doesn't touch things."
+
+The waggoner in the reddish-brown coat and the spongy swelling on
+his face, who was conducting an unseen choir, stopped. Hearing his
+name, and waiting till Panteley and Vassya came up to him, he walked
+beside them.
+
+"What are you talking about?" he asked in a husky muffled voice.
+
+"Why, Vassya here is angry," said Panteley. "So I have been saying
+things to him to stop his being angry. . . . Oh, how my swollen
+feet hurt! Oh, oh! They are more inflamed than ever for Sunday,
+God's holy day!"
+
+"It's from walking," observed Vassya.
+
+"No, lad, no. It's not from walking. When I walk it seems easier;
+when I lie down and get warm, . . . it's deadly. Walking is easier
+for me."
+
+Emelyan, in his reddish-brown coat, walked between Panteley and
+Vassya and waved his arms, as though they were going to sing. After
+waving them a little while he dropped them, and croaked out hopelessly:
+
+"I have no voice. It's a real misfortune. All last night and this
+morning I have been haunted by the trio 'Lord, have Mercy' that we
+sang at the wedding at Marionovsky's. It's in my head and in my
+throat. It seems as though I could sing it, but I can't; I have no
+voice."
+
+He paused for a minute, thinking, then went on:
+
+"For fifteen years I was in the choir. In all the Lugansky works
+there was, maybe, no one with a voice like mine. But, confound it,
+I bathed two years ago in the Donets, and I can't get a single note
+true ever since. I took cold in my throat. And without a voice I
+am like a workman without hands."
+
+"That's true," Panteley agreed.
+
+"I think of myself as a ruined man and nothing more."
+
+At that moment Vassya chanced to catch sight of Yegorushka. His
+eyes grew moist and smaller than ever.
+
+"There's a little gentleman driving with us," and he covered his
+nose with his sleeve as though he were bashful. "What a grand driver!
+Stay with us and you shall drive the waggons and sell wool."
+
+The incongruity of one person being at once a little gentleman and
+a waggon driver seemed to strike him as very queer and funny, for
+he burst into a loud guffaw, and went on enlarging upon the idea.
+Emelyan glanced upwards at Yegorushka, too, but coldly and cursorily.
+He was absorbed in his own thoughts, and had it not been for Vassya,
+would not have noticed Yegorushka's presence. Before five minutes
+had passed he was waving his arms again, then describing to his
+companions the beauties of the wedding anthem, "Lord, have Mercy,"
+which he had remembered in the night. He put the whip under his arm
+and waved both hands.
+
+A mile from the village the waggons stopped by a well with a crane.
+Letting his pail down into the well, black-bearded Kiruha lay on
+his stomach on the framework and thrust his shaggy head, his
+shoulders, and part of his chest into the black hole, so that
+Yegorushka could see nothing but his short legs, which scarcely
+touched the ground. Seeing the reflection of his head far down at
+the bottom of the well, he was delighted and went off into his deep
+bass stupid laugh, and the echo from the well answered him. When
+he got up his neck and face were as red as beetroot. The first to
+run up and drink was Dymov. He drank laughing, often turning from
+the pail to tell Kiruha something funny, then he turned round, and
+uttered aloud, to be heard all over the steppe, five very bad words.
+Yegorushka did not understand the meaning of such words, but he
+knew very well they were bad words. He knew the repulsion his friends
+and relations silently felt for such words. He himself, without
+knowing why, shared that feeling and was accustomed to think that
+only drunk and disorderly people enjoy the privilege of uttering
+such words aloud. He remembered the murder of the grass snake,
+listened to Dymov's laughter, and felt something like hatred for
+the man. And as ill-luck would have it, Dymov at that moment caught
+sight of Yegorushka, who had climbed down from the waggon and gone
+up to the well. He laughed aloud and shouted:
+
+"I say, lads, the old man has been brought to bed of a boy in the
+night!"
+
+Kiruha laughed his bass laugh till he coughed. Someone else laughed
+too, while Yegorushka crimsoned and made up his mind finally that
+Dymov was a very wicked man.
+
+With his curly flaxen head, with his shirt opened on his chest and
+no hat on, Dymov looked handsome and exceptionally strong; in every
+movement he made one could see the reckless dare-devil and athlete,
+knowing his value. He shrugged his shoulders, put his arms akimbo,
+talked and laughed louder than any of the rest, and looked as though
+he were going to lift up something very heavy with one hand and
+astonish the whole world by doing so. His mischievous mocking eyes
+glided over the road, the waggons, and the sky without resting on
+anything, and seemed looking for someone to kill, just as a pastime,
+and something to laugh at. Evidently he was afraid of no one, would
+stick at nothing, and most likely was not in the least interested
+in Yegorushka's opinion of him. . . . Yegorushka meanwhile hated
+his flaxen head, his clear face, and his strength with his whole
+heart, listened with fear and loathing to his laughter, and kept
+thinking what word of abuse he could pay him out with.
+
+Panteley, too, went up to the pail. He took out of his pocket a
+little green glass of an ikon lamp, wiped it with a rag, filled it
+from the pail and drank from it, then filled it again, wrapped the
+little glass in the rag, and then put it back into his pocket.
+
+"Grandfather, why do you drink out of a lamp?" Yegorushka asked
+him, surprised.
+
+"One man drinks out of a pail and another out of a lamp," the old
+man answered evasively. "Every man to his own taste. . . . You drink
+out of the pail--well, drink, and may it do you good. . . ."
+
+"You darling, you beauty!" Vassya said suddenly, in a caressing,
+plaintive voice. "You darling!"
+
+His eyes were fixed on the distance; they were moist and smiling,
+and his face wore the same expression as when he had looked at
+Yegorushka.
+
+"Who is it you are talking to?" asked Kiruha.
+
+"A darling fox, . . . lying on her back, playing like a dog."
+
+Everyone began staring into the distance, looking for the fox, but
+no one could see it, only Vassya with his grey muddy-looking eyes,
+and he was enchanted by it. His sight was extraordinarily keen, as
+Yegorushka learnt afterwards. He was so long-sighted that the brown
+steppe was for him always full of life and interest. He had only
+to look into the distance to see a fox, a hare, a bustard, or some
+other animal keeping at a distance from men. There was nothing
+strange in seeing a hare running away or a flying bustard--everyone
+crossing the steppes could see them; but it was not vouchsafed to
+everyone to see wild animals in their own haunts when they were not
+running nor hiding, nor looking about them in alarm. Yet Vassya saw
+foxes playing, hares washing themselves with their paws, bustards
+preening their wings and hammering out their hollow nests. Thanks
+to this keenness of sight, Vassya had, besides the world seen by
+everyone, another world of his own, accessible to no one else, and
+probably a very beautiful one, for when he saw something and was
+in raptures over it it was impossible not to envy him.
+
+When the waggons set off again, the church bells were ringing for
+service.
+
+V
+
+The train of waggons drew up on the bank of a river on one side of
+a village. The sun was blazing, as it had been the day before; the
+air was stagnant and depressing. There were a few willows on the
+bank, but the shade from them did not fall on the earth, but on the
+water, where it was wasted; even in the shade under the waggon it
+was stifling and wearisome. The water, blue from the reflection of
+the sky in it, was alluring.
+
+Styopka, a waggoner whom Yegorushka noticed now for the first time,
+a Little Russian lad of eighteen, in a long shirt without a belt,
+and full trousers that flapped like flags as he walked, undressed
+quickly, ran along the steep bank and plunged into the water. He
+dived three times, then swam on his back and shut his eyes in his
+delight. His face was smiling and wrinkled up as though he were
+being tickled, hurt and amused.
+
+On a hot day when there is nowhere to escape from the sultry,
+stifling heat, the splash of water and the loud breathing of a man
+bathing sounds like good music to the ear. Dymov and Kiruha, looking
+at Styopka, undressed quickly and one after the other, laughing
+loudly in eager anticipation of their enjoyment, dropped into the
+water, and the quiet, modest little river resounded with snorting
+and splashing and shouting. Kiruha coughed, laughed and shouted as
+though they were trying to drown him, while Dymov chased him and
+tried to catch him by the leg.
+
+"Ha-ha-ha!" he shouted. "Catch him! Hold him!"
+
+Kiruha laughed and enjoyed himself, but his expression was the same
+as it had been on dry land, stupid, with a look of astonishment on
+it as though someone had, unnoticed, stolen up behind him and hit
+him on the head with the butt-end of an axe. Yegorushka undressed,
+too, but did not let himself down by the bank, but took a run and
+a flying leap from the height of about ten feet. Describing an arc
+in the air, he fell into the water, sank deep, but did not reach
+the bottom; some force, cold and pleasant to the touch, seemed to
+hold him up and bring him back to the surface. He popped out and,
+snorting and blowing bubbles, opened his eyes; but the sun was
+reflected in the water quite close to his face. At first blinding
+spots of light, then rainbow colours and dark patches, flitted
+before his eyes. He made haste to dive again, opened his eyes in
+the water and saw something cloudy-green like a sky on a moonlight
+night. Again the same force would not let him touch the bottom and
+stay in the coolness, but lifted him to the surface. He popped out
+and heaved a sigh so deep that he had a feeling of space and
+freshness, not only in his chest, but in his stomach. Then, to get
+from the water everything he possibly could get, he allowed himself
+every luxury; he lay on his back and basked, splashed, frolicked,
+swam on his face, on his side, on his back and standing up--just
+as he pleased till he was exhausted. The other bank was thickly
+overgrown with reeds; it was golden in the sun, and the flowers of
+the reeds hung drooping to the water in lovely tassels. In one place
+the reeds were shaking and nodding, with their flowers rustling--
+Styopka and Kiruha were hunting crayfish.
+
+"A crayfish, look, lads! A crayfish!" Kiruha cried triumphantly and
+actually showed a crayfish.
+
+Yegorushka swam up to the reeds, dived, and began fumbling among
+their roots. Burrowing in the slimy, liquid mud, he felt something
+sharp and unpleasant--perhaps it really was a crayfish. But at
+that minute someone seized him by the leg and pulled him to the
+surface. Spluttering and coughing, Yegorushka opened his eyes and
+saw before him the wet grinning face of the dare-devil Dymov. The
+impudent fellow was breathing hard, and from a look in his eyes he
+seemed inclined for further mischief. He held Yegorushka tight by
+the leg, and was lifting his hand to take hold of his neck. But
+Yegorushka tore himself away with repulsion and terror, as though
+disgusted at being touched and afraid that the bully would drown
+him, and said:
+
+"Fool! I'll punch you in the face."
+
+Feeling that this was not sufficient to express his hatred, he
+thought a minute and added:
+
+"You blackguard! You son of a bitch!"
+
+But Dymov, as though nothing were the matter, took no further notice
+of Yegorushka, but swam off to Kiruha, shouting:
+
+"Ha-ha-ha! Let us catch fish! Mates, let us catch fish."
+
+"To be sure," Kiruha agreed; "there must be a lot of fish here."
+
+"Styopka, run to the village and ask the peasants for a net!
+
+"They won't give it to me."
+
+"They will, you ask them. Tell them that they should give it to us
+for Christ's sake, because we are just the same as pilgrims."
+
+"That's true."
+
+Styopka clambered out of the water, dressed quickly, and without a
+cap on he ran, his full trousers flapping, to the village. The water
+lost all its charm for Yegorushka after his encounter with Dymov.
+He got out and began dressing. Panteley and Vassya were sitting on
+the steep bank, with their legs hanging down, looking at the bathers.
+Emelyan was standing naked, up to his knees in the water, holding
+on to the grass with one hand to prevent himself from falling while
+the other stroked his body. With his bony shoulder-blades, with the
+swelling under his eye, bending down and evidently afraid of the
+water, he made a ludicrous figure. His face was grave and severe.
+He looked angrily at the water, as though he were just going to
+upbraid it for having given him cold in the Donets and robbed him
+of his voice.
+
+"And why don't you bathe?" Yegorushka asked Vassya.
+
+"Oh, I don't care for it, . . ." answered Vassya.
+
+"How is it your chin is swollen?"
+
+"It's bad. . . . I used to work at the match factory, little sir.
+. . . The doctor used to say that it would make my jaw rot. The air
+is not healthy there. There were three chaps beside me who had their
+jaws swollen, and with one of them it rotted away altogether."
+
+Styopka soon came back with the net. Dymov and Kiruha were already
+turning blue and getting hoarse by being so long in the water, but
+they set about fishing eagerly. First they went to a deep place
+beside the reeds; there Dymov was up to his neck, while the water
+went over squat Kiruha's head. The latter spluttered and blew
+bubbles, while Dymov stumbling on the prickly roots, fell over and
+got caught in the net; both flopped about in the water, and made a
+noise, and nothing but mischief came of their fishing.
+
+"It's deep," croaked Kiruha. "You won't catch anything."
+
+"Don't tug, you devil!" shouted Dymov trying to put the net in the
+proper position. "Hold it up."
+
+"You won't catch anything here," Panteley shouted from the bank.
+"You are only frightening the fish, you stupids! Go more to the
+left! It's shallower there!"
+
+Once a big fish gleamed above the net; they all drew a breath, and
+Dymov struck the place where it had vanished with his fist, and his
+face expressed vexation.
+
+"Ugh!" cried Panteley, and he stamped his foot. "You've let the
+perch slip! It's gone!"
+
+Moving more to the left, Dymov and Kiruha picked out a shallower
+place, and then fishing began in earnest. They had wandered off
+some hundred paces from the waggons; they could be seen silently
+trying to go as deep as they could and as near the reeds, moving
+their legs a little at a time, drawing out the nets, beating the
+water with their fists to drive them towards the nets. From the
+reeds they got to the further bank; they drew the net out, then,
+with a disappointed air, lifting their knees high as they walked,
+went back into the reeds. They were talking about something, but
+what it was no one could hear. The sun was scorching their backs,
+the flies were stinging them, and their bodies had turned from
+purple to crimson. Styopka was walking after them with a pail in
+his hands; he had tucked his shirt right up under his armpits, and
+was holding it up by the hem with his teeth. After every successful
+catch he lifted up some fish, and letting it shine in the sun,
+shouted:
+
+"Look at this perch! We've five like that!"
+
+Every time Dymov, Kiruha and Styopka pulled out the net they could
+be seen fumbling about in the mud in it, putting some things into
+the pail and throwing other things away; sometimes they passed
+something that was in the net from hand to hand, examined it
+inquisitively, then threw that, too, away.
+
+"What is it?" they shouted to them from the bank.
+
+Styopka made some answer, but it was hard to make out his words.
+Then he climbed out of the water and, holding the pail in both
+hands, forgetting to let his shirt drop, ran to the waggons.
+
+"It's full!" he shouted, breathing hard. "Give us another!"
+
+Yegorushka looked into the pail: it was full. A young pike poked
+its ugly nose out of the water, and there were swarms of crayfish
+and little fish round about it. Yegorushka put his hand down to the
+bottom and stirred up the water; the pike vanished under the crayfish
+and a perch and a tench swam to the surface instead of it. Vassya,
+too, looked into the pail. His eyes grew moist and his face looked
+as caressing as before when he saw the fox. He took something out
+of the pail, put it to his mouth and began chewing it.
+
+"Mates," said Styopka in amazement, "Vassya is eating a live gudgeon!
+Phoo!"
+
+"It's not a gudgeon, but a minnow," Vassya answered calmly, still
+munching.
+
+He took a fish's tail out of his mouth, looked at it caressingly,
+and put it back again. While he was chewing and crunching with his
+teeth it seemed to Yegorushka that he saw before him something not
+human. Vassya's swollen chin, his lustreless eyes, his extraordinary
+sharp sight, the fish's tail in his mouth, and the caressing
+friendliness with which he crunched the gudgeon made him like an
+animal.
+
+Yegorushka felt dreary beside him. And the fishing was over, too.
+He walked about beside the waggons, thought a little, and, feeling
+bored, strolled off to the village.
+
+Not long afterwards he was standing in the church, and with his
+forehead leaning on somebody's back, listened to the singing of the
+choir. The service was drawing to a close. Yegorushka did not
+understand church singing and did not care for it. He listened a
+little, yawned, and began looking at the backs and heads before
+him. In one head, red and wet from his recent bathe, he recognized
+Emelyan. The back of his head had been cropped in a straight line
+higher than is usual; the hair in front had been cut unbecomingly
+high, and Emelyan's ears stood out like two dock leaves, and seemed
+to feel themselves out of place. Looking at the back of his head
+and his ears, Yegorushka, for some reason, thought that Emelyan was
+probably very unhappy. He remembered the way he conducted with his
+hands, his husky voice, his timid air when he was bathing, and felt
+intense pity for him. He longed to say something friendly to him.
+
+"I am here, too," he said, putting out his hand.
+
+People who sing tenor or bass in the choir, especially those who
+have at any time in their lives conducted, are accustomed to look
+with a stern and unfriendly air at boys. They do not give up this
+habit, even when they leave off being in a choir. Turning to
+Yegorushka, Emelyan looked at him from under his brows and said:
+
+"Don't play in church!"
+
+Then Yegorushka moved forwards nearer to the ikon-stand. Here he
+saw interesting people. On the right side, in front of everyone, a
+lady and a gentleman were standing on a carpet. There were chairs
+behind them. The gentleman was wearing newly ironed shantung trousers;
+he stood as motionless as a soldier saluting, and held high his
+bluish shaven chin. There was a very great air of dignity in his
+stand-up collar, in his blue chin, in his small bald patch and his
+cane. His neck was so strained from excess of dignity, and his chin
+was drawn up so tensely, that it looked as though his head were
+ready to fly off and soar upwards any minute. The lady, who was
+stout and elderly and wore a white silk shawl, held her head on one
+side and looked as though she had done someone a favour, and wanted
+to say: "Oh, don't trouble yourself to thank me; I don't like it
+. . . ." A thick wall of Little Russian heads stood all round the
+carpet.
+
+Yegorushka went up to the ikon-stand and began kissing the local
+ikons. Before each image he slowly bowed down to the ground, without
+getting up, looked round at the congregation, then got up and kissed
+the ikon. The contact of his forehead with the cold floor afforded
+him great satisfaction. When the beadle came from the altar with a
+pair of long snuffers to put out the candles, Yegorushka jumped up
+quickly from the floor and ran up to him.
+
+"Have they given out the holy bread?" he asked.
+
+"There is none; there is none," the beadle muttered gruffly. "It
+is no use your. . ."
+
+The service was over; Yegorushka walked out of the church in a
+leisurely way, and began strolling about the market-place. He had
+seen a good many villages, market-places, and peasants in his time,
+and everything that met his eyes was entirely without interest for
+him. At a loss for something to do, he went into a shop over the
+door of which hung a wide strip of red cotton. The shop consisted
+of two roomy, badly lighted parts; in one half they sold drapery
+and groceries, in the other there were tubs of tar, and there were
+horse-collars hanging from the ceiling; from both came the savoury
+smell of leather and tar. The floor of the shop had been watered;
+the man who watered it must have been a very whimsical and original
+person, for it was sprinkled in patterns and mysterious symbols.
+The shopkeeper, an overfed-looking man with a broad face and round
+beard, apparently a Great Russian, was standing, leaning his person
+over the counter. He was nibbling a piece of sugar as he drank his
+tea, and heaved a deep sigh at every sip. His face expressed complete
+indifference, but each sigh seemed to be saying:
+
+"Just wait a minute; I will give it you."
+
+"Give me a farthing's worth of sunflower seeds," Yegorushka said,
+addressing him.
+
+The shopkeeper raised his eyebrows, came out from behind the counter,
+and poured a farthing's worth of sunflower seeds into Yegorushka's
+pocket, using an empty pomatum pot as a measure. Yegorushka did not
+want to go away. He spent a long time in examining the box of cakes,
+thought a little and asked, pointing to some little cakes covered
+with the mildew of age:
+
+"How much are these cakes?"
+
+"Two for a farthing."
+
+Yegorushka took out of his pocket the cake given him the day before
+by the Jewess, and asked him:
+
+"And how much do you charge for cakes like this?"
+
+The shopman took the cake in his hands, looked at it from all sides,
+and raised one eyebrow.
+
+"Like that?" he asked.
+
+Then he raised the other eyebrow, thought a minute, and answered:
+
+"Two for three farthings. . . ."
+
+A silence followed.
+
+"Whose boy are you?" the shopman asked, pouring himself out some
+tea from a red copper teapot.
+
+"The nephew of Ivan Ivanitch."
+
+"There are all sorts of Ivan Ivanitchs," the shopkeeper sighed. He
+looked over Yegorushka's head towards the door, paused a minute and
+asked:
+
+"Would you like some tea?"
+
+"Please. . . ." Yegorushka assented not very readily, though he
+felt an intense longing for his usual morning tea.
+
+The shopkeeper poured him out a glass and gave him with it a bit
+of sugar that looked as though it had been nibbled. Yegorushka sat
+down on the folding chair and began drinking it. He wanted to ask
+the price of a pound of sugar almonds, and had just broached the
+subject when a customer walked in, and the shopkeeper, leaving his
+glass of tea, attended to his business. He led the customer into
+the other half, where there was a smell of tar, and was there a
+long time discussing something with him. The customer, a man
+apparently very obstinate and pig-headed, was continually shaking
+his head to signify his disapproval, and retreating towards the
+door. The shopkeeper tried to persuade him of something and began
+pouring some oats into a big sack for him.
+
+"Do you call those oats?" the customer said gloomily. "Those are
+not oats, but chaff. It's a mockery to give that to the hens; enough
+to make the hens laugh. . . . No, I will go to Bondarenko."
+
+When Yegorushka went back to the river a small camp fire was smoking
+on the bank. The waggoners were cooking their dinner. Styopka was
+standing in the smoke, stirring the cauldron with a big notched
+spoon. A little on one side Kiruha and Vassya, with eyes reddened
+from the smoke, were sitting cleaning the fish. Before them lay the
+net covered with slime and water weeds, and on it lay gleaming fish
+and crawling crayfish.
+
+Emelyan, who had not long been back from the church, was sitting
+beside Panteley, waving his arm and humming just audibly in a husky
+voice: "To Thee we sing. . . ." Dymov was moving about by the horses.
+
+When they had finished cleaning them, Kiruha and Vassya put the
+fish and the living crayfish together in the pail, rinsed them, and
+from the pail poured them all into the boiling water.
+
+"Shall I put in some fat?" asked Styopka, skimming off the froth.
+
+"No need. The fish will make its own gravy," answered Kiruha.
+
+Before taking the cauldron off the fire Styopka scattered into the
+water three big handfuls of millet and a spoonful of salt; finally
+he tried it, smacked his lips, licked the spoon, and gave a
+self-satisfied grunt, which meant that the grain was done.
+
+All except Panteley sat down near the cauldron and set to work with
+their spoons.
+
+"You there! Give the little lad a spoon!" Panteley observed sternly.
+"I dare say he is hungry too!"
+
+"Ours is peasant fare," sighed Kiruha.
+
+"Peasant fare is welcome, too, when one is hungry."
+
+They gave Yegorushka a spoon. He began eating, not sitting, but
+standing close to the cauldron and looking down into it as in a
+hole. The grain smelt of fish and fish-scales were mixed up with
+the millet. The crayfish could not be hooked out with a spoon, and
+the men simply picked them out of the cauldron with their hands;
+Vassya did so particularly freely, and wetted his sleeves as well
+as his hands in the mess. But yet the stew seemed to Yegorushka
+very nice, and reminded him of the crayfish soup which his mother
+used to make at home on fast-days. Panteley was sitting apart
+munching bread.
+
+"Grandfather, why aren't you eating?" Emelyan asked him.
+
+"I don't eat crayfish. . . . Nasty things," the old man said, and
+turned away with disgust.
+
+While they were eating they all talked. From this conversation
+Yegorushka gathered that all his new acquaintances, in spite of the
+differences of their ages and their characters, had one point in
+common which made them all alike: they were all people with a
+splendid past and a very poor present. Of their past they all--
+every one of them--spoke with enthusiasm; their attitude to the
+present was almost one of contempt. The Russian loves recalling
+life, but he does not love living. Yegorushka did not yet know that,
+and before the stew had been all eaten he firmly believed that the
+men sitting round the cauldron were the injured victims of fate.
+Panteley told them that in the past, before there were railways,
+he used to go with trains of waggons to Moscow and to Nizhni, and
+used to earn so much that he did not know what to do with his money;
+and what merchants there used to be in those days! what fish! how
+cheap everything was! Now the roads were shorter, the merchants
+were stingier, the peasants were poorer, the bread was dearer,
+everything had shrunk and was on a smaller scale. Emelyan told them
+that in old days he had been in the choir in the Lugansky works,
+and that he had a remarkable voice and read music splendidly, while
+now he had become a peasant and lived on the charity of his brother,
+who sent him out with his horses and took half his earnings. Vassya
+had once worked in a match factory; Kiruha had been a coachman in
+a good family, and had been reckoned the smartest driver of a
+three-in-hand in the whole district. Dymov, the son of a well-to-do
+peasant, lived at ease, enjoyed himself and had known no trouble
+till he was twenty, when his stern harsh father, anxious to train
+him to work, and afraid he would be spoiled at home, had sent him
+to a carrier's to work as a hired labourer. Styopka was the only
+one who said nothing, but from his beardless face it was evident
+that his life had been a much better one in the past.
+
+Thinking of his father, Dymov frowned and left off eating. Sullenly
+from under his brows he looked round at his companions and his eye
+rested upon Yegorushka.
+
+"You heathen, take off your cap," he said rudely. "You can't eat
+with your cap on, and you a gentleman too!"
+
+Yegorushka took off his hat and did not say a word, but the stew
+lost all savour for him, and he did not hear Panteley and Vassya
+intervening on his behalf. A feeling of anger with the insulting
+fellow was rankling oppressively in his breast, and he made up his
+mind that he would do him some injury, whatever it cost him.
+
+After dinner everyone sauntered to the waggons and lay down in the
+shade.
+
+"Are we going to start soon, grandfather?" Yegorushka asked Panteley.
+
+"In God's good time we shall set off. There's no starting yet; it
+is too hot. . . . O Lord, Thy will be done. Holy Mother. . . Lie
+down, little lad."
+
+Soon there was a sound of snoring from under the waggons. Yegorushka
+meant to go back to the village, but on consideration, yawned and
+lay down by the old man.
+
+VI
+
+The waggons remained by the river the whole day, and set off again
+when the sun was setting.
+
+Yegorushka was lying on the bales again; the waggon creaked softly
+and swayed from side to side. Panteley walked below, stamping his
+feet, slapping himself on his thighs and muttering. The air was
+full of the churring music of the steppes, as it had been the day
+before.
+
+Yegorushka lay on his back, and, putting his hands under his head,
+gazed upwards at the sky. He watched the glow of sunset kindle,
+then fade away; guardian angels covering the horizon with their
+gold wings disposed themselves to slumber. The day had passed
+peacefully; the quiet peaceful night had come, and they could stay
+tranquilly at home in heaven. . . . Yegorushka saw the sky by degrees
+grow dark and the mist fall over the earth--saw the stars light
+up, one after the other. . . .
+
+When you gaze a long while fixedly at the deep sky thoughts and
+feelings for some reason merge in a sense of loneliness. One begins
+to feel hopelessly solitary, and everything one used to look upon
+as near and akin becomes infinitely remote and valueless; the stars
+that have looked down from the sky thousands of years already, the
+mists and the incomprehensible sky itself, indifferent to the brief
+life of man, oppress the soul with their silence when one is left
+face to face with them and tries to grasp their significance. One
+is reminded of the solitude awaiting each one of us in the grave,
+and the reality of life seems awful . . . full of despair. . . .
+
+Yegorushka thought of his grandmother, who was sleeping now under
+the cherry-trees in the cemetery. He remembered how she lay in her
+coffin with pennies on her eyes, how afterwards she was shut in and
+let down into the grave; he even recalled the hollow sound of the
+clods of earth on the coffin lid. . . . He pictured his granny in
+the dark and narrow coffin, helpless and deserted by everyone. His
+imagination pictured his granny suddenly awakening, not understanding
+where she was, knocking upon the lid and calling for help, and in
+the end swooning with horror and dying again. He imagined his mother
+dead, Father Christopher, Countess Dranitsky, Solomon. But however
+much he tried to imagine himself in the dark tomb, far from home,
+outcast, helpless and dead, he could not succeed; for himself
+personally he could not admit the possibility of death, and felt
+that he would never die. . . .
+
+Panteley, for whom death could not be far away, walked below and
+went on reckoning up his thoughts.
+
+"All right. . . . Nice gentlefolk, . . ." he muttered. "Took his
+little lad to school--but how he is doing now I haven't heard say
+--in Slavyanoserbsk. I say there is no establishment for teaching
+them to be very clever. . . . No, that's true--a nice little lad,
+no harm in him. . . . He'll grow up and be a help to his father
+. . . . You, Yegory, are little now, but you'll grow big and will
+keep your father and mother. . . . So it is ordained of God, 'Honour
+your father and your mother.' . . . I had children myself, but they
+were burnt. . . . My wife was burnt and my children, . . . that's
+true. . . . The hut caught fire on the night of Epiphany. . . . I
+was not at home, I was driving in Oryol. In Oryol. . . . Marya
+dashed out into the street, but remembering that the children were
+asleep in the hut, ran back and was burnt with her children. . . .
+Next day they found nothing but bones."
+
+About midnight Yegorushka and the waggoners were again sitting round
+a small camp fire. While the dry twigs and stems were burning up,
+Kiruha and Vassya went off somewhere to get water from a creek;
+they vanished into the darkness, but could be heard all the time
+talking and clinking their pails; so the creek was not far away.
+The light from the fire lay a great flickering patch on the earth;
+though the moon was bright, yet everything seemed impenetrably black
+beyond that red patch. The light was in the waggoners' eyes, and
+they saw only part of the great road; almost unseen in the darkness
+the waggons with the bales and the horses looked like a mountain
+of undefined shape. Twenty paces from the camp fire at the edge of
+the road stood a wooden cross that had fallen aslant. Before the
+camp fire had been lighted, when he could still see things at a
+distance, Yegorushka had noticed that there was a similar old
+slanting cross on the other side of the great road.
+
+Coming back with the water, Kiruha and Vassya filled the cauldron
+and fixed it over the fire. Styopka, with the notched spoon in his
+hand, took his place in the smoke by the cauldron, gazing dreamily
+into the water for the scum to rise. Panteley and Emelyan were
+sitting side by side in silence, brooding over something. Dymov was
+lying on his stomach, with his head propped on his fists, looking
+into the fire. . . . Styopka's shadow was dancing over him, so that
+his handsome face was at one minute covered with darkness, at the
+next lighted up. . . . Kiruha and Vassya were wandering about at a
+little distance gathering dry grass and bark for the fire. Yegorushka,
+with his hands in his pockets, was standing by Panteley, watching
+how the fire devoured the grass.
+
+All were resting, musing on something, and they glanced cursorily
+at the cross over which patches of red light were dancing. There
+is something melancholy, pensive, and extremely poetical about a
+solitary tomb; one feels its silence, and the silence gives one the
+sense of the presence of the soul of the unknown man who lies under
+the cross. Is that soul at peace on the steppe? Does it grieve in
+the moonlight? Near the tomb the steppe seems melancholy, dreary
+and mournful; the grass seems more sorrowful, and one fancies the
+grasshoppers chirrup less freely, and there is no passer-by who
+would not remember that lonely soul and keep looking back at the
+tomb, till it was left far behind and hidden in the mists. . . .
+
+"Grandfather, what is that cross for?" asked Yegorushka.
+
+Panteley looked at the cross and then at Dymov and asked:
+
+"Nikola, isn't this the place where the mowers killed the merchants?"
+
+Dymov not very readily raised himself on his elbow, looked at the
+road and said:
+
+"Yes, it is. . . ."
+
+A silence followed. Kiruha broke up some dry stalks, crushed them
+up together and thrust them under the cauldron. The fire flared up
+brightly; Styopka was enveloped in black smoke, and the shadow cast
+by the cross danced along the road in the dusk beside the waggons.
+
+"Yes, they were killed," Dymov said reluctantly. "Two merchants,
+father and son, were travelling, selling holy images. They put up
+in the inn not far from here that is now kept by Ignat Fomin. The
+old man had a drop too much, and began boasting that he had a lot
+of money with him. We all know merchants are a boastful set, God
+preserve us. . . . They can't resist showing off before the likes
+of us. And at the time some mowers were staying the night at the
+inn. So they overheard what the merchants said and took note of
+it."
+
+"O Lord! . . . Holy Mother!" sighed Panteley.
+
+"Next day, as soon as it was light," Dymov went on, "the merchants
+were preparing to set off and the mowers tried to join them. 'Let
+us go together, your worships. It will be more cheerful and there
+will be less danger, for this is an out-of-the-way place. . . .'
+The merchants had to travel at a walking pace to avoid breaking the
+images, and that just suited the mowers. . . ."
+
+Dymov rose into a kneeling position and stretched.
+
+"Yes," he went on, yawning. "Everything went all right till they
+reached this spot, and then the mowers let fly at them with their
+scythes. The son, he was a fine young fellow, snatched the scythe
+from one of them, and he used it, too. . . . Well, of course, they
+got the best of it because there were eight of them. They hacked
+at the merchants so that there was not a sound place left on their
+bodies; when they had finished they dragged both of them off the
+road, the father to one side and the son to the other. Opposite
+that cross there is another cross on this side. . . . Whether it
+is still standing, I don't know. . . . I can't see from here. . . ."
+
+"It is," said Kiruha.
+
+"They say they did not find much money afterwards."
+
+"No," Panteley confirmed; "they only found a hundred roubles."
+
+"And three of them died afterwards, for the merchant had cut them
+badly with the scythe, too. They died from loss of blood. One had
+his hand cut off, so that they say he ran three miles without his
+hand, and they found him on a mound close to Kurikovo. He was
+squatting on his heels, with his head on his knees, as though he
+were lost in thought, but when they looked at him there was no life
+in him and he was dead. . . ."
+
+"They found him by the track of blood," said Panteley.
+
+Everyone looked at the cross, and again there was a hush. From
+somewhere, most likely from the creek, floated the mournful cry of
+the bird: "Sleep! sleep! sleep!"
+
+"There are a great many wicked people in the world," said Emelyan.
+
+"A great many," assented Panteley, and he moved up closer to the
+fire as though he were frightened. "A great many," he went on in a
+low voice. "I've seen lots and lots of them. . . . Wicked people!
+. . . I have seen a great many holy and just, too. . . . Queen of
+Heaven, save us and have mercy on us. I remember once thirty years
+ago, or maybe more, I was driving a merchant from Morshansk. The
+merchant was a jolly handsome fellow, with money, too . . . the
+merchant was . . . a nice man, no harm in him. . . . So we put up
+for the night at an inn. And in Russia the inns are not what they
+are in these parts. There the yards are roofed in and look like the
+ground floor, or let us say like barns in good farms. Only a barn
+would be a bit higher. So we put up there and were all right. My
+merchant was in a room, while I was with the horses, and everything
+was as it should be. So, lads, I said my prayers before going to
+sleep and began walking about the yard. And it was a dark night, I
+couldn't see anything; it was no good trying. So I walked about a
+bit up to the waggons, or nearly, when I saw a light gleaming. What
+could it mean? I thought the people of the inn had gone to bed long
+ago, and besides the merchant and me there were no other guests in
+the inn. . . . Where could the light have come from? I felt suspicious.
+. . . I went closer . . . towards the light. . . . The Lord have
+mercy upon me! and save me, Queen of Heaven! I looked and there was
+a little window with a grating, . . . close to the ground, in the
+house. . . I lay down on the ground and looked in; as soon as I
+looked in a cold chill ran all down me. . . ."
+
+Kiruha, trying not to make a noise, thrust a handful of twigs into
+the fire. After waiting for it to leave off crackling and hissing,
+the old man went on:
+
+"I looked in and there was a big cellar, black and dark. . . . There
+was a lighted lantern on a tub. In the middle of the cellar were
+about a dozen men in red shirts with their sleeves turned up,
+sharpening long knives. . . . Ugh! So we had fallen into a nest of
+robbers. . . . What's to be done? I ran to the merchant, waked him
+up quietly, and said: 'Don't be frightened, merchant,' said I, 'but
+we are in a bad way. We have fallen into a nest of robbers,' I said.
+He turned pale and asked: 'What are we to do now, Panteley? I have
+a lot of money that belongs to orphans. As for my life,' he said,
+'that's in God's hands. I am not afraid to die, but it's dreadful
+to lose the orphans' money,' said he. . . . What were we to do? The
+gates were locked; there was no getting out. If there had been a
+fence one could have climbed over it, but with the yard shut up!
+. . . 'Come, don't be frightened, merchant,' said I; 'but pray to
+God. Maybe the Lord will not let the orphans suffer. Stay still.'
+said I, 'and make no sign, and meanwhile, maybe, I shall think of
+something. . . .' Right! . . . I prayed to God and the Lord put the
+thought into my mind. . . . I clambered up on my chaise and softly,
+. . . softly so that no one should hear, began pulling out the straw
+in the thatch, made a hole and crept out, crept out. . . . Then I
+jumped off the roof and ran along the road as fast as I could. I
+ran and ran till I was nearly dead. . . . I ran maybe four miles
+without taking breath, if not more. Thank God I saw a village. I
+ran up to a hut and began tapping at a window. 'Good Christian
+people,' I said, and told them all about it, 'do not let a Christian
+soul perish. . . .' I waked them all up. . . . The peasants gathered
+together and went with me, . . one with a cord, one with an oakstick,
+others with pitchforks. . . . We broke in the gates of the inn-yard
+and went straight to the cellar. . . . And the robbers had just
+finished sharpening their knives and were going to kill the merchant.
+The peasants took them, every one of them, bound them and carried
+them to the police. The merchant gave them three hundred roubles
+in his joy, and gave me five gold pieces and put my name down. They
+said that they found human bones in the cellar afterwards, heaps
+and heaps of them. . . . Bones! . . . So they robbed people and
+then buried them, so that there should be no traces. . . . Well,
+afterwards they were punished at Morshansk."
+
+Panteley had finished his story, and he looked round at his listeners.
+They were gazing at him in silence. The water was boiling by now
+and Styopka was skimming off the froth.
+
+"Is the fat ready?" Kiruha asked him in a whisper.
+
+"Wait a little. . . . Directly."
+
+Styopka, his eyes fixed on Panteley as though he were afraid that
+the latter might begin some story before he was back, ran to the
+waggons; soon he came back with a little wooden bowl and began
+pounding some lard in it.
+
+"I went another journey with a merchant, too, . . ." Panteley went
+on again, speaking as before in a low voice and with fixed unblinking
+eyes. "His name, as I remember now, was Pyotr Grigoritch. He was a
+nice man, . . . the merchant was. We stopped in the same way at an
+inn. . . . He indoors and me with the horses. . . . The people of
+the house, the innkeeper and his wife, seemed friendly good sort
+of people; the labourers, too, seemed all right; but yet, lads, I
+couldn't sleep. I had a queer feeling in my heart, . . . a queer
+feeling, that was just it. The gates were open and there were plenty
+of people about, and yet I felt afraid and not myself. Everyone had
+been asleep long ago. It was the middle of the night; it would soon
+be time to get up, and I was lying alone in my chaise and could not
+close my eyes, as though I were some owl. And then, lads, I heard
+this sound, 'Toop! toop! toop!' Someone was creeping up to the
+chaise. I poke my head out, and there was a peasant woman in nothing
+but her shift and with her feet bare. . . . 'What do you want, good
+woman?' I asked. And she was all of a tremble; her face was
+terror-stricken. . . 'Get up, good man,' said she; 'the people are
+plotting evil. . . . They mean to kill your merchant. With my own
+ears I heard the master whispering with his wife. . . .' So it was
+not for nothing, the foreboding of my heart! 'And who are you?' I
+asked. 'I am their cook,' she said. . . . Right! . . . So I got out
+of the chaise and went to the merchant. I waked him up and said:
+'Things aren't quite right, Pyotr Grigoritch. . . . Make haste and
+rouse yourself from sleep, your worship, and dress now while there
+is still time,' I said; 'and to save our skins, let us get away
+from trouble.' He had no sooner begun dressing when the door opened
+and, mercy on us! I saw, Holy Mother! the innkeeper and his wife
+come into the room with three labourers. . . . So they had persuaded
+the labourers to join them. 'The merchant has a lot of money, and
+we'll go shares,' they told them. Every one of the five had a long
+knife in their hand each a knife. The innkeeper locked the door and
+said: 'Say your prayers, travellers, . . . and if you begin screaming,'
+they said, 'we won't let you say your prayers before you die. . . .'
+As though we could scream! I had such a lump in my throat I could
+not cry out. . . . The merchant wept and said: 'Good Christian
+people! you have resolved to kill me because my money tempts you.
+Well, so be it; I shall not be the first nor shall I be the last.
+Many of us merchants have been murdered at inns. But why, good
+Christian brothers,' says he, 'murder my driver? Why should he have
+to suffer for my money?' And he said that so pitifully! And the
+innkeeper answered him: 'If we leave him alive,' said he, 'he will
+be the first to bear witness against us. One may just as well kill
+two as one. You can but answer once for seven misdeeds. . . Say
+your prayers, that's all you can do, and it is no good talking!'
+The merchant and I knelt down side by side and wept and said our
+prayers. He thought of his children. I was young in those days; I
+wanted to live. . . . We looked at the images and prayed, and so
+pitifully that it brings a tear even now. . . . And the innkeeper's
+wife looks at us and says: 'Good people,' said she, 'don't bear a
+grudge against us in the other world and pray to God for our
+punishment, for it is want that drives us to it.' We prayed and
+wept and prayed and wept, and God heard us. He had pity on us, I
+suppose. . . . At the very minute when the innkeeper had taken the
+merchant by the beard to rip open his throat with his knife suddenly
+someone seemed to tap at the window from the yard! We all started,
+and the innkeeper's hands dropped. . . . Someone was tapping at the
+window and shouting: 'Pyotr Grigoritch,' he shouted, 'are you here?
+Get ready and let's go!' The people saw that someone had come for
+the merchant; they were terrified and took to their heels. . . .
+And we made haste into the yard, harnessed the horses, and were out
+of sight in a minute. . ."
+
+"Who was it knocked at the window?" asked Dymov.
+
+"At the window? It must have been a holy saint or angel, for there
+was no one else. . . . When we drove out of the yard there wasn't
+a soul in the street. . . . It was the Lord's doing."
+
+Panteley told other stories, and in all of them "long knives" figured
+and all alike sounded made up. Had he heard these stories from
+someone else, or had he made them up himself in the remote past,
+and afterwards, as his memory grew weaker, mixed up his experiences
+with his imaginations and become unable to distinguish one from the
+other? Anything is possible, but it is strange that on this occasion
+and for the rest of the journey, whenever he happened to tell a
+story, he gave unmistakable preference to fiction, and never told
+of what he really had experienced. At the time Yegorushka took it
+all for the genuine thing, and believed every word; later on it
+seemed to him strange that a man who in his day had travelled all
+over Russia and seen and known so much, whose wife and children had
+been burnt to death, so failed to appreciate the wealth of his life
+that whenever he was sitting by the camp fire he was either silent
+or talked of what had never been.
+
+Over their porridge they were all silent, thinking of what they had
+just heard. Life is terrible and marvellous, and so, however terrible
+a story you tell in Russia, however you embroider it with nests of
+robbers, long knives and such marvels, it always finds an echo of
+reality in the soul of the listener, and only a man who has been a
+good deal affected by education looks askance distrustfully, and
+even he will be silent. The cross by the roadside, the dark bales
+of wool, the wide expanse of the plain, and the lot of the men
+gathered together by the camp fire--all this was of itself so
+marvellous and terrible that the fantastic colours of legend and
+fairy-tale were pale and blended with life.
+
+All the others ate out of the cauldron, but Panteley sat apart and
+ate his porridge out of a wooden bowl. His spoon was not like those
+the others had, but was made of cypress wood, with a little cross
+on it. Yegorushka, looking at him, thought of the little ikon glass
+and asked Styopka softly:
+
+"Why does Grandfather sit apart?"
+
+"He is an Old Believer," Styopka and Vassya answered in a whisper.
+And as they said it they looked as though they were speaking of
+some secret vice or weakness.
+
+All sat silent, thinking. After the terrible stories there was no
+inclination to speak of ordinary things. All at once in the midst
+of the silence Vassya drew himself up and, fixing his lustreless
+eyes on one point, pricked up his ears.
+
+"What is it?" Dymov asked him.
+
+"Someone is coming," answered Vassya.
+
+"Where do you see him?"
+
+"Yo-on-der! There's something white. . ."
+
+There was nothing to be seen but darkness in the direction in which
+Vassya was looking; everyone listened, but they could hear no sound
+of steps.
+
+"Is he coming by the highroad?" asked Dymov.
+
+"No, over the open country. . . . He is coming this way."
+
+A minute passed in silence.
+
+"And maybe it's the merchant who was buried here walking over the
+steppe," said Dymov.
+
+All looked askance at the cross, exchanged glances and suddenly
+broke into a laugh. They felt ashamed of their terror.
+
+"Why should he walk?" asked Panteley. "It's only those walk at night
+whom the earth will not take to herself. And the merchants were all
+right. . . . The merchants have received the crown of martyrs."
+
+But all at once they heard the sound of steps; someone was coming
+in haste.
+
+"He's carrying something," said Vassya.
+
+They could hear the grass rustling and the dry twigs crackling under
+the feet of the approaching wayfarer. But from the glare of the
+camp fire nothing could be seen. At last the steps sounded close
+by, and someone coughed. The flickering light seemed to part; a
+veil dropped from the waggoners' eyes, and they saw a man facing
+them.
+
+Whether it was due to the flickering light or because everyone
+wanted to make out the man's face first of all, it happened, strangely
+enough, that at the first glance at him they all saw, first of all,
+not his face nor his clothes, but his smile. It was an extraordinarily
+good-natured, broad, soft smile, like that of a baby on waking, one
+of those infectious smiles to which it is difficult not to respond
+by smiling too. The stranger, when they did get a good look at him,
+turned out to be a man of thirty, ugly and in no way remarkable.
+He was a tall Little Russian, with a long nose, long arms and long
+legs; everything about him seemed long except his neck, which was
+so short that it made him seem stooping. He was wearing a clean
+white shirt with an embroidered collar, white trousers, and new
+high boots, and in comparison with the waggoners he looked quite a
+dandy. In his arms he was carrying something big, white, and at the
+first glance strange-looking, and the stock of a gun also peeped
+out from behind his shoulder.
+
+Coming from the darkness into the circle of light, he stopped short
+as though petrified, and for half a minute looked at the waggoners
+as though he would have said: "Just look what a smile I have!"
+
+Then he took a step towards the fire, smiled still more radiantly
+and said:
+
+"Bread and salt, friends!"
+
+"You are very welcome!" Panteley answered for them all.
+
+The stranger put down by the fire what he was carrying in his arms
+--it was a dead bustard--and greeted them once more.
+
+They all went up to the bustard and began examining it.
+
+"A fine big bird; what did you kill it with?" asked Dymov.
+
+"Grape-shot. You can't get him with small shot, he won't let you
+get near enough. Buy it, friends! I will let you have it for twenty
+kopecks."
+
+"What use would it be to us? It's good roast, but I bet it would
+be tough boiled; you could not get your teeth into it. . . ."
+
+"Oh, what a pity! I would take it to the gentry at the farm; they
+would give me half a rouble for it. But it's a long way to go--
+twelve miles!"
+
+The stranger sat down, took off his gun and laid it beside him.
+
+He seemed sleepy and languid; he sat smiling, and, screwing up his
+eyes at the firelight, apparently thinking of something very
+agreeable. They gave him a spoon; he began eating.
+
+"Who are you?" Dymov asked him.
+
+The stranger did not hear the question; he made no answer, and did
+not even glance at Dymov. Most likely this smiling man did not taste
+the flavour of the porridge either, for he seemed to eat it
+mechanically, lifting the spoon to his lips sometimes very full and
+sometimes quite empty. He was not drunk, but he seemed to have
+something nonsensical in his head.
+
+"I ask you who you are?" repeated Dymov.
+
+"I?" said the unknown, starting. "Konstantin Zvonik from Rovno.
+It's three miles from here."
+
+And anxious to show straight off that he was not quite an ordinary
+peasant, but something better, Konstantin hastened to add:
+
+"We keep bees and fatten pigs."
+
+"Do you live with your father or in a house of your own?"
+
+"No; now I am living in a house of my own. I have parted. This
+month, just after St. Peter's Day, I got married. I am a married
+man now! . . . It's eighteen days since the wedding."
+
+"That's a good thing," said Panteley. "Marriage is a good thing
+. . . . God's blessing is on it."
+
+"His young wife sits at home while he rambles about the steppe,"
+laughed Kiruha. "Queer chap!"
+
+As though he had been pinched on the tenderest spot, Konstantin
+started, laughed and flushed crimson.
+
+"But, Lord, she is not at home!" he said quickly, taking the spoon
+out of his mouth and looking round at everyone with an expression
+of delight and wonder. "She is not; she has gone to her mother's
+for three days! Yes, indeed, she has gone away, and I feel as though
+I were not married. . . ."
+
+Konstantin waved his hand and turned his head; he wanted to go on
+thinking, but the joy which beamed in his face prevented him. As
+though he were not comfortable, he changed his attitude, laughed,
+and again waved his hand. He was ashamed to share his happy thoughts
+with strangers, but at the same time he had an irresistible longing
+to communicate his joy.
+
+"She has gone to Demidovo to see her mother," he said, blushing and
+moving his gun. "She'll be back to-morrow. . . . She said she would
+be back to dinner."
+
+"And do you miss her?" said Dymov.
+
+"Oh, Lord, yes; I should think so. We have only been married such
+a little while, and she has gone away. . . . Eh! Oh, but she is a
+tricky one, God strike me dead! She is such a fine, splendid girl,
+such a one for laughing and singing, full of life and fire! When
+she is there your brain is in a whirl, and now she is away I wander
+about the steppe like a fool, as though I had lost something. I
+have been walking since dinner."
+
+Konstantin rubbed his eyes, looked at the fire and laughed.
+
+"You love her, then, . . ." said Panteley.
+
+"She is so fine and splendid," Konstantin repeated, not hearing
+him; "such a housewife, clever and sensible. You wouldn't find
+another like her among simple folk in the whole province. She has
+gone away. . . . But she is missing me, I kno-ow! I know the little
+magpie. She said she would be back to-morrow by dinner-time. . . .
+And just think how queer!" Konstantin almost shouted, speaking a
+note higher and shifting his position. "Now she loves me and is sad
+without me, and yet she would not marry me."
+
+"But eat," said Kiruha.
+
+"She would not marry me," Konstantin went on, not heeding him. "I
+have been struggling with her for three years! I saw her at the
+Kalatchik fair; I fell madly in love with her, was ready to hang
+myself. . . . I live at Rovno, she at Demidovo, more than twenty
+miles apart, and there was nothing I could do. I sent match-makers
+to her, and all she said was: 'I won't!' Ah, the magpie! I sent her
+one thing and another, earrings and cakes, and twenty pounds of
+honey--but still she said: 'I won't!' And there it was. If you
+come to think of it, I was not a match for her! She was young and
+lovely, full of fire, while I am old: I shall soon be thirty, and
+a regular beauty, too; a fine beard like a goat's, a clear complexion
+all covered with pimples--how could I be compared with her! The
+only thing to be said is that we are well off, but then the Vahramenkys
+are well off, too. They've six oxen, and they keep a couple of
+labourers. I was in love, friends, as though I were plague-stricken.
+I couldn't sleep or eat; my brain was full of thoughts, and in such
+a maze, Lord preserve us! I longed to see her, and she was in
+Demidovo. What do you think? God be my witness, I am not lying,
+three times a week I walked over there on foot just to have a look
+at her. I gave up my work! I was so frantic that I even wanted to
+get taken on as a labourer in Demidovo, so as to be near her. I was
+in misery! My mother called in a witch a dozen times; my father
+tried thrashing me. For three years I was in this torment, and then
+I made up my mind. 'Damn my soul!' I said. 'I will go to the town
+and be a cabman. . . . It seems it is fated not to be.' At Easter
+I went to Demidovo to have a last look at her. . . ."
+
+Konstantin threw back his head and went off into a mirthful tinkling
+laugh, as though he had just taken someone in very cleverly.
+
+"I saw her by the river with the lads," he went on. "I was overcome
+with anger. . . . I called her aside and maybe for a full hour I
+said all manner of things to her. She fell in love with me! For
+three years she did not like me! she fell in love with me for what
+I said to her. . . ."
+
+"What did you say to her?" asked Dymov.
+
+"What did I say? I don't remember. . . How could one remember? My
+words flowed at the time like water from a tap, without stopping
+to take breath. Ta-ta-ta! And now I can't utter a word. . . . Well,
+so she married me. . . . She's gone now to her mother's, the magpie,
+and while she is away here I wander over the steppe. I can't stay
+at home. It's more than I can do!"
+
+Konstantin awkwardly released his feet, on which he was sitting,
+stretched himself on the earth, and propped his head in his fists,
+then got up and sat down again. Everyone by now thoroughly understood
+that he was in love and happy, poignantly happy; his smile, his
+eyes, and every movement, expressed fervent happiness. He could not
+find a place for himself, and did not know what attitude to take
+to keep himself from being overwhelmed by the multitude of his
+delightful thoughts. Having poured out his soul before these
+strangers, he settled down quietly at last, and, looking at the
+fire, sank into thought.
+
+At the sight of this happy man everyone felt depressed and longed
+to be happy, too. Everyone was dreamy. Dymov got up, walked about
+softly by the fire, and from his walk, from the movement of his
+shoulder-blades, it could be seen that he was weighed down by
+depression and yearning. He stood still for a moment, looked at
+Konstantin and sat down.
+
+The camp fire had died down by now; there was no flicker, and the
+patch of red had grown small and dim. . . . And as the fire went
+out the moonlight grew clearer and clearer. Now they could see the
+full width of the road, the bales of wool, the shafts of the waggons,
+the munching horses; on the further side of the road there was the
+dim outline of the second cross. . . .
+
+Dymov leaned his cheek on his hand and softly hummed some plaintive
+song. Konstantin smiled drowsily and chimed in with a thin voice.
+They sang for half a minute, then sank into silence. Emelyan started,
+jerked his elbows and wriggled his fingers.
+
+"Lads," he said in an imploring voice, "let's sing something sacred!"
+Tears came into his eyes. "Lads," he repeated, pressing his hands
+on his heart, "let's sing something sacred!"
+
+"I don't know anything," said Konstantin.
+
+Everyone refused, then Emelyan sang alone. He waved both arms,
+nodded his head, opened his mouth, but nothing came from his throat
+but a discordant gasp. He sang with his arms, with his head, with
+his eyes, even with the swelling on his face; he sang passionately
+with anguish, and the more he strained his chest to extract at least
+one note from it, the more discordant were his gasps.
+
+Yegorushka, like the rest, was overcome with depression. He went
+to his waggon, clambered up on the bales and lay down. He looked
+at the sky, and thought of happy Konstantin and his wife. Why did
+people get married? What were women in the world for? Yegorushka
+put the vague questions to himself, and thought that a man would
+certainly be happy if he had an affectionate, merry and beautiful
+woman continually living at his side. For some reason he remembered
+the Countess Dranitsky, and thought it would probably be very
+pleasant to live with a woman like that; he would perhaps have
+married her with pleasure if that idea had not been so shameful.
+He recalled her eyebrows, the pupils of her eyes, her carriage, the
+clock with the horseman. . . . The soft warm night moved softly
+down upon him and whispered something in his ear, and it seemed to
+him that it was that lovely woman bending over him, looking at him
+with a smile and meaning to kiss him. . . .
+
+Nothing was left of the fire but two little red eyes, which kept
+on growing smaller and smaller. Konstantin and the waggoners were
+sitting by it, dark motionless figures, and it seemed as though
+there were many more of them than before. The twin crosses were
+equally visible, and far, far away, somewhere by the highroad there
+gleamed a red light--other people cooking their porridge, most
+likely.
+
+"Our Mother Russia is the he-ad of all the world!" Kiruha sang out
+suddenly in a harsh voice, choked and subsided. The steppe echo
+caught up his voice, carried it on, and it seemed as though stupidity
+itself were rolling on heavy wheels over the steppe.
+
+"It's time to go," said Panteley. "Get up, lads."
+
+While they were putting the horses in, Konstantin walked by the
+waggons and talked rapturously of his wife.
+
+"Good-bye, mates!" he cried when the waggons started. "Thank you
+for your hospitality. I shall go on again towards that light. It's
+more than I can stand."
+
+And he quickly vanished in the mist, and for a long time they could
+hear him striding in the direction of the light to tell those other
+strangers of his happiness.
+
+When Yegorushka woke up next day it was early morning; the sun had
+not yet risen. The waggons were at a standstill. A man in a white
+cap and a suit of cheap grey material, mounted on a little Cossack
+stallion, was talking to Dymov and Kiruha beside the foremost waggon.
+A mile and a half ahead there were long low white barns and little
+houses with tiled roofs; there were neither yards nor trees to be
+seen beside the little houses.
+
+"What village is that, Grandfather?" asked Yegorushka.
+
+"That's the Armenian Settlement, youngster," answered Panteley.
+"The Armenians live there. They are a good sort of people, . . .
+the Arnienians are."
+
+The man in grey had finished talking to Dymov and Kiruha; he pulled
+up his little stallion and looked across towards the settlement.
+
+"What a business, only think!" sighed Panteley, looking towards the
+settlement, too, and shuddering at the morning freshness. "He has
+sent a man to the settlement for some papers, and he doesn't come
+. . . . He should have sent Styopka."
+
+"Who is that, Grandfather?" asked Yegorushka.
+
+"Varlamov."
+
+My goodness! Yegorushka jumped up quickly, getting upon his knees,
+and looked at the white cap. It was hard to recognize the mysterious
+elusive Varlamov, who was sought by everyone, who was always "on
+his rounds," and who had far more money than Countess Dranitsky,
+in the short, grey little man in big boots, who was sitting on an
+ugly little nag and talking to peasants at an hour when all decent
+people were asleep.
+
+"He is all right, a good man," said Panteley, looking towards the
+settlement. "God give him health--a splendid gentleman, Semyon
+Alexandritch. . . . It's people like that the earth rests upon.
+That's true. . . . The cocks are not crowing yet, and he is already
+up and about. . . . Another man would be asleep, or gallivanting
+with visitors at home, but he is on the steppe all day, . . . on
+his rounds. . . . He does not let things slip. . . . No-o! He's a
+fine fellow. . ."
+
+Varlamov was talking about something, while he kept his eyes fixed.
+The little stallion shifted from one leg to another impatiently.
+
+"Semyon Alexandritch!" cried Panteley, taking off his hat. "Allow
+us to send Styopka! Emelyan, call out that Styopka should be sent."
+
+But now at last a man on horseback could be seen coming from the
+settlement. Bending very much to one side and brandishing his whip
+above his head like a gallant young Caucasian, and wanting to
+astonish everyone by his horsemanship, he flew towards the waggons
+with the swiftness of a bird.
+
+"That must be one of his circuit men," said Panteley. "He must have
+a hundred such horsemen or maybe more."
+
+Reaching the first waggon, he pulled up his horse, and taking off
+his hat, handed Varlamov a little book. Varlamov took several papers
+out of the book, read them and cried:
+
+"And where is Ivantchuk's letter?"
+
+The horseman took the book back, looked at the papers and shrugged
+his shoulders. He began saying something, probably justifying himself
+and asking to be allowed to ride back to the settlement again. The
+little stallion suddenly stirred as though Varlamov had grown
+heavier. Varlamov stirred too.
+
+"Go along!" he cried angrily, and he waved his whip at the man.
+
+Then he turned his horse round and, looking through the papers in
+the book, moved at a walking pace alongside the waggons. When he
+reached the hindmost, Yegorushka strained his eyes to get a better
+look at him. Varlamov was an elderly man. His face, a simple Russian
+sunburnt face with a small grey beard, was red, wet with dew and
+covered with little blue veins; it had the same expression of
+businesslike coldness as Ivan Ivanitch's face, the same look of
+fanatical zeal for business. But yet what a difference could be
+felt between him and Kuzmitchov! Uncle Ivan Ivanitch always had on
+his face, together with his business-like reserve, a look of anxiety
+and apprehension that he would not find Varlamov, that he would be
+late, that he would miss a good price; nothing of that sort, so
+characteristic of small and dependent persons, could be seen in the
+face or figure of Varlamov. This man made the price himself, was
+not looking for anyone, and did not depend on anyone; however
+ordinary his exterior, yet in everything, even in the manner of
+holding his whip, there was a sense of power and habitual authority
+over the steppe.
+
+As he rode by Yegorushka he did not glance at him. Only the little
+stallion deigned to notice Yegorushka; he looked at him with his
+large foolish eyes, and even he showed no interest. Panteley bowed
+to Varlamov; the latter noticed it, and without taking his eyes off
+the sheets of paper, said lisping:
+
+"How are you, old man?"
+
+Varlamov's conversation with the horseman and the way he had
+brandished his whip had evidently made an overwhelming impression
+on the whole party. Everyone looked grave. The man on horseback,
+cast down at the anger of the great man, remained stationary, with
+his hat off, and the rein loose by the foremost waggon; he was
+silent, and seemed unable to grasp that the day had begun so badly
+for him.
+
+"He is a harsh old man, . ." muttered Panteley. "It's a pity he is
+so harsh! But he is all right, a good man. . . . He doesn't abuse
+men for nothing. . . . It's no matter. . . ."
+
+After examining the papers, Varlamov thrust the book into his pocket;
+the little stallion, as though he knew what was in his mind, without
+waiting for orders, started and dashed along the highroad.
+
+VII
+
+On the following night the waggoners had halted and were cooking
+their porridge. On this occasion there was a sense of overwhelming
+oppression over everyone. It was sultry; they all drank a great
+deal, but could not quench their thirst. The moon was intensely
+crimson and sullen, as though it were sick. The stars, too, were
+sullen, the mist was thicker, the distance more clouded. Nature
+seemed as though languid and weighed down by some foreboding.
+
+There was not the same liveliness and talk round the camp fire as
+there had been the day before. All were dreary and spoke listlessly
+and without interest. Panteley did nothing but sigh and complain
+of his feet, and continually alluded to impenitent deathbeds.
+
+Dymov was lying on his stomach, chewing a straw in silence; there
+was an expression of disgust on his face as though the straw smelt
+unpleasant, a spiteful and exhausted look. . . . Vassya complained
+that his jaw ached, and prophesied bad weather; Emelyan was not
+waving his arms, but sitting still and looking gloomily at the fire.
+Yegorushka, too, was weary. This slow travelling exhausted him, and
+the sultriness of the day had given him a headache.
+
+While they were cooking the porridge, Dymov, to relieve his boredom,
+began quarrelling with his companions.
+
+"Here he lolls, the lumpy face, and is the first to put his spoon
+in," he said, looking spitefully at Emelyan. "Greedy! always contrives
+to sit next the cauldron. He's been a church-singer, so he thinks
+he is a gentleman! There are a lot of singers like you begging along
+the highroad!"
+
+"What are you pestering me for?" asked Emelyan, looking at him
+angrily.
+
+"To teach you not to be the first to dip into the cauldron. Don't
+think too much of yourself!"
+
+"You are a fool, and that is all about it!" wheezed out Emelyan.
+
+Knowing by experience how such conversations usually ended, Panteley
+and Vassya intervened and tried to persuade Dymov not to quarrel
+about nothing.
+
+"A church-singer!" The bully would not desist, but laughed
+contemptuously. "Anyone can sing like that--sit in the church
+porch and sing 'Give me alms, for Christ's sake!' Ugh! you are a
+nice fellow!"
+
+Emelyan did not speak. His silence had an irritating effect on
+Dymov. He looked with still greater hatred at the ex-singer and
+said:
+
+"I don't care to have anything to do with you, or I would show you
+what to think of yourself."
+
+"But why are you pushing me, you Mazeppa?" Emelyan cried, flaring
+up. "Am I interfering with you?"
+
+"What did you call me?" asked Dymov, drawing himself up, and his
+eyes were suffused with blood. "Eh! I am a Mazeppa? Yes? Take that,
+then; go and look for it."
+
+Dymov snatched the spoon out of Emelyan's hand and flung it far
+away. Kiruha, Vassya, and Styopka ran to look for it, while Emelyan
+fixed an imploring and questioning look on Panteley. His face
+suddenly became small and wrinkled; it began twitching, and the
+ex-singer began to cry like a child.
+
+Yegorushka, who had long hated Dymov, felt as though the air all
+at once were unbearably stifling, as though the fire were scorching
+his face; he longed to run quickly to the waggons in the darkness,
+but the bully's angry bored eyes drew the boy to him. With a
+passionate desire to say something extremely offensive, he took a
+step towards Dymov and brought out, gasping for breath:
+
+"You are the worst of the lot; I can't bear you!"
+
+After this he ought to have run to the waggons, but he could not
+stir from the spot and went on:
+
+"In the next world you will burn in hell! I'll complain to Ivan
+Ivanitch. Don't you dare insult Emelyan!"
+
+"Say this too, please," laughed Dyrnov: "'every little sucking-pig
+wants to lay down the law.' Shall I pull your ear?"
+
+Yegorushka felt that he could not breathe; and something which had
+never happened to him before--he suddenly began shaking all over,
+stamping his feet and crying shrilly:
+
+"Beat him, beat him!"
+
+Tears gushed from his eyes; he felt ashamed, and ran staggering
+back to the waggon. The effect produced by his outburst he did not
+see. Lying on the bales and twitching his arms and legs, he whispered:
+
+"Mother, mother!"
+
+And these men and the shadows round the camp fire, and the dark
+bales and the far-away lightning, which was flashing every minute
+in the distance--all struck him now as terrible and unfriendly.
+He was overcome with terror and asked himself in despair why and
+how he had come into this unknown land in the company of terrible
+peasants? Where was his uncle now, where was Father Christopher,
+where was Deniska? Why were they so long in coming? Hadn't they
+forgotten him? At the thought that he was forgotten and cast out
+to the mercy of fate, he felt such a cold chill of dread that he
+had several times an impulse to jump off the bales of wool, and run
+back full speed along the road; but the thought of the huge dark
+crosses, which would certainly meet him on the way, and the lightning
+flashing in the distance, stopped him. . . . And only when he
+whispered, "Mother, mother!" he felt as it were a little better.
+
+The waggoners must have been full of dread, too. After Yegorushka
+had run away from the camp fire they sat at first for a long time
+in silence, then they began speaking in hollow undertones about
+something, saying that it was coming and that they must make haste
+and get away from it. . . . They quickly finished supper, put out
+the fire and began harnessing the horses in silence. From their
+fluster and the broken phrases they uttered it was apparent they
+foresaw some trouble. Before they set off on their way, Dymov went
+up to Panteley and asked softly:
+
+"What's his name?"
+
+"Yegory," answered Panteley.
+
+Dymov put one foot on the wheel, caught hold of the cord which was
+tied round the bales and pulled himself up. Yegorushka saw his face
+and curly head. The face was pale and looked grave and exhausted,
+but there was no expression of spite in it.
+
+"Yera!" he said softly, "here, hit me!"
+
+Yegorushka looked at him in surprise. At that instant there was a
+flash of lightning.
+
+"It's all right, hit me," repeated Dymov. And without waiting for
+Yegorushka to hit him or to speak to him, he jumped down and said:
+"How dreary I am!"
+
+Then, swaying from one leg to the other and moving his shoulder-blades,
+he sauntered lazily alongside the string of waggons and repeated
+in a voice half weeping, half angry:
+
+"How dreary I am! O Lord! Don't you take offence, Emelyan," he said
+as he passed Emelyan. "Ours is a wretched cruel life!"
+
+There was a flash of lightning on the right, and, like a reflection
+in the looking-glass, at once a second flash in the distance.
+
+"Yegory, take this," cried Panteley, throwing up something big and
+dark.
+
+"What is it?" asked Yegorushka.
+
+"A mat. There will be rain, so cover yourself up."
+
+Yegorushka sat up and looked about him. The distance had grown
+perceptibly blacker, and now oftener than every minute winked with
+a pale light. The blackness was being bent towards the right as
+though by its own weight.
+
+"Will there be a storm, Grandfather?" asked Yegorushka.
+
+"Ah, my poor feet, how they ache!" Panteley said in a high-pitched
+voice, stamping his feet and not hearing the boy.
+
+On the left someone seemed to strike a match in the sky; a pale
+phosphorescent streak gleamed and went out. There was a sound as
+though someone very far away were walking over an iron roof, probably
+barefoot, for the iron gave a hollow rumble.
+
+"It's set in!" cried Kiruha.
+
+Between the distance and the horizon on the right there was a flash
+of lightning so vivid that it lighted up part of the steppe and the
+spot where the clear sky met the blackness. A terrible cloud was
+swooping down, without haste, a compact mass; big black shreds hung
+from its edge; similar shreds pressing one upon another were piling
+up on the right and left horizon. The tattered, ragged look of the
+storm-cloud gave it a drunken disorderly air. There was a distinct,
+not smothered, growl of thunder. Yegorushka crossed himself and
+began quickly putting on his great-coat.
+
+"I am dreary!" Dymov's shout floated from the foremost waggon, and
+it could be told from his voice that he was beginning to be
+ill-humoured again. "I am so dreary!"
+
+All at once there was a squall of wind, so violent that it almost
+snatched away Yegorushka's bundle and mat; the mat fluttered in all
+directions and flapped on the bale and on Yegorushka's face. The
+wind dashed whistling over the steppe, whirled round in disorder
+and raised such an uproar from the grass that neither the thunder
+nor the creaking of the wheels could be heard; it blew from the
+black storm-cloud, carrying with it clouds of dust and the scent
+of rain and wet earth. The moonlight grew mistier, as it were
+dirtier; the stars were even more overcast; and clouds of dust could
+be seen hurrying along the edge of the road, followed by their
+shadows. By now, most likely, the whirlwind eddying round and lifting
+from the earth dust, dry grass and feathers, was mounting to the
+very sky; uprooted plants must have been flying by that very black
+storm-cloud, and how frightened they must have been! But through
+the dust that clogged the eyes nothing could be seen but the flash
+of lightning.
+
+Yegorushka, thinking it would pour with rain in a minute, knelt up
+and covered himself with the mat.
+
+"Panteley-ey!" someone shouted in the front. "A. . . a. . . va!"
+
+"I can't!" Panteley answered in a loud high voice. "A . . . a
+. . . va! Arya . . . a!"
+
+There was an angry clap of thunder, which rolled across the sky
+from right to left, then back again, and died away near the foremost
+waggon.
+
+"Holy, holy, holy, Lord of Sabaoth," whispered Yegorushka, crossing
+himself. "Fill heaven and earth with Thy glory."
+
+The blackness in the sky yawned wide and breathed white fire. At
+once there was another clap of thunder. It had scarcely ceased when
+there was a flash of lightning so broad that Yegorushka suddenly
+saw through a slit in the mat the whole highroad to the very horizon,
+all the waggoners and even Kiruha's waistcoat. The black shreds had
+by now moved upwards from the left, and one of them, a coarse,
+clumsy monster like a claw with fingers, stretched to the moon.
+Yegorushka made up his mind to shut his eyes tight, to pay no
+attention to it, and to wait till it was all over.
+
+The rain was for some reason long in coming. Yegorushka peeped out
+from the mat in the hope that perhaps the storm-cloud was passing
+over. It was fearfully dark. Yegorushka could see neither Panteley,
+nor the bale of wool, nor himself; he looked sideways towards the
+place where the moon had lately been, but there was the same black
+darkness there as over the waggons. And in the darkness the flashes
+of lightning seemed more violent and blinding, so that they hurt
+his eyes.
+
+"Panteley!" called Yegorushka.
+
+No answer followed. But now a gust of wind for the last time flung
+up the mat and hurried away. A quiet regular sound was heard. A big
+cold drop fell on Yegorushka's knee, another trickled over his hand.
+He noticed that his knees were not covered, and tried to rearrange
+the mat, but at that moment something began pattering on the road,
+then on the shafts and the bales. It was the rain. As though they
+understood one another, the rain and the mat began prattling of
+something rapidly, gaily and most annoyingly like two magpies.
+
+Yegorushka knelt up or rather squatted on his boots. While the rain
+was pattering on the mat, he leaned forward to screen his knees,
+which were suddenly wet. He succeeded in covering his knees, but
+in less than a minute was aware of a penetrating, unpleasant dampness
+behind on his back and the calves of his legs. He returned to his
+former position, exposing his knees to the rain, and wondered what
+to do to rearrange the mat which he could not see in the darkness.
+But his arms were already wet, the water was trickling up his sleeves
+and down his collar, and his shoulder-blades felt chilly. And he
+made up his mind to do nothing but sit motionless and wait till it
+was all over.
+
+"Holy, holy, holy!" he whispered.
+
+Suddenly, exactly over his head, the sky cracked with a fearful
+deafening din; he huddled up and held his breath, waiting for the
+fragments to fall upon his head and back. He inadvertently opened
+his eyes and saw a blinding intense light flare out and flash five
+times on his fingers, his wet sleeves, and on the trickles of water
+running from the mat upon the bales and down to the ground. There
+was a fresh peal of thunder as violent and awful; the sky was not
+growling and rumbling now, but uttering short crashing sounds like
+the crackling of dry wood.
+
+"Trrah! tah! tah! tah!" the thunder rang out distinctly, rolled
+over the sky, seemed to stumble, and somewhere by the foremost
+waggons or far behind to fall with an abrupt angry "Trrra!"
+
+The flashes of lightning had at first been only terrible, but with
+such thunder they seemed sinister and menacing. Their magic light
+pierced through closed eyelids and sent a chill all over the body.
+What could he do not to see them? Yegorushka made up his mind to
+turn over on his face. Cautiously, as though afraid of being watched,
+he got on all fours, and his hands slipping on the wet bale, he
+turned back again.
+
+"Trrah! tah! tah!" floated over his head, rolled under the waggons
+and exploded "Kraa!"
+
+Again he inadvertently opened his eyes and saw a new danger: three
+huge giants with long pikes were following the waggon! A flash of
+lightning gleamed on the points of their pikes and lighted up their
+figures very distinctly. They were men of huge proportions, with
+covered faces, bowed heads, and heavy footsteps. They seemed gloomy
+and dispirited and lost in thought. Perhaps they were not following
+the waggons with any harmful intent, and yet there was something
+awful in their proximity.
+
+Yegorushka turned quickly forward, and trembling all over cried:
+"Panteley! Grandfather!"
+
+"Trrah! tah! tah!" the sky answered him.
+
+He opened his eyes to see if the waggoners were there. There were
+flashes of lightning in two places, which lighted up the road to
+the far distance, the whole string of waggons and all the waggoners.
+Streams of water were flowing along the road and bubbles were
+dancing. Panteley was walking beside the waggon; his tall hat and
+his shoulder were covered with a small mat; his figure expressed
+neither terror nor uneasiness, as though he were deafened by the
+thunder and blinded by the lightning.
+
+"Grandfather, the giants!" Yegorushka shouted to him in tears.
+
+But the old man did not hear. Further away walked Emelyan. He was
+covered from head to foot with a big mat and was triangular in
+shape. Vassya, without anything over him, was walking with the same
+wooden step as usual, lifting his feet high and not bending his
+knees. In the flash of lightning it seemed as though the waggons
+were not moving and the men were motionless, that Vassya's lifted
+foot was rigid in the same position. . . .
+
+Yegorushka called the old man once more. Getting no answer, he sat
+motionless, and no longer waited for it all to end. He was convinced
+that the thunder would kill him in another minute, that he would
+accidentally open his eyes and see the terrible giants, and he left
+off crossing himself, calling the old man and thinking of his mother,
+and was simply numb with cold and the conviction that the storm
+would never end.
+
+But at last there was the sound of voices.
+
+"Yegory, are you asleep?" Panteley cried below. "Get down! Is he
+deaf, the silly little thing? . . ."
+
+"Something like a storm!" said an unfamiliar bass voice, and the
+stranger cleared his throat as though he had just tossed off a good
+glass of vodka.
+
+Yegorushka opened his eyes. Close to the waggon stood Panteley,
+Emelyan, looking like a triangle, and the giants. The latter were
+by now much shorter, and when Yegorushka looked more closely at
+them they turned out to be ordinary peasants, carrying on their
+shoulders not pikes but pitchforks. In the space between Panteley
+and the triangular figure, gleamed the window of a low-pitched hut.
+So the waggons were halting in the village. Yegorushka flung off
+the mat, took his bundle and made haste to get off the waggon. Now
+when close to him there were people talking and a lighted window
+he no longer felt afraid, though the thunder was crashing as before
+and the whole sky was streaked with lightning.
+
+"It was a good storm, all right, . . ." Panteley was muttering.
+"Thank God, . . . my feet are a little softened by the rain. It was
+all right. . . . Have you got down, Yegory? Well, go into the hut;
+it is all right. . . ."
+
+"Holy, holy, holy!" wheezed Emelyan, "it must have struck something
+. . . . Are you of these parts?" he asked the giants.
+
+"No, from Glinovo. We belong to Glinovo. We are working at the
+Platers'."
+
+"Threshing?"
+
+"All sorts. Just now we are getting in the wheat. The lightning,
+the lightning! It is long since we have had such a storm. . . ."
+
+Yegorushka went into the hut. He was met by a lean hunchbacked old
+woman with a sharp chin. She stood holding a tallow candle in her
+hands, screwing up her eyes and heaving prolonged sighs.
+
+"What a storm God has sent us!" she said. "And our lads are out for
+the night on the steppe; they'll have a bad time, poor dears! Take
+off your things, little sir, take off your things."
+
+Shivering with cold and shrugging squeamishly, Yegorushka pulled
+off his drenched overcoat, then stretched out his arms and straddled
+his legs, and stood a long time without moving. The slightest
+movement caused an unpleasant sensation of cold and wetness. His
+sleeves and the back of his shirt were sopped, his trousers stuck
+to his legs, his head was dripping.
+
+"What's the use of standing there, with your legs apart, little
+lad?" said the old woman. "Come, sit down."
+
+Holding his legs wide apart, Yegorushka went up to the table and
+sat down on a bench near somebody's head. The head moved, puffed a
+stream of air through its nose, made a chewing sound and subsided.
+A mound covered with a sheepskin stretched from the head along the
+bench; it was a peasant woman asleep.
+
+The old woman went out sighing, and came back with a big water melon
+and a little sweet melon.
+
+"Have something to eat, my dear! I have nothing else to offer you,
+. . ." she said, yawning. She rummaged in the table and took out a
+long sharp knife, very much like the one with which the brigands
+killed the merchants in the inn. "Have some, my dear!"
+
+Yegorushka, shivering as though he were in a fever, ate a slice of
+sweet melon with black bread and then a slice of water melon, and
+that made him feel colder still.
+
+"Our lads are out on the steppe for the night, . . ." sighed the
+old woman while he was eating. "The terror of the Lord! I'd light
+the candle under the ikon, but I don't know where Stepanida has put
+it. Have some more, little sir, have some more. . . ."
+
+The old woman gave a yawn and, putting her right hand behind her,
+scratched her left shoulder.
+
+"It must be two o'clock now," she said; "it will soon be time to
+get up. Our lads are out on the steppe for the night; they are all
+wet through for sure. . . ."
+
+"Granny," said Yegorushka. "I am sleepy."
+
+"Lie down, my dear, lie down," the old woman sighed, yawning. "Lord
+Jesus Christ! I was asleep, when I heard a noise as though someone
+were knocking. I woke up and looked, and it was the storm God had
+sent us. . . . I'd have lighted the candle, but I couldn't find
+it."
+
+Talking to herself, she pulled some rags, probably her own bed, off
+the bench, took two sheepskins off a nail by the stove, and began
+laying them out for a bed for Yegorushka. "The storm doesn't grow
+less," she muttered. "If only nothing's struck in an unlucky hour.
+Our lads are out on the steppe for the night. Lie down and sleep,
+my dear. . . . Christ be with you, my child. . . . I won't take
+away the melon; maybe you'll have a bit when you get up."
+
+The sighs and yawns of the old woman, the even breathing of the
+sleeping woman, the half-darkness of the hut, and the sound of the
+rain outside, made one sleepy. Yegorushka was shy of undressing
+before the old woman. He only took off his boots, lay down and
+covered himself with the sheepskin.
+
+"Is the little lad lying down?" he heard Panteley whisper a little
+later.
+
+"Yes," answered the old woman in a whisper. "The terror of the Lord!
+It thunders and thunders, and there is no end to it."
+
+"It will soon be over," wheezed Panteley, sitting down; "it's getting
+quieter. . . . The lads have gone into the huts, and two have stayed
+with the horses. The lads have. . . . They can't; . . . the horses
+would be taken away. . . . I'll sit here a bit and then go and take
+my turn. . . . We can't leave them; they would be taken. . . ."
+
+Panteley and the old woman sat side by side at Yegorushka's feet,
+talking in hissing whispers and interspersing their speech with
+sighs and yawns. And Yegorushka could not get warm. The warm heavy
+sheepskin lay on him, but he was trembling all over; his arms and
+legs were twitching, and his whole inside was shivering. . . . He
+undressed under the sheepskin, but that was no good. His shivering
+grew more and more acute.
+
+Panteley went out to take his turn with the horses, and afterwards
+came back again, and still Yegorushka was shivering all over and
+could not get to sleep. Something weighed upon his head and chest
+and oppressed him, and he did not know what it was, whether it was
+the old people whispering, or the heavy smell of the sheepskin. The
+melon he had eaten had left an unpleasant metallic taste in his
+mouth. Moreover he was being bitten by fleas.
+
+"Grandfather, I am cold," he said, and did not know his own voice.
+
+"Go to sleep, my child, go to sleep," sighed the old woman.
+
+Tit came up to the bedside on his thin little legs and waved his
+arms, then grew up to the ceiling and turned into a windmill. . . .
+Father Christopher, not as he was in the chaise, but in his full
+vestments with the sprinkler in his hand, walked round the mill,
+sprinkling it with holy water, and it left off waving. Yegorushka,
+knowing this was delirium, opened his eyes.
+
+"Grandfather," he called, "give me some water."
+
+No one answered. Yegorushka felt it insufferably stifling and
+uncomfortable lying down. He got up, dressed, and went out of the
+hut. Morning was beginning. The sky was overcast, but it was no
+longer raining. Shivering and wrapping himself in his wet overcoat,
+Yegorushka walked about the muddy yard and listened to the silence;
+he caught sight of a little shed with a half-open door made of
+reeds. He looked into this shed, went into it, and sat down in a
+dark corner on a heap of dry dung.
+
+There was a tangle of thoughts in his heavy head; his mouth was dry
+and unpleasant from the metallic taste. He looked at his hat,
+straightened the peacock's feather on it, and thought how he had
+gone with his mother to buy the hat. He put his hand into his pocket
+and took out a lump of brownish sticky paste. How had that paste
+come into his pocket? He thought a minute, smelt it; it smelt of
+honey. Aha! it was the Jewish cake! How sopped it was, poor thing!
+
+Yegorushka examined his coat. It was a little grey overcoat with
+big bone buttons, cut in the shape of a frock-coat. At home, being
+a new and expensive article, it had not been hung in the hall, but
+with his mother's dresses in her bedroom; he was only allowed to
+wear it on holidays. Looking at it, Yegorushka felt sorry for it.
+He thought that he and the great-coat were both abandoned to the
+mercy of destiny; he thought that he would never get back home, and
+began sobbing so violently that he almost fell off the heap of dung.
+
+A big white dog with woolly tufts like curl-papers about its face,
+sopping from the rain, came into the shed and stared with curiosity
+at Yegorushka. It seemed to be hesitating whether to bark or not.
+Deciding that there was no need to bark, it went cautiously up to
+Yegorushka, ate the sticky plaster and went out again.
+
+"There are Varlamov's men!" someone shouted in the street.
+
+After having his cry out, Yegorushka went out of the shed and,
+walking round a big puddle, made his way towards the street. The
+waggons were standing exactly opposite the gateway. The drenched
+waggoners, with their muddy feet, were sauntering beside them or
+sitting on the shafts, as listless and drowsy as flies in autumn.
+Yegorushka looked at them and thought: "How dreary and comfortless
+to be a peasant!" He went up to Panteley and sat down beside him
+on the shaft.
+
+"Grandfather, I'm cold," he said, shivering and thrusting his hands
+up his sleeves.
+
+"Never mind, we shall soon be there," yawned Panteley. "Never mind,
+you will get warm."
+
+It must have been early when the waggons set off, for it was not
+hot. Yegorushka lay on the bales of wool and shivered with cold,
+though the sun soon came out and dried his clothes, the bales, and
+the earth. As soon as he closed his eyes he saw Tit and the windmill
+again. Feeling a sickness and heaviness all over, he did his utmost
+to drive away these images, but as soon as they vanished the
+dare-devil Dymov, with red eyes and lifted fists, rushed at Yegorushka
+with a roar, or there was the sound of his complaint: "I am so
+dreary!" Varlamov rode by on his little Cossack stallion; happy
+Konstantin passed, with a smile and the bustard in his arms. And
+how tedious these people were, how sickening and unbearable!
+
+Once--it was towards evening--he raised his head to ask for
+water. The waggons were standing on a big bridge across a broad
+river. There was black smoke below over the river, and through it
+could be seen a steamer with a barge in tow. Ahead of them, beyond
+the river, was a huge mountain dotted with houses and churches; at
+the foot of the mountain an engine was being shunted along beside
+some goods trucks.
+
+Yegorushka had never before seen steamers, nor engines, nor broad
+rivers. Glancing at them now, he was not alarmed or surprised; there
+was not even a look of anything like curiosity in his face. He
+merely felt sick, and made haste to turn over to the edge of the
+bale. He was sick. Panteley, seeing this, cleared his throat and
+shook his head.
+
+"Our little lad's taken ill," he said. "He must have got a chill
+to the stomach. The little lad must. . . away from home; it's a bad
+lookout!"
+
+VIII
+
+The waggons stopped at a big inn for merchants, not far from the
+quay. As Yegorushka climbed down from the waggon he heard a very
+familiar voice. Someone was helping him to get down, and saying:
+
+"We arrived yesterday evening. . . . We have been expecting you all
+day. We meant to overtake you yesterday, but it was out of our way;
+we came by the other road. I say, how you have crumpled your coat!
+You'll catch it from your uncle!"
+
+Yegorushka looked into the speaker's mottled face and remembered
+that this was Deniska.
+
+"Your uncle and Father Christopher are in the inn now, drinking
+tea; come along!"
+
+And he led Yegorushka to a big two-storied building, dark and gloomy
+like the almshouse at N. After going across the entry, up a dark
+staircase and through a narrow corridor, Yegorushka and Deniska
+reached a little room in which Ivan Ivanitch and Father Christopher
+were sitting at the tea-table. Seeing the boy, both the old men
+showed surprise and pleasure.
+
+"Aha! Yegor Ni-ko-la-aitch!" chanted Father Christopher. "Mr.
+Lomonosov!"
+
+"Ah, our gentleman that is to be," said Kuzmitchov, "pleased to see
+you!"
+
+Yegorushka took off his great-coat, kissed his uncle's hand and
+Father Christopher's, and sat down to the table.
+
+"Well, how did you like the journey, puer bone?" Father Christopher
+pelted him with questions as he poured him out some tea, with his
+radiant smile. "Sick of it, I've no doubt? God save us all from
+having to travel by waggon or with oxen. You go on and on, God
+forgive us; you look ahead and the steppe is always lying stretched
+out the same as it was--you can't see the end of it! It's not
+travelling but regular torture. Why don't you drink your tea? Drink
+it up; and in your absence, while you have been trailing along with
+the waggons, we have settled all our business capitally. Thank God
+we have sold our wool to Tcherepahin, and no one could wish to have
+done better. . . . We have made a good bargain."
+
+At the first sight of his own people Yegorushka felt an overwhelming
+desire to complain. He did not listen to Father Christopher, but
+thought how to begin and what exactly to complain of. But Father
+Christopher's voice, which seemed to him harsh and unpleasant,
+prevented him from concentrating his attention and confused his
+thoughts. He had not sat at the table five minutes before he got
+up, went to the sofa and lay down.
+
+"Well, well," said Father Christopher in surprise. "What about your
+tea?"
+
+Still thinking what to complain of, Yegorushka leaned his head
+against the wall and broke into sobs.
+
+"Well, well!" repeated Father Christopher, getting up and going to
+the sofa. "Yegory, what is the matter with you? Why are you crying?"
+
+"I'm . . . I'm ill," Yegorushka brought out.
+
+"Ill?" said Father Christopher in amazement. "That's not the right
+thing, my boy. . . . One mustn't be ill on a journey. Aie, aie,
+what are you thinking about, boy . . . eh?"
+
+He put his hand to Yegorushka's head, touched his cheek and said:
+
+"Yes, your head's feverish. . . . You must have caught cold or else
+have eaten something. . . . Pray to God."
+
+"Should we give him quinine? . . ." said Ivan Ivanitch, troubled.
+
+"No; he ought to have something hot. . . . Yegory, have a little
+drop of soup? Eh?"
+
+"I . . . don't want any," said Yegorushka.
+
+"Are you feeling chilly?"
+
+"I was chilly before, but now . . . now I am hot. And I ache all
+over. . . ."
+
+Ivan Ivanitch went up to the sofa, touched Yegorushka on the head,
+cleared his throat with a perplexed air, and went back to the table.
+
+"I tell you what, you undress and go to bed," said Father Christopher.
+"What you want is sleep now."
+
+He helped Yegorushka to undress, gave him a pillow and covered him
+with a quilt, and over that Ivan Ivanitch's great-coat. Then he
+walked away on tiptoe and sat down to the table. Yegorushka shut
+his eyes, and at once it seemed to him that he was not in the hotel
+room, but on the highroad beside the camp fire. Emelyan waved his
+hands, and Dymov with red eyes lay on his stomach and looked mockingly
+at Yegorushka.
+
+"Beat him, beat him!" shouted Yegorushka.
+
+"He is delirious," said Father Christopher in an undertone.
+
+"It's a nuisance!" sighed Ivan Ivanitch.
+
+"He must be rubbed with oil and vinegar. Please God, he will be
+better to-morrow."
+
+To be rid of bad dreams, Yegorushka opened his eyes and began looking
+towards the fire. Father Christopher and Ivan Ivanitch had now
+finished their tea and were talking in a whisper. The first was
+smiling with delight, and evidently could not forget that he had
+made a good bargain over his wool; what delighted him was not so
+much the actual profit he had made as the thought that on getting
+home he would gather round him his big family, wink slyly and go
+off into a chuckle; at first he would deceive them all, and say
+that he had sold the wool at a price below its value, then he would
+give his son-in-law, Mihail, a fat pocket-book and say: "Well, take
+it! that's the way to do business!" Kuzmitchov did not seem pleased;
+his face expressed, as before, a business-like reserve and anxiety.
+
+"If I could have known that Tcherepahin would give such a price,"
+he said in a low voice, "I wouldn't have sold Makarov those five
+tons at home. It is vexatious! But who could have told that the
+price had gone up here?"
+
+A man in a white shirt cleared away the samovar and lighted the
+little lamp before the ikon in the corner. Father Christopher
+whispered something in his ear; the man looked, made a serious face
+like a conspirator, as though to say, "I understand," went out, and
+returned a little while afterwards and put something under the sofa.
+Ivan Ivanitch made himself a bed on the floor, yawned several times,
+said his prayers lazily, and lay down.
+
+"I think of going to the cathedral to-morrow," said Father Christopher.
+"I know the sacristan there. I ought to go and see the bishop after
+mass, but they say he is ill."
+
+He yawned and put out the lamp. Now there was no light in the room
+but the little lamp before the ikon.
+
+"They say he can't receive visitors," Father Christopher went on,
+undressing. "So I shall go away without seeing him."
+
+He took off his full coat, and Yegorushka saw Robinson Crusoe
+reappear. Robinson stirred something in a saucer, went up to
+Yegorushka and whispered:
+
+"Lomonosov, are you asleep? Sit up; I'm going to rub you with oil
+and vinegar. It's a good thing, only you must say a prayer."
+
+Yegorushka roused himself quickly and sat up. Father Christopher
+pulled down the boy's shirt, and shrinking and breathing jerkily,
+as though he were being tickled himself, began rubbing Yegorushka's
+chest.
+
+"In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost," he
+whispered, "lie with your back upwards--that's it. . . . You'll
+be all right to-morrow, but don't do it again. . . . You are as hot
+as fire. I suppose you were on the road in the storm."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"You might well fall ill! In the name of the Father, the Son, and
+the Holy Ghost, . . . you might well fall ill!"
+
+After rubbing Yegorushka, Father Christopher put on his shirt again,
+covered him, made the sign of the cross over him, and walked away.
+Then Yegorushka saw him saying his prayers. Probably the old man
+knew a great many prayers by heart, for he stood a long time before
+the ikon murmuring. After saying his prayers he made the sign of
+the cross over the window, the door, Yegorushka, and Ivan Ivanitch,
+lay down on the little sofa without a pillow, and covered himself
+with his full coat. A clock in the corridor struck ten. Yegorushka
+thought how long a time it would be before morning; feeling miserable,
+he pressed his forehead against the back of the sofa and left off
+trying to get rid of the oppressive misty dreams. But morning came
+much sooner than he expected.
+
+It seemed to him that he had not been lying long with his head
+pressed to the back of the sofa, but when he opened his eyes slanting
+rays of sunlight were already shining on the floor through the two
+windows of the little hotel room. Father Christopher and Ivan
+Ivanitch were not in the room. The room had been tidied; it was
+bright, snug, and smelt of Father Christopher, who always smelt of
+cypress and dried cornflowers (at home he used to make the holy-water
+sprinklers and decorations for the ikonstands out of cornflowers,
+and so he was saturated with the smell of them). Yegorushka looked
+at the pillow, at the slanting sunbeams, at his boots, which had
+been cleaned and were standing side by side near the sofa, and
+laughed. It seemed strange to him that he was not on the bales of
+wool, that everything was dry around him, and that there was no
+thunder and lightning on the ceiling.
+
+He jumped off the sofa and began dressing. He felt splendid; nothing
+was left of his yesterday's illness but a slight weakness in his
+legs and neck. So the vinegar and oil had done good. He remembered
+the steamer, the railway engine, and the broad river, which he had
+dimly seen the day before, and now he made haste to dress, to run
+to the quay and have a look at them. When he had washed and was
+putting on his red shirt, the latch of the door clicked, and Father
+Christopher appeared in the doorway, wearing his top-hat and a brown
+silk cassock over his canvas coat and carrying his staff in his
+hand. Smiling and radiant (old men are always radiant when they
+come back from church), he put a roll of holy bread and a parcel
+of some sort on the table, prayed before the ikon, and said:
+
+"God has sent us blessings--well, how are you?"
+
+"Quite well now," answered Yegorushka, kissing his hand.
+
+"Thank God. . . . I have come from mass. I've been to see a sacristan
+I know. He invited me to breakfast with him, but I didn't go. I
+don't like visiting people too early, God bless them!"
+
+He took off his cassock, stroked himself on the chest, and without
+haste undid the parcel. Yegorushka saw a little tin of caviare, a
+piece of dry sturgeon, and a French loaf.
+
+"See; I passed a fish-shop and brought this," said Father Christopher.
+"There is no need to indulge in luxuries on an ordinary weekday;
+but I thought, I've an invalid at home, so it is excusable. And the
+caviare is good, real sturgeon. . . ."
+
+The man in the white shirt brought in the samovar and a tray with
+tea-things.
+
+"Eat some," said Father Christopher, spreading the caviare on a
+slice of bread and handing it to Yegorushka. "Eat now and enjoy
+yourself, but the time will soon come for you to be studying. Mind
+you study with attention and application, so that good may come of
+it. What you have to learn by heart, learn by heart, but when you
+have to tell the inner sense in your own words, without regard to
+the outer form, then say it in your own words. And try to master
+all subjects. One man knows mathematics excellently, but has never
+heard of Pyotr Mogila; another knows about Pyotr Mogila, but cannot
+explain about the moon. But you study so as to understand everything.
+Study Latin, French, German, . . . geography, of course, history,
+theology, philosophy, mathematics, . . . and when you have mastered
+everything, not with haste but with prayer and with zeal, then go
+into the service. When you know everything it will be easy for you
+in any line of life. . . . You study and strive for the divine
+blessing, and God will show you what to be. Whether a doctor, a
+judge or an engineer. . . ."
+
+Father Christopher spread a little caviare on a piece of bread, put
+it in his mouth and said:
+
+"The Apostle Paul says: 'Do not apply yourself to strange and diverse
+studies.' Of course, if it is black magic, unlawful arts, or calling
+up spirits from the other world, like Saul, or studying subjects
+that can be of no use to yourself or others, better not learn them.
+You must undertake only what God has blessed. Take example . . .
+the Holy Apostles spoke in all languages, so you study languages.
+Basil the Great studied mathematics and philosophy--so you study
+them; St. Nestor wrote history--so you study and write history.
+Take example from the saints."
+
+Father Christopher sipped the tea from his saucer, wiped his
+moustaches, and shook his head.
+
+"Good!" he said. "I was educated in the old-fashioned way; I have
+forgotten a great deal by now, but still I live differently from
+other people. Indeed, there is no comparison. For instance, in
+company at a dinner, or at an assembly, one says something in Latin,
+or makes some allusion from history or philosophy, and it pleases
+people, and it pleases me myself. . . . Or when the circuit court
+comes and one has to take the oath, all the other priests are shy,
+but I am quite at home with the judges, the prosecutors, and the
+lawyers. I talk intellectually, drink a cup of tea with them, laugh,
+ask them what I don't know, . . . and they like it. So that's how
+it is, my boy. Learning is light and ignorance is darkness. Study!
+It's hard, of course; nowadays study is expensive. . . . Your mother
+is a widow; she lives on her pension, but there, of course . . ."
+
+Father Christopher glanced apprehensively towards the door, and
+went on in a whisper:
+
+"Ivan Ivanitch will assist. He won't desert you. He has no children
+of his own, and he will help you. Don't be uneasy."
+
+He looked grave, and whispered still more softly:
+
+"Only mind, Yegory, don't forget your mother and Ivan Ivanitch, God
+preserve you from it. The commandment bids you honour your mother,
+and Ivan Ivanitch is your benefactor and takes the place of a father
+to you. If you become learned, God forbid you should be impatient
+and scornful with people because they are not so clever as you,
+then woe, woe to you!"
+
+Father Christopher raised his hand and repeated in a thin voice:
+
+"Woe to you! Woe to you!"
+
+Father Christopher's tongue was loosened, and he was, as they say,
+warming to his subject; he would not have finished till dinnertime
+but the door opened and Ivan Ivanitch walked in. He said good-morning
+hurriedly, sat down to the table, and began rapidly swallowing his
+tea.
+
+"Well, I have settled all our business," he said. "We might have
+gone home to-day, but we have still to think about Yegor. We must
+arrange for him. My sister told me that Nastasya Petrovna, a friend
+of hers, lives somewhere here, so perhaps she will take him in as
+a boarder."
+
+He rummaged in his pocket-book, found a crumpled note and read:
+
+"'Little Lower Street: Nastasya Petrovna Toskunov, living in a
+house of her own.' We must go at once and try to find her. It's a
+nuisance!"
+
+Soon after breakfast Ivan Ivanitch and Yegorushka left the inn.
+
+"It's a nuisance," muttered his uncle. "You are sticking to me like
+a burr. You and your mother want education and gentlemanly breeding
+and I have nothing but worry with you both. . . ."
+
+When they crossed the yard, the waggons and the drivers were not
+there. They had all gone off to the quay early in the morning. In
+a far-off dark corner of the yard stood the chaise.
+
+"Good-bye, chaise!" thought Yegorushka.
+
+At first they had to go a long way uphill by a broad street, then
+they had to cross a big marketplace; here Ivan Ivanitch asked a
+policeman for Little Lower Street.
+
+"I say," said the policeman, with a grin, "it's a long way off, out
+that way towards the town grazing ground."
+
+They met several cabs but Ivan Ivanitch only permitted himself such
+a weakness as taking a cab in exceptional cases and on great holidays.
+Yegorushka and he walked for a long while through paved streets,
+then along streets where there were only wooden planks at the sides
+and no pavements, and in the end got to streets where there were
+neither planks nor pavements. When their legs and their tongues had
+brought them to Little Lower Street they were both red in the face,
+and taking off their hats, wiped away the perspiration.
+
+"Tell me, please," said Ivan Ivanitch, addressing an old man sitting
+on a little bench by a gate, "where is Nastasya Petrovna Toskunov's
+house?"
+
+"There is no one called Toskunov here," said the old man, after
+pondering a moment. "Perhaps it's Timoshenko you want."
+
+"No, Toskunov. . . ."
+
+"Excuse me, there's no one called Toskunov. . . ."
+
+Ivan Ivanitch shrugged his shoulders and trudged on farther.
+
+"You needn't look," the old man called after them. "I tell you there
+isn't, and there isn't."
+
+"Listen, auntie," said Ivan Ivanitch, addressing an old woman who
+was sitting at a corner with a tray of pears and sunflower seeds,
+"where is Nastasya Petrovna Toskunov's house?"
+
+The old woman looked at him with surprise and laughed.
+
+"Why, Nastasya Petrovna live in her own house now!" she cried.
+"Lord! it is eight years since she married her daughter and gave
+up the house to her son-in-law! It's her son-in-law lives there
+now."
+
+And her eyes expressed: "How is it you didn't know a simple thing
+like that, you fools?"
+
+"And where does she live now?" Ivan Ivanitch asked.
+
+"Oh, Lord!" cried the old woman, flinging up her hands in surprise.
+"She moved ever so long ago! It's eight years since she gave up her
+house to her son-in-law! Upon my word!"
+
+She probably expected Ivan Ivanitch to be surprised, too, and to
+exclaim: "You don't say so," but Ivan Ivanitch asked very calmly:
+
+"Where does she live now?"
+
+The old woman tucked up her sleeves and, stretching out her bare
+arm to point, shouted in a shrill piercing voice:
+
+"Go straight on, straight on, straight on. You will pass a little
+red house, then you will see a little alley on your left. Turn down
+that little alley, and it will be the third gate on the right. . . ."
+
+Ivan Ivanitch and Yegorushka reached the little red house, turned
+to the left down the little alley, and made for the third gate on
+the right. On both sides of this very old grey gate there was a
+grey fence with big gaps in it. The first part of the fence was
+tilting forwards and threatened to fall, while on the left of the
+gate it sloped backwards towards the yard. The gate itself stood
+upright and seemed to be still undecided which would suit it best
+--to fall forwards or backwards. Ivan Ivanitch opened the little
+gate at the side, and he and Yegorushka saw a big yard overgrown
+with weeds and burdocks. A hundred paces from the gate stood a
+little house with a red roof and green shutters. A stout woman with
+her sleeves tucked up and her apron held out was standing in the
+middle of the yard, scattering something on the ground and shouting
+in a voice as shrill as that of the woman selling fruit:
+
+"Chick! . . . Chick! . . . Chick!"
+
+Behind her sat a red dog with pointed ears. Seeing the strangers,
+he ran to the little gate and broke into a tenor bark (all red dogs
+have a tenor bark).
+
+"Whom do you want?" asked the woman, putting up her hand to shade
+her eyes from the sun.
+
+"Good-morning!" Ivan Ivanitch shouted, too, waving off the red dog
+with his stick. "Tell me, please, does Nastasya Petrovna Toskunov
+live here?"
+
+"Yes! But what do you want with her?"
+
+"Perhaps you are Nastasya Petrovna?"
+
+"Well, yes, I am!"
+
+"Very pleased to see you. . . . You see, your old friend Olga
+Ivanovna Knyasev sends her love to you. This is her little son. And
+I, perhaps you remember, am her brother Ivan Ivanitch. . . . You
+are one of us from N. . . . You were born among us and married
+there. . . ."
+
+A silence followed. The stout woman stared blankly at Ivan Ivanitch,
+as though not believing or not understanding him, then she flushed
+all over, and flung up her hands; the oats were scattered out of
+her apron and tears spurted from her eyes.
+
+"Olga Ivanovna!" she screamed, breathless with excitement. "My own
+darling! Ah, holy saints, why am I standing here like a fool? My
+pretty little angel. . . ."
+
+She embraced Yegorushka, wetted his face with her tears, and broke
+down completely.
+
+"Heavens!" she said, wringing her hands, "Olga's little boy! How
+delightful! He is his mother all over! The image of his mother! But
+why are you standing in the yard? Come indoors."
+
+Crying, gasping for breath and talking as she went, she hurried
+towards the house. Her visitors trudged after her.
+
+"The room has not been done yet," she said, ushering the visitors
+into a stuffy little drawing-room adorned with many ikons and pots
+of flowers. "Oh, Mother of God! Vassilisa, go and open the shutters
+anyway! My little angel! My little beauty! I did not know that
+Olitchka had a boy like that!"
+
+When she had calmed down and got over her first surprise Ivan
+Ivanitch asked to speak to her alone. Yegorushka went into another
+room; there was a sewing-machine; in the window was a cage with a
+starling in it, and there were as many ikons and flowers as in the
+drawing-room. Near the machine stood a little girl with a sunburnt
+face and chubby cheeks like Tit's, and a clean cotton dress. She
+stared at Yegorushka without blinking, and apparently felt very
+awkward. Yegorushka looked at her and after a pause asked:
+
+"What's your name?"
+
+The little girl moved her lips, looked as if she were going to cry,
+and answered softly:
+
+"Atka. . . ."
+
+This meant Katka.
+
+"He will live with you," Ivan Ivanitch was whispering in the
+drawing-room, "if you will be so kind, and we will pay ten roubles
+a month for his keep. He is not a spoilt boy; he is quiet. . . ."
+
+"I really don't know what to say, Ivan Ivanitch!" Nastasya Petrovna
+sighed tearfully. "Ten roubles a month is very good, but it is a
+dreadful thing to take another person's child! He may fall ill or
+something. . . ."
+
+When Yegorushka was summoned back to the drawing-room Ivan Ivanitch
+was standing with his hat in his hands, saying good-bye.
+
+"Well, let him stay with you now, then," he said. "Good-bye! You
+stay, Yegor!" he said, addressing his nephew. "Don't be troublesome;
+mind you obey Nastasya Petrovna. . . . Good-bye; I am coming again
+to-morrow."
+
+And he went away. Nastasya once more embraced Yegorushka, called
+him a little angel, and with a tear-stained face began preparing
+for dinner. Three minutes later Yegorushka was sitting beside her,
+answering her endless questions and eating hot savoury cabbage soup.
+
+In the evening he sat again at the same table and, resting his head
+on his hand, listened to Nastasya Petrovna. Alternately laughing
+and crying, she talked of his mother's young days, her own marriage,
+her children. . . . A cricket chirruped in the stove, and there was
+a faint humming from the burner of the lamp. Nastasya Petrovna
+talked in a low voice, and was continually dropping her thimble in
+her excitement; and Katka her granddaughter, crawled under the table
+after it and each time sat a long while under the table, probably
+examining Yegorushka's feet; and Yegorushka listened, half dozing
+and looking at the old woman's face, her wart with hairs on it, and
+the stains of tears, and he felt sad, very sad. He was put to sleep
+on a chest and told that if he were hungry in the night he must go
+out into the little passage and take some chicken, put there under
+a plate in the window.
+
+Next morning Ivan Ivanitch and Father Christopher came to say
+good-bye. Nastasya Petrovna was delighted to see them, and was about
+to set the samovar; but Ivan Ivanitch, who was in a great hurry,
+waved his hands and said:
+
+"We have no time for tea! We are just setting off."
+
+Before parting they all sat down and were silent for a minute.
+Nastasya Petrovna heaved a deep sigh and looked towards the ikon
+with tear-stained eyes.
+
+"Well," began Ivan Ivanitch, getting up, "so you will stay. . . ."
+
+All at once the look of business-like reserve vanished from his
+face; he flushed a little and said with a mournful smile:
+
+"Mind you work hard. . . . Don't forget your mother, and obey
+Nastasya Petrovna. . . . If you are diligent at school, Yegor, I'll
+stand by you."
+
+He took his purse out of his pocket, turned his back to Yegorushka,
+fumbled for a long time among the smaller coins, and, finding a
+ten-kopeck piece, gave it to Yegorushka.
+
+Father Christopher, without haste, blessed Yegorushka.
+
+"In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. . . .
+Study," he said. "Work hard, my lad. If I die, remember me in your
+prayers. Here is a ten-kopeck piece from me, too. . . ."
+
+Yegorushka kissed his hand, and shed tears; something whispered in
+his heart that he would never see the old man again.
+
+"I have applied at the high school already," said Ivan Ivanitch in
+a voice as though there were a corpse in the room. "You will take
+him for the entrance examination on the seventh of August. . . .
+Well, good-bye; God bless you, good-bye, Yegor!"
+
+"You might at least have had a cup of tea," wailed Nastasya Petrovna.
+
+Through the tears that filled his eyes Yegorushka could not see his
+uncle and Father Christopher go out. He rushed to the window, but
+they were not in the yard, and the red dog, who had just been
+barking, was running back from the gate with the air of having done
+his duty. When Yegorushka ran out of the gate Ivan Ivanitch and
+Father Christopher, the former waving his stick with the crook, the
+latter his staff, were just turning the corner. Yegorushka felt
+that with these people all that he had known till then had vanished
+from him for ever. He sank helplessly on to the little bench, and
+with bitter tears greeted the new unknown life that was beginning
+for him now. . . .
+
+What would that life be like?
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Bishop and Other Stories, by Anton Chekhov
+
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diff --git a/old/13419.zip b/old/13419.zip
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+
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+   PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN"
+   "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd" >
+
+<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en">
+  <head>
+    <title>The Bishop and Other Stories, by Anton Chekhov</title>
+    <meta content="pg2html (binary v0.17)" />
+    <style type="text/css" xml:space="preserve">
+    body { margin:5%; background:#faebd0; text-align:justify}
+    P { text-indent: 1em; margin-top: .75em; margin-bottom: .75em; }
+    H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; }
+    hr  { width: 50%; text-align: center;}
+    .foot { margin-left: 5%; margin-right: 5%; text-align: justify; font-size: 80%; font-style: italic;}
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+    .mynote    {background-color: #DDE; color: #000; padding: .5em; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 95%;}
+    .toc       { margin-left: 10%; margin-bottom: .75em;}
+    .toc2      { margin-left: 20%;}
+    .xx-small {font-size: 60%;}
+    .x-small {font-size: 75%;}
+    .small {font-size: 85%;}
+    .large {font-size: 115%;}
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+    .indent10  { margin-left: 10%;}
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+    .indent20  { margin-left: 20%;}
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+    .figright  {float: right; margin-right: 0%; margin-left: 1%;}
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+                font-variant: normal; font-style: normal;
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+                border: 1px solid; padding: 0.3em;text-indent: 0em;}
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+               font-weight: bold; color: black; background: #eeeeee; border:        solid 1px;}
+    .head      { float: left; font-size: 90%; width: 98%; padding-left: 0.8em;
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+               text-indent: 0; font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;
+               font-weight: bold; color: black; background: #eeeeee; border:        solid 1px;}
+    p.pfirst, p.noindent {text-indent: 0}
+    span.dropcap         { float: left; margin: 0 0.1em 0 0; line-height: 0.8 }
+    pre        { font-style: italic; font-size: 90%; margin-left: 10%;}
+</style>
+  </head>
+  <body>
+  <pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Bishop and Other Stories, by Anton Chekhov
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Bishop and Other Stories
+
+Author: Anton Chekhov
+
+Release Date: September 9, 2004 [EBook #13419]
+Last Updated: May 26, 2018
+
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BISHOP AND OTHER STORIES ***
+
+
+
+
+Etext Produced by James Rusk
+
+HTML file produced by David Widger
+
+
+</pre>
+
+    <div style="height: 8em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h1>
+      THE TALES OF CHEKHOV
+    </h1>
+    <h4>
+      Volume 7
+    </h4>
+    <h3>
+      THE BISHOP AND OTHER STORIES
+    </h3>
+    <h2>
+      By Anton Tchekhov
+    </h2>
+    <h4>
+      Translated by Constance Garnett
+    </h4>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <b>CONTENTS</b>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0001"> THE BISHOP </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0002"> THE LETTER </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0003"> EASTER EVE </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0004"> A NIGHTMARE </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0005"> THE MURDER </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0006"> UPROOTED </a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="toc">
+      <a href="#link2H_4_0007"> THE STEPPE </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0001" id="link2H_4_0001"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <h2>
+      THE BISHOP
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      I
+    </h3>
+    <p class="pfirst">
+      <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">T</span>HE evening service
+      was being celebrated on the eve of Palm Sunday in the Old Petrovsky
+      Convent. When they began distributing the palm it was close upon ten
+      o&rsquo;clock, the candles were burning dimly, the wicks wanted snuffing; it was
+      all in a sort of mist. In the twilight of the church the crowd seemed
+      heaving like the sea, and to Bishop Pyotr, who had been unwell for the
+      last three days, it seemed that all the faces&mdash;old and young, men&rsquo;s
+      and women&rsquo;s&mdash;were alike, that everyone who came up for the palm had
+      the same expression in his eyes. In the mist he could not see the doors;
+      the crowd kept moving and looked as though there were no end to it. The
+      female choir was singing, a nun was reading the prayers for the day.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      How stifling, how hot it was! How long the service went on! Bishop Pyotr
+      was tired. His breathing was laboured and rapid, his throat was parched,
+      his shoulders ached with weariness, his legs were trembling. And it
+      disturbed him unpleasantly when a religious maniac uttered occasional
+      shrieks in the gallery. And then all of a sudden, as though in a dream or
+      delirium, it seemed to the bishop as though his own mother Marya
+      Timofyevna, whom he had not seen for nine years, or some old woman just
+      like his mother, came up to him out of the crowd, and, after taking a palm
+      branch from him, walked away looking at him all the while good-humouredly
+      with a kind, joyful smile until she was lost in the crowd. And for some
+      reason tears flowed down his face. There was peace in his heart,
+      everything was well, yet he kept gazing fixedly towards the left choir,
+      where the prayers were being read, where in the dusk of evening you could
+      not recognize anyone, and&mdash;wept. Tears glistened on his face and on
+      his beard. Here someone close at hand was weeping, then someone else
+      farther away, then others and still others, and little by little the
+      church was filled with soft weeping. And a little later, within five
+      minutes, the nuns&rsquo; choir was singing; no one was weeping and everything
+      was as before.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Soon the service was over. When the bishop got into his carriage to drive
+      home, the gay, melodious chime of the heavy, costly bells was filling the
+      whole garden in the moonlight. The white walls, the white crosses on the
+      tombs, the white birch-trees and black shadows, and the far-away moon in
+      the sky exactly over the convent, seemed now living their own life, apart
+      and incomprehensible, yet very near to man. It was the beginning of April,
+      and after the warm spring day it turned cool; there was a faint touch of
+      frost, and the breath of spring could be felt in the soft, chilly air. The
+      road from the convent to the town was sandy, the horses had to go at a
+      walking pace, and on both sides of the carriage in the brilliant, peaceful
+      moonlight there were people trudging along home from church through the
+      sand. And all was silent, sunk in thought; everything around seemed
+      kindly, youthful, akin, everything&mdash;trees and sky and even the moon,
+      and one longed to think that so it would be always.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At last the carriage drove into the town and rumbled along the principal
+      street. The shops were already shut, but at Erakin&rsquo;s, the millionaire
+      shopkeeper&rsquo;s, they were trying the new electric lights, which flickered
+      brightly, and a crowd of people were gathered round. Then came wide, dark,
+      deserted streets, one after another; then the highroad, the open country,
+      the fragrance of pines. And suddenly there rose up before the bishop&rsquo;s
+      eyes a white turreted wall, and behind it a tall belfry in the full
+      moonlight, and beside it five shining, golden cupolas: this was the
+      Pankratievsky Monastery, in which Bishop Pyotr lived. And here, too, high
+      above the monastery, was the silent, dreamy moon. The carriage drove in at
+      the gate, crunching over the sand; here and there in the moonlight there
+      were glimpses of dark monastic figures, and there was the sound of
+      footsteps on the flag-stones. . . .
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You know, your holiness, your mamma arrived while you were away,&rdquo; the lay
+      brother informed the bishop as he went into his cell.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My mother? When did she come?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Before the evening service. She asked first where you were and then she
+      went to the convent.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then it was her I saw in the church, just now! Oh, Lord!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And the bishop laughed with joy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She bade me tell your holiness,&rdquo; the lay brother went on, &ldquo;that she would
+      come to-morrow. She had a little girl with her&mdash;her grandchild, I
+      suppose. They are staying at Ovsyannikov&rsquo;s inn.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What time is it now?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A little after eleven.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, how vexing!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The bishop sat for a little while in the parlour, hesitating, and as it
+      were refusing to believe it was so late. His arms and legs were stiff, his
+      head ached. He was hot and uncomfortable. After resting a little he went
+      into his bedroom, and there, too, he sat a little, still thinking of his
+      mother; he could hear the lay brother going away, and Father Sisoy
+      coughing the other side of the wall. The monastery clock struck a quarter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The bishop changed his clothes and began reading the prayers before sleep.
+      He read attentively those old, long familiar prayers, and at the same time
+      thought about his mother. She had nine children and about forty
+      grandchildren. At one time, she had lived with her husband, the deacon, in
+      a poor village; she had lived there a very long time from the age of
+      seventeen to sixty. The bishop remembered her from early childhood, almost
+      from the age of three, and&mdash;how he had loved her! Sweet, precious
+      childhood, always fondly remembered! Why did it, that long-past time that
+      could never return, why did it seem brighter, fuller, and more festive
+      than it had really been? When in his childhood or youth he had been ill,
+      how tender and sympathetic his mother had been! And now his prayers
+      mingled with the memories, which gleamed more and more brightly like a
+      flame, and the prayers did not hinder his thinking of his mother.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When he had finished his prayers he undressed and lay down, and at once,
+      as soon as it was dark, there rose before his mind his dead father, his
+      mother, his native village Lesopolye . . . the creak of wheels, the bleat
+      of sheep, the church bells on bright summer mornings, the gypsies under
+      the window&mdash;oh, how sweet to think of it! He remembered the priest of
+      Lesopolye, Father Simeon&mdash;mild, gentle, kindly; he was a lean little
+      man, while his son, a divinity student, was a huge fellow and talked in a
+      roaring bass voice. The priest&rsquo;s son had flown into a rage with the cook
+      and abused her: &ldquo;Ah, you Jehud&rsquo;s ass!&rdquo; and Father Simeon overhearing it,
+      said not a word, and was only ashamed because he could not remember where
+      such an ass was mentioned in the Bible. After him the priest at Lesopolye
+      had been Father Demyan, who used to drink heavily, and at times drank till
+      he saw green snakes, and was even nicknamed Demyan Snakeseer. The
+      schoolmaster at Lesopolye was Matvey Nikolaitch, who had been a divinity
+      student, a kind and intelligent man, but he, too, was a drunkard; he never
+      beat the schoolchildren, but for some reason he always had hanging on his
+      wall a bunch of birch-twigs, and below it an utterly meaningless
+      inscription in Latin: &ldquo;Betula kinderbalsamica secuta.&rdquo; He had a shaggy
+      black dog whom he called Syntax.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And his holiness laughed. Six miles from Lesopolye was the village Obnino
+      with a wonder-working ikon. In the summer they used to carry the ikon in
+      procession about the neighbouring villages and ring the bells the whole
+      day long; first in one village and then in another, and it used to seem to
+      the bishop then that joy was quivering in the air, and he (in those days
+      his name was Pavlusha) used to follow the ikon, bareheaded and barefoot,
+      with naïve faith, with a naïve smile, infinitely happy. In Obnino, he
+      remembered now, there were always a lot of people, and the priest there,
+      Father Alexey, to save time during mass, used to make his deaf nephew
+      Ilarion read the names of those for whose health or whose souls&rsquo; peace
+      prayers were asked. Ilarion used to read them, now and then getting a five
+      or ten kopeck piece for the service, and only when he was grey and bald,
+      when life was nearly over, he suddenly saw written on one of the pieces of
+      paper: &ldquo;What a fool you are, Ilarion.&rdquo; Up to fifteen at least Pavlusha was
+      undeveloped and idle at his lessons, so much so that they thought of
+      taking him away from the clerical school and putting him into a shop; one
+      day, going to the post at Obnino for letters, he had stared a long time at
+      the post-office clerks and asked: &ldquo;Allow me to ask, how do you get your
+      salary, every month or every day?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His holiness crossed himself and turned over on the other side, trying to
+      stop thinking and go to sleep.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My mother has come,&rdquo; he remembered and laughed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The moon peeped in at the window, the floor was lighted up, and there were
+      shadows on it. A cricket was chirping. Through the wall Father Sisoy was
+      snoring in the next room, and his aged snore had a sound that suggested
+      loneliness, forlornness, even vagrancy. Sisoy had once been housekeeper to
+      the bishop of the diocese, and was called now &ldquo;the former Father
+      Housekeeper&rdquo;; he was seventy years old, he lived in a monastery twelve
+      miles from the town and stayed sometimes in the town, too. He had come to
+      the Pankratievsky Monastery three days before, and the bishop had kept him
+      that he might talk to him at his leisure about matters of business, about
+      the arrangements here. . . .
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At half-past one they began ringing for matins. Father Sisoy could be
+      heard coughing, muttering something in a discontented voice, then he got
+      up and walked barefoot about the rooms.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Father Sisoy,&rdquo; the bishop called.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sisoy went back to his room and a little later made his appearance in his
+      boots, with a candle; he had on his cassock over his underclothes and on
+      his head was an old faded skull-cap.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can&rsquo;t sleep,&rdquo; said the bishop, sitting up. &ldquo;I must be unwell. And what
+      it is I don&rsquo;t know. Fever!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You must have caught cold, your holiness. You must be rubbed with
+      tallow.&rdquo; Sisoy stood a little and yawned. &ldquo;O Lord, forgive me, a sinner.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They had the electric lights on at Erakin&rsquo;s today,&rdquo; he said; &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t
+      like it!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Father Sisoy was old, lean, bent, always dissatisfied with something, and
+      his eyes were angry-looking and prominent as a crab&rsquo;s.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t like it,&rdquo; he said, going away. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t like it. Bother it!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <h3>
+      II
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      Next day, Palm Sunday, the bishop took the service in the cathedral in the
+      town, then he visited the bishop of the diocese, then visited a very sick
+      old lady, the widow of a general, and at last drove home. Between one and
+      two o&rsquo;clock he had welcome visitors dining with him&mdash;his mother and
+      his niece Katya, a child of eight years old. All dinner-time the spring
+      sunshine was streaming in at the windows, throwing bright light on the
+      white tablecloth and on Katya&rsquo;s red hair. Through the double windows they
+      could hear the noise of the rooks and the notes of the starlings in the
+      garden.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is nine years since we have met,&rdquo; said the old lady. &ldquo;And when I
+      looked at you in the monastery yesterday, good Lord! you&rsquo;ve not changed a
+      bit, except maybe you are thinner and your beard is a little longer. Holy
+      Mother, Queen of Heaven! Yesterday at the evening service no one could
+      help crying. I, too, as I looked at you, suddenly began crying, though I
+      couldn&rsquo;t say why. His Holy Will!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And in spite of the affectionate tone in which she said this, he could see
+      she was constrained as though she were uncertain whether to address him
+      formally or familiarly, to laugh or not, and that she felt herself more a
+      deacon&rsquo;s widow than his mother. And Katya gazed without blinking at her
+      uncle, his holiness, as though trying to discover what sort of a person he
+      was. Her hair sprang up from under the comb and the velvet ribbon and
+      stood out like a halo; she had a turned-up nose and sly eyes. The child
+      had broken a glass before sitting down to dinner, and now her grandmother,
+      as she talked, moved away from Katya first a wineglass and then a tumbler.
+      The bishop listened to his mother and remembered how many, many years ago
+      she used to take him and his brothers and sisters to relations whom she
+      considered rich; in those days she was taken up with the care of her
+      children, now with her grandchildren, and she had brought Katya. . . .
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your sister, Varenka, has four children,&rdquo; she told him; &ldquo;Katya, here, is
+      the eldest. And your brother-in-law Father Ivan fell sick, God knows of
+      what, and died three days before the Assumption; and my poor Varenka is
+      left a beggar.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And how is Nikanor getting on?&rdquo; the bishop asked about his eldest
+      brother.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He is all right, thank God. Though he has nothing much, yet he can live.
+      Only there is one thing: his son, my grandson Nikolasha, did not want to
+      go into the Church; he has gone to the university to be a doctor. He
+      thinks it is better; but who knows! His Holy Will!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nikolasha cuts up dead people,&rdquo; said Katya, spilling water over her
+      knees.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sit still, child,&rdquo; her grandmother observed calmly, and took the glass
+      out of her hand. &ldquo;Say a prayer, and go on eating.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How long it is since we have seen each other!&rdquo; said the bishop, and he
+      tenderly stroked his mother&rsquo;s hand and shoulder; &ldquo;and I missed you abroad,
+      mother, I missed you dreadfully.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thank you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I used to sit in the evenings at the open window, lonely and alone; often
+      there was music playing, and all at once I used to be overcome with
+      homesickness and felt as though I would give everything only to be at home
+      and see you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His mother smiled, beamed, but at once she made a grave face and said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thank you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His mood suddenly changed. He looked at his mother and could not
+      understand how she had come by that respectfulness, that timid expression
+      of face: what was it for? And he did not recognize her. He felt sad and
+      vexed. And then his head ached just as it had the day before; his legs
+      felt fearfully tired, and the fish seemed to him stale and tasteless; he
+      felt thirsty all the time. . . .
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After dinner two rich ladies, landowners, arrived and sat for an hour and
+      a half in silence with rigid countenances; the archimandrite, a silent,
+      rather deaf man, came to see him about business. Then they began ringing
+      for vespers; the sun was setting behind the wood and the day was over.
+      When he returned from church, he hurriedly said his prayers, got into bed,
+      and wrapped himself up as warm as possible.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was disagreeable to remember the fish he had eaten at dinner. The
+      moonlight worried him, and then he heard talking. In an adjoining room,
+      probably in the parlour, Father Sisoy was talking politics:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There&rsquo;s war among the Japanese now. They are fighting. The Japanese, my
+      good soul, are the same as the Montenegrins; they are the same race. They
+      were under the Turkish yoke together.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And then he heard the voice of Marya Timofyevna:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So, having said our prayers and drunk tea, we went, you know, to Father
+      Yegor at Novokatnoye, so. . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And she kept on saying, &ldquo;having had tea&rdquo; or &ldquo;having drunk tea,&rdquo; and it
+      seemed as though the only thing she had done in her life was to drink tea.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The bishop slowly, languidly, recalled the seminary, the academy. For
+      three years he had been Greek teacher in the seminary: by that time he
+      could not read without spectacles. Then he had become a monk; he had been
+      made a school inspector. Then he had defended his thesis for his degree.
+      When he was thirty-two he had been made rector of the seminary, and
+      consecrated archimandrite: and then his life had been so easy, so
+      pleasant; it seemed so long, so long, no end was in sight. Then he had
+      begun to be ill, had grown very thin and almost blind, and by the advice
+      of the doctors had to give up everything and go abroad.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And what then?&rdquo; asked Sisoy in the next room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then we drank tea . . .&rdquo; answered Marya Timofyevna.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good gracious, you&rsquo;ve got a green beard,&rdquo; said Katya suddenly in
+      surprise, and she laughed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The bishop remembered that the grey-headed Father Sisoy&rsquo;s beard really had
+      a shade of green in it, and he laughed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;God have mercy upon us, what we have to put up with with this girl!&rdquo; said
+      Sisoy, aloud, getting angry. &ldquo;Spoilt child! Sit quiet!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The bishop remembered the perfectly new white church in which he had
+      conducted the services while living abroad, he remembered the sound of the
+      warm sea. In his flat he had five lofty light rooms; in his study he had a
+      new writing-table, lots of books. He had read a great deal and often
+      written. And he remembered how he had pined for his native land, how a
+      blind beggar woman had played the guitar under his window every day and
+      sung of love, and how, as he listened, he had always for some reason
+      thought of the past. But eight years had passed and he had been called
+      back to Russia, and now he was a suffragan bishop, and all the past had
+      retreated far away into the mist as though it were a dream. . . .
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Father Sisoy came into the bedroom with a candle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I say!&rdquo; he said, wondering, &ldquo;are you asleep already, your holiness?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, it&rsquo;s still early, ten o&rsquo;clock or less. I bought a candle to-day; I
+      wanted to rub you with tallow.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am in a fever . . .&rdquo; said the bishop, and he sat up. &ldquo;I really ought to
+      have something. My head is bad. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sisoy took off the bishop&rsquo;s shirt and began rubbing his chest and back
+      with tallow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s the way . . . that&rsquo;s the way . . .&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Lord Jesus Christ .
+      . . that&rsquo;s the way. I walked to the town to-day; I was at
+      what&rsquo;s-his-name&rsquo;s&mdash;the chief priest Sidonsky&rsquo;s. . . . I had tea with
+      him. I don&rsquo;t like him. Lord Jesus Christ. . . . That&rsquo;s the way. I don&rsquo;t
+      like him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <h3>
+      III
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      The bishop of the diocese, a very fat old man, was ill with rheumatism or
+      gout, and had been in bed for over a month. Bishop Pyotr went to see him
+      almost every day, and saw all who came to ask his help. And now that he
+      was unwell he was struck by the emptiness, the triviality of everything
+      which they asked and for which they wept; he was vexed at their ignorance,
+      their timidity; and all this useless, petty business oppressed him by the
+      mass of it, and it seemed to him that now he understood the diocesan
+      bishop, who had once in his young days written on &ldquo;The Doctrines of the
+      Freedom of the Will,&rdquo; and now seemed to be all lost in trivialities, to
+      have forgotten everything, and to have no thoughts of religion. The bishop
+      must have lost touch with Russian life while he was abroad; he did not
+      find it easy; the peasants seemed to him coarse, the women who sought his
+      help dull and stupid, the seminarists and their teachers uncultivated and
+      at times savage. And the documents coming in and going out were reckoned
+      by tens of thousands; and what documents they were! The higher clergy in
+      the whole diocese gave the priests, young and old, and even their wives
+      and children, marks for their behaviour&mdash;a five, a four, and
+      sometimes even a three; and about this he had to talk and to read and
+      write serious reports. And there was positively not one minute to spare;
+      his soul was troubled all day long, and the bishop was only at peace when
+      he was in church.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He could not get used, either, to the awe which, through no wish of his
+      own, he inspired in people in spite of his quiet, modest disposition. All
+      the people in the province seemed to him little, scared, and guilty when
+      he looked at them. Everyone was timid in his presence, even the old chief
+      priests; everyone &ldquo;flopped&rdquo; at his feet, and not long previously an old
+      lady, a village priest&rsquo;s wife who had come to consult him, was so overcome
+      by awe that she could not utter a single word, and went empty away. And
+      he, who could never in his sermons bring himself to speak ill of people,
+      never reproached anyone because he was so sorry for them, was moved to
+      fury with the people who came to consult him, lost his temper and flung
+      their petitions on the floor. The whole time he had been here, not one
+      person had spoken to him genuinely, simply, as to a human being; even his
+      old mother seemed now not the same! And why, he wondered, did she chatter
+      away to Sisoy and laugh so much; while with him, her son, she was grave
+      and usually silent and constrained, which did not suit her at all. The
+      only person who behaved freely with him and said what he meant was old
+      Sisoy, who had spent his whole life in the presence of bishops and had
+      outlived eleven of them. And so the bishop was at ease with him, although,
+      of course, he was a tedious and nonsensical man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After the service on Tuesday, his holiness Pyotr was in the diocesan
+      bishop&rsquo;s house receiving petitions there; he got excited and angry, and
+      then drove home. He was as unwell as before; he longed to be in bed, but
+      he had hardly reached home when he was informed that a young merchant
+      called Erakin, who subscribed liberally to charities, had come to see him
+      about a very important matter. The bishop had to see him. Erakin stayed
+      about an hour, talked very loud, almost shouted, and it was difficult to
+      understand what he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;God grant it may,&rdquo; he said as he went away. &ldquo;Most essential! According to
+      circumstances, your holiness! I trust it may!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      After him came the Mother Superior from a distant convent. And when she
+      had gone they began ringing for vespers. He had to go to church.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the evening the monks sang harmoniously, with inspiration. A young
+      priest with a black beard conducted the service; and the bishop, hearing
+      of the Bridegroom who comes at midnight and of the Heavenly Mansion
+      adorned for the festival, felt no repentance for his sins, no tribulation,
+      but peace at heart and tranquillity. And he was carried back in thought to
+      the distant past, to his childhood and youth, when, too, they used to sing
+      of the Bridegroom and of the Heavenly Mansion; and now that past rose up
+      before him&mdash;living, fair, and joyful as in all likelihood it never
+      had been. And perhaps in the other world, in the life to come, we shall
+      think of the distant past, of our life here, with the same feeling. Who
+      knows? The bishop was sitting near the altar. It was dark; tears flowed
+      down his face. He thought that here he had attained everything a man in
+      his position could attain; he had faith and yet everything was not clear,
+      something was lacking still. He did not want to die; and he still felt
+      that he had missed what was most important, something of which he had
+      dimly dreamed in the past; and he was troubled by the same hopes for the
+      future as he had felt in childhood, at the academy and abroad.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How well they sing to-day!&rdquo; he thought, listening to the singing. &ldquo;How
+      nice it is!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <h3>
+      IV
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      On Thursday he celebrated mass in the cathedral; it was the Washing of
+      Feet. When the service was over and the people were going home, it was
+      sunny, warm; the water gurgled in the gutters, and the unceasing trilling
+      of the larks, tender, telling of peace, rose from the fields outside the
+      town. The trees were already awakening and smiling a welcome, while above
+      them the infinite, fathomless blue sky stretched into the distance, God
+      knows whither.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On reaching home his holiness drank some tea, then changed his clothes,
+      lay down on his bed, and told the lay brother to close the shutters on the
+      windows. The bedroom was darkened. But what weariness, what pain in his
+      legs and his back, a chill heavy pain, what a noise in his ears! He had
+      not slept for a long time&mdash;for a very long time, as it seemed to him
+      now, and some trifling detail which haunted his brain as soon as his eyes
+      were closed prevented him from sleeping. As on the day before, sounds
+      reached him from the adjoining rooms through the walls, voices, the jingle
+      of glasses and teaspoons. . . . Marya Timofyevna was gaily telling Father
+      Sisoy some story with quaint turns of speech, while the latter answered in
+      a grumpy, ill-humoured voice: &ldquo;Bother them! Not likely! What next!&rdquo; And
+      the bishop again felt vexed and then hurt that with other people his old
+      mother behaved in a simple, ordinary way, while with him, her son, she was
+      shy, spoke little, and did not say what she meant, and even, as he
+      fancied, had during all those three days kept trying in his presence to
+      find an excuse for standing up, because she was embarrassed at sitting
+      before him. And his father? He, too, probably, if he had been living,
+      would not have been able to utter a word in the bishop&rsquo;s presence. . . .
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Something fell down on the floor in the adjoining room and was broken;
+      Katya must have dropped a cup or a saucer, for Father Sisoy suddenly spat
+      and said angrily:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What a regular nuisance the child is! Lord forgive my transgressions! One
+      can&rsquo;t provide enough for her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Then all was quiet, the only sounds came from outside. And when the bishop
+      opened his eyes he saw Katya in his room, standing motionless, staring at
+      him. Her red hair, as usual, stood up from under the comb like a halo.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is that you, Katya?&rdquo; he asked. &ldquo;Who is it downstairs who keeps opening
+      and shutting a door?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t hear it,&rdquo; answered Katya; and she listened.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There, someone has just passed by.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But that was a noise in your stomach, uncle.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He laughed and stroked her on the head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So you say Cousin Nikolasha cuts up dead people?&rdquo; he asked after a pause.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, he is studying.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And is he kind?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, yes, he&rsquo;s kind. But he drinks vodka awfully.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And what was it your father died of?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Papa was weak and very, very thin, and all at once his throat was bad. I
+      was ill then, too, and brother Fedya; we all had bad throats. Papa died,
+      uncle, and we got well.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Her chin began quivering, and tears gleamed in her eyes and trickled down
+      her cheeks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your holiness,&rdquo; she said in a shrill voice, by now weeping bitterly,
+      &ldquo;uncle, mother and all of us are left very wretched. . . . Give us a
+      little money . . . do be kind . . . uncle darling. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He, too, was moved to tears, and for a long time was too much touched to
+      speak. Then he stroked her on the head, patted her on the shoulder and
+      said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very good, very good, my child. When the holy Easter comes, we will talk
+      it over. . . . I will help you. . . . I will help you. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His mother came in quietly, timidly, and prayed before the ikon. Noticing
+      that he was not sleeping, she said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Won&rsquo;t you have a drop of soup?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, thank you,&rdquo; he answered, &ldquo;I am not hungry.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You seem to be unwell, now I look at you. I should think so; you may well
+      be ill! The whole day on your legs, the whole day. . . . And, my goodness,
+      it makes one&rsquo;s heart ache even to look at you! Well, Easter is not far
+      off; you will rest then, please God. Then we will have a talk, too, but
+      now I&rsquo;m not going to disturb you with my chatter. Come along, Katya; let
+      his holiness sleep a little.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And he remembered how once very long ago, when he was a boy, she had
+      spoken exactly like that, in the same jestingly respectful tone, with a
+      Church dignitary. . . . Only from her extraordinarily kind eyes and the
+      timid, anxious glance she stole at him as she went out of the room could
+      one have guessed that this was his mother. He shut his eyes and seemed to
+      sleep, but twice heard the clock strike and Father Sisoy coughing the
+      other side of the wall. And once more his mother came in and looked
+      timidly at him for a minute. Someone drove up to the steps, as he could
+      hear, in a coach or in a chaise. Suddenly a knock, the door slammed, the
+      lay brother came into the bedroom.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your holiness,&rdquo; he called.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The horses are here; it&rsquo;s time for the evening service.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What o&rsquo;clock is it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A quarter past seven.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He dressed and drove to the cathedral. During all the &ldquo;Twelve Gospels&rdquo; he
+      had to stand in the middle of the church without moving, and the first
+      gospel, the longest and the most beautiful, he read himself. A mood of
+      confidence and courage came over him. That first gospel, &ldquo;Now is the Son
+      of Man glorified,&rdquo; he knew by heart; and as he read he raised his eyes
+      from time to time, and saw on both sides a perfect sea of lights and heard
+      the splutter of candles, but, as in past years, he could not see the
+      people, and it seemed as though these were all the same people as had been
+      round him in those days, in his childhood and his youth; that they would
+      always be the same every year and till such time as God only knew.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His father had been a deacon, his grandfather a priest, his
+      great-grandfather a deacon, and his whole family, perhaps from the days
+      when Christianity had been accepted in Russia, had belonged to the
+      priesthood; and his love for the Church services, for the priesthood, for
+      the peal of the bells, was deep in him, ineradicable, innate. In church,
+      particularly when he took part in the service, he felt vigorous, of good
+      cheer, happy. So it was now. Only when the eighth gospel had been read, he
+      felt that his voice had grown weak, even his cough was inaudible. His head
+      had begun to ache intensely, and he was troubled by a fear that he might
+      fall down. And his legs were indeed quite numb, so that by degrees he
+      ceased to feel them and could not understand how or on what he was
+      standing, and why he did not fall. . . .
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was a quarter to twelve when the service was over. When he reached
+      home, the bishop undressed and went to bed at once without even saying his
+      prayers. He could not speak and felt that he could not have stood up. When
+      he had covered his head with the quilt he felt a sudden longing to be
+      abroad, an insufferable longing! He felt that he would give his life not
+      to see those pitiful cheap shutters, those low ceilings, not to smell that
+      heavy monastery smell. If only there were one person to whom he could have
+      talked, have opened his heart!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For a long while he heard footsteps in the next room and could not tell
+      whose they were. At last the door opened, and Sisoy came in with a candle
+      and a tea-cup in his hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are in bed already, your holiness?&rdquo; he asked. &ldquo;Here I have come to
+      rub you with spirit and vinegar. A thorough rubbing does a great deal of
+      good. Lord Jesus Christ! . . . That&rsquo;s the way . . . that&rsquo;s the way. . . .
+      I&rsquo;ve just been in our monastery. . . . I don&rsquo;t like it. I&rsquo;m going away
+      from here to-morrow, your holiness; I don&rsquo;t want to stay longer. Lord
+      Jesus Christ. . . . That&rsquo;s the way. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sisoy could never stay long in the same place, and he felt as though he
+      had been a whole year in the Pankratievsky Monastery. Above all, listening
+      to him it was difficult to understand where his home was, whether he cared
+      for anyone or anything, whether he believed in God. . . . He did not know
+      himself why he was a monk, and, indeed, he did not think about it, and the
+      time when he had become a monk had long passed out of his memory; it
+      seemed as though he had been born a monk.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;m going away to-morrow; God be with them all.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I should like to talk to you. . . . I can&rsquo;t find the time,&rdquo; said the
+      bishop softly with an effort. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know anything or anybody here. . .
+      .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll stay till Sunday if you like; so be it, but I don&rsquo;t want to stay
+      longer. I am sick of them!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I ought not to be a bishop,&rdquo; said the bishop softly. &ldquo;I ought to have
+      been a village priest, a deacon . . . or simply a monk. . . . All this
+      oppresses me . . . oppresses me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What? Lord Jesus Christ. . . . That&rsquo;s the way. Come, sleep well, your
+      holiness! . . . What&rsquo;s the good of talking? It&rsquo;s no use. Good-night!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The bishop did not sleep all night. And at eight o&rsquo;clock in the morning he
+      began to have hemorrhage from the bowels. The lay brother was alarmed, and
+      ran first to the archimandrite, then for the monastery doctor, Ivan
+      Andreyitch, who lived in the town. The doctor, a stout old man with a long
+      grey beard, made a prolonged examination of the bishop, and kept shaking
+      his head and frowning, then said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you know, your holiness, you have got typhoid?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      After an hour or so of hemorrhage the bishop looked much thinner, paler,
+      and wasted; his face looked wrinkled, his eyes looked bigger, and he
+      seemed older, shorter, and it seemed to him that he was thinner, weaker,
+      more insignificant than any one, that everything that had been had
+      retreated far, far away and would never go on again or be repeated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How good,&rdquo; he thought, &ldquo;how good!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His old mother came. Seeing his wrinkled face and his big eyes, she was
+      frightened, she fell on her knees by the bed and began kissing his face,
+      his shoulders, his hands. And to her, too, it seemed that he was thinner,
+      weaker, and more insignificant than anyone, and now she forgot that he was
+      a bishop, and kissed him as though he were a child very near and very dear
+      to her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Pavlusha, darling,&rdquo; she said; &ldquo;my own, my darling son! . . . Why are you
+      like this? Pavlusha, answer me!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Katya, pale and severe, stood beside her, unable to understand what was
+      the matter with her uncle, why there was such a look of suffering on her
+      grandmother&rsquo;s face, why she was saying such sad and touching things. By
+      now he could not utter a word, he could understand nothing, and he
+      imagined he was a simple ordinary man, that he was walking quickly,
+      cheerfully through the fields, tapping with his stick, while above him was
+      the open sky bathed in sunshine, and that he was free now as a bird and
+      could go where he liked!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Pavlusha, my darling son, answer me,&rdquo; the old woman was saying. &ldquo;What is
+      it? My own!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t disturb his holiness,&rdquo; Sisoy said angrily, walking about the room.
+      &ldquo;Let him sleep . . . what&rsquo;s the use . . . it&rsquo;s no good. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Three doctors arrived, consulted together, and went away again. The day
+      was long, incredibly long, then the night came on and passed slowly,
+      slowly, and towards morning on Saturday the lay brother went in to the old
+      mother who was lying on the sofa in the parlour, and asked her to go into
+      the bedroom: the bishop had just breathed his last.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Next day was Easter Sunday. There were forty-two churches and six
+      monasteries in the town; the sonorous, joyful clang of the bells hung over
+      the town from morning till night unceasingly, setting the spring air
+      aquiver; the birds were singing, the sun was shining brightly. The big
+      market square was noisy, swings were going, barrel organs were playing,
+      accordions were squeaking, drunken voices were shouting. After midday
+      people began driving up and down the principal street.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In short, all was merriment, everything was satisfactory, just as it had
+      been the year before, and as it will be in all likelihood next year.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A month later a new suffragan bishop was appointed, and no one thought
+      anything more of Bishop Pyotr, and afterwards he was completely forgotten.
+      And only the dead man&rsquo;s old mother, who is living to-day with her
+      son-in-law the deacon in a remote little district town, when she goes out
+      at night to bring her cow in and meets other women at the pasture, begins
+      talking of her children and her grandchildren, and says that she had a son
+      a bishop, and this she says timidly, afraid that she may not be believed.
+      . . .
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And, indeed, there are some who do not believe her.
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0002" id="link2H_4_0002"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <h2>
+      THE LETTER
+    </h2>
+    <p class="pfirst">
+      <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">T</span>he clerical
+      superintendent of the district, his Reverence Father Fyodor Orlov, a
+      handsome, well-nourished man of fifty, grave and important as he always
+      was, with an habitual expression of dignity that never left his face, was
+      walking to and fro in his little drawing-room, extremely exhausted, and
+      thinking intensely about the same thing: &ldquo;When would his visitor go?&rdquo; The
+      thought worried him and did not leave him for a minute. The visitor,
+      Father Anastasy, the priest of one of the villages near the town, had come
+      to him three hours before on some very unpleasant and dreary business of
+      his own, had stayed on and on, was now sitting in the corner at a little
+      round table with his elbow on a thick account book, and apparently had no
+      thought of going, though it was getting on for nine o&rsquo;clock in the
+      evening.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Not everyone knows when to be silent and when to go. It not infrequently
+      happens that even diplomatic persons of good worldly breeding fail to
+      observe that their presence is arousing a feeling akin to hatred in their
+      exhausted or busy host, and that this feeling is being concealed with an
+      effort and disguised with a lie. But Father Anastasy perceived it clearly,
+      and realized that his presence was burdensome and inappropriate, that his
+      Reverence, who had taken an early morning service in the night and a long
+      mass at midday, was exhausted and longing for repose; every minute he was
+      meaning to get up and go, but he did not get up, he sat on as though he
+      were waiting for something. He was an old man of sixty-five, prematurely
+      aged, with a bent and bony figure, with a sunken face and the dark skin of
+      old age, with red eyelids and a long narrow back like a fish&rsquo;s; he was
+      dressed in a smart cassock of a light lilac colour, but too big for him
+      (presented to him by the widow of a young priest lately deceased), a full
+      cloth coat with a broad leather belt, and clumsy high boots the size and
+      hue of which showed clearly that Father Anastasy dispensed with goloshes.
+      In spite of his position and his venerable age, there was something
+      pitiful, crushed and humiliated in his lustreless red eyes, in the strands
+      of grey hair with a shade of green in it on the nape of his neck, and in
+      the big shoulder-blades on his lean back. . . . He sat without speaking or
+      moving, and coughed with circumspection, as though afraid that the sound
+      of his coughing might make his presence more noticeable.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The old man had come to see his Reverence on business. Two months before
+      he had been prohibited from officiating till further notice, and his case
+      was being inquired into. His shortcomings were numerous. He was
+      intemperate in his habits, fell out with the other clergy and the commune,
+      kept the church records and accounts carelessly &mdash;these were the
+      formal charges against him; but besides all that, there had been rumours
+      for a long time past that he celebrated unlawful marriages for money and
+      sold certificates of having fasted and taken the sacrament to officials
+      and officers who came to him from the town. These rumours were maintained
+      the more persistently that he was poor and had nine children to keep, who
+      were as incompetent and unsuccessful as himself. The sons were spoilt and
+      uneducated, and stayed at home doing nothing, while the daughters were
+      ugly and did not get married.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Not having the moral force to be open, his Reverence walked up and down
+      the room and said nothing or spoke in hints.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So you are not going home to-night?&rdquo; he asked, stopping near the dark
+      window and poking with his little finger into the cage where a canary was
+      asleep with its feathers puffed out.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Father Anastasy started, coughed cautiously and said rapidly:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Home? I don&rsquo;t care to, Fyodor Ilyitch. I cannot officiate, as you know,
+      so what am I to do there? I came away on purpose that I might not have to
+      look the people in the face. One is ashamed not to officiate, as you know.
+      Besides, I have business here, Fyodor Ilyitch. To-morrow after breaking
+      the fast I want to talk things over thoroughly with the Father charged
+      with the inquiry.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah! . . .&rdquo; yawned his Reverence, &ldquo;and where are you staying?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;At Zyavkin&rsquo;s.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Father Anastasy suddenly remembered that within two hours his Reverence
+      had to take the Easter-night service, and he felt so ashamed of his
+      unwelcome burdensome presence that he made up his mind to go away at once
+      and let the exhausted man rest. And the old man got up to go. But before
+      he began saying good-bye he stood clearing his throat for a minute and
+      looking searchingly at his Reverence&rsquo;s back, still with the same
+      expression of vague expectation in his whole figure; his face was working
+      with shame, timidity, and a pitiful forced laugh such as one sees in
+      people who do not respect themselves. Waving his hand as it were
+      resolutely, he said with a husky quavering laugh:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Father Fyodor, do me one more kindness: bid them give me at leave-taking
+      . . . one little glass of vodka.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s not the time to drink vodka now,&rdquo; said his Reverence sternly. &ldquo;One
+      must have some regard for decency.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Father Anastasy was still more overwhelmed by confusion; he laughed, and,
+      forgetting his resolution to go away, he dropped back on his chair. His
+      Reverence looked at his helpless, embarrassed face and his bent figure and
+      he felt sorry for the old man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Please God, we will have a drink to-morrow,&rdquo; he said, wishing to soften
+      his stem refusal. &ldquo;Everything is good in due season.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His Reverence believed in people&rsquo;s reforming, but now when a feeling of
+      pity had been kindled in him it seemed to him that this disgraced,
+      worn-out old man, entangled in a network of sins and weaknesses, was
+      hopelessly wrecked, that there was no power on earth that could straighten
+      out his spine, give brightness to his eyes and restrain the unpleasant
+      timid laugh which he laughed on purpose to smoothe over to some slight
+      extent the repulsive impression he made on people.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The old man seemed now to Father Fyodor not guilty and not vicious, but
+      humiliated, insulted, unfortunate; his Reverence thought of his wife, his
+      nine children, the dirty beggarly shelter at Zyavkin&rsquo;s; he thought for
+      some reason of the people who are glad to see priests drunk and persons in
+      authority detected in crimes; and thought that the very best thing Father
+      Anastasy could do now would be to die as soon as possible and to depart
+      from this world for ever.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There were a sound of footsteps.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Father Fyodor, you are not resting?&rdquo; a bass voice asked from the passage.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, deacon; come in.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Orlov&rsquo;s colleague, the deacon Liubimov, an elderly man with a big bald
+      patch on the top of his head, though his hair was still black and he was
+      still vigorous-looking, with thick black eyebrows like a Georgian&rsquo;s,
+      walked in. He bowed to Father Anastasy and sat down.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What good news have you?&rdquo; asked his Reverence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What good news?&rdquo; answered the deacon, and after a pause he went on with a
+      smile: &ldquo;When your children are little, your trouble is small; when your
+      children are big, your trouble is great. Such goings on, Father Fyodor,
+      that I don&rsquo;t know what to think of it. It&rsquo;s a regular farce, that&rsquo;s what
+      it is.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He paused again for a little, smiled still more broadly and said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nikolay Matveyitch came back from Harkov to-day. He has been telling me
+      about my Pyotr. He has been to see him twice, he tells me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What has he been telling you, then?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He has upset me, God bless him. He meant to please me but when I came to
+      think it over, it seems there is not much to be pleased at. I ought to
+      grieve rather than be pleased. . . &lsquo;Your Petrushka,&rsquo; said he, &lsquo;lives in
+      fine style. He is far above us now,&rsquo; said he. &lsquo;Well thank God for that,&rsquo;
+      said I. &lsquo;I dined with him,&rsquo; said he, &lsquo;and saw his whole manner of life. He
+      lives like a gentleman,&rsquo; he said; &lsquo;you couldn&rsquo;t wish to live better.&rsquo; I
+      was naturally interested and I asked, &lsquo;And what did you have for dinner?&rsquo;
+      &lsquo;First,&rsquo; he said, &lsquo;a fish course something like fish soup, then tongue and
+      peas,&rsquo; and then he said, &lsquo;roast turkey.&rsquo; &lsquo;Turkey in Lent? that is
+      something to please me,&rsquo; said I. &lsquo;Turkey in Lent? Eh?&rsquo;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nothing marvellous in that,&rdquo; said his Reverence, screwing up his eyes
+      ironically. And sticking both thumbs in his belt, he drew himself up and
+      said in the tone in which he usually delivered discourses or gave his
+      Scripture lessons to the pupils in the district school: &ldquo;People who do not
+      keep the fasts are divided into two different categories: some do not keep
+      them through laxity, others through infidelity. Your Pyotr does not keep
+      them through infidelity. Yes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The deacon looked timidly at Father Fyodor&rsquo;s stern face and said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There is worse to follow. . . . We talked and discussed one thing and
+      another, and it turned out that my infidel of a son is living with some
+      madame, another man&rsquo;s wife. She takes the place of wife and hostess in his
+      flat, pours out the tea, receives visitors and all the rest of it, as
+      though she were his lawful wife. For over two years he has been keeping up
+      this dance with this viper. It&rsquo;s a regular farce. They have been living
+      together for three years and no children.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I suppose they have been living in chastity!&rdquo; chuckled Father Anastasy,
+      coughing huskily. &ldquo;There are children, Father Deacon&mdash; there are, but
+      they don&rsquo;t keep them at home! They send them to the Foundling! He-he-he! .
+      . .&rdquo; Anastasy went on coughing till he choked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t interfere, Father Anastasy,&rdquo; said his Reverence sternly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nikolay Matveyitch asked him, &lsquo;What madame is this helping the soup at
+      your table?&rsquo;&rdquo; the deacon went on, gloomily scanning Anastasy&rsquo;s bent
+      figure. &ldquo;&lsquo;That is my wife,&rsquo; said he. &lsquo;When was your wedding?&rsquo; Nikolay
+      Matveyitch asked him, and Pyotr answered, &lsquo;We were married at Kulikov&rsquo;s
+      restaurant.&rsquo;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His Reverence&rsquo;s eyes flashed wrathfully and the colour came into his
+      temples. Apart from his sinfulness, Pyotr was not a person he liked.
+      Father Fyodor had, as they say, a grudge against him. He remembered him a
+      boy at school&mdash;he remembered him distinctly, because even then the
+      boy had seemed to him not normal. As a schoolboy, Petrushka had been
+      ashamed to serve at the altar, had been offended at being addressed
+      without ceremony, had not crossed himself on entering the room, and what
+      was still more noteworthy, was fond of talking a great deal and with heat&mdash;and,
+      in Father Fyodor&rsquo;s opinion, much talking was unseemly in children and
+      pernicious to them; moreover Petrushka had taken up a contemptuous and
+      critical attitude to fishing, a pursuit to which both his Reverence and
+      the deacon were greatly addicted. As a student Pyotr had not gone to
+      church at all, had slept till midday, had looked down on people, and had
+      been given to raising delicate and insoluble questions with a peculiarly
+      provoking zest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What would you have?&rdquo; his Reverence asked, going up to the deacon and
+      looking at him angrily. &ldquo;What would you have? This was to be expected! I
+      always knew and was convinced that nothing good would come of your Pyotr!
+      I told you so, and I tell you so now. What you have sown, that now you
+      must reap! Reap it!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But what have I sown, Father Fyodor?&rdquo; the deacon asked softly, looking up
+      at his Reverence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, who is to blame if not you? You&rsquo;re his father, he is your offspring!
+      You ought to have admonished him, have instilled the fear of God into him.
+      A child must be taught! You have brought him into the world, but you
+      haven&rsquo;t trained him up in the right way. It&rsquo;s a sin! It&rsquo;s wrong! It&rsquo;s a
+      shame!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His Reverence forgot his exhaustion, paced to and fro and went on talking.
+      Drops of perspiration came out on the deacon&rsquo;s bald head and forehead. He
+      raised his eyes to his Reverence with a look of guilt, and said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But didn&rsquo;t I train him, Father Fyodor? Lord have mercy on us, haven&rsquo;t I
+      been a father to my children? You know yourself I spared nothing for his
+      good; I have prayed and done my best all my life to give him a thorough
+      education. He went to the high school and I got him tutors, and he took
+      his degree at the University. And as to my not being able to influence his
+      mind, Father Fyodor, why, you can judge for yourself that I am not
+      qualified to do so! Sometimes when he used to come here as a student, I
+      would begin admonishing him in my way, and he wouldn&rsquo;t heed me. I&rsquo;d say to
+      him, &lsquo;Go to church,&rsquo; and he would answer, &lsquo;What for?&rsquo; I would begin
+      explaining, and he would say, &lsquo;Why? what for?&rsquo; Or he would slap me on the
+      shoulder and say, &lsquo;Everything in this world is relative, approximate and
+      conditional. I don&rsquo;t know anything, and you don&rsquo;t know anything either,
+      dad.&rsquo;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Father Anastasy laughed huskily, cleared his throat and waved his fingers
+      in the air as though preparing to say something. His Reverence glanced at
+      him and said sternly:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t interfere, Father Anastasy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The old man laughed, beamed, and evidently listened with pleasure to the
+      deacon as though he were glad there were other sinful persons in this
+      world besides himself. The deacon spoke sincerely, with an aching heart,
+      and tears actually came into his eyes. Father Fyodor felt sorry for him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are to blame, deacon, you are to blame,&rdquo; he said, but not so sternly
+      and heatedly as before. &ldquo;If you could beget him, you ought to know how to
+      instruct him. You ought to have trained him in his childhood; it&rsquo;s no good
+      trying to correct a student.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A silence followed; the deacon clasped his hands and said with a sigh:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you know I shall have to answer for him!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To be sure you will!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      After a brief silence his Reverence yawned and sighed at the same moment
+      and asked:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who is reading the &lsquo;Acts&rsquo;?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yevstrat. Yevstrat always reads them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The deacon got up and, looking imploringly at his Reverence, asked:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Father Fyodor, what am I to do now?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do as you please; you are his father, not I. You ought to know best.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know anything, Father Fyodor! Tell me what to do, for goodness&rsquo;
+      sake! Would you believe it, I am sick at heart! I can&rsquo;t sleep now, nor
+      keep quiet, and the holiday will be no holiday to me. Tell me what to do,
+      Father Fyodor!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Write him a letter.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What am I to write to him?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Write that he mustn&rsquo;t go on like that. Write shortly, but sternly and
+      circumstantially, without softening or smoothing away his guilt. It is
+      your parental duty; if you write, you will have done your duty and will be
+      at peace.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s true. But what am I to write to him, to what effect? If I write to
+      him, he will answer, &lsquo;Why? what for? Why is it a sin?&rsquo;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Father Anastasy laughed hoarsely again, and brandished his fingers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why? what for? why is it a sin?&rdquo; he began shrilly. &ldquo;I was once confessing
+      a gentleman, and I told him that excessive confidence in the Divine Mercy
+      is a sin; and he asked, &lsquo;Why?&rsquo; I tried to answer him, but&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+       Anastasy slapped himself on the forehead. &ldquo;I had nothing here.
+      He-he-he-he! . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Anastasy&rsquo;s words, his hoarse jangling laugh at what was not laughable, had
+      an unpleasant effect on his Reverence and on the deacon. The former was on
+      the point of saying, &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t interfere&rdquo; again, but he did not say it, he
+      only frowned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can&rsquo;t write to him,&rdquo; sighed the deacon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you can&rsquo;t, who can?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Father Fyodor!&rdquo; said the deacon, putting his head on one side and
+      pressing his hand to his heart. &ldquo;I am an uneducated slow-witted man, while
+      the Lord has vouchsafed you judgment and wisdom. You know everything and
+      understand everything. You can master anything, while I don&rsquo;t know how to
+      put my words together sensibly. Be generous. Instruct me how to write the
+      letter. Teach me what to say and how to say it. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is there to teach? There is nothing to teach. Sit down and write.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, do me the favour, Father Fyodor! I beseech you! I know he will be
+      frightened and will attend to your letter, because, you see, you are a
+      cultivated man too. Do be so good! I&rsquo;ll sit down, and you&rsquo;ll dictate to
+      me. It will be a sin to write to-morrow, but now would be the very time;
+      my mind would be set at rest.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His Reverence looked at the deacon&rsquo;s imploring face, thought of the
+      disagreeable Pyotr, and consented to dictate. He made the deacon sit down
+      to his table and began.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, write . . . &lsquo;Christ is risen, dear son . . .&rsquo; exclamation mark.
+      &lsquo;Rumours have reached me, your father,&rsquo; then in parenthesis, &lsquo;from what
+      source is no concern of yours . . .&rsquo; close the parenthesis. . . . Have you
+      written it? &lsquo;That you are leading a life inconsistent with the laws both
+      of God and of man. Neither the luxurious comfort, nor the worldly
+      splendour, nor the culture with which you seek outwardly to disguise it,
+      can hide your heathen manner of life. In name you are a Christian, but in
+      your real nature a heathen as pitiful and wretched as all other heathens&mdash;more
+      wretched, indeed, seeing that those heathens who know not Christ are lost
+      from ignorance, while you are lost in that, possessing a treasure, you
+      neglect it. I will not enumerate here your vices, which you know well
+      enough; I will say that I see the cause of your ruin in your infidelity.
+      You imagine yourself to be wise, boast of your knowledge of science, but
+      refuse to see that science without faith, far from elevating a man,
+      actually degrades him to the level of a lower animal, inasmuch as. . .&rsquo;&rdquo;
+       The whole letter was in this strain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When he had finished writing it the deacon read it aloud, beamed all over
+      and jumped up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a gift, it&rsquo;s really a gift!&rdquo; he said, clasping his hands and looking
+      enthusiastically at his Reverence. &ldquo;To think of the Lord&rsquo;s bestowing a
+      gift like that! Eh? Holy Mother! I do believe I couldn&rsquo;t write a letter
+      like that in a hundred years. Lord save you!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Father Anastasy was enthusiastic too.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;One couldn&rsquo;t write like that without a gift,&rdquo; he said, getting up and
+      wagging his fingers&mdash;&ldquo;that one couldn&rsquo;t! His rhetoric would trip any
+      philosopher and shut him up. Intellect. Brilliant intellect! If you
+      weren&rsquo;t married, Father Fyodor, you would have been a bishop long ago, you
+      would really!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Having vented his wrath in a letter, his Reverence felt relieved; his
+      fatigue and exhaustion came back to him. The deacon was an old friend, and
+      his Reverence did not hesitate to say to him:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well deacon, go, and God bless you. I&rsquo;ll have half an hour&rsquo;s nap on the
+      sofa; I must rest.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The deacon went away and took Anastasy with him. As is always the case on
+      Easter Eve, it was dark in the street, but the whole sky was sparkling
+      with bright luminous stars. There was a scent of spring and holiday in the
+      soft still air.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How long was he dictating?&rdquo; the deacon said admiringly. &ldquo;Ten minutes, not
+      more! It would have taken someone else a month to compose such a letter.
+      Eh! What a mind! Such a mind that I don&rsquo;t know what to call it! It&rsquo;s a
+      marvel! It&rsquo;s really a marvel!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Education!&rdquo; sighed Anastasy as he crossed the muddy street; holding up
+      his cassock to his waist. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s not for us to compare ourselves with him.
+      We come of the sacristan class, while he has had a learned education. Yes,
+      he&rsquo;s a real man, there is no denying that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And you listen how he&rsquo;ll read the Gospel in Latin at mass to-day! He
+      knows Latin and he knows Greek. . . . Ah Petrushka, Petrushka!&rdquo; the deacon
+      said, suddenly remembering. &ldquo;Now that will make him scratch his head! That
+      will shut his mouth, that will bring it home to him! Now he won&rsquo;t ask
+      &lsquo;Why.&rsquo; It is a case of one wit to outwit another! Haha-ha!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The deacon laughed gaily and loudly. Since the letter had been written to
+      Pyotr he had become serene and more cheerful. The consciousness of having
+      performed his duty as a father and his faith in the power of the letter
+      had brought back his mirthfulness and good-humour.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Pyotr means a stone,&rdquo; said he, as he went into his house. &ldquo;My Pyotr is
+      not a stone, but a rag. A viper has fastened upon him and he pampers her,
+      and hasn&rsquo;t the pluck to kick her out. Tfoo! To think there should be women
+      like that, God forgive me! Eh? Has she no shame? She has fastened upon the
+      lad, sticking to him, and keeps him tied to her apron strings. . . . Fie
+      upon her!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps it&rsquo;s not she keeps hold of him, but he of her?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She is a shameless one anyway! Not that I am defending Pyotr. . . . He&rsquo;ll
+      catch it. He&rsquo;ll read the letter and scratch his head! He&rsquo;ll burn with
+      shame!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a splendid letter, only you know I wouldn&rsquo;t send it, Father Deacon.
+      Let him alone.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What?&rdquo; said the deacon, disconcerted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why. . . . Don&rsquo;t send it, deacon! What&rsquo;s the sense of it? Suppose you
+      send it; he reads it, and . . . and what then? You&rsquo;ll only upset him.
+      Forgive him. Let him alone!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The deacon looked in surprise at Anastasy&rsquo;s dark face, at his unbuttoned
+      cassock, which looked in the dusk like wings, and shrugged his shoulders.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How can I forgive him like that?&rdquo; he asked. &ldquo;Why I shall have to answer
+      for him to God!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Even so, forgive him all the same. Really! And God will forgive you for
+      your kindness to him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But he is my son, isn&rsquo;t he? Ought I not to teach him?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Teach him? Of course&mdash;why not? You can teach him, but why call him a
+      heathen? It will hurt his feelings, you know, deacon. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The deacon was a widower, and lived in a little house with three windows.
+      His elder sister, an old maid, looked after his house for him, though she
+      had three years before lost the use of her legs and was confined to her
+      bed; he was afraid of her, obeyed her, and did nothing without her advice.
+      Father Anastasy went in with him. Seeing his table already laid with
+      Easter cakes and red eggs, he began weeping for some reason, probably
+      thinking of his own home, and to turn these tears into a jest, he at once
+      laughed huskily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, we shall soon be breaking the fast,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Yes . . . it wouldn&rsquo;t
+      come amiss, deacon, to have a little glass now. Can we? I&rsquo;ll drink it so
+      that the old lady does not hear,&rdquo; he whispered, glancing sideways towards
+      the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Without a word the deacon moved a decanter and wineglass towards him. He
+      unfolded the letter and began reading it aloud. And now the letter pleased
+      him just as much as when his Reverence had dictated it to him. He beamed
+      with pleasure and wagged his head, as though he had been tasting something
+      very sweet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A-ah, what a letter!&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Petrushka has never dreamt of such a
+      letter. It&rsquo;s just what he wants, something to throw him into a fever. . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you know, deacon, don&rsquo;t send it!&rdquo; said Anastasy, pouring himself out a
+      second glass of vodka as though unconsciously. &ldquo;Forgive him, let him
+      alone! I am telling you . . . what I really think. If his own father can&rsquo;t
+      forgive him, who will forgive him? And so he&rsquo;ll live without forgiveness.
+      Think, deacon: there will be plenty to chastise him without you, but you
+      should look out for some who will show mercy to your son! I&rsquo;ll . . . I&rsquo;ll
+      . . . have just one more. The last, old man. . . . Just sit down and write
+      straight off to him, &lsquo;I forgive you Pyotr!&rsquo; He will under-sta-and! He will
+      fe-el it! I understand it from myself, you see old man . . . deacon, I
+      mean. When I lived like other people, I hadn&rsquo;t much to trouble about, but
+      now since I lost the image and semblance, there is only one thing I care
+      about, that good people should forgive me. And remember, too, it&rsquo;s not the
+      righteous but sinners we must forgive. Why should you forgive your old
+      woman if she is not sinful? No, you must forgive a man when he is a sad
+      sight to look at . . . yes!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Anastasy leaned his head on his fist and sank into thought.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a terrible thing, deacon,&rdquo; he sighed, evidently struggling with the
+      desire to take another glass&mdash;&ldquo;a terrible thing! In sin my mother
+      bore me, in sin I have lived, in sin I shall die. . . . God forgive me, a
+      sinner! I have gone astray, deacon! There is no salvation for me! And it&rsquo;s
+      not as though I had gone astray in my life, but in old age&mdash;at
+      death&rsquo;s door . . . I . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The old man, with a hopeless gesture, drank off another glass, then got up
+      and moved to another seat. The deacon, still keeping the letter in his
+      hand, was walking up and down the room. He was thinking of his son.
+      Displeasure, distress and anxiety no longer troubled him; all that had
+      gone into the letter. Now he was simply picturing Pyotr; he imagined his
+      face, he thought of the past years when his son used to come to stay with
+      him for the holidays. His thoughts were only of what was good, warm,
+      touching, of which one might think for a whole lifetime without wearying.
+      Longing for his son, he read the letter through once more and looked
+      questioningly at Anastasy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t send it,&rdquo; said the latter, with a wave of his hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, I must send it anyway; I must . . . bring him to his senses a little,
+      all the same. It&rsquo;s just as well. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The deacon took an envelope from the table, but before putting the letter
+      into it he sat down to the table, smiled and added on his own account at
+      the bottom of the letter:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They have sent us a new inspector. He&rsquo;s much friskier than the old one.
+      He&rsquo;s a great one for dancing and talking, and there&rsquo;s nothing he can&rsquo;t do,
+      so that all the Govorovsky girls are crazy over him. Our military chief,
+      Kostyrev, will soon get the sack too, they say. High time he did!&rdquo; And
+      very well pleased, without the faintest idea that with this postscript he
+      had completely spoiled the stern letter, the deacon addressed the envelope
+      and laid it in the most conspicuous place on the table.
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0003" id="link2H_4_0003"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <h2>
+      EASTER EVE
+    </h2>
+    <p class="pfirst">
+      <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">I</span> was standing on
+      the bank of the River Goltva, waiting for the ferry-boat from the other
+      side. At ordinary times the Goltva is a humble stream of moderate size,
+      silent and pensive, gently glimmering from behind thick reeds; but now a
+      regular lake lay stretched out before me. The waters of spring, running
+      riot, had overflowed both banks and flooded both sides of the river for a
+      long distance, submerging vegetable gardens, hayfields and marshes, so
+      that it was no unusual thing to meet poplars and bushes sticking out above
+      the surface of the water and looking in the darkness like grim solitary
+      crags.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The weather seemed to me magnificent. It was dark, yet I could see the
+      trees, the water and the people. . . . The world was lighted by the stars,
+      which were scattered thickly all over the sky. I don&rsquo;t remember ever
+      seeing so many stars. Literally one could not have put a finger in between
+      them. There were some as big as a goose&rsquo;s egg, others tiny as hempseed. .
+      . . They had come out for the festival procession, every one of them,
+      little and big, washed, renewed and joyful, and everyone of them was
+      softly twinkling its beams. The sky was reflected in the water; the stars
+      were bathing in its dark depths and trembling with the quivering eddies.
+      The air was warm and still. . . . Here and there, far away on the further
+      bank in the impenetrable darkness, several bright red lights were
+      gleaming. . . .
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A couple of paces from me I saw the dark silhouette of a peasant in a high
+      hat, with a thick knotted stick in his hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How long the ferry-boat is in coming!&rdquo; I said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is time it was here,&rdquo; the silhouette answered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are waiting for the ferry-boat, too?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No I am not,&rdquo; yawned the peasant&mdash;&ldquo;I am waiting for the
+      illumination. I should have gone, but to tell you the truth, I haven&rsquo;t the
+      five kopecks for the ferry.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll give you the five kopecks.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No; I humbly thank you. . . . With that five kopecks put up a candle for
+      me over there in the monastery. . . . That will be more interesting, and I
+      will stand here. What can it mean, no ferry-boat, as though it had sunk in
+      the water!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The peasant went up to the water&rsquo;s edge, took the rope in his hands, and
+      shouted; &ldquo;Ieronim! Ieron&mdash;im!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      As though in answer to his shout, the slow peal of a great bell floated
+      across from the further bank. The note was deep and low, as from the
+      thickest string of a double bass; it seemed as though the darkness itself
+      had hoarsely uttered it. At once there was the sound of a cannon shot. It
+      rolled away in the darkness and ended somewhere in the far distance behind
+      me. The peasant took off his hat and crossed himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &lsquo;&ldquo;Christ is risen,&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Before the vibrations of the first peal of the bell had time to die away
+      in the air a second sounded, after it at once a third, and the darkness
+      was filled with an unbroken quivering clamour. Near the red lights fresh
+      lights flashed, and all began moving together and twinkling restlessly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ieron&mdash;im!&rdquo; we heard a hollow prolonged shout.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They are shouting from the other bank,&rdquo; said the peasant, &ldquo;so there is no
+      ferry there either. Our Ieronim has gone to sleep.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The lights and the velvety chimes of the bell drew one towards them. . . .
+      I was already beginning to lose patience and grow anxious, but behold at
+      last, staring into the dark distance, I saw the outline of something very
+      much like a gibbet. It was the long-expected ferry. It moved towards us
+      with such deliberation that if it had not been that its lines grew
+      gradually more definite, one might have supposed that it was standing
+      still or moving to the other bank.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Make haste! Ieronim!&rdquo; shouted my peasant. &ldquo;The gentleman&rsquo;s tired of
+      waiting!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The ferry crawled to the bank, gave a lurch and stopped with a creak. A
+      tall man in a monk&rsquo;s cassock and a conical cap stood on it, holding the
+      rope.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why have you been so long?&rdquo; I asked jumping upon the ferry.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Forgive me, for Christ&rsquo;s sake,&rdquo; Ieronim answered gently. &ldquo;Is there no one
+      else?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No one. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ieronim took hold of the rope in both hands, bent himself to the figure of
+      a mark of interrogation, and gasped. The ferry-boat creaked and gave a
+      lurch. The outline of the peasant in the high hat began slowly retreating
+      from me&mdash;so the ferry was moving off. Ieronim soon drew himself up
+      and began working with one hand only. We were silent, gazing towards the
+      bank to which we were floating. There the illumination for which the
+      peasant was waiting had begun. At the water&rsquo;s edge barrels of tar were
+      flaring like huge camp fires. Their reflections, crimson as the rising
+      moon, crept to meet us in long broad streaks. The burning barrels lighted
+      up their own smoke and the long shadows of men flitting about the fire;
+      but further to one side and behind them from where the velvety chime
+      floated there was still the same unbroken black gloom. All at once,
+      cleaving the darkness, a rocket zigzagged in a golden ribbon up the sky;
+      it described an arc and, as though broken to pieces against the sky, was
+      scattered crackling into sparks. There was a roar from the bank like a
+      far-away hurrah.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How beautiful!&rdquo; I said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Beautiful beyond words!&rdquo; sighed Ieronim. &ldquo;Such a night, sir! Another time
+      one would pay no attention to the fireworks, but to-day one rejoices in
+      every vanity. Where do you come from?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I told him where I came from.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To be sure . . . a joyful day to-day. . . .&rdquo; Ieronim went on in a weak
+      sighing tenor like the voice of a convalescent. &ldquo;The sky is rejoicing and
+      the earth and what is under the earth. All the creatures are keeping
+      holiday. Only tell me kind sir, why, even in the time of great rejoicing,
+      a man cannot forget his sorrows?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I fancied that this unexpected question was to draw me into one of those
+      endless religious conversations which bored and idle monks are so fond of.
+      I was not disposed to talk much, and so I only asked:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What sorrows have you, father?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;As a rule only the same as all men, kind sir, but to-day a special sorrow
+      has happened in the monastery: at mass, during the reading of the Bible,
+      the monk and deacon Nikolay died.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, it&rsquo;s God&rsquo;s will!&rdquo; I said, falling into the monastic tone. &ldquo;We must
+      all die. To my mind, you ought to rejoice indeed. . . . They say if anyone
+      dies at Easter he goes straight to the kingdom of heaven.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s true.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      We sank into silence. The figure of the peasant in the high hat melted
+      into the lines of the bank. The tar barrels were flaring up more and more.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The Holy Scripture points clearly to the vanity of sorrow and so does
+      reflection,&rdquo; said Ieronim, breaking the silence, &ldquo;but why does the heart
+      grieve and refuse to listen to reason? Why does one want to weep
+      bitterly?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ieronim shrugged his shoulders, turned to me and said quickly:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If I died, or anyone else, it would not be worth notice perhaps; but, you
+      see, Nikolay is dead! No one else but Nikolay! Indeed, it&rsquo;s hard to
+      believe that he is no more! I stand here on my ferry-boat and every minute
+      I keep fancying that he will lift up his voice from the bank. He always
+      used to come to the bank and call to me that I might not be afraid on the
+      ferry. He used to get up from his bed at night on purpose for that. He was
+      a kind soul. My God! how kindly and gracious! Many a mother is not so good
+      to her child as Nikolay was to me! Lord, save his soul!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ieronim took hold of the rope, but turned to me again at once.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And such a lofty intelligence, your honour,&rdquo; he said in a vibrating
+      voice. &ldquo;Such a sweet and harmonious tongue! Just as they will sing
+      immediately at early matins: &lsquo;Oh lovely! oh sweet is Thy Voice!&rsquo; Besides
+      all other human qualities, he had, too, an extraordinary gift!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What gift?&rdquo; I asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The monk scrutinized me, and as though he had convinced himself that he
+      could trust me with a secret, he laughed good-humouredly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He had a gift for writing hymns of praise,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;It was a marvel,
+      sir; you couldn&rsquo;t call it anything else! You would be amazed if I tell you
+      about it. Our Father Archimandrite comes from Moscow, the Father Sub-Prior
+      studied at the Kazan academy, we have wise monks and elders, but, would
+      you believe it, no one could write them; while Nikolay, a simple monk, a
+      deacon, had not studied anywhere, and had not even any outer appearance of
+      it, but he wrote them! A marvel! A real marvel!&rdquo; Ieronim clasped his hands
+      and, completely forgetting the rope, went on eagerly:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The Father Sub-Prior has great difficulty in composing sermons; when he
+      wrote the history of the monastery he worried all the brotherhood and
+      drove a dozen times to town, while Nikolay wrote canticles! Hymns of
+      praise! That&rsquo;s a very different thing from a sermon or a history!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is it difficult to write them?&rdquo; I asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There&rsquo;s great difficulty!&rdquo; Ieronim wagged his head. &ldquo;You can do nothing
+      by wisdom and holiness if God has not given you the gift. The monks who
+      don&rsquo;t understand argue that you only need to know the life of the saint
+      for whom you are writing the hymn, and to make it harmonize with the other
+      hymns of praise. But that&rsquo;s a mistake, sir. Of course, anyone who writes
+      canticles must know the life of the saint to perfection, to the least
+      trivial detail. To be sure, one must make them harmonize with the other
+      canticles and know where to begin and what to write about. To give you an
+      instance, the first response begins everywhere with &lsquo;the chosen&rsquo; or &lsquo;the
+      elect.&rsquo; . . . The first line must always begin with the &lsquo;angel.&rsquo; In the
+      canticle of praise to Jesus the Most Sweet, if you are interested in the
+      subject, it begins like this: &lsquo;Of angels Creator and Lord of all powers!&rsquo;
+      In the canticle to the Holy Mother of God: &lsquo;Of angels the foremost sent
+      down from on high,&rsquo; to Nikolay, the Wonder-worker&mdash; &lsquo;An angel in
+      semblance, though in substance a man,&rsquo; and so on. Everywhere you begin
+      with the angel. Of course, it would be impossible without making them
+      harmonize, but the lives of the saints and conformity with the others is
+      not what matters; what matters is the beauty and sweetness of it.
+      Everything must be harmonious, brief and complete. There must be in every
+      line softness, graciousness and tenderness; not one word should be harsh
+      or rough or unsuitable. It must be written so that the worshipper may
+      rejoice at heart and weep, while his mind is stirred and he is thrown into
+      a tremor. In the canticle to the Holy Mother are the words: &lsquo;Rejoice, O
+      Thou too high for human thought to reach! Rejoice, O Thou too deep for
+      angels&rsquo; eyes to fathom!&rsquo; In another place in the same canticle: &lsquo;Rejoice,
+      O tree that bearest the fair fruit of light that is the food of the
+      faithful! Rejoice, O tree of gracious spreading shade, under which there
+      is shelter for multitudes!&rsquo;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ieronim hid his face in his hands, as though frightened at something or
+      overcome with shame, and shook his head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tree that bearest the fair fruit of light . . . tree of gracious
+      spreading shade. . . .&rdquo; he muttered. &ldquo;To think that a man should find
+      words like those! Such a power is a gift from God! For brevity he packs
+      many thoughts into one phrase, and how smooth and complete it all is!
+      &lsquo;Light-radiating torch to all that be . . .&rsquo; comes in the canticle to
+      Jesus the Most Sweet. &lsquo;Light-radiating!&rsquo; There is no such word in
+      conversation or in books, but you see he invented it, he found it in his
+      mind! Apart from the smoothness and grandeur of language, sir, every line
+      must be beautified in every way, there must be flowers and lightning and
+      wind and sun and all the objects of the visible world. And every
+      exclamation ought to be put so as to be smooth and easy for the ear.
+      &lsquo;Rejoice, thou flower of heavenly growth!&rsquo; comes in the hymn to Nikolay
+      the Wonder-worker. It&rsquo;s not simply &lsquo;heavenly flower,&rsquo; but &lsquo;flower of
+      heavenly growth.&rsquo; It&rsquo;s smoother so and sweet to the ear. That was just as
+      Nikolay wrote it! Exactly like that! I can&rsquo;t tell you how he used to
+      write!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, in that case it is a pity he is dead,&rdquo; I said; &ldquo;but let us get on,
+      father, or we shall be late.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ieronim started and ran to the rope; they were beginning to peal all the
+      bells. Probably the procession was already going on near the monastery,
+      for all the dark space behind the tar barrels was now dotted with moving
+      lights.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did Nikolay print his hymns?&rdquo; I asked Ieronim.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How could he print them?&rdquo; he sighed. &ldquo;And indeed, it would be strange to
+      print them. What would be the object? No one in the monastery takes any
+      interest in them. They don&rsquo;t like them. They knew Nikolay wrote them, but
+      they let it pass unnoticed. No one esteems new writings nowadays, sir!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Were they prejudiced against him?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, indeed. If Nikolay had been an elder perhaps the brethren would have
+      been interested, but he wasn&rsquo;t forty, you know. There were some who
+      laughed and even thought his writing a sin.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What did he write them for?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Chiefly for his own comfort. Of all the brotherhood, I was the only one
+      who read his hymns. I used to go to him in secret, that no one else might
+      know of it, and he was glad that I took an interest in them. He would
+      embrace me, stroke my head, speak to me in caressing words as to a little
+      child. He would shut his cell, make me sit down beside him, and begin to
+      read. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ieronim left the rope and came up to me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We were dear friends in a way,&rdquo; he whispered, looking at me with shining
+      eyes. &ldquo;Where he went I would go. If I were not there he would miss me. And
+      he cared more for me than for anyone, and all because I used to weep over
+      his hymns. It makes me sad to remember. Now I feel just like an orphan or
+      a widow. You know, in our monastery they are all good people, kind and
+      pious, but . . . there is no one with softness and refinement, they are
+      just like peasants. They all speak loudly, and tramp heavily when they
+      walk; they are noisy, they clear their throats, but Nikolay always talked
+      softly, caressingly, and if he noticed that anyone was asleep or praying
+      he would slip by like a fly or a gnat. His face was tender, compassionate.
+      . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ieronim heaved a deep sigh and took hold of the rope again. We were by now
+      approaching the bank. We floated straight out of the darkness and
+      stillness of the river into an enchanted realm, full of stifling smoke,
+      crackling lights and uproar. By now one could distinctly see people moving
+      near the tar barrels. The flickering of the lights gave a strange, almost
+      fantastic, expression to their figures and red faces. From time to time
+      one caught among the heads and faces a glimpse of a horse&rsquo;s head
+      motionless as though cast in copper.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They&rsquo;ll begin singing the Easter hymn directly, . . .&rdquo; said Ieronim, &ldquo;and
+      Nikolay is gone; there is no one to appreciate it. . . . There was nothing
+      written dearer to him than that hymn. He used to take in every word!
+      You&rsquo;ll be there, sir, so notice what is sung; it takes your breath away!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Won&rsquo;t you be in church, then?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can&rsquo;t; . . . I have to work the ferry. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But won&rsquo;t they relieve you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know. . . . I ought to have been relieved at eight; but, as you
+      see, they don&rsquo;t come! . . . And I must own I should have liked to be in
+      the church. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you a monk?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes . . . that is, I am a lay-brother.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The ferry ran into the bank and stopped. I thrust a five-kopeck piece into
+      Ieronim&rsquo;s hand for taking me across and jumped on land. Immediately a cart
+      with a boy and a sleeping woman in it drove creaking onto the ferry.
+      Ieronim, with a faint glow from the lights on his figure, pressed on the
+      rope, bent down to it, and started the ferry back. . . .
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I took a few steps through mud, but a little farther walked on a soft
+      freshly trodden path. This path led to the dark monastery gates, that
+      looked like a cavern through a cloud of smoke, through a disorderly crowd
+      of people, unharnessed horses, carts and chaises. All this crowd was
+      rattling, snorting, laughing, and the crimson light and wavering shadows
+      from the smoke flickered over it all . . . . A perfect chaos! And in this
+      hubbub the people yet found room to load a little cannon and to sell
+      cakes. There was no less commotion on the other side of the wall in the
+      monastery precincts, but there was more regard for decorum and order. Here
+      there was a smell of juniper and incense. They talked loudly, but there
+      was no sound of laughter or snorting. Near the tombstones and crosses
+      people pressed close to one another with Easter cakes and bundles in their
+      arms. Apparently many had come from a long distance for their cakes to be
+      blessed and now were exhausted. Young lay brothers, making a metallic
+      sound with their boots, ran busily along the iron slabs that paved the way
+      from the monastery gates to the church door. They were busy and shouting
+      on the belfry, too.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What a restless night!&rdquo; I thought. &ldquo;How nice!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      One was tempted to see the same unrest and sleeplessness in all nature,
+      from the night darkness to the iron slabs, the crosses on the tombs and
+      the trees under which the people were moving to and fro. But nowhere was
+      the excitement and restlessness so marked as in the church. An unceasing
+      struggle was going on in the entrance between the inflowing stream and the
+      outflowing stream. Some were going in, others going out and soon coming
+      back again to stand still for a little and begin moving again. People were
+      scurrying from place to place, lounging about as though they were looking
+      for something. The stream flowed from the entrance all round the church,
+      disturbing even the front rows, where persons of weight and dignity were
+      standing. There could be no thought of concentrated prayer. There were no
+      prayers at all, but a sort of continuous, childishly irresponsible joy,
+      seeking a pretext to break out and vent itself in some movement, even in
+      senseless jostling and shoving.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The same unaccustomed movement is striking in the Easter service itself.
+      The altar gates are flung wide open, thick clouds of incense float in the
+      air near the candelabra; wherever one looks there are lights, the gleam
+      and splutter of candles. . . . There is no reading; restless and
+      lighthearted singing goes on to the end without ceasing. After each hymn
+      the clergy change their vestments and come out to burn the incense, which
+      is repeated every ten minutes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I had no sooner taken a place, when a wave rushed from in front and forced
+      me back. A tall thick-set deacon walked before me with a long red candle;
+      the grey-headed archimandrite in his golden mitre hurried after him with
+      the censer. When they had vanished from sight the crowd squeezed me back
+      to my former position. But ten minutes had not passed before a new wave
+      burst on me, and again the deacon appeared. This time he was followed by
+      the Father Sub-Prior, the man who, as Ieronim had told me, was writing the
+      history of the monastery.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As I mingled with the crowd and caught the infection of the universal
+      joyful excitement, I felt unbearably sore on Ieronim&rsquo;s account. Why did
+      they not send someone to relieve him? Why could not someone of less
+      feeling and less susceptibility go on the ferry? &lsquo;Lift up thine eyes, O
+      Sion, and look around,&rsquo; they sang in the choir, &lsquo;for thy children have
+      come to thee as to a beacon of divine light from north and south, and from
+      east and from the sea. . . .&rsquo;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I looked at the faces; they all had a lively expression of triumph, but
+      not one was listening to what was being sung and taking it in, and not one
+      was &lsquo;holding his breath.&rsquo; Why was not Ieronim released? I could fancy
+      Ieronim standing meekly somewhere by the wall, bending forward and
+      hungrily drinking in the beauty of the holy phrase. All this that glided
+      by the ears of the people standing by me he would have eagerly drunk in
+      with his delicately sensitive soul, and would have been spell-bound to
+      ecstasy, to holding his breath, and there would not have been a man
+      happier than he in all the church. Now he was plying to and fro over the
+      dark river and grieving for his dead friend and brother.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The wave surged back. A stout smiling monk, playing with his rosary and
+      looking round behind him, squeezed sideways by me, making way for a lady
+      in a hat and velvet cloak. A monastery servant hurried after the lady,
+      holding a chair over our heads.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I came out of the church. I wanted to have a look at the dead Nikolay, the
+      unknown canticle writer. I walked about the monastery wall, where there
+      was a row of cells, peeped into several windows, and, seeing nothing, came
+      back again. I do not regret now that I did not see Nikolay; God knows,
+      perhaps if I had seen him I should have lost the picture my imagination
+      paints for me now. I imagine the lovable poetical figure solitary and not
+      understood, who went out at nights to call to Ieronim over the water, and
+      filled his hymns with flowers, stars and sunbeams, as a pale timid man
+      with soft mild melancholy features. His eyes must have shone, not only
+      with intelligence, but with kindly tenderness and that hardly restrained
+      childlike enthusiasm which I could hear in Ieronim&rsquo;s voice when he quoted
+      to me passages from the hymns.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When we came out of church after mass it was no longer night. The morning
+      was beginning. The stars had gone out and the sky was a morose greyish
+      blue. The iron slabs, the tombstones and the buds on the trees were
+      covered with dew There was a sharp freshness in the air. Outside the
+      precincts I did not find the same animated scene as I had beheld in the
+      night. Horses and men looked exhausted, drowsy, scarcely moved, while
+      nothing was left of the tar barrels but heaps of black ash. When anyone is
+      exhausted and sleepy he fancies that nature, too, is in the same
+      condition. It seemed to me that the trees and the young grass were asleep.
+      It seemed as though even the bells were not pealing so loudly and gaily as
+      at night. The restlessness was over, and of the excitement nothing was
+      left but a pleasant weariness, a longing for sleep and warmth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now I could see both banks of the river; a faint mist hovered over it in
+      shifting masses. There was a harsh cold breath from the water. When I
+      jumped on to the ferry, a chaise and some two dozen men and women were
+      standing on it already. The rope, wet and as I fancied drowsy, stretched
+      far away across the broad river and in places disappeared in the white
+      mist.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Christ is risen! Is there no one else?&rdquo; asked a soft voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I recognized the voice of Ieronim. There was no darkness now to hinder me
+      from seeing the monk. He was a tall narrow-shouldered man of
+      five-and-thirty, with large rounded features, with half-closed
+      listless-looking eyes and an unkempt wedge-shaped beard. He had an
+      extraordinarily sad and exhausted look.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They have not relieved you yet?&rdquo; I asked in surprise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Me?&rdquo; he answered, turning to me his chilled and dewy face with a smile.
+      &ldquo;There is no one to take my place now till morning. They&rsquo;ll all be going
+      to the Father Archimandrite&rsquo;s to break the fast directly.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      With the help of a little peasant in a hat of reddish fur that looked like
+      the little wooden tubs in which honey is sold, he threw his weight on the
+      rope; they gasped simultaneously, and the ferry started.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We floated across, disturbing on the way the lazily rising mist. Everyone
+      was silent. Ieronim worked mechanically with one hand. He slowly passed
+      his mild lustreless eyes over us; then his glance rested on the rosy face
+      of a young merchant&rsquo;s wife with black eyebrows, who was standing on the
+      ferry beside me silently shrinking from the mist that wrapped her about.
+      He did not take his eyes off her face all the way.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was little that was masculine in that prolonged gaze. It seemed to
+      me that Ieronim was looking in the woman&rsquo;s face for the soft and tender
+      features of his dead friend.
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0004" id="link2H_4_0004"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <h2>
+      A NIGHTMARE
+    </h2>
+    <p class="pfirst">
+      <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">K</span>unin, a young man
+      of thirty, who was a permanent member of the Rural Board, on returning
+      from Petersburg to his district, Borisovo, immediately sent a mounted
+      messenger to Sinkino, for the priest there, Father Yakov Smirnov.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Five hours later Father Yakov appeared.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very glad to make your acquaintance,&rdquo; said Kunin, meeting him in the
+      entry. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve been living and serving here for a year; it seems as though
+      we ought to have been acquainted before. You are very welcome! But . . .
+      how young you are!&rdquo; Kunin added in surprise. &ldquo;What is your age?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Twenty-eight, . . .&rdquo; said Father Yakov, faintly pressing Kunin&rsquo;s
+      outstretched hand, and for some reason turning crimson.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Kunin led his visitor into his study and began looking at him more
+      attentively.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What an uncouth womanish face!&rdquo; he thought.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There certainly was a good deal that was womanish in Father Yakov&rsquo;s face:
+      the turned-up nose, the bright red cheeks, and the large grey-blue eyes
+      with scanty, scarcely perceptible eyebrows. His long reddish hair, smooth
+      and dry, hung down in straight tails on to his shoulders. The hair on his
+      upper lip was only just beginning to form into a real masculine moustache,
+      while his little beard belonged to that class of good-for-nothing beards
+      which among divinity students are for some reason called &ldquo;ticklers.&rdquo; It
+      was scanty and extremely transparent; it could not have been stroked or
+      combed, it could only have been pinched. . . . All these scanty
+      decorations were put on unevenly in tufts, as though Father Yakov,
+      thinking to dress up as a priest and beginning to gum on the beard, had
+      been interrupted halfway through. He had on a cassock, the colour of weak
+      coffee with chicory in it, with big patches on both elbows.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A queer type,&rdquo; thought Kunin, looking at his muddy skirts. &ldquo;Comes to the
+      house for the first time and can&rsquo;t dress decently.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sit down, Father,&rdquo; he began more carelessly than cordially, as he moved
+      an easy-chair to the table. &ldquo;Sit down, I beg you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Father Yakov coughed into his fist, sank awkwardly on to the edge of the
+      chair, and laid his open hands on his knees. With his short figure, his
+      narrow chest, his red and perspiring face, he made from the first moment a
+      most unpleasant impression on Kunin. The latter could never have imagined
+      that there were such undignified and pitiful-looking priests in Russia;
+      and in Father Yakov&rsquo;s attitude, in the way he held his hands on his knees
+      and sat on the very edge of his chair, he saw a lack of dignity and even a
+      shade of servility.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have invited you on business, Father. . . .&rdquo; Kunin began, sinking back
+      in his low chair. &ldquo;It has fallen to my lot to perform the agreeable duty
+      of helping you in one of your useful undertakings. . . . On coming back
+      from Petersburg, I found on my table a letter from the Marshal of
+      Nobility. Yegor Dmitrevitch suggests that I should take under my
+      supervision the church parish school which is being opened in Sinkino. I
+      shall be very glad to, Father, with all my heart. . . . More than that, I
+      accept the proposition with enthusiasm.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Kunin got up and walked about the study.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course, both Yegor Dmitrevitch and probably you, too, are aware that I
+      have not great funds at my disposal. My estate is mortgaged, and I live
+      exclusively on my salary as the permanent member. So that you cannot
+      reckon on very much assistance, but I will do all that is in my power. . .
+      . And when are you thinking of opening the school Father?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When we have the money, . . .&rdquo; answered Father Yakov.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You have some funds at your disposal already?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Scarcely any. . . . The peasants settled at their meeting that they would
+      pay, every man of them, thirty kopecks a year; but that&rsquo;s only a promise,
+      you know! And for the first beginning we should need at least two hundred
+      roubles. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;M&rsquo;yes. . . . Unhappily, I have not that sum now,&rdquo; said Kunin with a sigh.
+      &ldquo;I spent all I had on my tour and got into debt, too. Let us try and think
+      of some plan together.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Kunin began planning aloud. He explained his views and watched Father
+      Yakov&rsquo;s face, seeking signs of agreement or approval in it. But the face
+      was apathetic and immobile, and expressed nothing but constrained shyness
+      and uneasiness. Looking at it, one might have supposed that Kunin was
+      talking of matters so abstruse that Father Yakov did not understand and
+      only listened from good manners, and was at the same time afraid of being
+      detected in his failure to understand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The fellow is not one of the brightest, that&rsquo;s evident . . .&rdquo; thought
+      Kunin. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s rather shy and much too stupid.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Father Yakov revived somewhat and even smiled only when the footman came
+      into the study bringing in two glasses of tea on a tray and a cake-basket
+      full of biscuits. He took his glass and began drinking at once.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Shouldn&rsquo;t we write at once to the bishop?&rdquo; Kunin went on, meditating
+      aloud. &ldquo;To be precise, you know, it is not we, not the Zemstvo, but the
+      higher ecclesiastical authorities, who have raised the question of the
+      church parish schools. They ought really to apportion the funds. I
+      remember I read that a sum of money had been set aside for the purpose. Do
+      you know nothing about it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Father Yakov was so absorbed in drinking tea that he did not answer this
+      question at once. He lifted his grey-blue eyes to Kunin, thought a moment,
+      and as though recalling his question, he shook his head in the negative.
+      An expression of pleasure and of the most ordinary prosaic appetite
+      overspread his face from ear to ear. He drank and smacked his lips over
+      every gulp. When he had drunk it to the very last drop, he put his glass
+      on the table, then took his glass back again, looked at the bottom of it,
+      then put it back again. The expression of pleasure faded from his face. .
+      . . Then Kunin saw his visitor take a biscuit from the cake-basket, nibble
+      a little bit off it, then turn it over in his hand and hurriedly stick it
+      in his pocket.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, that&rsquo;s not at all clerical!&rdquo; thought Kunin, shrugging his shoulders
+      contemptuously. &ldquo;What is it, priestly greed or childishness?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      After giving his visitor another glass of tea and seeing him to the entry,
+      Kunin lay down on the sofa and abandoned himself to the unpleasant feeling
+      induced in him by the visit of Father Yakov.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What a strange wild creature!&rdquo; he thought. &ldquo;Dirty, untidy, coarse,
+      stupid, and probably he drinks. . . . My God, and that&rsquo;s a priest, a
+      spiritual father! That&rsquo;s a teacher of the people! I can fancy the irony
+      there must be in the deacon&rsquo;s face when before every mass he booms out:
+      &lsquo;Thy blessing, Reverend Father!&rsquo; A fine reverend Father! A reverend Father
+      without a grain of dignity or breeding, hiding biscuits in his pocket like
+      a schoolboy. . . . Fie! Good Lord, where were the bishop&rsquo;s eyes when he
+      ordained a man like that? What can he think of the people if he gives them
+      a teacher like that? One wants people here who . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And Kunin thought what Russian priests ought to be like.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If I were a priest, for instance. . . . An educated priest fond of his
+      work might do a great deal. . . . I should have had the school opened long
+      ago. And the sermons? If the priest is sincere and is inspired by love for
+      his work, what wonderful rousing sermons he might give!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Kunin shut his eyes and began mentally composing a sermon. A little later
+      he sat down to the table and rapidly began writing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll give it to that red-haired fellow, let him read it in church, . . .&rdquo;
+       he thought.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The following Sunday Kunin drove over to Sinkino in the morning to settle
+      the question of the school, and while he was there to make acquaintance
+      with the church of which he was a parishioner. In spite of the awful state
+      of the roads, it was a glorious morning. The sun was shining brightly and
+      cleaving with its rays the layers of white snow still lingering here and
+      there. The snow as it took leave of the earth glittered with such diamonds
+      that it hurt the eyes to look, while the young winter corn was hastily
+      thrusting up its green beside it. The rooks floated with dignity over the
+      fields. A rook would fly, drop to earth, and give several hops before
+      standing firmly on its feet. . . .
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The wooden church up to which Kunin drove was old and grey; the columns of
+      the porch had once been painted white, but the colour had now completely
+      peeled off, and they looked like two ungainly shafts. The ikon over the
+      door looked like a dark smudged blur. But its poverty touched and softened
+      Kunin. Modestly dropping his eyes, he went into the church and stood by
+      the door. The service had only just begun. An old sacristan, bent into a
+      bow, was reading the &ldquo;Hours&rdquo; in a hollow indistinct tenor. Father Yakov,
+      who conducted the service without a deacon, was walking about the church,
+      burning incense. Had it not been for the softened mood in which Kunin
+      found himself on entering the poverty-stricken church, he certainly would
+      have smiled at the sight of Father Yakov. The short priest was wearing a
+      crumpled and extremely long robe of some shabby yellow material; the hem
+      of the robe trailed on the ground.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The church was not full. Looking at the parishioners, Kunin was struck at
+      the first glance by one strange circumstance: he saw nothing but old
+      people and children. . . . Where were the men of working age? Where was
+      the youth and manhood? But after he had stood there a little and looked
+      more attentively at the aged-looking faces, Kunin saw that he had mistaken
+      young people for old. He did not, however, attach any significance to this
+      little optical illusion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The church was as cold and grey inside as outside. There was not one spot
+      on the ikons nor on the dark brown walls which was not begrimed and
+      defaced by time. There were many windows, but the general effect of colour
+      was grey, and so it was twilight in the church.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Anyone pure in soul can pray here very well,&rdquo; thought Kunin. &ldquo;Just as in
+      St. Peter&rsquo;s in Rome one is impressed by grandeur, here one is touched by
+      the lowliness and simplicity.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But his devout mood vanished like smoke as soon as Father Yakov went up to
+      the altar and began mass. Being still young and having come straight from
+      the seminary bench to the priesthood, Father Yakov had not yet formed a
+      set manner of celebrating the service. As he read he seemed to be
+      vacillating between a high tenor and a thin bass; he bowed clumsily,
+      walked quickly, and opened and shut the gates abruptly. . . . The old
+      sacristan, evidently deaf and ailing, did not hear the prayers very
+      distinctly, and this very often led to slight misunderstandings. Before
+      Father Yakov had time to finish what he had to say, the sacristan began
+      chanting his response, or else long after Father Yakov had finished the
+      old man would be straining his ears, listening in the direction of the
+      altar and saying nothing till his skirt was pulled. The old man had a
+      sickly hollow voice and an asthmatic quavering lisp. . . . The complete
+      lack of dignity and decorum was emphasized by a very small boy who
+      seconded the sacristan and whose head was hardly visible over the railing
+      of the choir. The boy sang in a shrill falsetto and seemed to be trying to
+      avoid singing in tune. Kunin stayed a little while, listened and went out
+      for a smoke. He was disappointed, and looked at the grey church almost
+      with dislike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They complain of the decline of religious feeling among the people . . .&rdquo;
+       he sighed. &ldquo;I should rather think so! They&rsquo;d better foist a few more
+      priests like this one on them!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Kunin went back into the church three times, and each time he felt a great
+      temptation to get out into the open air again. Waiting till the end of the
+      mass, he went to Father Yakov&rsquo;s. The priest&rsquo;s house did not differ
+      outwardly from the peasants&rsquo; huts, but the thatch lay more smoothly on the
+      roof and there were little white curtains in the windows. Father Yakov led
+      Kunin into a light little room with a clay floor and walls covered with
+      cheap paper; in spite of some painful efforts towards luxury in the way of
+      photographs in frames and a clock with a pair of scissors hanging on the
+      weight the furnishing of the room impressed him by its scantiness. Looking
+      at the furniture, one might have supposed that Father Yakov had gone from
+      house to house and collected it in bits; in one place they had given him a
+      round three-legged table, in another a stool, in a third a chair with a
+      back bent violently backwards; in a fourth a chair with an upright back,
+      but the seat smashed in; while in a fifth they had been liberal and given
+      him a semblance of a sofa with a flat back and a lattice-work seat. This
+      semblance had been painted dark red and smelt strongly of paint. Kunin
+      meant at first to sit down on one of the chairs, but on second thoughts he
+      sat down on the stool.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This is the first time you have been to our church?&rdquo; asked Father Yakov,
+      hanging his hat on a huge misshapen nail.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes it is. I tell you what, Father, before we begin on business, will you
+      give me some tea? My soul is parched.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Father Yakov blinked, gasped, and went behind the partition wall. There
+      was a sound of whispering.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;With his wife, I suppose,&rdquo; thought Kunin; &ldquo;it would be interesting to see
+      what the red-headed fellow&rsquo;s wife is like.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A little later Father Yakov came back, red and perspiring and with an
+      effort to smile, sat down on the edge of the sofa.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They will heat the samovar directly,&rdquo; he said, without looking at his
+      visitor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My goodness, they have not heated the samovar yet!&rdquo; Kunin thought with
+      horror. &ldquo;A nice time we shall have to wait.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have brought you,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;the rough draft of the letter I have
+      written to the bishop. I&rsquo;ll read it after tea; perhaps you may find
+      something to add. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very well.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A silence followed. Father Yakov threw furtive glances at the partition
+      wall, smoothed his hair, and blew his nose.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s wonderful weather, . . .&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes. I read an interesting thing yesterday. . . . the Volsky Zemstvo have
+      decided to give their schools to the clergy, that&rsquo;s typical.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Kunin got up, and pacing up and down the clay floor, began to give
+      expression to his reflections.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That would be all right,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;if only the clergy were equal to
+      their high calling and recognized their tasks. I am so unfortunate as to
+      know priests whose standard of culture and whose moral qualities make them
+      hardly fit to be army secretaries, much less priests. You will agree that
+      a bad teacher does far less harm than a bad priest.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Kunin glanced at Father Yakov; he was sitting bent up, thinking intently
+      about something and apparently not listening to his visitor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yasha, come here!&rdquo; a woman&rsquo;s voice called from behind the partition.
+      Father Yakov started and went out. Again a whispering began.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Kunin felt a pang of longing for tea.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No; it&rsquo;s no use my waiting for tea here,&rdquo; he thought, looking at his
+      watch. &ldquo;Besides I fancy I am not altogether a welcome visitor. My host has
+      not deigned to say one word to me; he simply sits and blinks.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Kunin took up his hat, waited for Father Yakov to return, and said
+      good-bye to him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have simply wasted the morning,&rdquo; he thought wrathfully on the way home.
+      &ldquo;The blockhead! The dummy! He cares no more about the school than I about
+      last year&rsquo;s snow. . . . No, I shall never get anything done with him! We
+      are bound to fail! If the Marshal knew what the priest here was like, he
+      wouldn&rsquo;t be in such a hurry to talk about a school. We ought first to try
+      and get a decent priest, and then think about the school.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      By now Kunin almost hated Father Yakov. The man, his pitiful, grotesque
+      figure in the long crumpled robe, his womanish face, his manner of
+      officiating, his way of life and his formal restrained respectfulness,
+      wounded the tiny relic of religious feeling which was stored away in a
+      warm corner of Kunin&rsquo;s heart together with his nurse&rsquo;s other fairy tales.
+      The coldness and lack of attention with which Father Yakov had met Kunin&rsquo;s
+      warm and sincere interest in what was the priest&rsquo;s own work was hard for
+      the former&rsquo;s vanity to endure. . . .
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the evening of the same day Kunin spent a long time walking about his
+      rooms and thinking. Then he sat down to the table resolutely and wrote a
+      letter to the bishop. After asking for money and a blessing for the
+      school, he set forth genuinely, like a son, his opinion of the priest at
+      Sinkino.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He is young,&rdquo; he wrote, &ldquo;insufficiently educated, leads, I fancy, an
+      intemperate life, and altogether fails to satisfy the ideals which the
+      Russian people have in the course of centuries formed of what a pastor
+      should be.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      After writing this letter Kunin heaved a deep sigh, and went to bed with
+      the consciousness that he had done a good deed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On Monday morning, while he was still in bed, he was informed that Father
+      Yakov had arrived. He did not want to get up, and instructed the servant
+      to say he was not at home. On Tuesday he went away to a sitting of the
+      Board, and when he returned on Saturday he was told by the servants that
+      Father Yakov had called every day in his absence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He liked my biscuits, it seems,&rdquo; he thought.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Towards evening on Sunday Father Yakov arrived. This time not only his
+      skirts, but even his hat, was bespattered with mud. Just as on his first
+      visit, he was hot and perspiring, and sat down on the edge of his chair as
+      he had done then. Kunin determined not to talk about the school&mdash;not
+      to cast pearls.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have brought you a list of books for the school, Pavel Mihailovitch, .
+      . .&rdquo; Father Yakov began.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thank you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But everything showed that Father Yakov had come for something else
+      besides the list. Has whole figure was expressive of extreme
+      embarrassment, and at the same time there was a look of determination upon
+      his face, as on the face of a man suddenly inspired by an idea. He
+      struggled to say something important, absolutely necessary, and strove to
+      overcome his timidity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why is he dumb?&rdquo; Kunin thought wrathfully. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s settled himself
+      comfortably! I haven&rsquo;t time to be bothered with him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      To smoothe over the awkwardness of his silence and to conceal the struggle
+      going on within him, the priest began to smile constrainedly, and this
+      slow smile, wrung out on his red perspiring face, and out of keeping with
+      the fixed look in his grey-blue eyes, made Kunin turn away. He felt moved
+      to repulsion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Excuse me, Father, I have to go out,&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Father Yakov started like a man asleep who has been struck a blow, and,
+      still smiling, began in his confusion wrapping round him the skirts of his
+      cassock. In spite of his repulsion for the man, Kunin felt suddenly sorry
+      for him, and he wanted to soften his cruelty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Please come another time, Father,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;and before we part I want to
+      ask you a favour. I was somehow inspired to write two sermons the other
+      day. . . . I will give them to you to look at. If they are suitable, use
+      them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very good,&rdquo; said Father Yakov, laying his open hand on Kunin&rsquo;s sermons
+      which were lying on the table. &ldquo;I will take them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      After standing a little, hesitating and still wrapping his cassock round
+      him, he suddenly gave up the effort to smile and lifted his head
+      resolutely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Pavel Mihailovitch,&rdquo; he said, evidently trying to speak loudly and
+      distinctly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What can I do for you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have heard that you . . . er . . . have dismissed your secretary, and .
+      . . and are looking for a new one. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, I am. . . . Why, have you someone to recommend?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I. . . er . . . you see . . . I . . . Could you not give the post to me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, are you giving up the Church?&rdquo; said Kunin in amazement.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, no,&rdquo; Father Yakov brought out quickly, for some reason turning pale
+      and trembling all over. &ldquo;God forbid! If you feel doubtful, then never
+      mind, never mind. You see, I could do the work between whiles, . . so as
+      to increase my income. . . . Never mind, don&rsquo;t disturb yourself!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;H&rsquo;m! . . . your income. . . . But you know, I only pay my secretary
+      twenty roubles a month.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good heavens! I would take ten,&rdquo; whispered Father Yakov, looking about
+      him. &ldquo;Ten would be enough! You . . . you are astonished, and everyone is
+      astonished. The greedy priest, the grasping priest, what does he do with
+      his money? I feel myself I am greedy, . . . and I blame myself, I condemn
+      myself. . . . I am ashamed to look people in the face. . . . I tell you on
+      my conscience, Pavel Mihailovitch. . . . I call the God of truth to
+      witness. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Father Yakov took breath and went on:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;On the way here I prepared a regular confession to make you, but . . .
+      I&rsquo;ve forgotten it all; I cannot find a word now. I get a hundred and fifty
+      roubles a year from my parish, and everyone wonders what I do with the
+      money. . . . But I&rsquo;ll explain it all truly. . . . I pay forty roubles a
+      year to the clerical school for my brother Pyotr. He has everything found
+      there, except that I have to provide pens and paper.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, I believe you; I believe you! But what&rsquo;s the object of all this?&rdquo;
+       said Kunin, with a wave of the hand, feeling terribly oppressed by this
+      outburst of confidence on the part of his visitor, and not knowing how to
+      get away from the tearful gleam in his eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then I have not yet paid up all that I owe to the consistory for my place
+      here. They charged me two hundred roubles for the living, and I was to pay
+      ten roubles a month. . . . You can judge what is left! And, besides, I
+      must allow Father Avraamy at least three roubles a month.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What Father Avraamy?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Father Avraamy who was priest at Sinkino before I came. He was deprived
+      of the living on account of . . . his failing, but you know, he is still
+      living at Sinkino! He has nowhere to go. There is no one to keep him.
+      Though he is old, he must have a corner, and food and clothing&mdash;I
+      can&rsquo;t let him go begging on the roads in his position! It would be on my
+      conscience if anything happened! It would be my fault! He is. . . in debt
+      all round; but, you see, I am to blame for not paying for him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Father Yakov started up from his seat and, looking frantically at the
+      floor, strode up and down the room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My God, my God!&rdquo; he muttered, raising his hands and dropping them again.
+      &ldquo;Lord, save us and have mercy upon us! Why did you take such a calling on
+      yourself if you have so little faith and no strength? There is no end to
+      my despair! Save me, Queen of Heaven!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Calm yourself, Father,&rdquo; said Kunin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am worn out with hunger, Pavel Mihailovitch,&rdquo; Father Yakov went on.
+      &ldquo;Generously forgive me, but I am at the end of my strength . . . . I know
+      if I were to beg and to bow down, everyone would help, but . . . I cannot!
+      I am ashamed. How can I beg of the peasants? You are on the Board here, so
+      you know. . . . How can one beg of a beggar? And to beg of richer people,
+      of landowners, I cannot! I have pride! I am ashamed!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Father Yakov waved his hand, and nervously scratched his head with both
+      hands.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am ashamed! My God, I am ashamed! I am proud and can&rsquo;t bear people to
+      see my poverty! When you visited me, Pavel Mihailovitch, I had no tea in
+      the house! There wasn&rsquo;t a pinch of it, and you know it was pride prevented
+      me from telling you! I am ashamed of my clothes, of these patches here. .
+      . . I am ashamed of my vestments, of being hungry. . . . And is it seemly
+      for a priest to be proud?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Father Yakov stood still in the middle of the study, and, as though he did
+      not notice Kunin&rsquo;s presence, began reasoning with himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, supposing I endure hunger and disgrace&mdash;but, my God, I have a
+      wife! I took her from a good home! She is not used to hard work; she is
+      soft; she is used to tea and white bread and sheets on her bed. . . . At
+      home she used to play the piano. . . . She is young, not twenty yet. . . .
+      She would like, to be sure, to be smart, to have fun, go out to see
+      people. . . . And she is worse off with me than any cook; she is ashamed
+      to show herself in the street. My God, my God! Her only treat is when I
+      bring an apple or some biscuit from a visit. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Father Yakov scratched his head again with both hands.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And it makes us feel not love but pity for each other. . . . I cannot
+      look at her without compassion! And the things that happen in this life, O
+      Lord! Such things that people would not believe them if they saw them in
+      the newspaper. . . . And when will there be an end to it all!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hush, Father!&rdquo; Kunin almost shouted, frightened at his tone. &ldquo;Why take
+      such a gloomy view of life?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Generously forgive me, Pavel Mihailovitch . . .&rdquo; muttered Father Yakov as
+      though he were drunk, &ldquo;Forgive me, all this . . . doesn&rsquo;t matter, and
+      don&rsquo;t take any notice of it. . . . Only I do blame myself, and always
+      shall blame myself . . . always.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Father Yakov looked about him and began whispering:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;One morning early I was going from Sinkino to Lutchkovo; I saw a woman
+      standing on the river bank, doing something. . . . I went up close and
+      could not believe my eyes. . . . It was horrible! The wife of the doctor,
+      Ivan Sergeitch, was sitting there washing her linen. . . . A doctor&rsquo;s
+      wife, brought up at a select boarding-school! She had got up you see,
+      early and gone half a mile from the village that people should not see
+      her. . . . She couldn&rsquo;t get over her pride! When she saw that I was near
+      her and noticed her poverty, she turned red all over. . . . I was
+      flustered&mdash;I was frightened, and ran up to help her, but she hid her
+      linen from me; she was afraid I should see her ragged chemises. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All this is positively incredible,&rdquo; said Kunin, sitting down and looking
+      almost with horror at Father Yakov&rsquo;s pale face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Incredible it is! It&rsquo;s a thing that has never been! Pavel Mihailovitch,
+      that a doctor&rsquo;s wife should be rinsing the linen in the river! Such a
+      thing does not happen in any country! As her pastor and spiritual father,
+      I ought not to allow it, but what can I do? What? Why, I am always trying
+      to get treated by her husband for nothing myself! It is true that, as you
+      say, it is all incredible! One can hardly believe one&rsquo;s eyes. During Mass,
+      you know, when I look out from the altar and see my congregation, Avraamy
+      starving, and my wife, and think of the doctor&rsquo;s wife&mdash;how blue her
+      hands were from the cold water&mdash;would you believe it, I forget myself
+      and stand senseless like a fool, until the sacristan calls to me. . . .
+      It&rsquo;s awful!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Father Yakov began walking about again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Lord Jesus!&rdquo; he said, waving his hands, &ldquo;holy Saints! I can&rsquo;t officiate
+      properly. . . . Here you talk to me about the school, and I sit like a
+      dummy and don&rsquo;t understand a word, and think of nothing but food. . . .
+      Even before the altar. . . . But . . . what am I doing?&rdquo; Father Yakov
+      pulled himself up suddenly. &ldquo;You want to go out. Forgive me, I meant
+      nothing. . . . Excuse . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Kunin shook hands with Father Yakov without speaking, saw him into the
+      hall, and going back into his study, stood at the window. He saw Father
+      Yakov go out of the house, pull his wide-brimmed rusty-looking hat over
+      his eyes, and slowly, bowing his head, as though ashamed of his outburst,
+      walk along the road.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t see his horse,&rdquo; thought Kunin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Kunin did not dare to think that the priest had come on foot every day to
+      see him; it was five or six miles to Sinkino, and the mud on the road was
+      impassable. Further on he saw the coachman Andrey and the boy Paramon,
+      jumping over the puddles and splashing Father Yakov with mud, run up to
+      him for his blessing. Father Yakov took off his hat and slowly blessed
+      Andrey, then blessed the boy and stroked his head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Kunin passed his hand over his eyes, and it seemed to him that his hand
+      was moist. He walked away from the window and with dim eyes looked round
+      the room in which he still seemed to hear the timid droning voice. He
+      glanced at the table. Luckily, Father Yakov, in his haste, had forgotten
+      to take the sermons. Kunin rushed up to them, tore them into pieces, and
+      with loathing thrust them under the table.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And I did not know!&rdquo; he moaned, sinking on to the sofa. &ldquo;After being here
+      over a year as member of the Rural Board, Honorary Justice of the Peace,
+      member of the School Committee! Blind puppet, egregious idiot! I must make
+      haste and help them, I must make haste!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He turned from side to side uneasily, pressed his temples and racked his
+      brains.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;On the twentieth I shall get my salary, two hundred roubles. . . . On
+      some good pretext I will give him some, and some to the doctor&rsquo;s wife. . .
+      . I will ask them to perform a special service here, and will get up an
+      illness for the doctor. . . . In that way I shan&rsquo;t wound their pride. And
+      I&rsquo;ll help Father Avraamy too. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He reckoned his money on his fingers, and was afraid to own to himself
+      that those two hundred roubles would hardly be enough for him to pay his
+      steward, his servants, the peasant who brought the meat. . . . He could
+      not help remembering the recent past when he was senselessly squandering
+      his father&rsquo;s fortune, when as a puppy of twenty he had given expensive
+      fans to prostitutes, had paid ten roubles a day to Kuzma, his cab-driver,
+      and in his vanity had made presents to actresses. Oh, how useful those
+      wasted rouble, three-rouble, ten-rouble notes would have been now!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Father Avraamy lives on three roubles a month!&rdquo; thought Kunin. &ldquo;For a
+      rouble the priest&rsquo;s wife could get herself a chemise, and the doctor&rsquo;s
+      wife could hire a washerwoman. But I&rsquo;ll help them, anyway! I must help
+      them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Here Kunin suddenly recalled the private information he had sent to the
+      bishop, and he writhed as from a sudden draught of cold air. This
+      remembrance filled him with overwhelming shame before his inner self and
+      before the unseen truth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So had begun and had ended a sincere effort to be of public service on the
+      part of a well-intentioned but unreflecting and over-comfortable person.
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0005" id="link2H_4_0005"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <h2>
+      THE MURDER
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      I
+    </h3>
+    <p class="pfirst">
+      <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">T</span>he evening service
+      was being celebrated at Progonnaya Station. Before the great ikon, painted
+      in glaring colours on a background of gold, stood the crowd of railway
+      servants with their wives and children, and also of the timbermen and
+      sawyers who worked close to the railway line. All stood in silence,
+      fascinated by the glare of the lights and the howling of the snow-storm
+      which was aimlessly disporting itself outside, regardless of the fact that
+      it was the Eve of the Annunciation. The old priest from Vedenyapino
+      conducted the service; the sacristan and Matvey Terehov were singing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Matvey&rsquo;s face was beaming with delight; he sang stretching out his neck as
+      though he wanted to soar upwards. He sang tenor and chanted the &ldquo;Praises&rdquo;
+       too in a tenor voice with honied sweetness and persuasiveness. When he
+      sang &ldquo;Archangel Voices&rdquo; he waved his arms like a conductor, and trying to
+      second the sacristan&rsquo;s hollow bass with his tenor, achieved something
+      extremely complex, and from his face it could be seen that he was
+      experiencing great pleasure.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At last the service was over, and they all quietly dispersed, and it was
+      dark and empty again, and there followed that hush which is only known in
+      stations that stand solitary in the open country or in the forest when the
+      wind howls and nothing else is heard and when all the emptiness around,
+      all the dreariness of life slowly ebbing away is felt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Matvey lived not far from the station at his cousin&rsquo;s tavern. But he did
+      not want to go home. He sat down at the refreshment bar and began talking
+      to the waiter in a low voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We had our own choir in the tile factory. And I must tell you that though
+      we were only workmen, our singing was first-rate, splendid. We were often
+      invited to the town, and when the Deputy Bishop, Father Ivan, took the
+      service at Trinity Church, the bishop&rsquo;s singers sang in the right choir
+      and we in the left. Only they complained in the town that we kept the
+      singing on too long: &lsquo;the factory choir drag it out,&rsquo; they used to say. It
+      is true we began St. Andrey&rsquo;s prayers and the Praises between six and
+      seven, and it was past eleven when we finished, so that it was sometimes
+      after midnight when we got home to the factory. It was good,&rdquo; sighed
+      Matvey. &ldquo;Very good it was, indeed, Sergey Nikanoritch! But here in my
+      father&rsquo;s house it is anything but joyful. The nearest church is four miles
+      away; with my weak health I can&rsquo;t get so far; there are no singers there.
+      And there is no peace or quiet in our family; day in day out, there is an
+      uproar, scolding, uncleanliness; we all eat out of one bowl like peasants;
+      and there are beetles in the cabbage soup. . . . God has not given me
+      health, else I would have gone away long ago, Sergey Nikanoritch.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Matvey Terehov was a middle-aged man about forty-five, but he had a look
+      of ill-health; his face was wrinkled and his lank, scanty beard was quite
+      grey, and that made him seem many years older. He spoke in a weak voice,
+      circumspectly, and held his chest when he coughed, while his eyes assumed
+      the uneasy and anxious look one sees in very apprehensive people. He never
+      said definitely what was wrong with him, but he was fond of describing at
+      length how once at the factory he had lifted a heavy box and had ruptured
+      himself, and how this had led to &ldquo;the gripes,&rdquo; and had forced him to give
+      up his work in the tile factory and come back to his native place; but he
+      could not explain what he meant by &ldquo;the gripes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I must own I am not fond of my cousin,&rdquo; he went on, pouring himself out
+      some tea. &ldquo;He is my elder; it is a sin to censure him, and I fear the
+      Lord, but I cannot bear it in patience. He is a haughty, surly, abusive
+      man; he is the torment of his relations and workmen, and constantly out of
+      humour. Last Sunday I asked him in an amiable way, &lsquo;Brother, let us go to
+      Pahomovo for the Mass!&rsquo; but he said &lsquo;I am not going; the priest there is a
+      gambler;&rsquo; and he would not come here to-day because, he said, the priest
+      from Vedenyapino smokes and drinks vodka. He doesn&rsquo;t like the clergy! He
+      reads Mass himself and the Hours and the Vespers, while his sister acts as
+      sacristan; he says, &lsquo;Let us pray unto the Lord&rsquo;! and she, in a thin little
+      voice like a turkey-hen, &lsquo;Lord, have mercy upon us! . . .&rsquo; It&rsquo;s a sin,
+      that&rsquo;s what it is. Every day I say to him, &lsquo;Think what you are doing,
+      brother! Repent, brother!&rsquo; and he takes no notice.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sergey Nikanoritch, the waiter, poured out five glasses of tea and carried
+      them on a tray to the waiting-room. He had scarcely gone in when there was
+      a shout:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is that the way to serve it, pig&rsquo;s face? You don&rsquo;t know how to wait!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was the voice of the station-master. There was a timid mutter, then
+      again a harsh and angry shout:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Get along!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The waiter came back greatly crestfallen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There was a time when I gave satisfaction to counts and princes,&rdquo; he said
+      in a low voice; &ldquo;but now I don&rsquo;t know how to serve tea. . . . He called me
+      names before the priest and the ladies!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The waiter, Sergey Nikanoritch, had once had money of his own, and had
+      kept a buffet at a first-class station, which was a junction, in the
+      principal town of a province. There he had worn a swallow-tail coat and a
+      gold chain. But things had gone ill with him; he had squandered all his
+      own money over expensive fittings and service; he had been robbed by his
+      staff, and getting gradually into difficulties, had moved to another
+      station less bustling. Here his wife had left him, taking with her all the
+      silver, and he moved to a third station of a still lower class, where no
+      hot dishes were served. Then to a fourth. Frequently changing his
+      situation and sinking lower and lower, he had at last come to Progonnaya,
+      and here he used to sell nothing but tea and cheap vodka, and for lunch
+      hard-boiled eggs and dry sausages, which smelt of tar, and which he
+      himself sarcastically said were only fit for the orchestra. He was bald
+      all over the top of his head, and had prominent blue eyes and thick bushy
+      whiskers, which he often combed out, looking into the little
+      looking-glass. Memories of the past haunted him continually; he could
+      never get used to sausage &ldquo;only fit for the orchestra,&rdquo; to the rudeness of
+      the station-master, and to the peasants who used to haggle over the
+      prices, and in his opinion it was as unseemly to haggle over prices in a
+      refreshment room as in a chemist&rsquo;s shop. He was ashamed of his poverty and
+      degradation, and that shame was now the leading interest of his life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Spring is late this year,&rdquo; said Matvey, listening. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a good job; I
+      don&rsquo;t like spring. In spring it is very muddy, Sergey Nikanoritch. In
+      books they write: Spring, the birds sing, the sun is setting, but what is
+      there pleasant in that? A bird is a bird, and nothing more. I am fond of
+      good company, of listening to folks, of talking of religion or singing
+      something agreeable in chorus; but as for nightingales and flowers&mdash;bless
+      them, I say!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He began again about the tile factory, about the choir, but Sergey
+      Nikanoritch could not get over his mortification, and kept shrugging his
+      shoulders and muttering. Matvey said good-bye and went home.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was no frost, and the snow was already melting on the roofs, though
+      it was still falling in big flakes; they were whirling rapidly round and
+      round in the air and chasing one another in white clouds along the railway
+      line. And the oak forest on both sides of the line, in the dim light of
+      the moon which was hidden somewhere high up in the clouds, resounded with
+      a prolonged sullen murmur. When a violent storm shakes the trees, how
+      terrible they are! Matvey walked along the causeway beside the line,
+      covering his face and his hands, while the wind beat on his back. All at
+      once a little nag, plastered all over with snow, came into sight; a sledge
+      scraped along the bare stones of the causeway, and a peasant, white all
+      over, too, with his head muffled up, cracked his whip. Matvey looked round
+      after him, but at once, as though it had been a vision, there was neither
+      sledge nor peasant to be seen, and he hastened his steps, suddenly scared,
+      though he did not know why.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Here was the crossing and the dark little house where the signalman lived.
+      The barrier was raised, and by it perfect mountains had drifted and clouds
+      of snow were whirling round like witches on broomsticks. At that point the
+      line was crossed by an old highroad, which was still called &ldquo;the track.&rdquo;
+       On the right, not far from the crossing, by the roadside stood Terehov&rsquo;s
+      tavern, which had been a posting inn. Here there was always a light
+      twinkling at night.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When Matvey reached home there was a strong smell of incense in all the
+      rooms and even in the entry. His cousin Yakov Ivanitch was still reading
+      the evening service. In the prayer-room where this was going on, in the
+      corner opposite the door, there stood a shrine of old-fashioned ancestral
+      ikons in gilt settings, and both walls to right and to left were decorated
+      with ikons of ancient and modern fashion, in shrines and without them. On
+      the table, which was draped to the floor, stood an ikon of the
+      Annunciation, and close by a cyprus-wood cross and the censer; wax candles
+      were burning. Beside the table was a reading desk. As he passed by the
+      prayer-room, Matvey stopped and glanced in at the door. Yakov Ivanitch was
+      reading at the desk at that moment, his sister Aglaia, a tall lean old
+      woman in a dark-blue dress and white kerchief, was praying with him. Yakov
+      Ivanitch&rsquo;s daughter Dashutka, an ugly freckled girl of eighteen, was
+      there, too, barefoot as usual, and wearing the dress in which she had at
+      nightfall taken water to the cattle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Glory to Thee Who hast shown us the light!&rdquo; Yakov Ivanitch boomed out in
+      a chant, bowing low.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Aglaia propped her chin on her hand and chanted in a thin, shrill,
+      drawling voice. And upstairs, above the ceiling, there was the sound of
+      vague voices which seemed menacing or ominous of evil. No one had lived on
+      the storey above since a fire there a long time ago. The windows were
+      boarded up, and empty bottles lay about on the floor between the beams.
+      Now the wind was banging and droning, and it seemed as though someone were
+      running and stumbling over the beams.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Half of the lower storey was used as a tavern, while Terehov&rsquo;s family
+      lived in the other half, so that when drunken visitors were noisy in the
+      tavern every word they said could be heard in the rooms. Matvey lived in a
+      room next to the kitchen, with a big stove, in which, in old days, when
+      this had been a posting inn, bread had been baked every day. Dashutka, who
+      had no room of her own, lived in the same room behind the stove. A cricket
+      chirped there always at night and mice ran in and out.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Matvey lighted a candle and began reading a book which he had borrowed
+      from the station policeman. While he was sitting over it the service
+      ended, and they all went to bed. Dashutka lay down, too. She began snoring
+      at once, but soon woke up and said, yawning:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You shouldn&rsquo;t burn a candle for nothing, Uncle Matvey.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s my candle,&rdquo; answered Matvey; &ldquo;I bought it with my own money.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Dashutka turned over a little and fell asleep again. Matvey sat up a good
+      time longer&mdash;he was not sleepy&mdash;and when he had finished the
+      last page he took a pencil out of a box and wrote on the book:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I, Matvey Terehov, have read this book, and think it the very best of all
+      the books I have read, for which I express my gratitude to the
+      non-commissioned officer of the Police Department of Railways, Kuzma
+      Nikolaev Zhukov, as the possessor of this priceless book.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He considered it an obligation of politeness to make such inscriptions in
+      other people&rsquo;s books.
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      II
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      On Annunciation Day, after the mail train had been sent off, Matvey was
+      sitting in the refreshment bar, talking and drinking tea with lemon in it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The waiter and Zhukov the policeman were listening to him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I was, I must tell you,&rdquo; Matvey was saying, &ldquo;inclined to religion from my
+      earliest childhood. I was only twelve years old when I used to read the
+      epistle in church, and my parents were greatly delighted, and every summer
+      I used to go on a pilgrimage with my dear mother. Sometimes other lads
+      would be singing songs and catching crayfish, while I would be all the
+      time with my mother. My elders commended me, and, indeed, I was pleased
+      myself that I was of such good behaviour. And when my mother sent me with
+      her blessing to the factory, I used between working hours to sing tenor
+      there in our choir, and nothing gave me greater pleasure. I needn&rsquo;t say, I
+      drank no vodka, I smoked no tobacco, and lived in chastity; but we all
+      know such a mode of life is displeasing to the enemy of mankind, and he,
+      the unclean spirit, once tried to ruin me and began to darken my mind,
+      just as now with my cousin. First of all, I took a vow to fast every
+      Monday and not to eat meat any day, and as time went on all sorts of
+      fancies came over me. For the first week of Lent down to Saturday the holy
+      fathers have ordained a diet of dry food, but it is no sin for the weak or
+      those who work hard even to drink tea, yet not a crumb passed into my
+      mouth till the Sunday, and afterwards all through Lent I did not allow
+      myself a drop of oil, and on Wednesdays and Fridays I did not touch a
+      morsel at all. It was the same in the lesser fasts. Sometimes in St.
+      Peter&rsquo;s fast our factory lads would have fish soup, while I would sit a
+      little apart from them and suck a dry crust. Different people have
+      different powers, of course, but I can say of myself I did not find fast
+      days hard, and, indeed, the greater the zeal the easier it seems. You are
+      only hungry on the first days of the fast, and then you get used to it; it
+      goes on getting easier, and by the end of a week you don&rsquo;t mind it at all,
+      and there is a numb feeling in your legs as though you were not on earth,
+      but in the clouds. And, besides that, I laid all sorts of penances on
+      myself; I used to get up in the night and pray, bowing down to the ground,
+      used to drag heavy stones from place to place, used to go out barefoot in
+      the snow, and I even wore chains, too. Only, as time went on, you know, I
+      was confessing one day to the priest and suddenly this reflection occurred
+      to me: why, this priest, I thought, is married, he eats meat and smokes
+      tobacco&mdash;how can he confess me, and what power has he to absolve my
+      sins if he is more sinful that I? I even scruple to eat Lenten oil, while
+      he eats sturgeon, I dare say. I went to another priest, and he, as ill
+      luck would have it, was a fat fleshy man, in a silk cassock; he rustled
+      like a lady, and he smelt of tobacco too. I went to fast and confess in
+      the monastery, and my heart was not at ease even there; I kept fancying
+      the monks were not living according to their rules. And after that I could
+      not find a service to my mind: in one place they read the service too
+      fast, in another they sang the wrong prayer, in a third the sacristan
+      stammered. Sometimes, the Lord forgive me a sinner, I would stand in
+      church and my heart would throb with anger. How could one pray, feeling
+      like that? And I fancied that the people in the church did not cross
+      themselves properly, did not listen properly; wherever I looked it seemed
+      to me that they were all drunkards, that they broke the fast, smoked,
+      lived loose lives and played cards. I was the only one who lived according
+      to the commandments. The wily spirit did not slumber; it got worse as it
+      went on. I gave up singing in the choir and I did not go to church at all;
+      since my notion was that I was a righteous man and that the church did not
+      suit me owing to its imperfections&mdash;that is, indeed, like a fallen
+      angel, I was puffed up in my pride beyond all belief. After this I began
+      attempting to make a church for myself. I hired from a deaf woman a tiny
+      little room, a long way out of town near the cemetery, and made a
+      prayer-room like my cousin&rsquo;s, only I had big church candlesticks, too, and
+      a real censer. In this prayer-room of mine I kept the rules of holy Mount
+      Athos&mdash;that is, every day my matins began at midnight without fail,
+      and on the eve of the chief of the twelve great holy days my midnight
+      service lasted ten hours and sometimes even twelve. Monks are allowed by
+      rule to sit during the singing of the Psalter and the reading of the
+      Bible, but I wanted to be better than the monks, and so I used to stand
+      all through. I used to read and sing slowly, with tears and sighing,
+      lifting up my hands, and I used to go straight from prayer to work without
+      sleeping; and, indeed, I was always praying at my work, too. Well, it got
+      all over the town &lsquo;Matvey is a saint; Matvey heals the sick and
+      senseless.&rsquo; I never had healed anyone, of course, but we all know wherever
+      any heresy or false doctrine springs up there&rsquo;s no keeping the female sex
+      away. They are just like flies on the honey. Old maids and females of all
+      sorts came trailing to me, bowing down to my feet, kissing my hands and
+      crying out I was a saint and all the rest of it, and one even saw a halo
+      round my head. It was too crowded in the prayer-room. I took a bigger
+      room, and then we had a regular tower of Babel. The devil got hold of me
+      completely and screened the light from my eyes with his unclean hoofs. We
+      all behaved as though we were frantic. I read, while the old maids and
+      other females sang, and then after standing on their legs for twenty-four
+      hours or longer without eating or drinking, suddenly a trembling would
+      come over them as though they were in a fever; after that, one would begin
+      screaming and then another&mdash;it was horrible! I, too, would shiver all
+      over like a Jew in a frying-pan, I don&rsquo;t know myself why, and our legs
+      began to prance about. It&rsquo;s a strange thing, indeed: you don&rsquo;t want to,
+      but you prance about and waggle your arms; and after that, screaming and
+      shrieking, we all danced and ran after one another &mdash;ran till we
+      dropped; and in that way, in wild frenzy, I fell into fornication.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The policeman laughed, but, noticing that no one else was laughing, became
+      serious and said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s Molokanism. I have heard they are all like that in the Caucasus.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But I was not killed by a thunderbolt,&rdquo; Matvey went on, crossing himself
+      before the ikon and moving his lips. &ldquo;My dead mother must have been
+      praying for me in the other world. When everyone in the town looked upon
+      me as a saint, and even the ladies and gentlemen of good family used to
+      come to me in secret for consolation, I happened to go into our landlord,
+      Osip Varlamitch, to ask forgiveness &mdash;it was the Day of Forgiveness&mdash;and
+      he fastened the door with the hook, and we were left alone face to face.
+      And he began to reprove me, and I must tell you Osip Varlamitch was a man
+      of brains, though without education, and everyone respected and feared
+      him, for he was a man of stern, God-fearing life and worked hard. He had
+      been the mayor of the town, and a warden of the church for twenty years
+      maybe, and had done a great deal of good; he had covered all the New
+      Moscow Road with gravel, had painted the church, and had decorated the
+      columns to look like malachite. Well, he fastened the door, and&mdash;&lsquo;I
+      have been wanting to get at you for a long time, you rascal, . . .&rsquo; he
+      said. &lsquo;You think you are a saint,&rsquo; he said. &lsquo;No you are not a saint, but a
+      backslider from God, a heretic and an evildoer! . . .&rsquo; And he went on and
+      on. . . . I can&rsquo;t tell you how he said it, so eloquently and cleverly, as
+      though it were all written down, and so touchingly. He talked for two
+      hours. His words penetrated my soul; my eyes were opened. I listened,
+      listened and &mdash;burst into sobs! &lsquo;Be an ordinary man,&rsquo; he said, &lsquo;eat
+      and drink, dress and pray like everyone else. All that is above the
+      ordinary is of the devil. Your chains,&rsquo; he said, &lsquo;are of the devil; your
+      fasting is of the devil; your prayer-room is of the devil. It is all
+      pride,&rsquo; he said. Next day, on Monday in Holy Week, it pleased God I should
+      fall ill. I ruptured myself and was taken to the hospital. I was terribly
+      worried, and wept bitterly and trembled. I thought there was a straight
+      road before me from the hospital to hell, and I almost died. I was in
+      misery on a bed of sickness for six months, and when I was discharged the
+      first thing I did I confessed, and took the sacrament in the regular way
+      and became a man again. Osip Varlamitch saw me off home and exhorted me:
+      &lsquo;Remember, Matvey, that anything above the ordinary is of the devil.&rsquo; And
+      now I eat and drink like everyone else and pray like everyone else . . . .
+      If it happens now that the priest smells of tobacco or vodka I don&rsquo;t
+      venture to blame him, because the priest, too, of course, is an ordinary
+      man. But as soon as I am told that in the town or in the village a saint
+      has set up who does not eat for weeks, and makes rules of his own, I know
+      whose work it is. So that is how I carried on in the past, gentlemen. Now,
+      like Osip Varlamitch, I am continually exhorting my cousins and
+      reproaching them, but I am a voice crying in the wilderness. God has not
+      vouchsafed me the gift.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Matvey&rsquo;s story evidently made no impression whatever. Sergey Nikanoritch
+      said nothing, but began clearing the refreshments off the counter, while
+      the policeman began talking of how rich Matvey&rsquo;s cousin was.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He must have thirty thousand at least,&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Zhukov the policeman, a sturdy, well-fed, red-haired man with a full face
+      (his cheeks quivered when he walked), usually sat lolling and crossing his
+      legs when not in the presence of his superiors. As he talked he swayed to
+      and fro and whistled carelessly, while his face had a self-satisfied
+      replete air, as though he had just had dinner. He was making money, and he
+      always talked of it with the air of a connoisseur. He undertook jobs as an
+      agent, and when anyone wanted to sell an estate, a horse or a carriage,
+      they applied to him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, it will be thirty thousand, I dare say,&rdquo; Sergey Nikanoritch
+      assented. &ldquo;Your grandfather had an immense fortune,&rdquo; he said, addressing
+      Matvey. &ldquo;Immense it was; all left to your father and your uncle. Your
+      father died as a young man and your uncle got hold of it all, and
+      afterwards, of course, Yakov Ivanitch. While you were going pilgrimages
+      with your mama and singing tenor in the factory, they didn&rsquo;t let the grass
+      grow under their feet.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Fifteen thousand comes to your share,&rdquo; said the policeman swaying from
+      side to side. &ldquo;The tavern belongs to you in common, so the capital is in
+      common. Yes. If I were in your place I should have taken it into court
+      long ago. I would have taken it into court for one thing, and while the
+      case was going on I&rsquo;d have knocked his face to a jelly.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Yakov Ivanitch was disliked because, when anyone believes differently from
+      others, it upsets even people who are indifferent to religion. The
+      policeman disliked him also because he, too, sold horses and carriages.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You don&rsquo;t care about going to law with your cousin because you have
+      plenty of money of your own,&rdquo; said the waiter to Matvey, looking at him
+      with envy. &ldquo;It is all very well for anyone who has means, but here I shall
+      die in this position, I suppose. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Matvey began declaring that he hadn&rsquo;t any money at all, but Sergey
+      Nikanoritch was not listening. Memories of the past and of the insults
+      which he endured every day came showering upon him. His bald head began to
+      perspire; he flushed and blinked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A cursed life!&rdquo; he said with vexation, and he banged the sausage on the
+      floor.
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      III
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      The story ran that the tavern had been built in the time of Alexander I,
+      by a widow who had settled here with her son; her name was Avdotya
+      Terehov. The dark roofed-in courtyard and the gates always kept locked
+      excited, especially on moonlight nights, a feeling of depression and
+      unaccountable uneasiness in people who drove by with posting-horses, as
+      though sorcerers or robbers were living in it; and the driver always
+      looked back after he passed, and whipped up his horses. Travellers did not
+      care to put up here, as the people of the house were always unfriendly and
+      charged heavily. The yard was muddy even in summer; huge fat pigs used to
+      lie there in the mud, and the horses in which the Terehovs dealt wandered
+      about untethered, and often it happened that they ran out of the yard and
+      dashed along the road like mad creatures, terrifying the pilgrim women. At
+      that time there was a great deal of traffic on the road; long trains of
+      loaded waggons trailed by, and all sorts of adventures happened, such as,
+      for instance, that thirty years ago some waggoners got up a quarrel with a
+      passing merchant and killed him, and a slanting cross is standing to this
+      day half a mile from the tavern; posting-chaises with bells and the heavy
+      <i>dormeuses</i> of country gentlemen drove by; and herds of horned cattle
+      passed bellowing and stirring up clouds of dust.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When the railway came there was at first at this place only a platform,
+      which was called simply a halt; ten years afterwards the present station,
+      Progonnaya, was built. The traffic on the old posting-road almost ceased,
+      and only local landowners and peasants drove along it now, but the working
+      people walked there in crowds in spring and autumn. The posting-inn was
+      transformed into a restaurant; the upper storey was destroyed by fire, the
+      roof had grown yellow with rust, the roof over the yard had fallen by
+      degrees, but huge fat pigs, pink and revolting, still wallowed in the mud
+      in the yard. As before, the horses sometimes ran away and, lashing their
+      tails dashed madly along the road. In the tavern they sold tea, hay oats
+      and flour, as well as vodka and beer, to be drunk on the premises and also
+      to be taken away; they sold spirituous liquors warily, for they had never
+      taken out a licence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Terehovs had always been distinguished by their piety, so much so that
+      they had even been given the nickname of the &ldquo;Godlies.&rdquo; But perhaps
+      because they lived apart like bears, avoided people and thought out all
+      their ideas for themselves, they were given to dreams and to doubts and to
+      changes of faith and almost each generation had a peculiar faith of its
+      own. The grandmother Avdotya, who had built the inn, was an Old Believer;
+      her son and both her grandsons (the fathers of Matvey and Yakov) went to
+      the Orthodox church, entertained the clergy, and worshipped before the new
+      ikons as devoutly as they had done before the old. The son in old age
+      refused to eat meat and imposed upon himself the rule of silence,
+      considering all conversation as sin; it was the peculiarity of the
+      grandsons that they interpreted the Scripture not simply, but sought in it
+      a hidden meaning, declaring that every sacred word must contain a mystery.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Avdotya&rsquo;s great-grandson Matvey had struggled from early childhood with
+      all sorts of dreams and fancies and had been almost ruined by it; the
+      other great-grandson, Yakov Ivanitch, was orthodox, but after his wife&rsquo;s
+      death he gave up going to church and prayed at home. Following his
+      example, his sister Aglaia had turned, too; she did not go to church
+      herself, and did not let Dashutka go. Of Aglaia it was told that in her
+      youth she used to attend the Flagellant meetings in Vedenyapino, and that
+      she was still a Flagellant in secret, and that was why she wore a white
+      kerchief.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yakov Ivanitch was ten years older than Matvey&mdash;he was a very
+      handsome tall old man with a big grey beard almost to his waist, and bushy
+      eyebrows which gave his face a stern, even ill-natured expression. He wore
+      a long jerkin of good cloth or a black sheepskin coat, and altogether
+      tried to be clean and neat in dress; he wore goloshes even in dry weather.
+      He did not go to church, because, to his thinking, the services were not
+      properly celebrated and because the priests drank wine at unlawful times
+      and smoked tobacco. Every day he read and sang the service at home with
+      Aglaia. At Vedenyapino they left out the &ldquo;Praises&rdquo; at early matins, and
+      had no evening service even on great holidays, but he used to read through
+      at home everything that was laid down for every day, without hurrying or
+      leaving out a single line, and even in his spare time read aloud the Lives
+      of the Saints. And in everyday life he adhered strictly to the rules of
+      the church; thus, if wine were allowed on some day in Lent &ldquo;for the sake
+      of the vigil,&rdquo; then he never failed to drink wine, even if he were not
+      inclined.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He read, sang, burned incense and fasted, not for the sake of receiving
+      blessings of some sort from God, but for the sake of good order. Man
+      cannot live without religion, and religion ought to be expressed from year
+      to year and from day to day in a certain order, so that every morning and
+      every evening a man might turn to God with exactly those words and
+      thoughts that were befitting that special day and hour. One must live,
+      and, therefore, also pray as is pleasing to God, and so every day one must
+      read and sing what is pleasing to God&mdash;that is, what is laid down in
+      the rule of the church. Thus the first chapter of St. John must only be
+      read on Easter Day, and &ldquo;It is most meet&rdquo; must not be sung from Easter to
+      Ascension, and so on. The consciousness of this order and its importance
+      afforded Yakov Ivanitch great gratification during his religious
+      exercises. When he was forced to break this order by some necessity&mdash;to
+      drive to town or to the bank, for instance his conscience was uneasy and
+      he felt miserable.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When his cousin Matvey had returned unexpectedly from the factory and
+      settled in the tavern as though it were his home, he had from the very
+      first day disturbed his settled order. He refused to pray with them, had
+      meals and drank tea at wrong times, got up late, drank milk on Wednesdays
+      and Fridays on the pretext of weak health; almost every day he went into
+      the prayer-room while they were at prayers and cried: &ldquo;Think what you are
+      doing, brother! Repent, brother!&rdquo; These words threw Yakov into a fury,
+      while Aglaia could not refrain from beginning to scold; or at night Matvey
+      would steal into the prayer-room and say softly: &ldquo;Cousin, your prayer is
+      not pleasing to God. For it is written, First be reconciled with thy
+      brother and then offer thy gift. You lend money at usury, you deal in
+      vodka&mdash;repent!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      In Matvey&rsquo;s words Yakov saw nothing but the usual evasions of empty-headed
+      and careless people who talk of loving your neighbour, of being reconciled
+      with your brother, and so on, simply to avoid praying, fasting and reading
+      holy books, and who talk contemptuously of profit and interest simply
+      because they don&rsquo;t like working. Of course, to be poor, save nothing, and
+      put by nothing was a great deal easier than being rich.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But yet he was troubled and could not pray as before. As soon as he went
+      into the prayer-room and opened the book he began to be afraid his cousin
+      would come in and hinder him; and, in fact, Matvey did soon appear and cry
+      in a trembling voice: &ldquo;Think what you are doing, brother! Repent,
+      brother!&rdquo; Aglaia stormed and Yakov, too, flew into a passion and shouted:
+      &ldquo;Go out of my house!&rdquo; while Matvey answered him: &ldquo;The house belongs to
+      both of us.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Yakov would begin singing and reading again, but he could not regain his
+      calm, and unconsciously fell to dreaming over his book. Though he regarded
+      his cousin&rsquo;s words as nonsense, yet for some reason it had of late haunted
+      his memory that it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven,
+      that the year before last he had made a very good bargain over buying a
+      stolen horse, that one day when his wife was alive a drunkard had died of
+      vodka in his tavern. . . .
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He slept badly at nights now and woke easily, and he could hear that
+      Matvey, too, was awake, and continually sighing and pining for his tile
+      factory. And while Yakov turned over from one side to another at night he
+      thought of the stolen horse and the drunken man, and what was said in the
+      gospels about the camel.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It looked as though his dreaminess were coming over him again. And as
+      ill-luck would have it, although it was the end of March, every day it
+      kept snowing, and the forest roared as though it were winter, and there
+      was no believing that spring would ever come. The weather disposed one to
+      depression, and to quarrelling and to hatred and in the night, when the
+      wind droned over the ceiling, it seemed as though someone were living
+      overhead in the empty storey; little by little the broodings settled like
+      a burden on his mind, his head burned and he could not sleep.
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      IV
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      On the morning of the Monday before Good Friday, Matvey heard from his
+      room Dashutka say to Aglaia:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Uncle Matvey said, the other day, that there is no need to fast.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Matvey remembered the whole conversation he had had the evening before
+      with Dashutka, and he felt hurt all at once.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Girl, don&rsquo;t do wrong!&rdquo; he said in a moaning voice, like a sick man. &ldquo;You
+      can&rsquo;t do without fasting; our Lord Himself fasted forty days. I only
+      explained that fasting does a bad man no good.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You should just listen to the factory hands; they can teach you
+      goodness,&rdquo; Aglaia said sarcastically as she washed the floor (she usually
+      washed the floors on working days and was always angry with everyone when
+      she did it). &ldquo;We know how they keep the fasts in the factory. You had
+      better ask that uncle of yours&mdash;ask him about his &lsquo;Darling,&rsquo; how he
+      used to guzzle milk on fast days with her, the viper. He teaches others;
+      he forgets about his viper. But ask him who was it he left his money with&mdash;who
+      was it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Matvey had carefully concealed from everyone, as though it were a foul
+      sore, that during that period of his life when old women and unmarried
+      girls had danced and run about with him at their prayers he had formed a
+      connection with a working woman and had had a child by her. When he went
+      home he had given this woman all he had saved at the factory, and had
+      borrowed from his landlord for his journey, and now he had only a few
+      roubles which he spent on tea and candles. The &ldquo;Darling&rdquo; had informed him
+      later on that the child was dead, and asked him in a letter what she
+      should do with the money. This letter was brought from the station by the
+      labourer. Aglaia intercepted it and read it, and had reproached Matvey
+      with his &ldquo;Darling&rdquo; every day since.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Just fancy, nine hundred roubles,&rdquo; Aglaia went on. &ldquo;You gave nine hundred
+      roubles to a viper, no relation, a factory jade, blast you!&rdquo; She had flown
+      into a passion by now and was shouting shrilly: &ldquo;Can&rsquo;t you speak? I could
+      tear you to pieces, wretched creature! Nine hundred roubles as though it
+      were a farthing. You might have left it to Dashutka&mdash;she is a
+      relation, not a stranger&mdash;or else have it sent to Byelev for Marya&rsquo;s
+      poor orphans. And your viper did not choke, may she be thrice accursed,
+      the she-devil! May she never look upon the light of day!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Yakov Ivanitch called to her: it was time to begin the &ldquo;Hours.&rdquo; She
+      washed, put on a white kerchief, and by now quiet and meek, went into the
+      prayer-room to the brother she loved. When she spoke to Matvey or served
+      peasants in the tavern with tea she was a gaunt, keen-eyed, ill-humoured
+      old woman; in the prayer-room her face was serene and softened, she looked
+      younger altogether, she curtsied affectedly, and even pursed up her lips.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yakov Ivanitch began reading the service softly and dolefully, as he
+      always did in Lent. After he had read a little he stopped to listen to the
+      stillness that reigned through the house, and then went on reading again,
+      with a feeling of gratification; he folded his hands in supplication,
+      rolled his eyes, shook his head, sighed. But all at once there was the
+      sound of voices. The policeman and Sergey Nikanoritch had come to see
+      Matvey. Yakov Ivanitch was embarrassed at reading aloud and singing when
+      there were strangers in the house, and now, hearing voices, he began
+      reading in a whisper and slowly. He could hear in the prayer-room the
+      waiter say:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The Tatar at Shtchepovo is selling his business for fifteen hundred.
+      He&rsquo;ll take five hundred down and an I.O.U. for the rest. And so, Matvey
+      Vassilitch, be so kind as to lend me that five hundred roubles. I will pay
+      you two per cent a month.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What money have I got?&rdquo; cried Matvey, amazed. &ldquo;I have no money!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Two per cent a month will be a godsend to you,&rdquo; the policeman explained.
+      &ldquo;While lying by, your money is simply eaten by the moth, and that&rsquo;s all
+      that you get from it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Afterwards the visitors went out and a silence followed. But Yakov
+      Ivanitch had hardly begun reading and singing again when a voice was heard
+      outside the door:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Brother, let me have a horse to drive to Vedenyapino.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was Matvey. And Yakov was troubled again. &ldquo;Which can you go with?&rdquo; he
+      asked after a moment&rsquo;s thought. &ldquo;The man has gone with the sorrel to take
+      the pig, and I am going with the little stallion to Shuteykino as soon as
+      I have finished.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Brother, why is it you can dispose of the horses and not I?&rdquo; Matvey asked
+      with irritation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Because I am not taking them for pleasure, but for work.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Our property is in common, so the horses are in common, too, and you
+      ought to understand that, brother.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A silence followed. Yakov did not go on praying, but waited for Matvey to
+      go away from the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Brother,&rdquo; said Matvey, &ldquo;I am a sick man. I don&rsquo;t want possession &mdash;let
+      them go; you have them, but give me a small share to keep me in my
+      illness. Give it me and I&rsquo;ll go away.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Yakov did not speak. He longed to be rid of Matvey, but he could not give
+      him money, since all the money was in the business; besides, there had
+      never been a case of the family dividing in the whole history of the
+      Terehovs. Division means ruin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yakov said nothing, but still waited for Matvey to go away, and kept
+      looking at his sister, afraid that she would interfere, and that there
+      would be a storm of abuse again, as there had been in the morning. When at
+      last Matvey did go Yakov went on reading, but now he had no pleasure in
+      it. There was a heaviness in his head and a darkness before his eyes from
+      continually bowing down to the ground, and he was weary of the sound of
+      his soft dejected voice. When such a depression of spirit came over him at
+      night, he put it down to not being able to sleep; by day it frightened
+      him, and he began to feel as though devils were sitting on his head and
+      shoulders.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Finishing the service after a fashion, dissatisfied and ill-humoured, he
+      set off for Shuteykino. In the previous autumn a gang of navvies had dug a
+      boundary ditch near Progonnaya, and had run up a bill at the tavern for
+      eighteen roubles, and now he had to find their foreman in Shuteykino and
+      get the money from him. The road had been spoilt by the thaw and the
+      snowstorm; it was of a dark colour and full of holes, and in parts it had
+      given way altogether. The snow had sunk away at the sides below the road,
+      so that he had to drive, as it were, upon a narrow causeway, and it was
+      very difficult to turn off it when he met anything. The sky had been
+      overcast ever since the morning and a damp wind was blowing. . . .
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A long train of sledges met him; peasant women were carting bricks. Yakov
+      had to turn off the road. His horse sank into the snow up to its belly;
+      the sledge lurched over to the right, and to avoid falling out he bent
+      over to the left, and sat so all the time the sledges moved slowly by him.
+      Through the wind he heard the creaking of the sledge poles and the
+      breathing of the gaunt horses, and the women saying about him, &ldquo;There&rsquo;s
+      Godly coming,&rdquo; while one, gazing with compassion at his horse, said
+      quickly:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It looks as though the snow will be lying till Yegory&rsquo;s Day! They are
+      worn out with it!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Yakov sat uncomfortably huddled up, screwing up his eyes on account of the
+      wind, while horses and red bricks kept passing before him. And perhaps
+      because he was uncomfortable and his side ached, he felt all at once
+      annoyed, and the business he was going about seemed to him unimportant,
+      and he reflected that he might send the labourer next day to Shuteykino.
+      Again, as in the previous sleepless night, he thought of the saying about
+      the camel, and then memories of all sorts crept into his mind; of the
+      peasant who had sold him the stolen horse, of the drunken man, of the
+      peasant women who had brought their samovars to him to pawn. Of course,
+      every merchant tries to get as much as he can, but Yakov felt depressed
+      that he was in trade; he longed to get somewhere far away from this
+      routine, and he felt dreary at the thought that he would have to read the
+      evening service that day. The wind blew straight into his face and soughed
+      in his collar; and it seemed as though it were whispering to him all these
+      thoughts, bringing them from the broad white plain . . . . Looking at that
+      plain, familiar to him from childhood, Yakov remembered that he had had
+      just this same trouble and these same thoughts in his young days when
+      dreams and imaginings had come upon him and his faith had wavered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He felt miserable at being alone in the open country; he turned back and
+      drove slowly after the sledges, and the women laughed and said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Godly has turned back.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At home nothing had been cooked and the samovar was not heated on account
+      of the fast, and this made the day seem very long. Yakov Ivanitch had long
+      ago taken the horse to the stable, dispatched the flour to the station,
+      and twice taken up the Psalms to read, and yet the evening was still far
+      off. Aglaia has already washed all the floors, and, having nothing to do,
+      was tidying up her chest, the lid of which was pasted over on the inside
+      with labels off bottles. Matvey, hungry and melancholy, sat reading, or
+      went up to the Dutch stove and slowly scrutinized the tiles which reminded
+      him of the factory. Dashutka was asleep; then, waking up, she went to take
+      water to the cattle. When she was getting water from the well the cord
+      broke and the pail fell in. The labourer began looking for a boathook to
+      get the pail out, and Dashutka, barefooted, with legs as red as a goose&rsquo;s,
+      followed him about in the muddy snow, repeating: &ldquo;It&rsquo;s too far!&rdquo; She meant
+      to say that the well was too deep for the hook to reach the bottom, but
+      the labourer did not understand her, and evidently she bothered him, so
+      that he suddenly turned around and abused her in unseemly language. Yakov
+      Ivanitch, coming out that moment into the yard, heard Dashutka answer the
+      labourer in a long rapid stream of choice abuse, which she could only have
+      learned from drunken peasants in the tavern.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What are you saying, shameless girl!&rdquo; he cried to her, and he was
+      positively aghast. &ldquo;What language!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And she looked at her father in perplexity, dully, not understanding why
+      she should not use those words. He would have admonished her, but she
+      struck him as so savage and benighted; and for the first time he realized
+      that she had no religion. And all this life in the forest, in the snow,
+      with drunken peasants, with coarse oaths, seemed to him as savage and
+      benighted as this girl, and instead of giving her a lecture he only waved
+      his hand and went back into the room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At that moment the policeman and Sergey Nikanoritch came in again to see
+      Matvey. Yakov Ivanitch thought that these people, too, had no religion,
+      and that that did not trouble them in the least; and human life began to
+      seem to him as strange, senseless and unenlightened as a dog&rsquo;s. Bareheaded
+      he walked about the yard, then he went out on to the road, clenching his
+      fists. Snow was falling in big flakes at the time. His beard was blown
+      about in the wind. He kept shaking his head, as though there were
+      something weighing upon his head and shoulders, as though devils were
+      sitting on them; and it seemed to him that it was not himself walking
+      about, but some wild beast, a huge terrible beast, and that if he were to
+      cry out his voice would be a roar that would sound all over the forest and
+      the plain, and would frighten everyone. . . .
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      V
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      When he went back into the house the policeman was no longer there, but
+      the waiter was sitting with Matvey, counting something on the reckoning
+      beads. He was in the habit of coming often, almost every day, to the
+      tavern; in old days he had come to see Yakov Ivanitch, now he came to see
+      Matvey. He was continually reckoning on the beads, while his face
+      perspired and looked strained, or he would ask for money or, stroking his
+      whiskers, would describe how he had once been in a first-class station and
+      used to prepare champagne-punch for officers, and at grand dinners served
+      the sturgeon-soup with his own hands. Nothing in this world interested him
+      but refreshment bars, and he could only talk about things to eat, about
+      wines and the paraphernalia of the dinner-table. On one occasion, handing
+      a cup of tea to a young woman who was nursing her baby and wishing to say
+      something agreeable to her, he expressed himself in this way:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The mother&rsquo;s breast is the baby&rsquo;s refreshment bar.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Reckoning with the beads in Matvey&rsquo;s room, he asked for money; said he
+      could not go on living at Progonnaya, and several times repeated in a tone
+      of voice that sounded as though he were just going to cry:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where am I to go? Where am I to go now? Tell me that, please.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Then Matvey went into the kitchen and began peeling some boiled potatoes
+      which he had probably put away from the day before. It was quiet, and it
+      seemed to Yakov Ivanitch that the waiter was gone. It was past the time
+      for evening service; he called Aglaia, and, thinking there was no one else
+      in the house sang out aloud without embarrassment. He sang and read, but
+      was inwardly pronouncing other words, &ldquo;Lord, forgive me! Lord, save me!&rdquo;
+       and, one after another, without ceasing, he made low bows to the ground as
+      though he wanted to exhaust himself, and he kept shaking his head, so that
+      Aglaia looked at him with wonder. He was afraid Matvey would come in, and
+      was certain that he would come in, and felt an anger against him which he
+      could overcome neither by prayer nor by continually bowing down to the
+      ground.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Matvey opened the door very softly and went into the prayer-room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a sin, such a sin!&rdquo; he said reproachfully, and heaved a sigh.
+      &ldquo;Repent! Think what you are doing, brother!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Yakov Ivanitch, clenching his fists and not looking at him for fear of
+      striking him, went quickly out of the room. Feeling himself a huge
+      terrible wild beast, just as he had done before on the road, he crossed
+      the passage into the grey, dirty room, reeking with smoke and fog, in
+      which the peasants usually drank tea, and there he spent a long time
+      walking from one corner to the other, treading heavily, so that the
+      crockery jingled on the shelves and the tables shook. It was clear to him
+      now that he was himself dissatisfied with his religion, and could not pray
+      as he used to do. He must repent, he must think things over, reconsider,
+      live and pray in some other way. But how pray? And perhaps all this was a
+      temptation of the devil, and nothing of this was necessary? . . . How was
+      it to be? What was he to do? Who could guide him? What helplessness! He
+      stopped and, clutching at his head, began to think, but Matvey&rsquo;s being
+      near him prevented him from reflecting calmly. And he went rapidly into
+      the room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Matvey was sitting in the kitchen before a bowl of potato, eating. Close
+      by, near the stove, Aglaia and Dashutka were sitting facing one another,
+      spinning yarn. Between the stove and the table at which Matvey was sitting
+      was stretched an ironing-board; on it stood a cold iron.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sister,&rdquo; Matvey asked, &ldquo;let me have a little oil!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who eats oil on a day like this?&rdquo; asked Aglaia.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am not a monk, sister, but a layman. And in my weak health I may take
+      not only oil but milk.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, at the factory you may have anything.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Aglaia took a bottle of Lenten oil from the shelf and banged it angrily
+      down before Matvey, with a malignant smile evidently pleased that he was
+      such a sinner.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But I tell you, you can&rsquo;t eat oil!&rdquo; shouted Yakov.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Aglaia and Dashutka started, but Matvey poured the oil into the bowl and
+      went on eating as though he had not heard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I tell you, you can&rsquo;t eat oil!&rdquo; Yakov shouted still more loudly; he
+      turned red all over, snatched up the bowl, lifted it higher than his head,
+      and dashed it with all his force to the ground, so that it flew into
+      fragments. &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t dare to speak!&rdquo; he cried in a furious voice, though
+      Matvey had not said a word. &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t dare!&rdquo; he repeated, and struck his fist
+      on the table.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Matvey turned pale and got up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Brother!&rdquo; he said, still munching&mdash;&ldquo;brother, think what you are
+      about!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Out of my house this minute!&rdquo; shouted Yakov; he loathed Matvey&rsquo;s wrinkled
+      face, and his voice, and the crumbs on his moustache, and the fact that he
+      was munching. &ldquo;Out, I tell you!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Brother, calm yourself! The pride of hell has confounded you!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hold your tongue!&rdquo; (Yakov stamped.) &ldquo;Go away, you devil!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you care to know,&rdquo; Matvey went on in a loud voice, as he, too, began
+      to get angry, &ldquo;you are a backslider from God and a heretic. The accursed
+      spirits have hidden the true light from you; your prayer is not acceptable
+      to God. Repent before it is too late! The deathbed of the sinner is
+      terrible! Repent, brother!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Yakov seized him by the shoulders and dragged him away from the table,
+      while he turned whiter than ever, and frightened and bewildered, began
+      muttering, &ldquo;What is it? What&rsquo;s the matter?&rdquo; and, struggling and making
+      efforts to free himself from Yakov&rsquo;s hands, he accidentally caught hold of
+      his shirt near the neck and tore the collar; and it seemed to Aglaia that
+      he was trying to beat Yakov. She uttered a shriek, snatched up the bottle
+      of Lenten oil and with all her force brought it down straight on the skull
+      of the cousin she hated. Matvey reeled, and in one instant his face became
+      calm and indifferent. Yakov, breathing heavily, excited, and feeling
+      pleasure at the gurgle the bottle had made, like a living thing, when it
+      had struck the head, kept him from falling and several times (he
+      remembered this very distinctly) motioned Aglaia towards the iron with his
+      finger; and only when the blood began trickling through his hands and he
+      heard Dashutka&rsquo;s loud wail, and when the ironing-board fell with a crash,
+      and Matvey rolled heavily on it, Yakov left off feeling anger and
+      understood what had happened.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let him rot, the factory buck!&rdquo; Aglaia brought out with repulsion, still
+      keeping the iron in her hand. The white bloodstained kerchief slipped on
+      to her shoulders and her grey hair fell in disorder. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s got what he
+      deserved!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Everything was terrible. Dashutka sat on the floor near the stove with the
+      yarn in her hands, sobbing, and continually bowing down, uttering at each
+      bow a gasping sound. But nothing was so terrible to Yakov as the potato in
+      the blood, on which he was afraid of stepping, and there was something
+      else terrible which weighed upon him like a bad dream and seemed the worst
+      danger, though he could not take it in for the first minute. This was the
+      waiter, Sergey Nikanoritch, who was standing in the doorway with the
+      reckoning beads in his hands, very pale, looking with horror at what was
+      happening in the kitchen. Only when he turned and went quickly into the
+      passage and from there outside, Yakov grasped who it was and followed him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wiping his hands on the snow as he went, he reflected. The idea flashed
+      through his mind that their labourer had gone away long before and had
+      asked leave to stay the night at home in the village; the day before they
+      had killed a pig, and there were huge bloodstains in the snow and on the
+      sledge, and even one side of the top of the well was splattered with
+      blood, so that it could not have seemed suspicious even if the whole of
+      Yakov&rsquo;s family had been stained with blood. To conceal the murder would be
+      agonizing, but for the policeman, who would whistle and smile ironically,
+      to come from the station, for the peasants to arrive and bind Yakov&rsquo;s and
+      Aglaia&rsquo;s hands, and take them solemnly to the district courthouse and from
+      there to the town, while everyone on the way would point at them and say
+      mirthfully, &ldquo;They are taking the Godlies!&rdquo;&mdash;this seemed to Yakov more
+      agonizing than anything, and he longed to lengthen out the time somehow,
+      so as to endure this shame not now, but later, in the future.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can lend you a thousand roubles, . . .&rdquo; he said, overtaking Sergey
+      Nikanoritch. &ldquo;If you tell anyone, it will do no good. . . . There&rsquo;s no
+      bringing the man back, anyway;&rdquo; and with difficulty keeping up with the
+      waiter, who did not look round, but tried to walk away faster than ever,
+      he went on: &ldquo;I can give you fifteen hundred. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He stopped because he was out of breath, while Sergey Nikanoritch walked
+      on as quickly as ever, probably afraid that he would be killed, too. Only
+      after passing the railway crossing and going half the way from the
+      crossing to the station, he furtively looked round and walked more slowly.
+      Lights, red and green, were already gleaming in the station and along the
+      line; the wind had fallen, but flakes of snow were still coming down and
+      the road had turned white again. But just at the station Sergey
+      Nikanoritch stopped, thought a minute, and turned resolutely back. It was
+      growing dark.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oblige me with the fifteen hundred, Yakov Ivanitch,&rdquo; he said, trembling
+      all over. &ldquo;I agree.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <h3>
+      VI
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      Yakov Ivanitch&rsquo;s money was in the bank of the town and was invested in
+      second mortgages; he only kept a little at home, Just what was wanted for
+      necessary expenses. Going into the kitchen he felt for the matchbox, and
+      while the sulphur was burning with a blue light he had time to make out
+      the figure of Matvey, which was still lying on the floor near the table,
+      but now it was covered with a white sheet, and nothing could be seen but
+      his boots. A cricket was chirruping. Aglaia and Dashutka were not in the
+      room, they were both sitting behind the counter in the tea-room, spinning
+      yarn in silence. Yakov Ivanitch crossed to his own room with a little lamp
+      in his hand, and pulled from under the bed a little box in which he kept
+      his money. This time there were in it four hundred and twenty one-rouble
+      notes and silver to the amount of thirty-five roubles; the notes had an
+      unpleasant heavy smell. Putting the money together in his cap, Yakov
+      Ivanitch went out into the yard and then out of the gate. He walked,
+      looking from side to side, but there was no sign of the waiter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hi!&rdquo; cried Yakov.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A dark figure stepped out from the barrier at the railway crossing and
+      came irresolutely towards him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why do you keep walking about?&rdquo; said Yakov with vexation, as he
+      recognized the waiter. &ldquo;Here you are; there is a little less than five
+      hundred. . . . I&rsquo;ve no more in the house.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very well; . . . very grateful to you,&rdquo; muttered Sergey Nikanoritch,
+      taking the money greedily and stuffing it into his pockets. He was
+      trembling all over, and that was perceptible in spite of the darkness.
+      &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t worry yourself, Yakov Ivanitch. . . . What should I chatter for: I
+      came and went away, that&rsquo;s all I&rsquo;ve had to do with it. As the saying is, I
+      know nothing and I can tell nothing . . .&rdquo; And at once he added with a
+      sigh &ldquo;Cursed life!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      For a minute they stood in silence, without looking at each other.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So it all came from a trifle, goodness knows how, . . .&rdquo; said the waiter,
+      trembling. &ldquo;I was sitting counting to myself when all at once a noise. . .
+      . I looked through the door, and just on account of Lenten oil you. . . .
+      Where is he now?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Lying there in the kitchen.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You ought to take him somewhere. . . . Why put it off?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Yakov accompanied him to the station without a word, then went home again
+      and harnessed the horse to take Matvey to Limarovo. He had decided to take
+      him to the forest of Limarovo, and to leave him there on the road, and
+      then he would tell everyone that Matvey had gone off to Vedenyapino and
+      had not come back, and then everyone would think that he had been killed
+      by someone on the road. He knew there was no deceiving anyone by this, but
+      to move, to do something, to be active, was not as agonizing as to sit
+      still and wait. He called Dashutka, and with her carried Matvey out.
+      Aglaia stayed behind to clean up the kitchen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When Yakov and Dashutka turned back they were detained at the railway
+      crossing by the barrier being let down. A long goods train was passing,
+      dragged by two engines, breathing heavily, and flinging puffs of crimson
+      fire out of their funnels.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The foremost engine uttered a piercing whistle at the crossing in sight of
+      the station.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s whistling, . . .&rdquo; said Dashutka.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The train had passed at last, and the signalman lifted the barrier without
+      haste.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is that you, Yakov Ivanitch? I didn&rsquo;t know you, so you&rsquo;ll be rich.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And then when they had reached home they had to go to bed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Aglaia and Dashutka made themselves a bed in the tea-room and lay down
+      side by side, while Yakov stretched himself on the counter. They neither
+      said their prayers nor lighted the ikon lamp before lying down to sleep.
+      All three lay awake till morning, but did not utter a single word, and it
+      seemed to them that all night someone was walking about in the empty
+      storey overhead.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Two days later a police inspector and the examining magistrate came from
+      the town and made a search, first in Matvey&rsquo;s room and then in the whole
+      tavern. They questioned Yakov first of all, and he testified that on the
+      Monday Matvey had gone to Vedenyapino to confess, and that he must have
+      been killed by the sawyers who were working on the line.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And when the examining magistrate had asked him how it had happened that
+      Matvey was found on the road, while his cap had turned up at home&mdash;surely
+      he had not gone to Vedenyapino without his cap?&mdash; and why they had
+      not found a single drop of blood beside him in the snow on the road,
+      though his head was smashed in and his face and chest were black with
+      blood, Yakov was confused, lost his head and answered:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I cannot tell.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And just what Yakov had so feared happened: the policeman came, the
+      district police officer smoked in the prayer-room and Aglaia fell upon him
+      with abuse and was rude to the police inspector; and afterwards when Yakov
+      and Aglaia were led out to the yard, the peasants crowded at the gates and
+      said, &ldquo;They are taking the Godlies!&rdquo; and it seemed that they were all
+      glad.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the inquiry the policeman stated positively that Yakov and Aglaia had
+      killed Matvey in order not to share with him, and that Matvey had money of
+      his own, and that if it was not found at the search evidently Yakov and
+      Aglaia had got hold of it. And Dashutka was questioned. She said that
+      Uncle Matvey and Aunt Aglaia quarrelled and almost fought every day over
+      money, and that Uncle Matvey was rich, so much so that he had given
+      someone&mdash;&ldquo;his Darling&rdquo;&mdash;nine hundred roubles.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Dashutka was left alone in the tavern. No one came now to drink tea or
+      vodka, and she divided her time between cleaning up the rooms, drinking
+      mead and eating rolls; but a few days later they questioned the signalman
+      at the railway crossing, and he said that late on Monday evening he had
+      seen Yakov and Dashutka driving from Limarovo. Dashutka, too, was
+      arrested, taken to the town and put in prison. It soon became known, from
+      what Aglaia said, that Sergey Nikanoritch had been present at the murder.
+      A search was made in his room, and money was found in an unusual place, in
+      his snowboots under the stove, and the money was all in small change,
+      three hundred one-rouble notes. He swore he had made this money himself,
+      and that he hadn&rsquo;t been in the tavern for a year, but witnesses testified
+      that he was poor and had been in great want of money of late, and that he
+      used to go every day to the tavern to borrow from Matvey; and the
+      policeman described how on the day of the murder he had himself gone twice
+      to the tavern with the waiter to help him to borrow. It was recalled at
+      this juncture that on Monday evening Sergey Nikanoritch had not been there
+      to meet the passenger train, but had gone off somewhere. And he, too, was
+      arrested and taken to the town.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The trial took place eleven months later.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yakov Ivanitch looked much older and much thinner, and spoke in a low
+      voice like a sick man. He felt weak, pitiful, lower in stature that anyone
+      else, and it seemed as though his soul, too, like his body, had grown
+      older and wasted, from the pangs of his conscience and from the dreams and
+      imaginings which never left him all the while he was in prison. When it
+      came out that he did not go to church the president of the court asked
+      him:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you a dissenter?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can&rsquo;t tell,&rdquo; he answered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had no religion at all now; he knew nothing and understood nothing; and
+      his old belief was hateful to him now, and seemed to him darkness and
+      folly. Aglaia was not in the least subdued, and she still went on abusing
+      the dead man, blaming him for all their misfortunes. Sergey Nikanoritch
+      had grown a beard instead of whiskers. At the trial he was red and
+      perspiring, and was evidently ashamed of his grey prison coat and of
+      sitting on the same bench with humble peasants. He defended himself
+      awkwardly, and, trying to prove that he had not been to the tavern for a
+      whole year, got into an altercation with every witness, and the spectators
+      laughed at him. Dashutka had grown fat in prison. At the trial she did not
+      understand the questions put to her, and only said that when they killed
+      Uncle Matvey she was dreadfully frightened, but afterwards she did not
+      mind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All four were found guilty of murder with mercenary motives. Yakov
+      Ivanitch was sentenced to penal servitude for twenty years; Aglaia for
+      thirteen and a half; Sergey Nikanoritch to ten; Dashutka to six.
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      VII
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      Late one evening a foreign steamer stopped in the roads of Dué in Sahalin
+      and asked for coal. The captain was asked to wait till morning, but he did
+      not want to wait over an hour, saying that if the weather changed for the
+      worse in the night there would be a risk of his having to go off without
+      coal. In the Gulf of Tartary the weather is liable to violent changes in
+      the course of half an hour, and then the shores of Sahalin are dangerous.
+      And already it had turned fresh, and there was a considerable sea running.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A gang of convicts were sent to the mine from the Voevodsky prison, the
+      grimmest and most forbidding of all the prisons in Sahalin. The coal had
+      to be loaded upon barges, and then they had to be towed by a steam-cutter
+      alongside the steamer which was anchored more than a quarter of a mile
+      from the coast, and then the unloading and reloading had to begin&mdash;an
+      exhausting task when the barge kept rocking against the steamer and the
+      men could scarcely keep on their legs for sea-sickness. The convicts, only
+      just roused from their sleep, still drowsy, went along the shore,
+      stumbling in the darkness and clanking their fetters. On the left,
+      scarcely visible, was a tall, steep, extremely gloomy-looking cliff, while
+      on the right there was a thick impenetrable mist, in which the sea moaned
+      with a prolonged monotonous sound, &ldquo;Ah! . . . ah! . . . ah! . . . ah! . .
+      .&rdquo; And it was only when the overseer was lighting his pipe, casting as he
+      did so a passing ray of light on the escort with a gun and on the coarse
+      faces of two or three of the nearest convicts, or when he went with his
+      lantern close to the water that the white crests of the foremost waves
+      could be discerned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One of this gang was Yakov Ivanitch, nicknamed among the convicts the
+      &ldquo;Brush,&rdquo; on account of his long beard. No one had addressed him by his
+      name or his father&rsquo;s name for a long time now; they called him simply
+      Yashka.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was here in disgrace, as, three months after coming to Siberia, feeling
+      an intense irresistible longing for home, he had succumbed to temptation
+      and run away; he had soon been caught, had been sentenced to penal
+      servitude for life and given forty lashes. Then he was punished by
+      flogging twice again for losing his prison clothes, though on each
+      occasion they were stolen from him. The longing for home had begun from
+      the very time he had been brought to Odessa, and the convict train had
+      stopped in the night at Progonnaya; and Yakov, pressing to the window, had
+      tried to see his own home, and could see nothing in the darkness. He had
+      no one with whom to talk of home. His sister Aglaia had been sent right
+      across Siberia, and he did not know where she was now. Dashutka was in
+      Sahalin, but she had been sent to live with some ex-convict in a far away
+      settlement; there was no news of her except that once a settler who had
+      come to the Voevodsky Prison told Yakov that Dashutka had three children.
+      Sergey Nikanoritch was serving as a footman at a government official&rsquo;s at
+      Dué, but he could not reckon on ever seeing him, as he was ashamed of
+      being acquainted with convicts of the peasant class.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The gang reached the mine, and the men took their places on the quay. It
+      was said there would not be any loading, as the weather kept getting worse
+      and the steamer was meaning to set off. They could see three lights. One
+      of them was moving: that was the steam-cutter going to the steamer, and it
+      seemed to be coming back to tell them whether the work was to be done or
+      not. Shivering with the autumn cold and the damp sea mist, wrapping
+      himself in his short torn coat, Yakov Ivanitch looked intently without
+      blinking in the direction in which lay his home. Ever since he had lived
+      in prison together with men banished here from all ends of the earth&mdash;with
+      Russians, Ukrainians, Tatars, Georgians, Chinese, Gypsies, Jews&mdash; and
+      ever since he had listened to their talk and watched their sufferings, he
+      had begun to turn again to God, and it seemed to him at last that he had
+      learned the true faith for which all his family, from his grandmother
+      Avdotya down, had so thirsted, which they had sought so long and which
+      they had never found. He knew it all now and understood where God was, and
+      how He was to be served, and the only thing he could not understand was
+      why men&rsquo;s destinies were so diverse, why this simple faith which other men
+      receive from God for nothing and together with their lives, had cost him
+      such a price that his arms and legs trembled like a drunken man&rsquo;s from all
+      the horrors and agonies which as far as he could see would go on without a
+      break to the day of his death. He looked with strained eyes into the
+      darkness, and it seemed to him that through the thousand miles of that
+      mist he could see home, could see his native province, his district,
+      Progonnaya, could see the darkness, the savagery, the heartlessness, and
+      the dull, sullen, animal indifference of the men he had left there. His
+      eyes were dimmed with tears; but still he gazed into the distance where
+      the pale lights of the steamer faintly gleamed, and his heart ached with
+      yearning for home, and he longed to live, to go back home to tell them
+      there of his new faith and to save from ruin if only one man, and to live
+      without suffering if only for one day.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The cutter arrived, and the overseer announced in a loud voice that there
+      would be no loading.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Back!&rdquo; he commanded. &ldquo;Steady!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They could hear the hoisting of the anchor chain on the steamer. A strong
+      piercing wind was blowing by now; somewhere on the steep cliff overhead
+      the trees were creaking. Most likely a storm was coming.
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0006" id="link2H_4_0006"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <h2>
+      UPROOTED
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      <i>An Incident of My Travels</i>
+    </h3>
+    <p class="pfirst">
+      <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">I</span> WAS on my way
+      back from evening service. The clock in the belfry of the Svyatogorsky
+      Monastery pealed out its soft melodious chimes by way of prelude and then
+      struck twelve. The great courtyard of the monastery stretched out at the
+      foot of the Holy Mountains on the banks of the Donets, and, enclosed by
+      the high hostel buildings as by a wall, seemed now in the night, when it
+      was lighted up only by dim lanterns, lights in the windows, and the stars,
+      a living hotch-potch full of movement, sound, and the most original
+      confusion. From end to end, so far as the eye could see, it was all choked
+      up with carts, old-fashioned coaches and chaises, vans, tilt-carts, about
+      which stood crowds of horses, dark and white, and horned oxen, while
+      people bustled about, and black long-skirted lay brothers threaded their
+      way in and out in all directions. Shadows and streaks of light cast from
+      the windows moved over the carts and the heads of men and horses, and in
+      the dense twilight this all assumed the most monstrous capricious shapes:
+      here the tilted shafts stretched upwards to the sky, here eyes of fire
+      appeared in the face of a horse, there a lay brother grew a pair of black
+      wings. . . . There was the noise of talk, the snorting and munching of
+      horses, the creaking of carts, the whimpering of children. Fresh crowds
+      kept walking in at the gate and belated carts drove up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The pines which were piled up on the overhanging mountain, one above
+      another, and leaned towards the roof of the hostel, gazed into the
+      courtyard as into a deep pit, and listened in wonder; in their dark
+      thicket the cuckoos and nightingales never ceased calling. . . . Looking
+      at the confusion, listening to the uproar, one fancied that in this living
+      hotch-potch no one understood anyone, that everyone was looking for
+      something and would not find it, and that this multitude of carts, chaises
+      and human beings could not ever succeed in getting off.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      More than ten thousand people flocked to the Holy Mountains for the
+      festivals of St. John the Divine and St. Nikolay the wonder-worker. Not
+      only the hostel buildings, but even the bakehouse, the tailoring room, the
+      carpenter&rsquo;s shop, the carriage house, were filled to overflowing. . . .
+      Those who had arrived towards night clustered like flies in autumn, by the
+      walls, round the wells in the yard, or in the narrow passages of the
+      hostel, waiting to be shown a resting-place for the night. The lay
+      brothers, young and old, were in an incessant movement, with no rest or
+      hope of being relieved. By day or late at night they produced the same
+      impression of men hastening somewhere and agitated by something, yet, in
+      spite of their extreme exhaustion, their faces remained full of courage
+      and kindly welcome, their voices friendly, their movements rapid. . . .
+      For everyone who came they had to find a place to sleep, and to provide
+      food and drink; to those who were deaf, slow to understand, or profuse in
+      questions, they had to give long and wearisome explanations, to tell them
+      why there were no empty rooms, at what o&rsquo;clock the service was to be where
+      holy bread was sold, and so on. They had to run, to carry, to talk
+      incessantly, but more than that, they had to be polite, too, to be
+      tactful, to try to arrange that the Greeks from Mariupol, accustomed to
+      live more comfortably than the Little Russians, should be put with other
+      Greeks, that some shopkeeper from Bahmut or Lisitchansk, dressed like a
+      lady, should not be offended by being put with peasants. There were
+      continual cries of: &ldquo;Father, kindly give us some kvass! Kindly give us
+      some hay!&rdquo; or &ldquo;Father, may I drink water after confession?&rdquo; And the lay
+      brother would have to give out kvass or hay or to answer: &ldquo;Address
+      yourself to the priest, my good woman, we have not the authority to give
+      permission.&rdquo; Another question would follow, &ldquo;Where is the priest then?&rdquo;
+       and the lay brother would have to explain where was the priest&rsquo;s cell.
+      With all this bustling activity, he yet had to make time to go to service
+      in the church, to serve in the part devoted to the gentry, and to give
+      full answers to the mass of necessary and unnecessary questions which
+      pilgrims of the educated class are fond of showering about them. Watching
+      them during the course of twenty-four hours, I found it hard to imagine
+      when these black moving figures sat down and when they slept.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When, coming back from the evening service, I went to the hostel in which
+      a place had been assigned me, the monk in charge of the sleeping quarters
+      was standing in the doorway, and beside him, on the steps, was a group of
+      several men and women dressed like townsfolk.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sir,&rdquo; said the monk, stopping me, &ldquo;will you be so good as to allow this
+      young man to pass the night in your room? If you would do us the favour!
+      There are so many people and no place left&mdash;it is really dreadful!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And he indicated a short figure in a light overcoat and a straw hat. I
+      consented, and my chance companion followed me. Unlocking the little
+      padlock on my door, I was always, whether I wanted to or not, obliged to
+      look at the picture that hung on the doorpost on a level with my face.
+      This picture with the title, &ldquo;A Meditation on Death,&rdquo; depicted a monk on
+      his knees, gazing at a coffin and at a skeleton laying in it. Behind the
+      man&rsquo;s back stood another skeleton, somewhat more solid and carrying a
+      scythe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There are no bones like that,&rdquo; said my companion, pointing to the place
+      in the skeleton where there ought to have been a pelvis. &ldquo;Speaking
+      generally, you know, the spiritual fare provided for the people is not of
+      the first quality,&rdquo; he added, and heaved through his nose a long and very
+      melancholy sigh, meant to show me that I had to do with a man who really
+      knew something about spiritual fare.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While I was looking for the matches to light a candle he sighed once more
+      and said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When I was in Harkov I went several times to the anatomy theatre and saw
+      the bones there; I have even been in the mortuary. Am I not in your way?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      My room was small and poky, with neither table nor chairs in it, but quite
+      filled up with a chest of drawers by the window, the stove and two little
+      wooden sofas which stood against the walls, facing one another, leaving a
+      narrow space to walk between them. Thin rusty-looking little mattresses
+      lay on the little sofas, as well as my belongings. There were two sofas,
+      so this room was evidently intended for two, and I pointed out the fact to
+      my companion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They will soon be ringing for mass, though,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;and I shan&rsquo;t have
+      to be in your way very long.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Still under the impression that he was in my way and feeling awkward, he
+      moved with a guilty step to his little sofa, sighed guiltily and sat down.
+      When the tallow candle with its dim, dilatory flame had left off
+      flickering and burned up sufficiently to make us both visible, I could
+      make out what he was like. He was a young man of two-and-twenty, with a
+      round and pleasing face, dark childlike eyes, dressed like a townsman in
+      grey cheap clothes, and as one could judge from his complexion and narrow
+      shoulders, not used to manual labour. He was of a very indefinite type;
+      one could take him neither for a student nor for a man in trade, still
+      less for a workman. But looking at his attractive face and childlike
+      friendly eyes, I was unwilling to believe he was one of those vagabond
+      impostors with whom every conventual establishment where they give food
+      and lodging is flooded, and who give themselves out as divinity students,
+      expelled for standing up for justice, or for church singers who have lost
+      their voice. . . . There was something characteristic, typical, very
+      familiar in his face, but what exactly, I could not remember nor make out.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For a long time he sat silent, pondering. Probably because I had not shown
+      appreciation of his remarks about bones and the mortuary, he thought that
+      I was ill-humoured and displeased at his presence. Pulling a sausage out
+      of his pocket, he turned it about before his eyes and said irresolutely:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Excuse my troubling you, . . . have you a knife?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I gave him a knife.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The sausage is disgusting,&rdquo; he said, frowning and cutting himself off a
+      little bit. &ldquo;In the shop here they sell you rubbish and fleece you
+      horribly. . . . I would offer you a piece, but you would scarcely care to
+      consume it. Will you have some?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      In his language, too, there was something typical that had a very great
+      deal in common with what was characteristic in his face, but what it was
+      exactly I still could not decide. To inspire confidence and to show that I
+      was not ill-humoured, I took some of the proffered sausage. It certainly
+      was horrible; one needed the teeth of a good house-dog to deal with it. As
+      we worked our jaws we got into conversation; we began complaining to each
+      other of the lengthiness of the service.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The rule here approaches that of Mount Athos,&rdquo; I said; &ldquo;but at Athos the
+      night services last ten hours, and on great feast-days &mdash;fourteen!
+      You should go there for prayers!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; answered my companion, and he wagged his head, &ldquo;I have been here
+      for three weeks. And you know, every day services, every day services. On
+      ordinary days at midnight they ring for matins, at five o&rsquo;clock for early
+      mass, at nine o&rsquo;clock for late mass. Sleep is utterly out of the question.
+      In the daytime there are hymns of praise, special prayers, vespers. . . .
+      And when I was preparing for the sacrament I was simply dropping from
+      exhaustion.&rdquo; He sighed and went on: &ldquo;And it&rsquo;s awkward not to go to church.
+      . . . The monks give one a room, feed one, and, you know, one is ashamed
+      not to go. One wouldn&rsquo;t mind standing it for a day or two, perhaps, but
+      three weeks is too much&mdash;much too much! Are you here for long?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am going to-morrow evening.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But I am staying another fortnight.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But I thought it was not the rule to stay for so long here?&rdquo; I said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, that&rsquo;s true: if anyone stays too long, sponging on the monks, he is
+      asked to go. Judge for yourself, if the proletariat were allowed to stay
+      on here as long as they liked there would never be a room vacant, and they
+      would eat up the whole monastery. That&rsquo;s true. But the monks make an
+      exception for me, and I hope they won&rsquo;t turn me out for some time. You
+      know I am a convert.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You mean?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am a Jew baptized. . . . Only lately I have embraced orthodoxy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Now I understood what I had before been utterly unable to understand from
+      his face: his thick lips, and his way of twitching up the right corner of
+      his mouth and his right eyebrow, when he was talking, and that peculiar
+      oily brilliance of his eyes which is only found in Jews. I understood,
+      too, his phraseology. . . . From further conversation I learned that his
+      name was Alexandr Ivanitch, and had in the past been Isaac, that he was a
+      native of the Mogilev province, and that he had come to the Holy Mountains
+      from Novotcherkassk, where he had adopted the orthodox faith.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Having finished his sausage, Alexandr Ivanitch got up, and, raising his
+      right eyebrow, said his prayer before the ikon. The eyebrow remained up
+      when he sat down again on the little sofa and began giving me a brief
+      account of his long biography.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;From early childhood I cherished a love for learning,&rdquo; he began in a tone
+      which suggested he was not speaking of himself, but of some great man of
+      the past. &ldquo;My parents were poor Hebrews; they exist by buying and selling
+      in a small way; they live like beggars, you know, in filth. In fact, all
+      the people there are poor and superstitious; they don&rsquo;t like education,
+      because education, very naturally, turns a man away from religion. . . .
+      They are fearful fanatics. . . . Nothing would induce my parents to let me
+      be educated, and they wanted me to take to trade, too, and to know nothing
+      but the Talmud. . . . But you will agree, it is not everyone who can spend
+      his whole life struggling for a crust of bread, wallowing in filth, and
+      mumbling the Talmud. At times officers and country gentlemen would put up
+      at papa&rsquo;s inn, and they used to talk a great deal of things which in those
+      days I had never dreamed of; and, of course, it was alluring and moved me
+      to envy. I used to cry and entreat them to send me to school, but they
+      taught me to read Hebrew and nothing more. Once I found a Russian
+      newspaper, and took it home with me to make a kite of it. I was beaten for
+      it, though I couldn&rsquo;t read Russian. Of course, fanaticism is inevitable,
+      for every people instinctively strives to preserve its nationality, but I
+      did not know that then and was very indignant. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Having made such an intellectual observation, Isaac, as he had been,
+      raised his right eyebrow higher than ever in his satisfaction and looked
+      at me, as it were, sideways, like a cock at a grain of corn, with an air
+      as though he would say: &ldquo;Now at last you see for certain that I am an
+      intellectual man, don&rsquo;t you?&rdquo; After saying something more about fanaticism
+      and his irresistible yearning for enlightenment, he went on:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What could I do? I ran away to Smolensk. And there I had a cousin who
+      relined saucepans and made tins. Of course, I was glad to work under him,
+      as I had nothing to live upon; I was barefoot and in rags. . . . I thought
+      I could work by day and study at night and on Saturdays. And so I did, but
+      the police found out I had no passport and sent me back by stages to my
+      father. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Alexandr Ivanitch shrugged one shoulder and sighed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What was one to do?&rdquo; he went on, and the more vividly the past rose up
+      before his mind, the more marked his Jewish accent became. &ldquo;My parents
+      punished me and handed me over to my grandfather, a fanatical old Jew, to
+      be reformed. But I went off at night to Shklov. And when my uncle tried to
+      catch me in Shklov, I went off to Mogilev; there I stayed two days and
+      then I went off to Starodub with a comrade.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Later on he mentioned in his story Gonel, Kiev, Byelaya, Tserkov, Uman,
+      Balt, Bendery and at last reached Odessa.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In Odessa I wandered about for a whole week, out of work and hungry, till
+      I was taken in by some Jews who went about the town buying second-hand
+      clothes. I knew how to read and write by then, and had done arithmetic up
+      to fractions, and I wanted to go to study somewhere, but I had not the
+      means. What was I to do? For six months I went about Odessa buying old
+      clothes, but the Jews paid me no wages, the rascals. I resented it and
+      left them. Then I went by steamer to Perekop.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What for?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, nothing. A Greek promised me a job there. In short, till I was
+      sixteen I wandered about like that with no definite work and no roots till
+      I got to Poltava. There a student, a Jew, found out that I wanted to
+      study, and gave me a letter to the Harkov students. Of course, I went to
+      Harkov. The students consulted together and began to prepare me for the
+      technical school. And, you know, I must say the students that I met there
+      were such that I shall never forget them to the day of my death. To say
+      nothing of their giving me food and lodging, they set me on the right
+      path, they made me think, showed me the object of life. Among them were
+      intellectual remarkable people who by now are celebrated. For instance,
+      you have heard of Grumaher, haven&rsquo;t you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, I haven&rsquo;t.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You haven&rsquo;t! He wrote very clever articles in the <i>Harkov Gazette</i>,
+      and was preparing to be a professor. Well, I read a great deal and
+      attended the student&rsquo;s societies, where you hear nothing that is
+      commonplace. I was working up for six months, but as one has to have been
+      through the whole high-school course of mathematics to enter the technical
+      school, Grumaher advised me to try for the veterinary institute, where
+      they admit high-school boys from the sixth form. Of course, I began
+      working for it. I did not want to be a veterinary surgeon but they told me
+      that after finishing the course at the veterinary institute I should be
+      admitted to the faculty of medicine without examination. I learnt all
+      Kühner; I could read Cornelius Nepos, <i>à livre ouvert</i>; and in Greek
+      I read through almost all Curtius. But, you know, one thing and another, .
+      . . the students leaving and the uncertainty of my position, and then I
+      heard that my mamma had come and was looking for me all over Harkov. Then
+      I went away. What was I to do? But luckily I learned that there was a
+      school of mines here on the Donets line. Why should I not enter that? You
+      know the school of mines qualifies one as a mining foreman&mdash;a
+      splendid berth. I know of mines where the foremen get a salary of fifteen
+      hundred a year. Capital. . . . I entered it. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      With an expression of reverent awe on his face Alexandr Ivanitch
+      enumerated some two dozen abstruse sciences in which instruction was given
+      at the school of mines; he described the school itself, the construction
+      of the shafts, and the condition of the miners. . . . Then he told me a
+      terrible story which sounded like an invention, though I could not help
+      believing it, for his tone in telling it was too genuine and the
+      expression of horror on his Semitic face was too evidently sincere.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;While I was doing the practical work, I had such an accident one day!&rdquo; he
+      said, raising both eyebrows. &ldquo;I was at a mine here in the Donets district.
+      You have seen, I dare say, how people are let down into the mine. You
+      remember when they start the horse and set the gates moving one bucket on
+      the pulley goes down into the mine, while the other comes up; when the
+      first begins to come up, then the second goes down&mdash;exactly like a
+      well with two pails. Well, one day I got into the bucket, began going
+      down, and can you fancy, all at once I heard, Trrr! The chain had broken
+      and I flew to the devil together with the bucket and the broken bit of
+      chain. . . . I fell from a height of twenty feet, flat on my chest and
+      stomach, while the bucket, being heavier, reached the bottom before me,
+      and I hit this shoulder here against its edge. I lay, you know, stunned. I
+      thought I was killed, and all at once I saw a fresh calamity: the other
+      bucket, which was going up, having lost the counter-balancing weight, was
+      coming down with a crash straight upon me. . . . What was I to do? Seeing
+      the position, I squeezed closer to the wall, crouching and waiting for the
+      bucket to come full crush next minute on my head. I thought of papa and
+      mamma and Mogilev and Grumaher. . . . I prayed. . . . But happily . . . it
+      frightens me even to think of it. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Alexandr Ivanitch gave a constrained smile and rubbed his forehead with
+      his hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But happily it fell beside me and only caught this side a little. . . .
+      It tore off coat, shirt and skin, you know, from this side. . . . The
+      force of it was terrific. I was unconscious after it. They got me out and
+      sent me to the hospital. I was there four months, and the doctors there
+      said I should go into consumption. I always have a cough now and a pain in
+      my chest. And my psychic condition is terrible. . . . When I am alone in a
+      room I feel overcome with terror. Of course, with my health in that state,
+      to be a mining foreman is out of the question. I had to give up the school
+      of mines. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And what are you doing now?&rdquo; I asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have passed my examination as a village schoolmaster. Now I belong to
+      the orthodox church, and I have a right to be a teacher. In
+      Novotcherkassk, where I was baptized, they took a great interest in me and
+      promised me a place in a church parish school. I am going there in a
+      fortnight, and shall ask again.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Alexandr Ivanitch took off his overcoat and remained in a shirt with an
+      embroidered Russian collar and a worsted belt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is time for bed,&rdquo; he said, folding his overcoat for a pillow, and
+      yawning. &ldquo;Till lately, you know, I had no knowledge of God at all. I was
+      an atheist. When I was lying in the hospital I thought of religion, and
+      began reflecting on that subject. In my opinion, there is only one
+      religion possible for a thinking man, and that is the Christian religion.
+      If you don&rsquo;t believe in Christ, then there is nothing else to believe in,
+      . . . is there? Judaism has outlived its day, and is preserved only owing
+      to the peculiarities of the Jewish race. When civilization reaches the
+      Jews there will not be a trace of Judaism left. All young Jews are
+      atheists now, observe. The New Testament is the natural continuation of
+      the Old, isn&rsquo;t it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I began trying to find out the reasons which had led him to take so grave
+      and bold a step as the change of religion, but he kept repeating the same,
+      &ldquo;The New Testament is the natural continuation of the Old&rdquo;&mdash;a formula
+      obviously not his own, but acquired&mdash; which did not explain the
+      question in the least. In spite of my efforts and artifices, the reasons
+      remained obscure. If one could believe that he had embraced Orthodoxy from
+      conviction, as he said he had done, what was the nature and foundation of
+      this conviction it was impossible to grasp from his words. It was equally
+      impossible to assume that he had changed his religion from interested
+      motives: his cheap shabby clothes, his going on living at the expense of
+      the convent, and the uncertainty of his future, did not look like
+      interested motives. There was nothing for it but to accept the idea that
+      my companion had been impelled to change his religion by the same restless
+      spirit which had flung him like a chip of wood from town to town, and
+      which he, using the generally accepted formula, called the craving for
+      enlightenment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Before going to bed I went into the corridor to get a drink of water. When
+      I came back my companion was standing in the middle of the room, and he
+      looked at me with a scared expression. His face looked a greyish white,
+      and there were drops of perspiration on his forehead.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My nerves are in an awful state,&rdquo; he muttered with a sickly smile,&rdquo;
+       awful! It&rsquo;s acute psychological disturbance. But that&rsquo;s of no
+      consequence.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And he began reasoning again that the New Testament was a natural
+      continuation of the Old, that Judaism has outlived its day. . . . Picking
+      out his phrases, he seemed to be trying to put together the forces of his
+      conviction and to smother with them the uneasiness of his soul, and to
+      prove to himself that in giving up the religion of his fathers he had done
+      nothing dreadful or peculiar, but had acted as a thinking man free from
+      prejudice, and that therefore he could boldly remain in a room all alone
+      with his conscience. He was trying to convince himself, and with his eyes
+      besought my assistance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Meanwhile a big clumsy wick had burned up on our tallow candle. It was by
+      now getting light. At the gloomy little window, which was turning blue, we
+      could distinctly see both banks of the Donets River and the oak copse
+      beyond the river. It was time to sleep.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It will be very interesting here to-morrow,&rdquo; said my companion when I put
+      out the candle and went to bed. &ldquo;After early mass, the procession will go
+      in boats from the Monastery to the Hermitage.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Raising his right eyebrow and putting his head on one side, he prayed
+      before the ikons, and, without undressing, lay down on his little sofa.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; he said, turning over on the other side.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why yes?&rdquo; I asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When I accepted orthodoxy in Novotcherkassk my mother was looking for me
+      in Rostov. She felt that I meant to change my religion,&rdquo; he sighed, and
+      went on: &ldquo;It is six years since I was there in the province of Mogilev. My
+      sister must be married by now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      After a short silence, seeing that I was still awake, he began talking
+      quietly of how they soon, thank God, would give him a job, and that at
+      last he would have a home of his own, a settled position, his daily bread
+      secure. . . . And I was thinking that this man would never have a home of
+      his own, nor a settled position, nor his daily bread secure. He dreamed
+      aloud of a village school as of the Promised Land; like the majority of
+      people, he had a prejudice against a wandering life, and regarded it as
+      something exceptional, abnormal and accidental, like an illness, and was
+      looking for salvation in ordinary workaday life. The tone of his voice
+      betrayed that he was conscious of his abnormal position and regretted it.
+      He seemed as it were apologizing and justifying himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Not more than a yard from me lay a homeless wanderer; in the rooms of the
+      hostels and by the carts in the courtyard among the pilgrims some hundreds
+      of such homeless wanderers were waiting for the morning, and further away,
+      if one could picture to oneself the whole of Russia, a vast multitude of
+      such uprooted creatures was pacing at that moment along highroads and
+      side-tracks, seeking something better, or were waiting for the dawn,
+      asleep in wayside inns and little taverns, or on the grass under the open
+      sky. . . . As I fell asleep I imagined how amazed and perhaps even
+      overjoyed all these people would have been if reasoning and words could be
+      found to prove to them that their life was as little in need of
+      justification as any other. In my sleep I heard a bell ring outside as
+      plaintively as though shedding bitter tears, and the lay brother calling
+      out several times:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy upon us! Come to mass!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      When I woke up my companion was not in the room. It was sunny and there
+      was a murmur of the crowds through the window. Going out, I learned that
+      mass was over and that the procession had set off for the Hermitage some
+      time before. The people were wandering in crowds upon the river bank and,
+      feeling at liberty, did not know what to do with themselves: they could
+      not eat or drink, as the late mass was not yet over at the Hermitage; the
+      Monastery shops where pilgrims are so fond of crowding and asking prices
+      were still shut. In spite of their exhaustion, many of them from sheer
+      boredom were trudging to the Hermitage. The path from the Monastery to the
+      Hermitage, towards which I directed my steps, twined like a snake along
+      the high steep bank, going up and down and threading in and out among the
+      oaks and pines. Below, the Donets gleamed, reflecting the sun; above, the
+      rugged chalk cliff stood up white with bright green on the top from the
+      young foliage of oaks and pines, which, hanging one above another, managed
+      somehow to grow on the vertical cliff without falling. The pilgrims
+      trailed along the path in single file, one behind another. The majority of
+      them were Little Russians from the neighbouring districts, but there were
+      many from a distance, too, who had come on foot from the provinces of
+      Kursk and Orel; in the long string of varied colours there were Greek
+      settlers, too, from Mariupol, strongly built, sedate and friendly people,
+      utterly unlike their weakly and degenerate compatriots who fill our
+      southern seaside towns. There were men from the Donets, too, with red
+      stripes on their breeches, and emigrants from the Tavritchesky province.
+      There were a good many pilgrims of a nondescript class, like my Alexandr
+      Ivanitch; what sort of people they were and where they came from it was
+      impossible to tell from their faces, from their clothes, or from their
+      speech. The path ended at the little landing-stage, from which a narrow
+      road went to the left to the Hermitage, cutting its way through the
+      mountain. At the landing-stage stood two heavy big boats of a forbidding
+      aspect, like the New Zealand pirogues which one may see in the works of
+      Jules Verne. One boat with rugs on the seats was destined for the clergy
+      and the singers, the other without rugs for the public. When the
+      procession was returning I found myself among the elect who had succeeded
+      in squeezing themselves into the second. There were so many of the elect
+      that the boat scarcely moved, and one had to stand all the way without
+      stirring and to be careful that one&rsquo;s hat was not crushed. The route was
+      lovely. Both banks&mdash;one high, steep and white, with overhanging pines
+      and oaks, with the crowds hurrying back along the path, and the other
+      shelving, with green meadows and an oak copse bathed in sunshine&mdash;looked
+      as happy and rapturous as though the May morning owed its charm only to
+      them. The reflection of the sun in the rapidly flowing Donets quivered and
+      raced away in all directions, and its long rays played on the chasubles,
+      on the banners and on the drops splashed up by the oars. The singing of
+      the Easter hymns, the ringing of the bells, the splash of the oars in the
+      water, the calls of the birds, all mingled in the air into something
+      tender and harmonious. The boat with the priests and the banners led the
+      way; at its helm the black figure of a lay brother stood motionless as a
+      statue.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When the procession was getting near the Monastery, I noticed Alexandr
+      Ivanitch among the elect. He was standing in front of them all, and, his
+      mouth wide open with pleasure and his right eyebrow cocked up, was gazing
+      at the procession. His face was beaming; probably at such moments, when
+      there were so many people round him and it was so bright, he was satisfied
+      with himself, his new religion, and his conscience.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When a little later we were sitting in our room, drinking tea, he still
+      beamed with satisfaction; his face showed that he was satisfied both with
+      the tea and with me, that he fully appreciated my being an intellectual,
+      but that he would know how to play his part with credit if any
+      intellectual topic turned up. . . .
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tell me, what psychology ought I to read?&rdquo; he began an intellectual
+      conversation, wrinkling up his nose.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, what do you want it for?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;One cannot be a teacher without a knowledge of psychology. Before
+      teaching a boy I ought to understand his soul.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I told him that psychology alone would not be enough to make one
+      understand a boy&rsquo;s soul, and moreover psychology for a teacher who had not
+      yet mastered the technical methods of instruction in reading, writing, and
+      arithmetic would be a luxury as superfluous as the higher mathematics. He
+      readily agreed with me, and began describing how hard and responsible was
+      the task of a teacher, how hard it was to eradicate in the boy the
+      habitual tendency to evil and superstition, to make him think honestly and
+      independently, to instil into him true religion, the ideas of personal
+      dignity, of freedom, and so on. In answer to this I said something to him.
+      He agreed again. He agreed very readily, in fact. Obviously his brain had
+      not a very firm grasp of all these &ldquo;intellectual subjects.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Up to the time of my departure we strolled together about the Monastery,
+      whiling away the long hot day. He never left my side a minute; whether he
+      had taken a fancy to me or was afraid of solitude, God only knows! I
+      remember we sat together under a clump of yellow acacia in one of the
+      little gardens that are scattered on the mountain side.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am leaving here in a fortnight,&rdquo; he said; &ldquo;it is high time.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you going on foot?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;From here to Slavyansk I shall walk, then by railway to Nikitovka; from
+      Nikitovka the Donets line branches off, and along that branch line I shall
+      walk as far as Hatsepetovka, and there a railway guard, I know, will help
+      me on my way.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I thought of the bare, deserted steppe between Nikitovka and Hatsepetovka,
+      and pictured to myself Alexandr Ivanitch striding along it, with his
+      doubts, his homesickness, and his fear of solitude . . . . He read boredom
+      in my face, and sighed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And my sister must be married by now,&rdquo; he said, thinking aloud, and at
+      once, to shake off melancholy thoughts, pointed to the top of the rock and
+      said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;From that mountain one can see Izyum.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      As we were walking up the mountain he had a little misfortune. I suppose
+      he stumbled, for he slit his cotton trousers and tore the sole of his
+      shoe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tss!&rdquo; he said, frowning as he took off a shoe and exposed a bare foot
+      without a stocking. &ldquo;How unpleasant! . . . That&rsquo;s a complication, you
+      know, which . . . Yes!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Turning the shoe over and over before his eyes, as though unable to
+      believe that the sole was ruined for ever, he spent a long time frowning,
+      sighing, and clicking with his tongue.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I had in my trunk a pair of boots, old but fashionable, with pointed toes
+      and laces. I had brought them with me in case of need, and only wore them
+      in wet weather. When we got back to our room I made up a phrase as
+      diplomatic as I could and offered him these boots. He accepted them and
+      said with dignity:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I should thank you, but I know that you consider thanks a convention.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He was pleased as a child with the pointed toes and the laces, and even
+      changed his plans.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now I shall go to Novotcherkassk in a week, and not in a fortnight,&rdquo; he
+      said, thinking aloud. &ldquo;In shoes like these I shall not be ashamed to show
+      myself to my godfather. I was not going away from here just because I
+      hadn&rsquo;t any decent clothes. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      When the coachman was carrying out my trunk, a lay brother with a good
+      ironical face came in to sweep out the room. Alexandr Ivanitch seemed
+      flustered and embarrassed and asked him timidly:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Am I to stay here or go somewhere else?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He could not make up his mind to occupy a whole room to himself, and
+      evidently by now was feeling ashamed of living at the expense of the
+      Monastery. He was very reluctant to part from me; to put off being lonely
+      as long as possible, he asked leave to see me on my way.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The road from the Monastery, which had been excavated at the cost of no
+      little labour in the chalk mountain, moved upwards, going almost like a
+      spiral round the mountain, over roots and under sullen overhanging pines.
+      . . .
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Donets was the first to vanish from our sight, after it the Monastery
+      yard with its thousands of people, and then the green roofs. . . . Since I
+      was mounting upwards everything seemed vanishing into a pit. The cross on
+      the church, burnished by the rays of the setting sun, gleamed brightly in
+      the abyss and vanished. Nothing was left but the oaks, the pines, and the
+      white road. But then our carriage came out on a level country, and that
+      was all left below and behind us. Alexandr Ivanitch jumped out and,
+      smiling mournfully, glanced at me for the last time with his childish
+      eyes, and vanished from me for ever. . . .
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The impressions of the Holy Mountains had already become memories, and I
+      saw something new: the level plain, the whitish-brown distance, the way
+      side copse, and beyond it a windmill which stood with out moving, and
+      seemed bored at not being allowed to wave its sails because it was a
+      holiday.
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0007" id="link2H_4_0007"> </a>
+    </p>
+    <h2>
+      THE STEPPE
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      <i>The Story of a Journey</i>
+    </h3>
+    <h3>
+      I
+    </h3>
+    <p class="pfirst">
+      <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">E</span>ARLY one morning
+      in July a shabby covered chaise, one of those antediluvian chaises without
+      springs in which no one travels in Russia nowadays, except merchant&rsquo;s
+      clerks, dealers and the less well-to-do among priests, drove out of N.,
+      the principal town of the province of Z., and rumbled noisily along the
+      posting-track. It rattled and creaked at every movement; the pail, hanging
+      on behind, chimed in gruffly, and from these sounds alone and from the
+      wretched rags of leather hanging loose about its peeling body one could
+      judge of its decrepit age and readiness to drop to pieces.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Two of the inhabitants of N. were sitting in the chaise; they were a
+      merchant of N. called Ivan Ivanitch Kuzmitchov, a man with a shaven face
+      wearing glasses and a straw hat, more like a government clerk than a
+      merchant, and Father Christopher Sireysky, the priest of the Church of St.
+      Nikolay at N., a little old man with long hair, in a grey canvas cassock,
+      a wide-brimmed top-hat and a coloured embroidered girdle. The former was
+      absorbed in thought, and kept tossing his head to shake off drowsiness; in
+      his countenance an habitual business-like reserve was struggling with the
+      genial expression of a man who has just said good-bye to his relatives and
+      has had a good drink at parting. The latter gazed with moist eyes
+      wonderingly at God&rsquo;s world, and his smile was so broad that it seemed to
+      embrace even the brim of his hat; his face was red and looked frozen. Both
+      of them, Father Christopher as well as Kuzmitchov, were going to sell
+      wool. At parting with their families they had just eaten heartily of
+      pastry puffs and cream, and although it was so early in the morning had
+      had a glass or two. . . . Both were in the best of humours.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Apart from the two persons described above and the coachman Deniska, who
+      lashed the pair of frisky bay horses, there was another figure in the
+      chaise&mdash;a boy of nine with a sunburnt face, wet with tears. This was
+      Yegorushka, Kuzmitchov&rsquo;s nephew. With the sanction of his uncle and the
+      blessing of Father Christopher, he was now on his way to go to school. His
+      mother, Olga Ivanovna, the widow of a collegiate secretary, and
+      Kuzmitchov&rsquo;s sister, who was fond of educated people and refined society,
+      had entreated her brother to take Yegorushka with him when he went to sell
+      wool and to put him to school; and now the boy was sitting on the box
+      beside the coachman Deniska, holding on to his elbow to keep from falling
+      off, and dancing up and down like a kettle on the hob, with no notion
+      where he was going or what he was going for. The rapid motion through the
+      air blew out his red shirt like a balloon on his back and made his new hat
+      with a peacock&rsquo;s feather in it, like a coachman&rsquo;s, keep slipping on to the
+      back of his head. He felt himself an intensely unfortunate person, and had
+      an inclination to cry.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When the chaise drove past the prison, Yegorushka glanced at the sentinels
+      pacing slowly by the high white walls, at the little barred windows, at
+      the cross shining on the roof, and remembered how the week before, on the
+      day of the Holy Mother of Kazan, he had been with his mother to the prison
+      church for the Dedication Feast, and how before that, at Easter, he had
+      gone to the prison with Deniska and Ludmila the cook, and had taken the
+      prisoners Easter bread, eggs, cakes and roast beef. The prisoners had
+      thanked them and made the sign of the cross, and one of them had given
+      Yegorushka a pewter buckle of his own making.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The boy gazed at the familiar places, while the hateful chaise flew by and
+      left them all behind. After the prison he caught glimpses of black grimy
+      foundries, followed by the snug green cemetery surrounded by a wall of
+      cobblestones; white crosses and tombstones, nestling among green
+      cherry-trees and looking in the distance like patches of white, peeped out
+      gaily from behind the wall. Yegorushka remembered that when the cherries
+      were in blossom those white patches melted with the flowers into a sea of
+      white; and that when the cherries were ripe the white tombstones and
+      crosses were dotted with splashes of red like bloodstains. Under the
+      cherry trees in the cemetery Yegorushka&rsquo;s father and granny, Zinaida
+      Danilovna, lay sleeping day and night. When Granny had died she had been
+      put in a long narrow coffin and two pennies had been put upon her eyes,
+      which would not keep shut. Up to the time of her death she had been brisk,
+      and used to bring soft rolls covered with poppy seeds from the market. Now
+      she did nothing but sleep and sleep. . . .
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Beyond the cemetery came the smoking brickyards. From under the long roofs
+      of reeds that looked as though pressed flat to the ground, a thick black
+      smoke rose in great clouds and floated lazily upwards. The sky was murky
+      above the brickyards and the cemetery, and great shadows from the clouds
+      of smoke crept over the fields and across the roads. Men and horses
+      covered with red dust were moving about in the smoke near the roofs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The town ended with the brickyards and the open country began. Yegorushka
+      looked at the town for the last time, pressed his face against Deniska&rsquo;s
+      elbow, and wept bitterly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come, not done howling yet, cry-baby!&rdquo; cried Kuzmitchov. &ldquo;You are
+      blubbering again, little milksop! If you don&rsquo;t want to go, stay behind; no
+      one is taking you by force!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Never mind, never mind, Yegor boy, never mind,&rdquo; Father Christopher
+      muttered rapidly&mdash;&ldquo;never mind, my boy. . . . Call upon God. . . . You
+      are not going for your harm, but for your good. Learning is light, as the
+      saying is, and ignorance is darkness. . . . That is so, truly.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you want to go back?&rdquo; asked Kuzmitchov.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, . . . yes, . . .&rdquo; answered Yegorushka, sobbing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, you&rsquo;d better go back then. Anyway, you are going for nothing; it&rsquo;s
+      a day&rsquo;s journey for a spoonful of porridge.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Never mind, never mind, my boy,&rdquo; Father Christopher went on. &ldquo;Call upon
+      God. . . . Lomonosov set off with the fishermen in the same way, and he
+      became a man famous all over Europe. Learning in conjunction with faith
+      brings forth fruit pleasing to God. What are the words of the prayer? For
+      the glory of our Maker, for the comfort of our parents, for the benefit of
+      our Church and our country. . . . Yes, indeed!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The benefit is not the same in all cases,&rdquo; said Kuzmitchov, lighting a
+      cheap cigar; &ldquo;some will study twenty years and get no sense from it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That does happen.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Learning is a benefit to some, but others only muddle their brains. My
+      sister is a woman who does not understand; she is set upon refinement, and
+      wants to turn Yegorka into a learned man, and she does not understand that
+      with my business I could settle Yegorka happily for the rest of his life.
+      I tell you this, that if everyone were to go in for being learned and
+      refined there would be no one to sow the corn and do the trading; they
+      would all die of hunger.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And if all go in for trading and sowing corn there will be no one to
+      acquire learning.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And considering that each of them had said something weighty and
+      convincing, Kuzmitchov and Father Christopher both looked serious and
+      cleared their throats simultaneously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Deniska, who had been listening to their conversation without
+      understanding a word of it, shook his head and, rising in his seat, lashed
+      at both the bays. A silence followed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Meanwhile a wide boundless plain encircled by a chain of low hills lay
+      stretched before the travellers&rsquo; eyes. Huddling together and peeping out
+      from behind one another, these hills melted together into rising ground,
+      which stretched right to the very horizon and disappeared into the lilac
+      distance; one drives on and on and cannot discern where it begins or where
+      it ends. . . . The sun had already peeped out from beyond the town behind
+      them, and quietly, without fuss, set to its accustomed task. At first in
+      the distance before them a broad, bright, yellow streak of light crept
+      over the ground where the earth met the sky, near the little barrows and
+      the windmills, which in the distance looked like tiny men waving their
+      arms. A minute later a similar streak gleamed a little nearer, crept to
+      the right and embraced the hills. Something warm touched Yegorushka&rsquo;s
+      spine; the streak of light, stealing up from behind, darted between the
+      chaise and the horses, moved to meet the other streak, and soon the whole
+      wide steppe flung off the twilight of early morning, and was smiling and
+      sparkling with dew.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The cut rye, the coarse steppe grass, the milkwort, the wild hemp, all
+      withered from the sultry heat, turned brown and half dead, now washed by
+      the dew and caressed by the sun, revived, to fade again. Arctic petrels
+      flew across the road with joyful cries; marmots called to one another in
+      the grass. Somewhere, far away to the left, lapwings uttered their
+      plaintive notes. A covey of partridges, scared by the chaise, fluttered up
+      and with their soft &ldquo;trrrr!&rdquo; flew off to the hills. In the grass crickets,
+      locusts and grasshoppers kept up their churring, monotonous music.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But a little time passed, the dew evaporated, the air grew stagnant, and
+      the disillusioned steppe began to wear its jaded July aspect. The grass
+      drooped, everything living was hushed. The sun-baked hills, brownish-green
+      and lilac in the distance, with their quiet shadowy tones, the plain with
+      the misty distance and, arched above them, the sky, which seems terribly
+      deep and transparent in the steppes, where there are no woods or high
+      hills, seemed now endless, petrified with dreariness. . . .
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      How stifling and oppressive it was! The chaise raced along, while
+      Yegorushka saw always the same&mdash;the sky, the plain, the low hills . .
+      . . The music in the grass was hushed, the petrels had flown away, the
+      partridges were out of sight, rooks hovered idly over the withered grass;
+      they were all alike and made the steppe even more monotonous.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A hawk flew just above the ground, with an even sweep of its wings,
+      suddenly halted in the air as though pondering on the dreariness of life,
+      then fluttered its wings and flew like an arrow over the steppe, and there
+      was no telling why it flew off and what it wanted. In the distance a
+      windmill waved its sails. . . .
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now and then a glimpse of a white potsherd or a heap of stones broke the
+      monotony; a grey stone stood out for an instant or a parched willow with a
+      blue crow on its top branch; a marmot would run across the road and&mdash;again
+      there flitted before the eyes only the high grass, the low hills, the
+      rooks. . . .
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But at last, thank God, a waggon loaded with sheaves came to meet them; a
+      peasant wench was lying on the very top. Sleepy, exhausted by the heat,
+      she lifted her head and looked at the travellers. Deniska gaped, looking
+      at her; the horses stretched out their noses towards the sheaves; the
+      chaise, squeaking, kissed the waggon, and the pointed ears passed over
+      Father Christopher&rsquo;s hat like a brush.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are driving over folks, fatty!&rdquo; cried Deniska. &ldquo;What a swollen lump
+      of a face, as though a bumble-bee had stung it!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The girl smiled drowsily, and moving her lips lay down again; then a
+      solitary poplar came into sight on the low hill. Someone had planted it,
+      and God only knows why it was there. It was hard to tear the eyes away
+      from its graceful figure and green drapery. Was that lovely creature
+      happy? Sultry heat in summer, in winter frost and snowstorms, terrible
+      nights in autumn when nothing is to be seen but darkness and nothing is to
+      be heard but the senseless angry howling wind, and, worst of all, alone,
+      alone for the whole of life . . . . Beyond the poplar stretches of wheat
+      extended like a bright yellow carpet from the road to the top of the
+      hills. On the hills the corn was already cut and laid up in sheaves, while
+      at the bottom they were still cutting. . . . Six mowers were standing in a
+      row swinging their scythes, and the scythes gleamed gaily and uttered in
+      unison together &ldquo;Vzhee, vzhee!&rdquo; From the movements of the peasant women
+      binding the sheaves, from the faces of the mowers, from the glitter of the
+      scythes, it could be seen that the sultry heat was baking and stifling. A
+      black dog with its tongue hanging out ran from the mowers to meet the
+      chaise, probably with the intention of barking, but stopped halfway and
+      stared indifferently at Deniska, who shook his whip at him; it was too hot
+      to bark! One peasant woman got up and, putting both hands to her aching
+      back, followed Yegorushka&rsquo;s red shirt with her eyes. Whether it was that
+      the colour pleased her or that he reminded her of her children, she stood
+      a long time motionless staring after him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But now the wheat, too, had flashed by; again the parched plain, the
+      sunburnt hills, the sultry sky stretched before them; again a hawk hovered
+      over the earth. In the distance, as before, a windmill whirled its sails,
+      and still it looked like a little man waving his arms. It was wearisome to
+      watch, and it seemed as though one would never reach it, as though it were
+      running away from the chaise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Father Christopher and Kuzmitchov were silent. Deniska lashed the horses
+      and kept shouting to them, while Yegorushka had left off crying, and gazed
+      about him listlessly. The heat and the tedium of the steppes overpowered
+      him. He felt as though he had been travelling and jolting up and down for
+      a very long time, that the sun had been baking his back a long time.
+      Before they had gone eight miles he began to feel &ldquo;It must be time to
+      rest.&rdquo; The geniality gradually faded out of his uncle&rsquo;s face and nothing
+      else was left but the air of business reserve; and to a gaunt shaven face,
+      especially when it is adorned with spectacles and the nose and temples are
+      covered with dust, this reserve gives a relentless, inquisitorial
+      appearance. Father Christopher never left off gazing with wonder at God&rsquo;s
+      world, and smiling. Without speaking, he brooded over something pleasant
+      and nice, and a kindly, genial smile remained imprinted on his face. It
+      seemed as though some nice and pleasant thought were imprinted on his
+      brain by the heat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, Deniska, shall we overtake the waggons to-day?&rdquo; asked Kuzmitchov.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Deniska looked at the sky, rose in his seat, lashed at his horses and then
+      answered:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;By nightfall, please God, we shall overtake them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a sound of dogs barking. Half a dozen steppe sheep-dogs,
+      suddenly leaping out as though from ambush, with ferocious howling barks,
+      flew to meet the chaise. All of them, extraordinarily furious, surrounded
+      the chaise, with their shaggy spider-like muzzles and their eyes red with
+      anger, and jostling against one another in their anger, raised a hoarse
+      howl. They were filled with passionate hatred of the horses, of the
+      chaise, and of the human beings, and seemed ready to tear them into
+      pieces. Deniska, who was fond of teasing and beating, was delighted at the
+      chance of it, and with a malignant expression bent over and lashed at the
+      sheep-dogs with his whip. The brutes growled more than ever, the horses
+      flew on; and Yegorushka, who had difficulty in keeping his seat on the
+      box, realized, looking at the dogs&rsquo; eyes and teeth, that if he fell down
+      they would instantly tear him to bits; but he felt no fear and looked at
+      them as malignantly as Deniska, and regretted that he had no whip in his
+      hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The chaise came upon a flock of sheep.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Stop!&rdquo; cried Kuzmitchov. &ldquo;Pull up! Woa!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Deniska threw his whole body backwards and pulled up the horses.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come here!&rdquo; Kuzmitchov shouted to the shepherd. &ldquo;Call off the dogs, curse
+      them!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The old shepherd, tattered and barefoot, wearing a fur cap, with a dirty
+      sack round his loins and a long crook in his hand&mdash;a regular figure
+      from the Old Testament&mdash;called off the dogs, and taking off his cap,
+      went up to the chaise. Another similar Old Testament figure was standing
+      motionless at the other end of the flock, staring without interest at the
+      travellers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Whose sheep are these?&rdquo; asked Kuzmitchov.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Varlamov&rsquo;s,&rdquo; the old man answered in a loud voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Varlamov&rsquo;s,&rdquo; repeated the shepherd standing at the other end of the
+      flock.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did Varlamov come this way yesterday or not?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He did not; his clerk came. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Drive on!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The chaise rolled on and the shepherds, with their angry dogs, were left
+      behind. Yegorushka gazed listlessly at the lilac distance in front, and it
+      began to seem as though the windmill, waving its sails, were getting
+      nearer. It became bigger and bigger, grew quite large, and now he could
+      distinguish clearly its two sails. One sail was old and patched, the other
+      had only lately been made of new wood and glistened in the sun. The chaise
+      drove straight on, while the windmill, for some reason, began retreating
+      to the left. They drove on and on, and the windmill kept moving away to
+      the left, and still did not disappear.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A fine windmill Boltva has put up for his son,&rdquo; observed Deniska.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And how is it we don&rsquo;t see his farm?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is that way, beyond the creek.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Boltva&rsquo;s farm, too, soon came into sight, but yet the windmill did not
+      retreat, did not drop behind; it still watched Yegorushka with its shining
+      sail and waved. What a sorcerer!
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      II
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      Towards midday the chaise turned off the road to the right; it went on a
+      little way at walking pace and then stopped. Yegorushka heard a soft, very
+      caressing gurgle, and felt a different air breathe on his face with a cool
+      velvety touch. Through a little pipe of hemlock stuck there by some
+      unknown benefactor, water was running in a thin trickle from a low hill,
+      put together by nature of huge monstrous stones. It fell to the ground,
+      and limpid, sparkling gaily in the sun, and softly murmuring as though
+      fancying itself a great tempestuous torrent, flowed swiftly away to the
+      left. Not far from its source the little stream spread itself out into a
+      pool; the burning sunbeams and the parched soil greedily drank it up and
+      sucked away its strength; but a little further on it must have mingled
+      with another rivulet, for a hundred paces away thick reeds showed green
+      and luxuriant along its course, and three snipe flew up from them with a
+      loud cry as the chaise drove by.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The travellers got out to rest by the stream and feed the horses.
+      Kuzmitchov, Father Christopher and Yegorushka sat down on a mat in the
+      narrow strip of shade cast by the chaise and the unharnessed horses. The
+      nice pleasant thought that the heat had imprinted in Father Christopher&rsquo;s
+      brain craved expression after he had had a drink of water and eaten a
+      hard-boiled egg. He bent a friendly look upon Yegorushka, munched, and
+      began:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I studied too, my boy; from the earliest age God instilled into me good
+      sense and understanding, so that while I was just such a lad as you I was
+      beyond others, a comfort to my parents and preceptors by my good sense.
+      Before I was fifteen I could speak and make verses in Latin, just as in
+      Russian. I was the crosier-bearer to his Holiness Bishop Christopher.
+      After mass one day, as I remember it was the patron saint&rsquo;s day of His
+      Majesty Tsar Alexandr Pavlovitch of blessed memory, he unrobed at the
+      altar, looked kindly at me and asked, &lsquo;Puer bone, quam appelaris?&rsquo; And I
+      answered, &lsquo;Christopherus sum;&rsquo; and he said, &lsquo;Ergo connominati sumus&rsquo;&mdash;that
+      is, that we were namesakes. . . Then he asked in Latin, &lsquo;Whose son are
+      you?&rsquo; To which I answered, also in Latin, that I was the son of deacon
+      Sireysky of the village of Lebedinskoe. Seeing my readiness and the
+      clearness of my answers, his Holiness blessed me and said, &lsquo;Write to your
+      father that I will not forget him, and that I will keep you in view.&rsquo; The
+      holy priests and fathers who were standing round the altar, hearing our
+      discussion in Latin, were not a little surprised, and everyone expressed
+      his pleasure in praise of me. Before I had moustaches, my boy, I could
+      read Latin, Greek, and French; I knew philosophy, mathematics, secular
+      history, and all the sciences. The Lord gave me a marvellous memory.
+      Sometimes, if I read a thing once or twice, I knew it by heart. My
+      preceptors and patrons were amazed, and so they expected I should make a
+      learned man, a luminary of the Church. I did think of going to Kiev to
+      continue my studies, but my parents did not approve. &lsquo;You&rsquo;ll be studying
+      all your life,&rsquo; said my father; &lsquo;when shall we see you finished?&rsquo; Hearing
+      such words, I gave up study and took a post. . . . Of course, I did not
+      become a learned man, but then I did not disobey my parents; I was a
+      comfort to them in their old age and gave them a creditable funeral.
+      Obedience is more than fasting and prayer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I suppose you have forgotten all your learning?&rdquo; observed Kuzmitchov.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I should think so! Thank God, I have reached my eightieth year! Something
+      of philosophy and rhetoric I do remember, but languages and mathematics I
+      have quite forgotten.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Father Christopher screwed up his eyes, thought a minute and said in an
+      undertone:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is a substance? A creature is a self-existing object, not requiring
+      anything else for its completion.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He shook his head and laughed with feeling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Spiritual nourishment!&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Of a truth matter nourishes the flesh
+      and spiritual nourishment the soul!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Learning is all very well,&rdquo; sighed Kuzmitchov, &ldquo;but if we don&rsquo;t overtake
+      Varlamov, learning won&rsquo;t do much for us.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A man isn&rsquo;t a needle&mdash;we shall find him. He must be going his rounds
+      in these parts.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Among the sedge were flying the three snipe they had seen before, and in
+      their plaintive cries there was a note of alarm and vexation at having
+      been driven away from the stream. The horses were steadily munching and
+      snorting. Deniska walked about by them and, trying to appear indifferent
+      to the cucumbers, pies, and eggs that the gentry were eating, he
+      concentrated himself on the gadflies and horseflies that were fastening
+      upon the horses&rsquo; backs and bellies; he squashed his victims apathetically,
+      emitting a peculiar, fiendishly triumphant, guttural sound, and when he
+      missed them cleared his throat with an air of vexation and looked after
+      every lucky one that escaped death.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Deniska, where are you? Come and eat,&rdquo; said Kuzmitchov, heaving a deep
+      sigh, a sign that he had had enough.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Deniska diffidently approached the mat and picked out five thick and
+      yellow cucumbers (he did not venture to take the smaller and fresher
+      ones), took two hard-boiled eggs that looked dark and were cracked, then
+      irresolutely, as though afraid he might get a blow on his outstretched
+      hand, touched a pie with his finger.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Take them, take them,&rdquo; Kuzmitchov urged him on.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Deniska took the pies resolutely, and, moving some distance away, sat down
+      on the grass with his back to the chaise. At once there was such a sound
+      of loud munching that even the horses turned round to look suspiciously at
+      Deniska.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After his meal Kuzmitchov took a sack containing something out of the
+      chaise and said to Yegorushka:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am going to sleep, and you mind that no one takes the sack from under
+      my head.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Father Christopher took off his cassock, his girdle, and his full coat,
+      and Yegorushka, looking at him, was dumb with astonishment. He had never
+      imagined that priests wore trousers, and Father Christopher had on real
+      canvas trousers thrust into high boots, and a short striped jacket.
+      Looking at him, Yegorushka thought that in this costume, so unsuitable to
+      his dignified position, he looked with his long hair and beard very much
+      like Robinson Crusoe. After taking off their outer garments Kuzmitchov and
+      Father Christopher lay down in the shade under the chaise, facing one
+      another, and closed their eyes. Deniska, who had finished munching,
+      stretched himself out on his back and also closed his eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You look out that no one takes away the horses!&rdquo; he said to Yegorushka,
+      and at once fell asleep.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Stillness reigned. There was no sound except the munching and snorting of
+      the horses and the snoring of the sleepers; somewhere far away a lapwing
+      wailed, and from time to time there sounded the shrill cries of the three
+      snipe who had flown up to see whether their uninvited visitors had gone
+      away; the rivulet babbled, lisping softly, but all these sounds did not
+      break the stillness, did not stir the stagnation, but, on the contrary,
+      lulled all nature to slumber.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yegorushka, gasping with the heat, which was particularly oppressive after
+      a meal, ran to the sedge and from there surveyed the country. He saw
+      exactly the same as he had in the morning: the plain, the low hills, the
+      sky, the lilac distance; only the hills stood nearer; and he could not see
+      the windmill, which had been left far behind. From behind the rocky hill
+      from which the stream flowed rose another, smoother and broader; a little
+      hamlet of five or six homesteads clung to it. No people, no trees, no
+      shade were to be seen about the huts; it looked as though the hamlet had
+      expired in the burning air and was dried up. To while away the time
+      Yegorushka caught a grasshopper in the grass, held it in his closed hand
+      to his ear, and spent a long time listening to the creature playing on its
+      instrument. When he was weary of its music he ran after a flock of yellow
+      butterflies who were flying towards the sedge on the watercourse, and
+      found himself again beside the chaise, without noticing how he came there.
+      His uncle and Father Christopher were sound asleep; their sleep would be
+      sure to last two or three hours till the horses had rested. . . . How was
+      he to get through that long time, and where was he to get away from the
+      heat? A hard problem. . . . Mechanically Yegorushka put his lips to the
+      trickle that ran from the waterpipe; there was a chilliness in his mouth
+      and there was the smell of hemlock. He drank at first eagerly, then went
+      on with effort till the sharp cold had run from his mouth all over his
+      body and the water was spilt on his shirt. Then he went up to the chaise
+      and began looking at the sleeping figures. His uncle&rsquo;s face wore, as
+      before, an expression of business-like reserve. Fanatically devoted to his
+      work, Kuzmitchov always, even in his sleep and at church when they were
+      singing, &ldquo;Like the cherubim,&rdquo; thought about his business and could never
+      forget it for a moment; and now he was probably dreaming about bales of
+      wool, waggons, prices, Varlamov. . . . Father Christopher, now, a soft,
+      frivolous and absurd person, had never all his life been conscious of
+      anything which could, like a boa-constrictor, coil about his soul and hold
+      it tight. In all the numerous enterprises he had undertaken in his day
+      what attracted him was not so much the business itself, but the bustle and
+      the contact with other people involved in every undertaking. Thus, in the
+      present expedition, he was not so much interested in wool, in Varlamov,
+      and in prices, as in the long journey, the conversations on the way, the
+      sleeping under a chaise, and the meals at odd times. . . . And now,
+      judging from his face, he must have been dreaming of Bishop Christopher,
+      of the Latin discussion, of his wife, of puffs and cream and all sorts of
+      things that Kuzmitchov could not possibly dream of.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While Yegorushka was watching their sleeping faces he suddenly heard a
+      soft singing; somewhere at a distance a woman was singing, and it was
+      difficult to tell where and in what direction. The song was subdued,
+      dreary and melancholy, like a dirge, and hardly audible, and seemed to
+      come first from the right, then from the left, then from above, and then
+      from underground, as though an unseen spirit were hovering over the steppe
+      and singing. Yegorushka looked about him, and could not make out where the
+      strange song came from. Then as he listened he began to fancy that the
+      grass was singing; in its song, withered and half-dead, it was without
+      words, but plaintively and passionately, urging that it was not to blame,
+      that the sun was burning it for no fault of its own; it urged that it
+      ardently longed to live, that it was young and might have been beautiful
+      but for the heat and the drought; it was guiltless, but yet it prayed
+      forgiveness and protested that it was in anguish, sad and sorry for
+      itself. . . .
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yegorushka listened for a little, and it began to seem as though this
+      dreary, mournful song made the air hotter, more suffocating and more
+      stagnant. . . . To drown the singing he ran to the sedge, humming to
+      himself and trying to make a noise with his feet. From there he looked
+      about in all directions and found out who was singing. Near the furthest
+      hut in the hamlet stood a peasant woman in a short petticoat, with long
+      thin legs like a heron. She was sowing something. A white dust floated
+      languidly from her sieve down the hillock. Now it was evident that she was
+      singing. A couple of yards from her a little bare-headed boy in nothing
+      but a smock was standing motionless. As though fascinated by the song, he
+      stood stock-still, staring away into the distance, probably at
+      Yegorushka&rsquo;s crimson shirt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The song ceased. Yegorushka sauntered back to the chaise, and to while
+      away the time went again to the trickle of water.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And again there was the sound of the dreary song. It was the same
+      long-legged peasant woman in the hamlet over the hill. Yegorushka&rsquo;s
+      boredom came back again. He left the pipe and looked upwards. What he saw
+      was so unexpected that he was a little frightened. Just above his head on
+      one of the big clumsy stones stood a chubby little boy, wearing nothing
+      but a shirt, with a prominent stomach and thin legs, the same boy who had
+      been standing before by the peasant woman. He was gazing with open mouth
+      and unblinking eyes at Yegorushka&rsquo;s crimson shirt and at the chaise, with
+      a look of blank astonishment and even fear, as though he saw before him
+      creatures of another world. The red colour of the shirt charmed and
+      allured him. But the chaise and the men sleeping under it excited his
+      curiosity; perhaps he had not noticed how the agreeable red colour and
+      curiosity had attracted him down from the hamlet, and now probably he was
+      surprised at his own boldness. For a long while Yegorushka stared at him,
+      and he at Yegorushka. Both were silent and conscious of some awkwardness.
+      After a long silence Yegorushka asked:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What&rsquo;s your name?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The stranger&rsquo;s cheeks puffed out more than ever; he pressed his back
+      against the rock, opened his eyes wide, moved his lips, and answered in a
+      husky bass: &ldquo;Tit!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The boys said not another word to each other; after a brief silence, still
+      keeping his eyes fixed on Yegorushka, the mysterious Tit kicked up one
+      leg, felt with his heel for a niche and clambered up the rock; from that
+      point he ascended to the next rock, staggering backwards and looking
+      intently at Yegorushka, as though afraid he might hit him from behind, and
+      so made his way upwards till he disappeared altogether behind the crest of
+      the hill.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After watching him out of sight, Yegorushka put his arms round his knees
+      and leaned his head on them. . . . The burning sun scorched the back of
+      his head, his neck, and his spine. The melancholy song died away, then
+      floated again on the stagnant stifling air. The rivulet gurgled
+      monotonously, the horses munched, and time dragged on endlessly, as though
+      it, too, were stagnant and had come to a standstill. It seemed as though a
+      hundred years had passed since the morning. Could it be that God&rsquo;s world,
+      the chaise and the horses would come to a standstill in that air, and,
+      like the hills, turn to stone and remain for ever in one spot? Yegorushka
+      raised his head, and with smarting eyes looked before him; the lilac
+      distance, which till then had been motionless, began heaving, and with the
+      sky floated away into the distance. . . . It drew after it the brown
+      grass, the sedge, and with extraordinary swiftness Yegorushka floated
+      after the flying distance. Some force noiselessly drew him onwards, and
+      the heat and the wearisome song flew after in pursuit. Yegorushka bent his
+      head and shut his eyes. . . .
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Deniska was the first to wake up. Something must have bitten him, for he
+      jumped up, quickly scratched his shoulder and said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Plague take you, cursed idolater!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Then he went to the brook, had a drink and slowly washed. His splashing
+      and puffing roused Yegorushka from his lethargy. The boy looked at his wet
+      face with drops of water and big freckles which made it look like marble,
+      and asked:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Shall we soon be going?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Deniska looked at the height of the sun and answered:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I expect so.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He dried himself with the tail of his shirt and, making a very serious
+      face, hopped on one leg.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I say, which of us will get to the sedge first?&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yegorushka was exhausted by the heat and drowsiness, but he raced off
+      after him all the same. Deniska was in his twentieth year, was a coachman
+      and going to be married, but he had not left off being a boy. He was very
+      fond of flying kites, chasing pigeons, playing knuckle-bones, running
+      races, and always took part in children&rsquo;s games and disputes. No sooner
+      had his master turned his back or gone to sleep than Deniska would begin
+      doing something such as hopping on one leg or throwing stones. It was hard
+      for any grown-up person, seeing the genuine enthusiasm with which he
+      frolicked about in the society of children, to resist saying, &ldquo;What a
+      baby!&rdquo; Children, on the other hand, saw nothing strange in the invasion of
+      their domain by the big coachman. &ldquo;Let him play,&rdquo; they thought, &ldquo;as long
+      as he doesn&rsquo;t fight!&rdquo; In the same way little dogs see nothing strange in
+      it when a simple-hearted big dog joins their company uninvited and begins
+      playing with them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Deniska outstripped Yegorushka, and was evidently very much pleased at
+      having done so. He winked at him, and to show that he could hop on one leg
+      any distance, suggested to Yegorushka that he should hop with him along
+      the road and from there, without resting, back to the chaise. Yegorushka
+      declined this suggestion, for he was very much out of breath and
+      exhausted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All at once Deniska looked very grave, as he did not look even when
+      Kuzmitchov gave him a scolding or threatened him with a stick; listening
+      intently, he dropped quietly on one knee and an expression of sternness
+      and alarm came into his face, such as one sees in people who hear
+      heretical talk. He fixed his eyes on one spot, raised his hand curved into
+      a hollow, and suddenly fell on his stomach on the ground and slapped the
+      hollow of his hand down upon the grass.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Caught!&rdquo; he wheezed triumphantly, and, getting up, lifted a big
+      grasshopper to Yegorushka&rsquo;s eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The two boys stroked the grasshopper&rsquo;s broad green back with their fingers
+      and touched his antenna, supposing that this would please the creature.
+      Then Deniska caught a fat fly that had been sucking blood and offered it
+      to the grasshopper. The latter moved his huge jaws, that were like the
+      visor of a helmet, with the utmost unconcern, as though he had been long
+      acquainted with Deniska, and bit off the fly&rsquo;s stomach. They let him go.
+      With a flash of the pink lining of his wings, he flew down into the grass
+      and at once began his churring notes again. They let the fly go, too. It
+      preened its wings, and without its stomach flew off to the horses.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A loud sigh was heard from under the chaise. It was Kuzmitchov waking up.
+      He quickly raised his head, looked uneasily into the distance, and from
+      that look, which passed by Yegorushka and Deniska without sympathy or
+      interest, it could be seen that his thought on awaking was of the wool and
+      of Varlamov.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Father Christopher, get up; it is time to start,&rdquo; he said anxiously.
+      &ldquo;Wake up; we&rsquo;ve slept too long as it is! Deniska, put the horses in.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Father Christopher woke up with the same smile with which he had fallen
+      asleep; his face looked creased and wrinkled from sleep, and seemed only
+      half the size. After washing and dressing, he proceeded without haste to
+      take out of his pocket a little greasy psalter; and standing with his face
+      towards the east, began in a whisper repeating the psalms of the day and
+      crossing himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Father Christopher,&rdquo; said Kuzmitchov reproachfully, &ldquo;it&rsquo;s time to start;
+      the horses are ready, and here are you, . . . upon my word.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In a minute, in a minute,&rdquo; muttered Father Christopher. &ldquo;I must read the
+      psalms. . . . I haven&rsquo;t read them to-day.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The psalms can wait.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ivan Ivanitch, that is my rule every day. . . . I can&rsquo;t . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;God will overlook it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      For a full quarter of an hour Father Christopher stood facing the east and
+      moving his lips, while Kuzmitchov looked at him almost with hatred and
+      impatiently shrugged his shoulders. He was particularly irritated when,
+      after every &ldquo;Hallelujah,&rdquo; Father Christopher drew a long breath, rapidly
+      crossed himself and repeated three times, intentionally raising his voice
+      so that the others might cross themselves, &ldquo;Hallelujah, hallelujah,
+      hallelujah! Glory be to Thee, O Lord!&rdquo; At last he smiled, looked upwards
+      at the sky, and, putting the psalter in his pocket, said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Finis!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A minute later the chaise had started on the road. As though it were going
+      backwards and not forwards, the travellers saw the same scene as they had
+      before midday.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The low hills were still plunged in the lilac distance, and no end could
+      be seen to them. There were glimpses of high grass and heaps of stones;
+      strips of stubble land passed by them and still the same rooks, the same
+      hawk, moving its wings with slow dignity, moved over the steppe. The air
+      was more sultry than ever; from the sultry heat and the stillness
+      submissive nature was spellbound into silence . . . . No wind, no fresh
+      cheering sound, no cloud.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But at last, when the sun was beginning to sink into the west, the steppe,
+      the hills and the air could bear the oppression no longer, and, driven out
+      of all patience, exhausted, tried to fling off the yoke. A fleecy
+      ashen-grey cloud unexpectedly appeared behind the hills. It exchanged
+      glances with the steppe, as though to say, &ldquo;Here I am,&rdquo; and frowned.
+      Suddenly something burst in the stagnant air; there was a violent squall
+      of wind which whirled round and round, roaring and whistling over the
+      steppe. At once a murmur rose from the grass and last year&rsquo;s dry herbage,
+      the dust curled in spiral eddies over the road, raced over the steppe, and
+      carrying with it straws, dragon flies and feathers, rose up in a whirling
+      black column towards the sky and darkened the sun. Prickly uprooted plants
+      ran stumbling and leaping in all directions over the steppe, and one of
+      them got caught in the whirlwind, turned round and round like a bird, flew
+      towards the sky, and turning into a little black speck, vanished from
+      sight. After it flew another, and then a third, and Yegorushka saw two of
+      them meet in the blue height and clutch at one another as though they were
+      wrestling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A bustard flew up by the very road. Fluttering his wings and his tail, he
+      looked, bathed in the sunshine, like an angler&rsquo;s glittering tin fish or a
+      waterfly flashing so swiftly over the water that its wings cannot be told
+      from its antenna, which seem to be growing before, behind and on all
+      sides. . . . Quivering in the air like an insect with a shimmer of bright
+      colours, the bustard flew high up in a straight line, then, probably
+      frightened by a cloud of dust, swerved to one side, and for a long time
+      the gleam of his wings could be seen. . . .
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then a corncrake flew up from the grass, alarmed by the hurricane and not
+      knowing what was the matter. It flew with the wind and not against it,
+      like all the other birds, so that all its feathers were ruffled up and it
+      was puffed out to the size of a hen and looked very angry and impressive.
+      Only the rooks who had grown old on the steppe and were accustomed to its
+      vagaries hovered calmly over the grass, or taking no notice of anything,
+      went on unconcernedly pecking with their stout beaks at the hard earth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a dull roll of thunder beyond the hills; there came a whiff of
+      fresh air. Deniska gave a cheerful whistle and lashed his horses. Father
+      Christopher and Kuzmitchov held their hats and looked intently towards the
+      hills. . . . How pleasant a shower of rain would have been!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One effort, one struggle more, and it seemed the steppe would have got the
+      upper hand. But the unseen oppressive force gradually riveted its fetters
+      on the wind and the air, laid the dust, and the stillness came back again
+      as though nothing had happened, the cloud hid, the sun-baked hills frowned
+      submissively, the air grew calm, and only somewhere the troubled lapwings
+      wailed and lamented their destiny. . . .
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Soon after that the evening came on.
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      III
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      In the dusk of evening a big house of one storey, with a rusty iron roof
+      and with dark windows, came into sight. This house was called a
+      posting-inn, though it had nothing like a stableyard, and it stood in the
+      middle of the steppe, with no kind of enclosure round it. A little to one
+      side of it a wretched little cherry orchard shut in by a hurdle fence made
+      a dark patch, and under the windows stood sleepy sunflowers drooping their
+      heavy heads. From the orchard came the clatter of a little toy windmill,
+      set there to frighten away hares by the rattle. Nothing more could be seen
+      near the house, and nothing could be heard but the steppe. The chaise had
+      scarcely stopped at the porch with an awning over it, when from the house
+      there came the sound of cheerful voices, one a man&rsquo;s, another a woman&rsquo;s;
+      there was the creak of a swing-door, and in a flash a tall gaunt figure,
+      swinging its arms and fluttering its coat, was standing by the chaise.
+      This was the innkeeper, Moisey Moisevitch, a man no longer young, with a
+      very pale face and a handsome beard as black as charcoal. He was wearing a
+      threadbare black coat, which hung flapping on his narrow shoulders as
+      though on a hatstand, and fluttered its skirts like wings every time
+      Moisey Moisevitch flung up his hands in delight or horror. Besides his
+      coat the innkeeper was wearing full white trousers, not stuck into his
+      boots, and a velvet waistcoat with brown flowers on it that looked like
+      gigantic bugs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Moisey Moisevitch was at first dumb with excess of feeling on recognizing
+      the travellers, then he clasped his hands and uttered a moan. His coat
+      swung its skirts, his back bent into a bow, and his pale face twisted into
+      a smile that suggested that to see the chaise was not merely a pleasure to
+      him, but actually a joy so sweet as to be painful.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh dear! oh dear!&rdquo; he began in a thin sing-song voice, breathless,
+      fussing about and preventing the travellers from getting out of the chaise
+      by his antics. &ldquo;What a happy day for me! Oh, what am I to do now? Ivan
+      Ivanitch! Father Christopher! What a pretty little gentleman sitting on
+      the box, God strike me dead! Oh, my goodness! why am I standing here
+      instead of asking the visitors indoors? Please walk in, I humbly beg you.
+      . . . You are kindly welcome! Give me all your things. . . . Oh, my
+      goodness me!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Moisey Moisevitch, who was rummaging in the chaise and assisting the
+      travellers to alight, suddenly turned back and shouted in a voice as
+      frantic and choking as though he were drowning and calling for help:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Solomon! Solomon!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Solomon! Solomon!&rdquo; a woman&rsquo;s voice repeated indoors.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The swing-door creaked, and in the doorway appeared a rather short young
+      Jew with a big beak-like nose, with a bald patch surrounded by rough red
+      curly hair; he was dressed in a short and very shabby reefer jacket, with
+      rounded lappets and short sleeves, and in short serge trousers, so that he
+      looked skimpy and short-tailed like an unfledged bird. This was Solomon,
+      the brother of Moisey Moisevitch. He went up to the chaise, smiling rather
+      queerly, and did not speak or greet the travellers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ivan Ivanitch and Father Christopher have come,&rdquo; said Moisey Moisevitch
+      in a tone as though he were afraid his brother would not believe him.
+      &ldquo;Dear, dear! What a surprise! Such honoured guests to have come us so
+      suddenly! Come, take their things, Solomon. Walk in, honoured guests.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A little later Kuzmitchov, Father Christopher, and Yegorushka were sitting
+      in a big gloomy empty room at an old oak table. The table was almost in
+      solitude, for, except a wide sofa covered with torn American leather and
+      three chairs, there was no other furniture in the room. And, indeed, not
+      everybody would have given the chairs that name. They were a pitiful
+      semblance of furniture, covered with American leather that had seen its
+      best days, and with backs bent backwards at an unnaturally acute angle, so
+      that they looked like children&rsquo;s sledges. It was hard to imagine what had
+      been the unknown carpenter&rsquo;s object in bending the chairbacks so
+      mercilessly, and one was tempted to imagine that it was not the
+      carpenter&rsquo;s fault, but that some athletic visitor had bent the chairs like
+      this as a feat, then had tried to bend them back again and had made them
+      worse. The room looked gloomy, the walls were grey, the ceilings and the
+      cornices were grimy; on the floor were chinks and yawning holes that were
+      hard to account for (one might have fancied they were made by the heel of
+      the same athlete), and it seemed as though the room would still have been
+      dark if a dozen lamps had hung in it. There was nothing approaching an
+      ornament on the walls or the windows. On one wall, however, there hung a
+      list of regulations of some sort under a two-headed eagle in a grey wooden
+      frame, and on another wall in the same sort of frame an engraving with the
+      inscription, &ldquo;The Indifference of Man.&rdquo; What it was to which men were
+      indifferent it was impossible to make out, as the engraving was very dingy
+      with age and was extensively flyblown. There was a smell of something
+      decayed and sour in the room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As he led the visitors into the room, Moisey Moisevitch went on wriggling,
+      gesticulating, shrugging and uttering joyful exclamations; he considered
+      these antics necessary in order to seem polite and agreeable.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When did our waggons go by?&rdquo; Kuzmitchov asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;One party went by early this morning, and the other, Ivan Ivanitch, put
+      up here for dinner and went on towards evening.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah! . . . Has Varlamov been by or not?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, Ivan Ivanitch. His clerk, Grigory Yegoritch, went by yesterday
+      morning and said that he had to be to-day at the Molokans&rsquo; farm.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good! so we will go after the waggons directly and then on to the
+      Molokans&rsquo;.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mercy on us, Ivan Ivanitch!&rdquo; Moisey Moisevitch cried in horror, flinging
+      up his hands. &ldquo;Where are you going for the night? You will have a nice
+      little supper and stay the night, and to-morrow morning, please God, you
+      can go on and overtake anyone you like.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There is no time for that. . . . Excuse me, Moisey Moisevitch, another
+      time; but now I must make haste. We&rsquo;ll stay a quarter of an hour and then
+      go on; we can stay the night at the Molokans&rsquo;.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A quarter of an hour!&rdquo; squealed Moisey Moisevitch. &ldquo;Have you no fear of
+      God, Ivan Ivanitch? You will compel me to hide your caps and lock the
+      door! You must have a cup of tea and a snack of something, anyway.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We have no time for tea,&rdquo; said Kuzmitchov.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Moisey Moisevitch bent his head on one side, crooked his knees, and put
+      his open hands before him as though warding off a blow, while with a smile
+      of agonized sweetness he began imploring:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ivan Ivanitch! Father Christopher! Do be so good as to take a cup of tea
+      with me. Surely I am not such a bad man that you can&rsquo;t even drink tea in
+      my house? Ivan Ivanitch!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, we may just as well have a cup of tea,&rdquo; said Father Christopher,
+      with a sympathetic smile; &ldquo;that won&rsquo;t keep us long.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very well,&rdquo; Kuzmitchov assented.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Moisey Moisevitch, in a fluster uttered an exclamation of joy, and
+      shrugging as though he had just stepped out of cold weather into warm, ran
+      to the door and cried in the same frantic voice in which he had called
+      Solomon:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Rosa! Rosa! Bring the samovar!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A minute later the door opened, and Solomon came into the room carrying a
+      large tray in his hands. Setting the tray on the table, he looked away
+      sarcastically with the same queer smile as before. Now, by the light of
+      the lamp, it was possible to see his smile distinctly; it was very
+      complex, and expressed a variety of emotions, but the predominant element
+      in it was undisguised contempt. He seemed to be thinking of something
+      ludicrous and silly, to be feeling contempt and dislike, to be pleased at
+      something and waiting for the favourable moment to turn something into
+      ridicule and to burst into laughter. His long nose, his thick lips, and
+      his sly prominent eyes seemed tense with the desire to laugh. Looking at
+      his face, Kuzmitchov smiled ironically and asked:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Solomon, why did you not come to our fair at N. this summer, and act some
+      Jewish scenes?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Two years before, as Yegorushka remembered very well, at one of the booths
+      at the fair at N., Solomon had performed some scenes of Jewish life, and
+      his acting had been a great success. The allusion to this made no
+      impression whatever upon Solomon. Making no answer, he went out and
+      returned a little later with the samovar.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When he had done what he had to do at the table he moved a little aside,
+      and, folding his arms over his chest and thrusting out one leg, fixed his
+      sarcastic eyes on Father Christopher. There was something defiant,
+      haughty, and contemptuous in his attitude, and at the same time it was
+      comic and pitiful in the extreme, because the more impressive his attitude
+      the more vividly it showed up his short trousers, his bobtail coat, his
+      caricature of a nose, and his bird-like plucked-looking little figure.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Moisey Moisevitch brought a footstool from the other room and sat down a
+      little way from the table.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wish you a good appetite! Tea and sugar!&rdquo; he began, trying to entertain
+      his visitors. &ldquo;I hope you will enjoy it. Such rare guests, such rare ones;
+      it is years since I last saw Father Christopher. And will no one tell me
+      who is this nice little gentleman?&rdquo; he asked, looking tenderly at
+      Yegorushka.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He is the son of my sister, Olga Ivanovna,&rdquo; answered Kuzmitchov.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And where is he going?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To school. We are taking him to a high school.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      In his politeness, Moisey Moisevitch put on a look of wonder and wagged
+      his head expressively.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, that is a fine thing,&rdquo; he said, shaking his finger at the samovar.
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s a fine thing. You will come back from the high school such a
+      gentleman that we shall all take off our hats to you. You will be wealthy
+      and wise and so grand that your mamma will be delighted. Oh, that&rsquo;s a fine
+      thing!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He paused a little, stroked his knees, and began again in a jocose and
+      deferential tone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You must excuse me, Father Christopher, but I am thinking of writing to
+      the bishop to tell him you are robbing the merchants of their living. I
+      shall take a sheet of stamped paper and write that I suppose Father
+      Christopher is short of pence, as he has taken up with trade and begun
+      selling wool.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;H&rsquo;m, yes . . . it&rsquo;s a queer notion in my old age,&rdquo; said Father
+      Christopher, and he laughed. &ldquo;I have turned from priest to merchant,
+      brother. I ought to be at home now saying my prayers, instead of galloping
+      about the country like a Pharaoh in his chariot. . . . Vanity!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But it will mean a lot of pence!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, I dare say! More kicks than halfpence, and serve me right. The wool&rsquo;s
+      not mine, but my son-in-law Mikhail&rsquo;s!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why doesn&rsquo;t he go himself?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, because . . . His mother&rsquo;s milk is scarcely dry upon his lips. He
+      can buy wool all right, but when it comes to selling, he has no sense; he
+      is young yet. He has wasted all his money; he wanted to grow rich and cut
+      a dash, but he tried here and there, and no one would give him his price.
+      And so the lad went on like that for a year, and then he came to me and
+      said, &lsquo;Daddy, you sell the wool for me; be kind and do it! I am no good at
+      the business!&rsquo; And that is true enough. As soon as there is anything wrong
+      then it&rsquo;s &lsquo;Daddy,&rsquo; but till then they could get on without their dad. When
+      he was buying he did not consult me, but now when he is in difficulties
+      it&rsquo;s Daddy&rsquo;s turn. And what does his dad know about it? If it were not for
+      Ivan Ivanitch, his dad could do nothing. I have a lot of worry with them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes; one has a lot of worry with one&rsquo;s children, I can tell you that,&rdquo;
+       sighed Moisey Moisevitch. &ldquo;I have six of my own. One needs schooling,
+      another needs doctoring, and a third needs nursing, and when they grow up
+      they are more trouble still. It is not only nowadays, it was the same in
+      Holy Scripture. When Jacob had little children he wept, and when they grew
+      up he wept still more bitterly.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;H&rsquo;m, yes . . .&rdquo; Father Christopher assented pensively, looking at his
+      glass. &ldquo;I have no cause myself to rail against the Lord. I have lived to
+      the end of my days as any man might be thankful to live. . . . I have
+      married my daughters to good men, my sons I have set up in life, and now I
+      am free; I have done my work and can go where I like. I live in peace with
+      my wife. I eat and drink and sleep and rejoice in my grandchildren, and
+      say my prayers and want nothing more. I live on the fat of the land, and
+      don&rsquo;t need to curry favour with anyone. I have never had any trouble from
+      childhood, and now suppose the Tsar were to ask me, &lsquo;What do you need?
+      What would you like?&rsquo; why, I don&rsquo;t need anything. I have everything I want
+      and everything to be thankful for. In the whole town there is no happier
+      man than I am. My only trouble is I have so many sins, but there &mdash;only
+      God is without sin. That&rsquo;s right, isn&rsquo;t it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No doubt it is.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have no teeth, of course; my poor old back aches; there is one thing
+      and another, . . . asthma and that sort of thing. . . . I ache. . . . The
+      flesh is weak, but then think of my age! I am in the eighties! One can&rsquo;t
+      go on for ever; one mustn&rsquo;t outstay one&rsquo;s welcome.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Father Christopher suddenly thought of something, spluttered into his
+      glass and choked with laughter. Moisey Moisevitch laughed, too, from
+      politeness, and he, too, cleared his throat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So funny!&rdquo; said Father Christopher, and he waved his hand. &ldquo;My eldest son
+      Gavrila came to pay me a visit. He is in the medical line, and is a
+      district doctor in the province of Tchernigov. . . . &lsquo;Very well . . .&rsquo; I
+      said to him, &lsquo;here I have asthma and one thing and another. . . . You are
+      a doctor; cure your father!&rsquo; He undressed me on the spot, tapped me,
+      listened, and all sorts of tricks, . . . kneaded my stomach, and then he
+      said, &lsquo;Dad, you ought to be treated with compressed air.&rsquo;&rdquo; Father
+      Christopher laughed convulsively, till the tears came into his eyes, and
+      got up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And I said to him, &lsquo;God bless your compressed air!&rsquo;&rdquo; he brought out
+      through his laughter, waving both hands. &ldquo;God bless your compressed air!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Moisey Moisevitch got up, too, and with his hands on his stomach, went off
+      into shrill laughter like the yap of a lap-dog.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;God bless the compressed air!&rdquo; repeated Father Christopher, laughing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Moisey Moisevitch laughed two notes higher and so violently that he could
+      hardly stand on his feet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh dear!&rdquo; he moaned through his laughter. &ldquo;Let me get my breath . . . .
+      You&rsquo;ll be the death of me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He laughed and talked, though at the same time he was casting timorous and
+      suspicious looks at Solomon. The latter was standing in the same attitude
+      and still smiling. To judge from his eyes and his smile, his contempt and
+      hatred were genuine, but that was so out of keeping with his
+      plucked-looking figure that it seemed to Yegorushka as though he were
+      putting on his defiant attitude and biting sarcastic smile to play the
+      fool for the entertainment of their honoured guests.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After drinking six glasses of tea in silence, Kuzmitchov cleared a space
+      before him on the table, took his bag, the one which he kept under his
+      head when he slept under the chaise, untied the string and shook it. Rolls
+      of paper notes were scattered out of the bag on the table.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;While we have the time, Father Christopher, let us reckon up,&rdquo; said
+      Kuzmitchov.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Moisey Moisevitch was embarrassed at the sight of the money. He got up,
+      and, as a man of delicate feeling unwilling to pry into other people&rsquo;s
+      secrets, he went out of the room on tiptoe, swaying his arms. Solomon
+      remained where he was.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How many are there in the rolls of roubles?&rdquo; Father Christopher began.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The rouble notes are done up in fifties, . . . the three-rouble notes in
+      nineties, the twenty-five and hundred roubles in thousands. You count out
+      seven thousand eight hundred for Varlamov, and I will count out for
+      Gusevitch. And mind you don&rsquo;t make a mistake. . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Yegorushka had never in his life seen so much money as was lying on the
+      table before him. There must have been a great deal of money, for the roll
+      of seven thousand eight hundred, which Father Christopher put aside for
+      Varlamov, seemed very small compared with the whole heap. At any other
+      time such a mass of money would have impressed Yegorushka, and would have
+      moved him to reflect how many cracknels, buns and poppy-cakes could be
+      bought for that money. Now he looked at it listlessly, only conscious of
+      the disgusting smell of kerosene and rotten apples that came from the heap
+      of notes. He was exhausted by the jolting ride in the chaise, tired out
+      and sleepy. His head was heavy, his eyes would hardly keep open and his
+      thoughts were tangled like threads. If it had been possible he would have
+      been relieved to lay his head on the table, so as not to see the lamp and
+      the fingers moving over the heaps of notes, and to have let his tired
+      sleepy thoughts go still more at random. When he tried to keep awake, the
+      light of the lamp, the cups and the fingers grew double, the samovar
+      heaved and the smell of rotten apples seemed even more acrid and
+      disgusting.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, money, money!&rdquo; sighed Father Christopher, smiling. &ldquo;You bring
+      trouble! Now I expect my Mihailo is asleep and dreaming that I am going to
+      bring him a heap of money like this.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your Mihailo Timofevitch is a man who doesn&rsquo;t understand business,&rdquo; said
+      Kuzmitchov in an undertone; &ldquo;he undertakes what isn&rsquo;t his work, but you
+      understand and can judge. You had better hand over your wool to me, as I
+      have said already, and I would give you half a rouble above my own price&mdash;yes,
+      I would, simply out of regard for you. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, Ivan Ivanitch.&rdquo; Father Christopher sighed. &ldquo;I thank you for your
+      kindness. . . . Of course, if it were for me to decide, I shouldn&rsquo;t think
+      twice about it; but as it is, the wool is not mine, as you know. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Moisey Moisevitch came in on tiptoe. Trying from delicacy not to look at
+      the heaps of money, he stole up to Yegorushka and pulled at his shirt from
+      behind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come along, little gentleman,&rdquo; he said in an undertone, &ldquo;come and see the
+      little bear I can show you! Such a queer, cross little bear. Oo-oo!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The sleepy boy got up and listlessly dragged himself after Moisey
+      Moisevitch to see the bear. He went into a little room, where, before he
+      saw anything, he felt he could not breathe from the smell of something
+      sour and decaying, which was much stronger here than in the big room and
+      probably spread from this room all over the house. One part of the room
+      was occupied by a big bed, covered with a greasy quilt and another by a
+      chest of drawers and heaps of rags of all kinds from a woman&rsquo;s stiff
+      petticoat to children&rsquo;s little breeches and braces. A tallow candle stood
+      on the chest of drawers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Instead of the promised bear, Yegorushka saw a big fat Jewess with her
+      hair hanging loose, in a red flannel skirt with black sprigs on it; she
+      turned with difficulty in the narrow space between the bed and the chest
+      of drawers and uttered drawn-out moaning as though she had toothache. On
+      seeing Yegorushka, she made a doleful, woe-begone face, heaved a long
+      drawn-out sigh, and before he had time to look round, put to his lips a
+      slice of bread smeared with honey.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Eat it, dearie, eat it!&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;You are here without your mamma, and
+      no one to look after you. Eat it up.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Yegorushka did eat it, though after the goodies and poppy-cakes he had
+      every day at home, he did not think very much of the honey, which was
+      mixed with wax and bees&rsquo; wings. He ate while Moisey Moisevitch and the
+      Jewess looked at him and sighed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where are you going, dearie?&rdquo; asked the Jewess.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To school,&rdquo; answered Yegorushka.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And how many brothers and sisters have you got?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am the only one; there are no others.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;O-oh!&rdquo; sighed the Jewess, and turned her eyes upward. &ldquo;Poor mamma, poor
+      mamma! How she will weep and miss you! We are going to send our Nahum to
+      school in a year. O-oh!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, Nahum, Nahum!&rdquo; sighed Moisey Moisevitch, and the skin of his pale
+      face twitched nervously. &ldquo;And he is so delicate.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The greasy quilt quivered, and from beneath it appeared a child&rsquo;s curly
+      head on a very thin neck; two black eyes gleamed and stared with curiosity
+      at Yegorushka. Still sighing, Moisey Moisevitch and the Jewess went to the
+      chest of drawers and began talking in Yiddish. Moisey Moisevitch spoke in
+      a low bass undertone, and altogether his talk in Yiddish was like a
+      continual &ldquo;ghaal-ghaal-ghaal-ghaal, . . .&rdquo; while his wife answered him in
+      a shrill voice like a turkeycock&rsquo;s, and the whole effect of her talk was
+      something like &ldquo;Too-too-too-too!&rdquo; While they were consulting, another
+      little curly head on a thin neck peeped out of the greasy quilt, then a
+      third, then a fourth. . . . If Yegorushka had had a fertile imagination he
+      might have imagined that the hundred-headed hydra was hiding under the
+      quilt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ghaal-ghaal-ghaal-ghaal!&rdquo; said Moisey Moisevitch.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Too-too-too-too!&rdquo; answered the Jewess.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The consultation ended in the Jewess&rsquo;s diving with a deep sigh into the
+      chest of drawers, and, unwrapping some sort of green rag there, she took
+      out a big rye cake made in the shape of a heart.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Take it, dearie,&rdquo; she said, giving Yegorushka the cake; &ldquo;you have no
+      mamma now&mdash;no one to give you nice things.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Yegorushka stuck the cake in his pocket and staggered to the door, as he
+      could not go on breathing the foul, sour air in which the innkeeper and
+      his wife lived. Going back to the big room, he settled himself more
+      comfortably on the sofa and gave up trying to check his straying thoughts.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As soon as Kuzmitchov had finished counting out the notes he put them back
+      into the bag. He did not treat them very respectfully and stuffed them
+      into the dirty sack without ceremony, as indifferently as though they had
+      not been money but waste paper.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Father Christopher was talking to Solomon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, Solomon the Wise!&rdquo; he said, yawning and making the sign of the
+      cross over his mouth. &ldquo;How is business?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What sort of business are you talking about?&rdquo; asked Solomon, and he
+      looked as fiendish, as though it were a hint of some crime on his part.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, things in general. What are you doing?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What am I doing?&rdquo; Solomon repeated, and he shrugged his shoulders. &ldquo;The
+      same as everyone else. . . . You see, I am a menial, I am my brother&rsquo;s
+      servant; my brother&rsquo;s the servant of the visitors; the visitors are
+      Varlamov&rsquo;s servants; and if I had ten millions, Varlamov would be my
+      servant.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why would he be your servant?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, because there isn&rsquo;t a gentleman or millionaire who isn&rsquo;t ready to
+      lick the hand of a scabby Jew for the sake of making a kopeck. Now, I am a
+      scabby Jew and a beggar. Everybody looks at me as though I were a dog, but
+      if I had money Varlamov would play the fool before me just as Moisey does
+      before you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Father Christopher and Kuzmitchov looked at each other. Neither of them
+      understood Solomon. Kuzmitchov looked at him sternly and dryly, and asked:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How can you compare yourself with Varlamov, you blockhead?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am not such a fool as to put myself on a level with Varlamov,&rdquo; answered
+      Solomon, looking sarcastically at the speaker. &ldquo;Though Varlamov is a
+      Russian, he is at heart a scabby Jew; money and gain are all he lives for,
+      but I threw my money in the stove! I don&rsquo;t want money, or land, or sheep,
+      and there is no need for people to be afraid of me and to take off their
+      hats when I pass. So I am wiser than your Varlamov and more like a man!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A little later Yegorushka, half asleep, heard Solomon in a hoarse hollow
+      voice choked with hatred, in hurried stuttering phrases, talking about the
+      Jews. At first he talked correctly in Russian, then he fell into the tone
+      of a Jewish recitation, and began speaking as he had done at the fair with
+      an exaggerated Jewish accent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Stop! . . .&rdquo; Father Christopher said to him. &ldquo;If you don&rsquo;t like your
+      religion you had better change it, but to laugh at it is a sin; it is only
+      the lowest of the low who will make fun of his religion.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You don&rsquo;t understand,&rdquo; Solomon cut him short rudely. &ldquo;I am talking of one
+      thing and you are talking of something else. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;One can see you are a foolish fellow,&rdquo; sighed Father Christopher. &ldquo;I
+      admonish you to the best of my ability, and you are angry. I speak to you
+      like an old man quietly, and you answer like a turkeycock: &lsquo;Bla&mdash;-bla&mdash;-bla!&rsquo;
+      You really are a queer fellow. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Moisey Moisevitch came in. He looked anxiously at Solomon and at his
+      visitors, and again the skin on his face quivered nervously. Yegorushka
+      shook his head and looked about him; he caught a passing glimpse of
+      Solomon&rsquo;s face at the very moment when it was turned three-quarters
+      towards him and when the shadow of his long nose divided his left cheek in
+      half; the contemptuous smile mingled with that shadow; the gleaming
+      sarcastic eyes, the haughty expression, and the whole plucked-looking
+      little figure, dancing and doubling itself before Yegorushka&rsquo;s eyes, made
+      him now not like a buffoon, but like something one sometimes dreams of,
+      like an evil spirit.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What a ferocious fellow you&rsquo;ve got here, Moisey Moisevitch! God bless
+      him!&rdquo; said Father Christopher with a smile. &ldquo;You ought to find him a place
+      or a wife or something. . . . There&rsquo;s no knowing what to make of him. . .
+      .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Kuzmitchov frowned angrily. Moisey Moisevitch looked uneasily and
+      inquiringly at his brother and the visitors again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Solomon, go away!&rdquo; he said shortly. &ldquo;Go away!&rdquo; and he added something in
+      Yiddish. Solomon gave an abrupt laugh and went out.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What was it?&rdquo; Moisey Moisevitch asked Father Christopher anxiously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He forgets himself,&rdquo; answered Kuzmitchov. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s rude and thinks too much
+      of himself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I knew it!&rdquo; Moisey Moisevitch cried in horror, clasping his hands. &ldquo;Oh
+      dear, oh dear!&rdquo; he muttered in a low voice. &ldquo;Be so kind as to excuse it,
+      and don&rsquo;t be angry. He is such a queer fellow, such a queer fellow! Oh
+      dear, oh dear! He is my own brother, but I have never had anything but
+      trouble from him. You know he&rsquo;s. . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Moisey Moisevitch crooked his finger by his forehead and went on:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He is not in his right mind; . . . he&rsquo;s hopeless. And I don&rsquo;t know what I
+      am to do with him! He cares for nobody, he respects nobody, and is afraid
+      of nobody. . . . You know he laughs at everybody, he says silly things,
+      speaks familiarly to anyone. You wouldn&rsquo;t believe it, Varlamov came here
+      one day and Solomon said such things to him that he gave us both a taste
+      of his whip. . . . But why whip me? Was it my fault? God has robbed him of
+      his wits, so it is God&rsquo;s will, and how am I to blame?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ten minutes passed and Moisey Moisevitch was still muttering in an
+      undertone and sighing:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He does not sleep at night, and is always thinking and thinking and
+      thinking, and what he is thinking about God only knows. If you go to him
+      at night he is angry and laughs. He doesn&rsquo;t like me either . . . . And
+      there is nothing he wants! When our father died he left us each six
+      thousand roubles. I bought myself an inn, married, and now I have
+      children; and he burnt all his money in the stove. Such a pity, such a
+      pity! Why burn it? If he didn&rsquo;t want it he could give it to me, but why
+      burn it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Suddenly the swing-door creaked and the floor shook under footsteps.
+      Yegorushka felt a draught of cold air, and it seemed to him as though some
+      big black bird had passed by him and had fluttered its wings close in his
+      face. He opened his eyes. . . . His uncle was standing by the sofa with
+      his sack in his hands ready for departure; Father Christopher, holding his
+      broad-brimmed top-hat, was bowing to someone and smiling&mdash;not his
+      usual soft kindly smile, but a respectful forced smile which did not suit
+      his face at all&mdash;while Moisey Moisevitch looked as though his body
+      had been broken into three parts, and he were balancing and doing his
+      utmost not to drop to pieces. Only Solomon stood in the corner with his
+      arms folded, as though nothing had happened, and smiled contemptuously as
+      before.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your Excellency must excuse us for not being tidy,&rdquo; moaned Moisey
+      Moisevitch with the agonizingly sweet smile, taking no more notice of
+      Kuzmitchov or Father Christopher, but swaying his whole person so as to
+      avoid dropping to pieces. &ldquo;We are plain folks, your Excellency.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Yegorushka rubbed his eyes. In the middle of the room there really was
+      standing an Excellency, in the form of a young plump and very beautiful
+      woman in a black dress and a straw hat. Before Yegorushka had time to
+      examine her features the image of the solitary graceful poplar he had seen
+      that day on the hill for some reason came into his mind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Has Varlamov been here to-day?&rdquo; a woman&rsquo;s voice inquired.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, your Excellency,&rdquo; said Moisey Moisevitch.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you see him to-morrow, ask him to come and see me for a minute.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      All at once, quite unexpectedly, Yegorushka saw half an inch from his eyes
+      velvety black eyebrows, big brown eyes, delicate feminine cheeks with
+      dimples, from which smiles seemed radiating all over the face like
+      sunbeams. There was a glorious scent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What a pretty boy!&rdquo; said the lady. &ldquo;Whose boy is it? Kazimir Mihalovitch,
+      look what a charming fellow! Good heavens, he is asleep!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And the lady kissed Yegorushka warmly on both cheeks, and he smiled and,
+      thinking he was asleep, shut his eyes. The swing-door squeaked, and there
+      was the sound of hurried footsteps, coming in and going out.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yegorushka, Yegorushka!&rdquo; he heard two bass voices whisper. &ldquo;Get up; it is
+      time to start.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Somebody, it seemed to be Deniska, set him on his feet and led him by the
+      arm. On the way he half-opened his eyes and once more saw the beautiful
+      lady in the black dress who had kissed him. She was standing in the middle
+      of the room and watched him go out, smiling at him and nodding her head in
+      a friendly way. As he got near the door he saw a handsome, stoutly built,
+      dark man in a bowler hat and in leather gaiters. This must have been the
+      lady&rsquo;s escort.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Woa!&rdquo; he heard from the yard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the front door Yegorushka saw a splendid new carriage and a pair of
+      black horses. On the box sat a groom in livery, with a long whip in his
+      hands. No one but Solomon came to see the travellers off. His face was
+      tense with a desire to laugh; he looked as though he were waiting
+      impatiently for the visitors to be gone, so that he might laugh at them
+      without restraint.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The Countess Dranitsky,&rdquo; whispered Father Christopher, clambering into
+      the chaise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, Countess Dranitsky,&rdquo; repeated Kuzmitchov, also in a whisper.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The impression made by the arrival of the countess was probably very
+      great, for even Deniska spoke in a whisper, and only ventured to lash his
+      bays and shout when the chaise had driven a quarter of a mile away and
+      nothing could be seen of the inn but a dim light.
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      IV
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      Who was this elusive, mysterious Varlamov of whom people talked so much,
+      whom Solomon despised, and whom even the beautiful countess needed?
+      Sitting on the box beside Deniska, Yegorushka, half asleep, thought about
+      this person. He had never seen him. But he had often heard of him and
+      pictured him in his imagination. He knew that Varlamov possessed several
+      tens of thousands of acres of land, about a hundred thousand sheep, and a
+      great deal of money. Of his manner of life and occupation Yegorushka knew
+      nothing, except that he was always &ldquo;going his rounds in these parts,&rdquo; and
+      he was always being looked for.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At home Yegorushka had heard a great deal of the Countess Dranitsky, too.
+      She, too, had some tens of thousands of acres, a great many sheep, a stud
+      farm and a great deal of money, but she did not &ldquo;go rounds,&rdquo; but lived at
+      home in a splendid house and grounds, about which Ivan Ivanitch, who had
+      been more than once at the countess&rsquo;s on business, and other acquaintances
+      told many marvellous tales; thus, for instance, they said that in the
+      countess&rsquo;s drawing-room, where the portraits of all the kings of Poland
+      hung on the walls, there was a big table-clock in the form of a rock, on
+      the rock a gold horse with diamond eyes, rearing, and on the horse the
+      figure of a rider also of gold, who brandished his sword to right and to
+      left whenever the clock struck. They said, too, that twice a year the
+      countess used to give a ball, to which the gentry and officials of the
+      whole province were invited, and to which even Varlamov used to come; all
+      the visitors drank tea from silver samovars, ate all sorts of
+      extraordinary things (they had strawberries and raspberries, for instance,
+      in winter at Christmas), and danced to a band which played day and night.
+      . . .
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And how beautiful she is,&rdquo; thought Yegorushka, remembering her face and
+      smile.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Kuzmitchov, too, was probably thinking about the countess. For when the
+      chaise had driven a mile and a half he said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But doesn&rsquo;t that Kazimir Mihalovitch plunder her right and left! The year
+      before last when, do you remember, I bought some wool from her, he made
+      over three thousand from my purchase alone.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That is just what you would expect from a Pole,&rdquo; said Father Christopher.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And little does it trouble her. Young and foolish, as they say, her head
+      is full of nonsense.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Yegorushka, for some reason, longed to think of nothing but Varlamov and
+      the countess, particularly the latter. His drowsy brain utterly refused
+      ordinary thoughts, was in a cloud and retained only fantastic fairy-tale
+      images, which have the advantage of springing into the brain of themselves
+      without any effort on the part of the thinker, and completely vanishing of
+      themselves at a mere shake of the head; and, indeed, nothing that was
+      around him disposed to ordinary thoughts. On the right there were the dark
+      hills which seemed to be screening something unseen and terrible; on the
+      left the whole sky about the horizon was covered with a crimson glow, and
+      it was hard to tell whether there was a fire somewhere, or whether it was
+      the moon about to rise. As by day the distance could be seen, but its
+      tender lilac tint had gone, quenched by the evening darkness, in which the
+      whole steppe was hidden like Moisey Moisevitch&rsquo;s children under the quilt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Corncrakes and quails do not call in the July nights, the nightingale does
+      not sing in the woodland marsh, and there is no scent of flowers, but
+      still the steppe is lovely and full of life. As soon as the sun goes down
+      and the darkness enfolds the earth, the day&rsquo;s weariness is forgotten,
+      everything is forgiven, and the steppe breathes a light sigh from its
+      broad bosom. As though because the grass cannot see in the dark that it
+      has grown old, a gay youthful twitter rises up from it, such as is not
+      heard by day; chirruping, twittering, whistling, scratching, the basses,
+      tenors and sopranos of the steppe all mingle in an incessant, monotonous
+      roar of sound in which it is sweet to brood on memories and sorrows. The
+      monotonous twitter soothes to sleep like a lullaby; you drive and feel you
+      are falling asleep, but suddenly there comes the abrupt agitated cry of a
+      wakeful bird, or a vague sound like a voice crying out in wonder &ldquo;A-ah,
+      a-ah!&rdquo; and slumber closes one&rsquo;s eyelids again. Or you drive by a little
+      creek where there are bushes and hear the bird, called by the steppe
+      dwellers &ldquo;the sleeper,&rdquo; call &ldquo;Asleep, asleep, asleep!&rdquo; while another
+      laughs or breaks into trills of hysterical weeping&mdash;that is the owl.
+      For whom do they call and who hears them on that plain, God only knows,
+      but there is deep sadness and lamentation in their cry. . . . There is a
+      scent of hay and dry grass and belated flowers, but the scent is heavy,
+      sweetly mawkish and soft.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Everything can be seen through the mist, but it is hard to make out the
+      colours and the outlines of objects. Everything looks different from what
+      it is. You drive on and suddenly see standing before you right in the
+      roadway a dark figure like a monk; it stands motionless, waiting, holding
+      something in its hands. . . . Can it be a robber? The figure comes closer,
+      grows bigger; now it is on a level with the chaise, and you see it is not
+      a man, but a solitary bush or a great stone. Such motionless expectant
+      figures stand on the low hills, hide behind the old barrows, peep out from
+      the high grass, and they all look like human beings and arouse suspicion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And when the moon rises the night becomes pale and dim. The mist seems to
+      have passed away. The air is transparent, fresh and warm; one can see well
+      in all directions and even distinguish the separate stalks of grass by the
+      wayside. Stones and bits of pots can be seen at a long distance. The
+      suspicious figures like monks look blacker against the light background of
+      the night, and seem more sinister. More and more often in the midst of the
+      monotonous chirruping there comes the sound of the &ldquo;A-ah, a-ah!&rdquo; of
+      astonishment troubling the motionless air, and the cry of a sleepless or
+      delirious bird. Broad shadows move across the plain like clouds across the
+      sky, and in the inconceivable distance, if you look long and intently at
+      it, misty monstrous shapes rise up and huddle one against another. . . .
+      It is rather uncanny. One glances at the pale green, star-spangled sky on
+      which there is no cloudlet, no spot, and understands why the warm air is
+      motionless, why nature is on her guard, afraid to stir: she is afraid and
+      reluctant to lose one instant of life. Of the unfathomable depth and
+      infinity of the sky one can only form a conception at sea and on the
+      steppe by night when the moon is shining. It is terribly lonely and
+      caressing; it looks down languid and alluring, and its caressing sweetness
+      makes one giddy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      You drive on for one hour, for a second. . . . You meet upon the way a
+      silent old barrow or a stone figure put up God knows when and by whom; a
+      nightbird floats noiselessly over the earth, and little by little those
+      legends of the steppes, the tales of men you have met, the stories of some
+      old nurse from the steppe, and all the things you have managed to see and
+      treasure in your soul, come back to your mind. And then in the churring of
+      insects, in the sinister figures, in the ancient barrows, in the blue sky,
+      in the moonlight, in the flight of the nightbird, in everything you see
+      and hear, triumphant beauty, youth, the fulness of power, and the
+      passionate thirst for life begin to be apparent; the soul responds to the
+      call of her lovely austere fatherland, and longs to fly over the steppes
+      with the nightbird. And in the triumph of beauty, in the exuberance of
+      happiness you are conscious of yearning and grief, as though the steppe
+      knew she was solitary, knew that her wealth and her inspiration were
+      wasted for the world, not glorified in song, not wanted by anyone; and
+      through the joyful clamour one hears her mournful, hopeless call for
+      singers, singers!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Woa! Good-evening, Panteley! Is everything all right?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;First-rate, Ivan Ivanitch!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Haven&rsquo;t you seen Varlamov, lads?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, we haven&rsquo;t.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Yegorushka woke up and opened his eyes. The chaise had stopped. On the
+      right the train of waggons stretched for a long way ahead on the road, and
+      men were moving to and fro near them. All the waggons being loaded up with
+      great bales of wool looked very high and fat, while the horses looked
+      short-legged and little.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, then, we shall go on to the Molokans&rsquo;!&rdquo; Kuzmitchov said aloud. &ldquo;The
+      Jew told us that Varlamov was putting up for the night at the Molokans&rsquo;.
+      So good-bye, lads! Good luck to you!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good-bye, Ivan Ivanitch,&rdquo; several voices replied.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I say, lads,&rdquo; Kuzmitchov cried briskly, &ldquo;you take my little lad along
+      with you! Why should he go jolting off with us for nothing? You put him on
+      the bales, Panteley, and let him come on slowly, and we shall overtake
+      you. Get down, Yegor! Go on; it&rsquo;s all right. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Yegorushka got down from the box-seat. Several hands caught him, lifted
+      him high into the air, and he found himself on something big, soft, and
+      rather wet with dew. It seemed to him now as though the sky were quite
+      close and the earth far away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hey, take his little coat!&rdquo; Deniska shouted from somewhere far below.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His coat and bundle flung up from far below fell close to Yegorushka.
+      Anxious not to think of anything, he quickly put his bundle under his head
+      and covered himself with his coat, and stretching his legs out and
+      shrinking a little from the dew, he laughed with content.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sleep, sleep, sleep, . . .&rdquo; he thought.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t be unkind to him, you devils!&rdquo; he heard Deniska&rsquo;s voice below.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good-bye, lads; good luck to you,&rdquo; shouted Kuzmitchov. &ldquo;I rely upon you!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t you be uneasy, Ivan Ivanitch!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Deniska shouted to the horses, the chaise creaked and started, not along
+      the road, but somewhere off to the side. For two minutes there was
+      silence, as though the waggons were asleep and there was no sound except
+      the clanking of the pails tied on at the back of the chaise as it slowly
+      died away in the distance. Then someone at the head of the waggons
+      shouted:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Kiruha! Sta-art!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The foremost of the waggons creaked, then the second, then the third. . .
+      . Yegorushka felt the waggon he was on sway and creak also. The waggons
+      were moving. Yegorushka took a tighter hold of the cord with which the
+      bales were tied on, laughed again with content, shifted the cake in his
+      pocket, and fell asleep just as he did in his bed at home. . . .
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When he woke up the sun had risen, it was screened by an ancient barrow,
+      and, trying to shed its light upon the earth, it scattered its beams in
+      all directions and flooded the horizon with gold. It seemed to Yegorushka
+      that it was not in its proper place, as the day before it had risen behind
+      his back, and now it was much more to his left. . . . And the whole
+      landscape was different. There were no hills now, but on all sides,
+      wherever one looked, there stretched the brown cheerless plain; here and
+      there upon it small barrows rose up and rooks flew as they had done the
+      day before. The belfries and huts of some village showed white in the
+      distance ahead; as it was Sunday the Little Russians were at home baking
+      and cooking&mdash;that could be seen by the smoke which rose from every
+      chimney and hung, a dark blue transparent veil, over the village. In
+      between the huts and beyond the church there were blue glimpses of a
+      river, and beyond the river a misty distance. But nothing was so different
+      from yesterday as the road. Something extraordinarily broad, spread out
+      and titanic, stretched over the steppe by way of a road. It was a grey
+      streak well trodden down and covered with dust, like all roads. Its width
+      puzzled Yegorushka and brought thoughts of fairy tales to his mind. Who
+      travelled along that road? Who needed so much space? It was strange and
+      unintelligible. It might have been supposed that giants with immense
+      strides, such as Ilya Muromets and Solovy the Brigand, were still
+      surviving in Russia, and that their gigantic steeds were still alive.
+      Yegorushka, looking at the road, imagined some half a dozen high chariots
+      racing along side by side, like some he used to see in pictures in his
+      Scripture history; these chariots were each drawn by six wild furious
+      horses, and their great wheels raised a cloud of dust to the sky, while
+      the horses were driven by men such as one may see in one&rsquo;s dreams or in
+      imagination brooding over fairy tales. And if those figures had existed,
+      how perfectly in keeping with the steppe and the road they would have
+      been!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Telegraph-poles with two wires on them stretched along the right side of
+      the road to its furthermost limit. Growing smaller and smaller they
+      disappeared near the village behind the huts and green trees, and then
+      again came into sight in the lilac distance in the form of very small thin
+      sticks that looked like pencils stuck into the ground. Hawks, falcons, and
+      crows sat on the wires and looked indifferently at the moving waggons.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yegorushka was lying in the last of the waggons, and so could see the
+      whole string. There were about twenty waggons, and there was a driver to
+      every three waggons. By the last waggon, the one in which Yegorushka was,
+      there walked an old man with a grey beard, as short and lean as Father
+      Christopher, but with a sunburnt, stern and brooding face. It is very
+      possible that the old man was not stern and not brooding, but his red
+      eyelids and his sharp long nose gave his face a stern frigid expression
+      such as is common with people in the habit of continually thinking of
+      serious things in solitude. Like Father Christopher he was wearing a
+      wide-brimmed top-hat, not like a gentleman&rsquo;s, but made of brown felt, and
+      in shape more like a cone with the top cut off than a real top-hat.
+      Probably from a habit acquired in cold winters, when he must more than
+      once have been nearly frozen as he trudged beside the waggons, he kept
+      slapping his thighs and stamping with his feet as he walked. Noticing that
+      Yegorushka was awake, he looked at him and said, shrugging his shoulders
+      as though from the cold:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, you are awake, youngster! So you are the son of Ivan Ivanitch?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No; his nephew. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nephew of Ivan Ivanitch? Here I have taken off my boots and am hopping
+      along barefoot. My feet are bad; they are swollen, and it&rsquo;s easier without
+      my boots . . . easier, youngster . . . without boots, I mean. . . . So you
+      are his nephew? He is a good man; no harm in him. . . . God give him
+      health. . . . No harm in him . . . I mean Ivan Ivanitch. . . . He has gone
+      to the Molokans&rsquo;. . . . O Lord, have mercy upon us!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The old man talked, too, as though it were very cold, pausing and not
+      opening his mouth properly; and he mispronounced the labial consonants,
+      stuttering over them as though his lips were frozen. As he talked to
+      Yegorushka he did not once smile, and he seemed stern.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Two waggons ahead of them there walked a man wearing a long reddish-brown
+      coat, a cap and high boots with sagging bootlegs and carrying a whip in
+      his hand. This was not an old man, only about forty. When he looked round
+      Yegorushka saw a long red face with a scanty goat-beard and a spongy
+      looking swelling under his right eye. Apart from this very ugly swelling,
+      there was another peculiar thing about him which caught the eye at once:
+      in his left hand he carried a whip, while he waved the right as though he
+      were conducting an unseen choir; from time to time he put the whip under
+      his arm, and then he conducted with both hands and hummed something to
+      himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The next driver was a long rectilinear figure with extremely sloping
+      shoulders and a back as flat as a board. He held himself as stiffly erect
+      as though he were marching or had swallowed a yard measure. His hands did
+      not swing as he walked, but hung down as if they were straight sticks, and
+      he strode along in a wooden way, after the manner of toy soldiers, almost
+      without bending his knees, and trying to take as long steps as possible.
+      While the old man or the owner of the spongy swelling were taking two
+      steps he succeeded in taking only one, and so it seemed as though he were
+      walking more slowly than any of them, and would drop behind. His face was
+      tied up in a rag, and on his head something stuck up that looked like a
+      monk&rsquo;s peaked cap; he was dressed in a short Little Russian coat, with
+      full dark blue trousers and bark shoes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yegorushka did not even distinguish those that were farther on. He lay on
+      his stomach, picked a little hole in the bale, and, having nothing better
+      to do, began twisting the wool into a thread. The old man trudging along
+      below him turned out not to be so stern as one might have supposed from
+      his face. Having begun a conversation, he did not let it drop.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where are you going?&rdquo; he asked, stamping with his feet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To school,&rdquo; answered Yegorushka.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To school? Aha! . . . Well, may the Queen of Heaven help you. Yes. One
+      brain is good, but two are better. To one man God gives one brain, to
+      another two brains, and to another three. . . . To another three, that is
+      true. . . . One brain you are born with, one you get from learning, and a
+      third with a good life. So you see, my lad, it is a good thing if a man
+      has three brains. Living is easier for him, and, what&rsquo;s more, dying is,
+      too. Dying is, too. . . . And we shall all die for sure.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The old man scratched his forehead, glanced upwards at Yegorushka with his
+      red eyes, and went on:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Maxim Nikolaitch, the gentleman from Slavyanoserbsk, brought a little lad
+      to school, too, last year. I don&rsquo;t know how he is getting on there in
+      studying the sciences, but he was a nice good little lad. . . . God give
+      them help, they are nice gentlemen. Yes, he, too, brought his boy to
+      school. . . . In Slavyanoserbsk there is no establishment, I suppose, for
+      study. No. . . . But it is a nice town. . . . There&rsquo;s an ordinary school
+      for simple folks, but for the higher studies there is nothing. No, that&rsquo;s
+      true. What&rsquo;s your name? . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yegorushka.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yegory, then. . . . The holy martyr Yegory, the Bearer of Victory, whose
+      day is the twenty-third of April. And my christian name is Panteley, . . .
+      Panteley Zaharov Holodov. . . . We are Holodovs . . . . I am a native of&mdash;maybe
+      you&rsquo;ve heard of it&mdash;Tim in the province of Kursk. My brothers are
+      artisans and work at trades in the town, but I am a peasant. . . . I have
+      remained a peasant. Seven years ago I went there&mdash;home, I mean. I
+      went to the village and to the town. . . . To Tim, I mean. Then, thank
+      God, they were all alive and well; . . . but now I don&rsquo;t know. . . . Maybe
+      some of them are dead. . . . And it&rsquo;s time they did die, for some of them
+      are older than I am. Death is all right; it is good so long, of course, as
+      one does not die without repentance. There is no worse evil than an
+      impenitent death; an impenitent death is a joy to the devil. And if you
+      want to die penitent, so that you may not be forbidden to enter the
+      mansions of the Lord, pray to the holy martyr Varvara. She is the
+      intercessor. She is, that&rsquo;s the truth. . . . For God has given her such a
+      place in the heavens that everyone has the right to pray to her for
+      penitence.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Panteley went on muttering, and apparently did not trouble whether
+      Yegorushka heard him or not. He talked listlessly, mumbling to himself,
+      without raising or dropping his voice, but succeeded in telling him a
+      great deal in a short time. All he said was made up of fragments that had
+      very little connection with one another, and quite uninteresting for
+      Yegorushka. Possibly he talked only in order to reckon over his thoughts
+      aloud after the night spent in silence, in order to see if they were all
+      there. After talking of repentance, he spoke about a certain Maxim
+      Nikolaitch from Slavyanoserbsk.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, he took his little lad; . . . he took him, that&rsquo;s true . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      One of the waggoners walking in front darted from his place, ran to one
+      side and began lashing on the ground with his whip. He was a stalwart,
+      broad-shouldered man of thirty, with curly flaxen hair and a look of great
+      health and vigour. Judging from the movements of his shoulders and the
+      whip, and the eagerness expressed in his attitude, he was beating
+      something alive. Another waggoner, a short stubby little man with a bushy
+      black beard, wearing a waistcoat and a shirt outside his trousers, ran up
+      to him. The latter broke into a deep guffaw of laughter and coughing and
+      said: &ldquo;I say, lads, Dymov has killed a snake!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There are people whose intelligence can be gauged at once by their voice
+      and laughter. The man with the black beard belonged to that class of
+      fortunate individuals; impenetrable stupidity could be felt in his voice
+      and laugh. The flaxen-headed Dymov had finished, and lifting from the
+      ground with his whip something like a cord, flung it with a laugh into the
+      cart.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s not a viper; it&rsquo;s a grass snake!&rdquo; shouted someone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The man with the wooden gait and the bandage round his face strode up
+      quickly to the dead snake, glanced at it and flung up his stick-like arms.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You jail-bird!&rdquo; he cried in a hollow wailing voice. &ldquo;What have you killed
+      a grass snake for? What had he done to you, you damned brute? Look, he has
+      killed a grass snake; how would you like to be treated so?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Grass snakes ought not to be killed, that&rsquo;s true,&rdquo; Panteley muttered
+      placidly, &ldquo;they ought not. . . They are not vipers; though it looks like a
+      snake, it is a gentle, innocent creature. . . . It&rsquo;s friendly to man, the
+      grass snake is.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Dymov and the man with the black beard were probably ashamed, for they
+      laughed loudly, and not answering, slouched lazily back to their waggons.
+      When the hindmost waggon was level with the spot where the dead snake lay,
+      the man with his face tied up standing over it turned to Panteley and
+      asked in a tearful voice:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Grandfather, what did he want to kill the grass snake for?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His eyes, as Yegorushka saw now, were small and dingy looking; his face
+      was grey, sickly and looked somehow dingy too while his chin was red and
+      seemed very much swollen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Grandfather, what did he kill it for?&rdquo; he repeated, striding along beside
+      Panteley.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A stupid fellow. His hands itch to kill, and that is why he does it,&rdquo;
+       answered the old man; &ldquo;but he oughtn&rsquo;t to kill a grass snake, that&rsquo;s true.
+      . . . Dymov is a ruffian, we all know, he kills everything he comes
+      across, and Kiruha did not interfere. He ought to have taken its part, but
+      instead of that, he goes off into &lsquo;Ha-ha-ha!&rsquo; and &lsquo;Ho-ho-ho!&rsquo; . . . But
+      don&rsquo;t be angry, Vassya. . . . Why be angry? They&rsquo;ve killed it&mdash;well,
+      never mind them. Dymov is a ruffian and Kiruha acted from foolishness&mdash;never
+      mind. . . . They are foolish people without understanding&mdash;but there,
+      don&rsquo;t mind them. Emelyan here never touches what he shouldn&rsquo;t; he never
+      does; . . . that is true, . . . because he is a man of education, while
+      they are stupid. . . . Emelyan, he doesn&rsquo;t touch things.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The waggoner in the reddish-brown coat and the spongy swelling on his
+      face, who was conducting an unseen choir, stopped. Hearing his name, and
+      waiting till Panteley and Vassya came up to him, he walked beside them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What are you talking about?&rdquo; he asked in a husky muffled voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, Vassya here is angry,&rdquo; said Panteley. &ldquo;So I have been saying things
+      to him to stop his being angry. . . . Oh, how my swollen feet hurt! Oh,
+      oh! They are more inflamed than ever for Sunday, God&rsquo;s holy day!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s from walking,&rdquo; observed Vassya.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, lad, no. It&rsquo;s not from walking. When I walk it seems easier; when I
+      lie down and get warm, . . . it&rsquo;s deadly. Walking is easier for me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Emelyan, in his reddish-brown coat, walked between Panteley and Vassya and
+      waved his arms, as though they were going to sing. After waving them a
+      little while he dropped them, and croaked out hopelessly:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have no voice. It&rsquo;s a real misfortune. All last night and this morning
+      I have been haunted by the trio &lsquo;Lord, have Mercy&rsquo; that we sang at the
+      wedding at Marionovsky&rsquo;s. It&rsquo;s in my head and in my throat. It seems as
+      though I could sing it, but I can&rsquo;t; I have no voice.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He paused for a minute, thinking, then went on:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;For fifteen years I was in the choir. In all the Lugansky works there
+      was, maybe, no one with a voice like mine. But, confound it, I bathed two
+      years ago in the Donets, and I can&rsquo;t get a single note true ever since. I
+      took cold in my throat. And without a voice I am like a workman without
+      hands.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s true,&rdquo; Panteley agreed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think of myself as a ruined man and nothing more.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At that moment Vassya chanced to catch sight of Yegorushka. His eyes grew
+      moist and smaller than ever.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There&rsquo;s a little gentleman driving with us,&rdquo; and he covered his nose with
+      his sleeve as though he were bashful. &ldquo;What a grand driver! Stay with us
+      and you shall drive the waggons and sell wool.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The incongruity of one person being at once a little gentleman and a
+      waggon driver seemed to strike him as very queer and funny, for he burst
+      into a loud guffaw, and went on enlarging upon the idea. Emelyan glanced
+      upwards at Yegorushka, too, but coldly and cursorily. He was absorbed in
+      his own thoughts, and had it not been for Vassya, would not have noticed
+      Yegorushka&rsquo;s presence. Before five minutes had passed he was waving his
+      arms again, then describing to his companions the beauties of the wedding
+      anthem, &ldquo;Lord, have Mercy,&rdquo; which he had remembered in the night. He put
+      the whip under his arm and waved both hands.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A mile from the village the waggons stopped by a well with a crane.
+      Letting his pail down into the well, black-bearded Kiruha lay on his
+      stomach on the framework and thrust his shaggy head, his shoulders, and
+      part of his chest into the black hole, so that Yegorushka could see
+      nothing but his short legs, which scarcely touched the ground. Seeing the
+      reflection of his head far down at the bottom of the well, he was
+      delighted and went off into his deep bass stupid laugh, and the echo from
+      the well answered him. When he got up his neck and face were as red as
+      beetroot. The first to run up and drink was Dymov. He drank laughing,
+      often turning from the pail to tell Kiruha something funny, then he turned
+      round, and uttered aloud, to be heard all over the steppe, five very bad
+      words. Yegorushka did not understand the meaning of such words, but he
+      knew very well they were bad words. He knew the repulsion his friends and
+      relations silently felt for such words. He himself, without knowing why,
+      shared that feeling and was accustomed to think that only drunk and
+      disorderly people enjoy the privilege of uttering such words aloud. He
+      remembered the murder of the grass snake, listened to Dymov&rsquo;s laughter,
+      and felt something like hatred for the man. And as ill-luck would have it,
+      Dymov at that moment caught sight of Yegorushka, who had climbed down from
+      the waggon and gone up to the well. He laughed aloud and shouted:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I say, lads, the old man has been brought to bed of a boy in the night!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Kiruha laughed his bass laugh till he coughed. Someone else laughed too,
+      while Yegorushka crimsoned and made up his mind finally that Dymov was a
+      very wicked man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With his curly flaxen head, with his shirt opened on his chest and no hat
+      on, Dymov looked handsome and exceptionally strong; in every movement he
+      made one could see the reckless dare-devil and athlete, knowing his value.
+      He shrugged his shoulders, put his arms akimbo, talked and laughed louder
+      than any of the rest, and looked as though he were going to lift up
+      something very heavy with one hand and astonish the whole world by doing
+      so. His mischievous mocking eyes glided over the road, the waggons, and
+      the sky without resting on anything, and seemed looking for someone to
+      kill, just as a pastime, and something to laugh at. Evidently he was
+      afraid of no one, would stick at nothing, and most likely was not in the
+      least interested in Yegorushka&rsquo;s opinion of him. . . . Yegorushka
+      meanwhile hated his flaxen head, his clear face, and his strength with his
+      whole heart, listened with fear and loathing to his laughter, and kept
+      thinking what word of abuse he could pay him out with.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Panteley, too, went up to the pail. He took out of his pocket a little
+      green glass of an ikon lamp, wiped it with a rag, filled it from the pail
+      and drank from it, then filled it again, wrapped the little glass in the
+      rag, and then put it back into his pocket.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Grandfather, why do you drink out of a lamp?&rdquo; Yegorushka asked him,
+      surprised.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;One man drinks out of a pail and another out of a lamp,&rdquo; the old man
+      answered evasively. &ldquo;Every man to his own taste. . . . You drink out of
+      the pail&mdash;well, drink, and may it do you good. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You darling, you beauty!&rdquo; Vassya said suddenly, in a caressing, plaintive
+      voice. &ldquo;You darling!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His eyes were fixed on the distance; they were moist and smiling, and his
+      face wore the same expression as when he had looked at Yegorushka.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who is it you are talking to?&rdquo; asked Kiruha.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A darling fox, . . . lying on her back, playing like a dog.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Everyone began staring into the distance, looking for the fox, but no one
+      could see it, only Vassya with his grey muddy-looking eyes, and he was
+      enchanted by it. His sight was extraordinarily keen, as Yegorushka learnt
+      afterwards. He was so long-sighted that the brown steppe was for him
+      always full of life and interest. He had only to look into the distance to
+      see a fox, a hare, a bustard, or some other animal keeping at a distance
+      from men. There was nothing strange in seeing a hare running away or a
+      flying bustard&mdash;everyone crossing the steppes could see them; but it
+      was not vouchsafed to everyone to see wild animals in their own haunts
+      when they were not running nor hiding, nor looking about them in alarm.
+      Yet Vassya saw foxes playing, hares washing themselves with their paws,
+      bustards preening their wings and hammering out their hollow nests. Thanks
+      to this keenness of sight, Vassya had, besides the world seen by everyone,
+      another world of his own, accessible to no one else, and probably a very
+      beautiful one, for when he saw something and was in raptures over it it
+      was impossible not to envy him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When the waggons set off again, the church bells were ringing for service.
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      V
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      The train of waggons drew up on the bank of a river on one side of a
+      village. The sun was blazing, as it had been the day before; the air was
+      stagnant and depressing. There were a few willows on the bank, but the
+      shade from them did not fall on the earth, but on the water, where it was
+      wasted; even in the shade under the waggon it was stifling and wearisome.
+      The water, blue from the reflection of the sky in it, was alluring.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Styopka, a waggoner whom Yegorushka noticed now for the first time, a
+      Little Russian lad of eighteen, in a long shirt without a belt, and full
+      trousers that flapped like flags as he walked, undressed quickly, ran
+      along the steep bank and plunged into the water. He dived three times,
+      then swam on his back and shut his eyes in his delight. His face was
+      smiling and wrinkled up as though he were being tickled, hurt and amused.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On a hot day when there is nowhere to escape from the sultry, stifling
+      heat, the splash of water and the loud breathing of a man bathing sounds
+      like good music to the ear. Dymov and Kiruha, looking at Styopka,
+      undressed quickly and one after the other, laughing loudly in eager
+      anticipation of their enjoyment, dropped into the water, and the quiet,
+      modest little river resounded with snorting and splashing and shouting.
+      Kiruha coughed, laughed and shouted as though they were trying to drown
+      him, while Dymov chased him and tried to catch him by the leg.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ha-ha-ha!&rdquo; he shouted. &ldquo;Catch him! Hold him!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Kiruha laughed and enjoyed himself, but his expression was the same as it
+      had been on dry land, stupid, with a look of astonishment on it as though
+      someone had, unnoticed, stolen up behind him and hit him on the head with
+      the butt-end of an axe. Yegorushka undressed, too, but did not let himself
+      down by the bank, but took a run and a flying leap from the height of
+      about ten feet. Describing an arc in the air, he fell into the water, sank
+      deep, but did not reach the bottom; some force, cold and pleasant to the
+      touch, seemed to hold him up and bring him back to the surface. He popped
+      out and, snorting and blowing bubbles, opened his eyes; but the sun was
+      reflected in the water quite close to his face. At first blinding spots of
+      light, then rainbow colours and dark patches, flitted before his eyes. He
+      made haste to dive again, opened his eyes in the water and saw something
+      cloudy-green like a sky on a moonlight night. Again the same force would
+      not let him touch the bottom and stay in the coolness, but lifted him to
+      the surface. He popped out and heaved a sigh so deep that he had a feeling
+      of space and freshness, not only in his chest, but in his stomach. Then,
+      to get from the water everything he possibly could get, he allowed himself
+      every luxury; he lay on his back and basked, splashed, frolicked, swam on
+      his face, on his side, on his back and standing up&mdash;just as he
+      pleased till he was exhausted. The other bank was thickly overgrown with
+      reeds; it was golden in the sun, and the flowers of the reeds hung
+      drooping to the water in lovely tassels. In one place the reeds were
+      shaking and nodding, with their flowers rustling&mdash; Styopka and Kiruha
+      were hunting crayfish.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A crayfish, look, lads! A crayfish!&rdquo; Kiruha cried triumphantly and
+      actually showed a crayfish.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yegorushka swam up to the reeds, dived, and began fumbling among their
+      roots. Burrowing in the slimy, liquid mud, he felt something sharp and
+      unpleasant&mdash;perhaps it really was a crayfish. But at that minute
+      someone seized him by the leg and pulled him to the surface. Spluttering
+      and coughing, Yegorushka opened his eyes and saw before him the wet
+      grinning face of the dare-devil Dymov. The impudent fellow was breathing
+      hard, and from a look in his eyes he seemed inclined for further mischief.
+      He held Yegorushka tight by the leg, and was lifting his hand to take hold
+      of his neck. But Yegorushka tore himself away with repulsion and terror,
+      as though disgusted at being touched and afraid that the bully would drown
+      him, and said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Fool! I&rsquo;ll punch you in the face.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Feeling that this was not sufficient to express his hatred, he thought a
+      minute and added:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You blackguard! You son of a bitch!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But Dymov, as though nothing were the matter, took no further notice of
+      Yegorushka, but swam off to Kiruha, shouting:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ha-ha-ha! Let us catch fish! Mates, let us catch fish.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To be sure,&rdquo; Kiruha agreed; &ldquo;there must be a lot of fish here.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Styopka, run to the village and ask the peasants for a net!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They won&rsquo;t give it to me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They will, you ask them. Tell them that they should give it to us for
+      Christ&rsquo;s sake, because we are just the same as pilgrims.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s true.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Styopka clambered out of the water, dressed quickly, and without a cap on
+      he ran, his full trousers flapping, to the village. The water lost all its
+      charm for Yegorushka after his encounter with Dymov. He got out and began
+      dressing. Panteley and Vassya were sitting on the steep bank, with their
+      legs hanging down, looking at the bathers. Emelyan was standing naked, up
+      to his knees in the water, holding on to the grass with one hand to
+      prevent himself from falling while the other stroked his body. With his
+      bony shoulder-blades, with the swelling under his eye, bending down and
+      evidently afraid of the water, he made a ludicrous figure. His face was
+      grave and severe. He looked angrily at the water, as though he were just
+      going to upbraid it for having given him cold in the Donets and robbed him
+      of his voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And why don&rsquo;t you bathe?&rdquo; Yegorushka asked Vassya.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, I don&rsquo;t care for it, . . .&rdquo; answered Vassya.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How is it your chin is swollen?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s bad. . . . I used to work at the match factory, little sir. . . .
+      The doctor used to say that it would make my jaw rot. The air is not
+      healthy there. There were three chaps beside me who had their jaws
+      swollen, and with one of them it rotted away altogether.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Styopka soon came back with the net. Dymov and Kiruha were already turning
+      blue and getting hoarse by being so long in the water, but they set about
+      fishing eagerly. First they went to a deep place beside the reeds; there
+      Dymov was up to his neck, while the water went over squat Kiruha&rsquo;s head.
+      The latter spluttered and blew bubbles, while Dymov stumbling on the
+      prickly roots, fell over and got caught in the net; both flopped about in
+      the water, and made a noise, and nothing but mischief came of their
+      fishing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s deep,&rdquo; croaked Kiruha. &ldquo;You won&rsquo;t catch anything.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t tug, you devil!&rdquo; shouted Dymov trying to put the net in the proper
+      position. &ldquo;Hold it up.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You won&rsquo;t catch anything here,&rdquo; Panteley shouted from the bank. &ldquo;You are
+      only frightening the fish, you stupids! Go more to the left! It&rsquo;s
+      shallower there!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Once a big fish gleamed above the net; they all drew a breath, and Dymov
+      struck the place where it had vanished with his fist, and his face
+      expressed vexation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ugh!&rdquo; cried Panteley, and he stamped his foot. &ldquo;You&rsquo;ve let the perch
+      slip! It&rsquo;s gone!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Moving more to the left, Dymov and Kiruha picked out a shallower place,
+      and then fishing began in earnest. They had wandered off some hundred
+      paces from the waggons; they could be seen silently trying to go as deep
+      as they could and as near the reeds, moving their legs a little at a time,
+      drawing out the nets, beating the water with their fists to drive them
+      towards the nets. From the reeds they got to the further bank; they drew
+      the net out, then, with a disappointed air, lifting their knees high as
+      they walked, went back into the reeds. They were talking about something,
+      but what it was no one could hear. The sun was scorching their backs, the
+      flies were stinging them, and their bodies had turned from purple to
+      crimson. Styopka was walking after them with a pail in his hands; he had
+      tucked his shirt right up under his armpits, and was holding it up by the
+      hem with his teeth. After every successful catch he lifted up some fish,
+      and letting it shine in the sun, shouted:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Look at this perch! We&rsquo;ve five like that!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Every time Dymov, Kiruha and Styopka pulled out the net they could be seen
+      fumbling about in the mud in it, putting some things into the pail and
+      throwing other things away; sometimes they passed something that was in
+      the net from hand to hand, examined it inquisitively, then threw that,
+      too, away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is it?&rdquo; they shouted to them from the bank.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Styopka made some answer, but it was hard to make out his words. Then he
+      climbed out of the water and, holding the pail in both hands, forgetting
+      to let his shirt drop, ran to the waggons.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s full!&rdquo; he shouted, breathing hard. &ldquo;Give us another!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Yegorushka looked into the pail: it was full. A young pike poked its ugly
+      nose out of the water, and there were swarms of crayfish and little fish
+      round about it. Yegorushka put his hand down to the bottom and stirred up
+      the water; the pike vanished under the crayfish and a perch and a tench
+      swam to the surface instead of it. Vassya, too, looked into the pail. His
+      eyes grew moist and his face looked as caressing as before when he saw the
+      fox. He took something out of the pail, put it to his mouth and began
+      chewing it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mates,&rdquo; said Styopka in amazement, &ldquo;Vassya is eating a live gudgeon!
+      Phoo!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s not a gudgeon, but a minnow,&rdquo; Vassya answered calmly, still
+      munching.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He took a fish&rsquo;s tail out of his mouth, looked at it caressingly, and put
+      it back again. While he was chewing and crunching with his teeth it seemed
+      to Yegorushka that he saw before him something not human. Vassya&rsquo;s swollen
+      chin, his lustreless eyes, his extraordinary sharp sight, the fish&rsquo;s tail
+      in his mouth, and the caressing friendliness with which he crunched the
+      gudgeon made him like an animal.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yegorushka felt dreary beside him. And the fishing was over, too. He
+      walked about beside the waggons, thought a little, and, feeling bored,
+      strolled off to the village.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Not long afterwards he was standing in the church, and with his forehead
+      leaning on somebody&rsquo;s back, listened to the singing of the choir. The
+      service was drawing to a close. Yegorushka did not understand church
+      singing and did not care for it. He listened a little, yawned, and began
+      looking at the backs and heads before him. In one head, red and wet from
+      his recent bathe, he recognized Emelyan. The back of his head had been
+      cropped in a straight line higher than is usual; the hair in front had
+      been cut unbecomingly high, and Emelyan&rsquo;s ears stood out like two dock
+      leaves, and seemed to feel themselves out of place. Looking at the back of
+      his head and his ears, Yegorushka, for some reason, thought that Emelyan
+      was probably very unhappy. He remembered the way he conducted with his
+      hands, his husky voice, his timid air when he was bathing, and felt
+      intense pity for him. He longed to say something friendly to him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am here, too,&rdquo; he said, putting out his hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      People who sing tenor or bass in the choir, especially those who have at
+      any time in their lives conducted, are accustomed to look with a stern and
+      unfriendly air at boys. They do not give up this habit, even when they
+      leave off being in a choir. Turning to Yegorushka, Emelyan looked at him
+      from under his brows and said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t play in church!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Then Yegorushka moved forwards nearer to the ikon-stand. Here he saw
+      interesting people. On the right side, in front of everyone, a lady and a
+      gentleman were standing on a carpet. There were chairs behind them. The
+      gentleman was wearing newly ironed shantung trousers; he stood as
+      motionless as a soldier saluting, and held high his bluish shaven chin.
+      There was a very great air of dignity in his stand-up collar, in his blue
+      chin, in his small bald patch and his cane. His neck was so strained from
+      excess of dignity, and his chin was drawn up so tensely, that it looked as
+      though his head were ready to fly off and soar upwards any minute. The
+      lady, who was stout and elderly and wore a white silk shawl, held her head
+      on one side and looked as though she had done someone a favour, and wanted
+      to say: &ldquo;Oh, don&rsquo;t trouble yourself to thank me; I don&rsquo;t like it . . . .&rdquo;
+       A thick wall of Little Russian heads stood all round the carpet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yegorushka went up to the ikon-stand and began kissing the local ikons.
+      Before each image he slowly bowed down to the ground, without getting up,
+      looked round at the congregation, then got up and kissed the ikon. The
+      contact of his forehead with the cold floor afforded him great
+      satisfaction. When the beadle came from the altar with a pair of long
+      snuffers to put out the candles, Yegorushka jumped up quickly from the
+      floor and ran up to him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Have they given out the holy bread?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There is none; there is none,&rdquo; the beadle muttered gruffly. &ldquo;It is no use
+      your. . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The service was over; Yegorushka walked out of the church in a leisurely
+      way, and began strolling about the market-place. He had seen a good many
+      villages, market-places, and peasants in his time, and everything that met
+      his eyes was entirely without interest for him. At a loss for something to
+      do, he went into a shop over the door of which hung a wide strip of red
+      cotton. The shop consisted of two roomy, badly lighted parts; in one half
+      they sold drapery and groceries, in the other there were tubs of tar, and
+      there were horse-collars hanging from the ceiling; from both came the
+      savoury smell of leather and tar. The floor of the shop had been watered;
+      the man who watered it must have been a very whimsical and original
+      person, for it was sprinkled in patterns and mysterious symbols. The
+      shopkeeper, an overfed-looking man with a broad face and round beard,
+      apparently a Great Russian, was standing, leaning his person over the
+      counter. He was nibbling a piece of sugar as he drank his tea, and heaved
+      a deep sigh at every sip. His face expressed complete indifference, but
+      each sigh seemed to be saying:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Just wait a minute; I will give it you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Give me a farthing&rsquo;s worth of sunflower seeds,&rdquo; Yegorushka said,
+      addressing him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The shopkeeper raised his eyebrows, came out from behind the counter, and
+      poured a farthing&rsquo;s worth of sunflower seeds into Yegorushka&rsquo;s pocket,
+      using an empty pomatum pot as a measure. Yegorushka did not want to go
+      away. He spent a long time in examining the box of cakes, thought a little
+      and asked, pointing to some little cakes covered with the mildew of age:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How much are these cakes?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Two for a farthing.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Yegorushka took out of his pocket the cake given him the day before by the
+      Jewess, and asked him:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And how much do you charge for cakes like this?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The shopman took the cake in his hands, looked at it from all sides, and
+      raised one eyebrow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Like that?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then he raised the other eyebrow, thought a minute, and answered:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Two for three farthings. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A silence followed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Whose boy are you?&rdquo; the shopman asked, pouring himself out some tea from
+      a red copper teapot.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The nephew of Ivan Ivanitch.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There are all sorts of Ivan Ivanitchs,&rdquo; the shopkeeper sighed. He looked
+      over Yegorushka&rsquo;s head towards the door, paused a minute and asked:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Would you like some tea?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Please. . . .&rdquo; Yegorushka assented not very readily, though he felt an
+      intense longing for his usual morning tea.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The shopkeeper poured him out a glass and gave him with it a bit of sugar
+      that looked as though it had been nibbled. Yegorushka sat down on the
+      folding chair and began drinking it. He wanted to ask the price of a pound
+      of sugar almonds, and had just broached the subject when a customer walked
+      in, and the shopkeeper, leaving his glass of tea, attended to his
+      business. He led the customer into the other half, where there was a smell
+      of tar, and was there a long time discussing something with him. The
+      customer, a man apparently very obstinate and pig-headed, was continually
+      shaking his head to signify his disapproval, and retreating towards the
+      door. The shopkeeper tried to persuade him of something and began pouring
+      some oats into a big sack for him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you call those oats?&rdquo; the customer said gloomily. &ldquo;Those are not oats,
+      but chaff. It&rsquo;s a mockery to give that to the hens; enough to make the
+      hens laugh. . . . No, I will go to Bondarenko.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      When Yegorushka went back to the river a small camp fire was smoking on
+      the bank. The waggoners were cooking their dinner. Styopka was standing in
+      the smoke, stirring the cauldron with a big notched spoon. A little on one
+      side Kiruha and Vassya, with eyes reddened from the smoke, were sitting
+      cleaning the fish. Before them lay the net covered with slime and water
+      weeds, and on it lay gleaming fish and crawling crayfish.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Emelyan, who had not long been back from the church, was sitting beside
+      Panteley, waving his arm and humming just audibly in a husky voice: &ldquo;To
+      Thee we sing. . . .&rdquo; Dymov was moving about by the horses.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When they had finished cleaning them, Kiruha and Vassya put the fish and
+      the living crayfish together in the pail, rinsed them, and from the pail
+      poured them all into the boiling water.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Shall I put in some fat?&rdquo; asked Styopka, skimming off the froth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No need. The fish will make its own gravy,&rdquo; answered Kiruha.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Before taking the cauldron off the fire Styopka scattered into the water
+      three big handfuls of millet and a spoonful of salt; finally he tried it,
+      smacked his lips, licked the spoon, and gave a self-satisfied grunt, which
+      meant that the grain was done.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All except Panteley sat down near the cauldron and set to work with their
+      spoons.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You there! Give the little lad a spoon!&rdquo; Panteley observed sternly. &ldquo;I
+      dare say he is hungry too!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ours is peasant fare,&rdquo; sighed Kiruha.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Peasant fare is welcome, too, when one is hungry.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They gave Yegorushka a spoon. He began eating, not sitting, but standing
+      close to the cauldron and looking down into it as in a hole. The grain
+      smelt of fish and fish-scales were mixed up with the millet. The crayfish
+      could not be hooked out with a spoon, and the men simply picked them out
+      of the cauldron with their hands; Vassya did so particularly freely, and
+      wetted his sleeves as well as his hands in the mess. But yet the stew
+      seemed to Yegorushka very nice, and reminded him of the crayfish soup
+      which his mother used to make at home on fast-days. Panteley was sitting
+      apart munching bread.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Grandfather, why aren&rsquo;t you eating?&rdquo; Emelyan asked him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t eat crayfish. . . . Nasty things,&rdquo; the old man said, and turned
+      away with disgust.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While they were eating they all talked. From this conversation Yegorushka
+      gathered that all his new acquaintances, in spite of the differences of
+      their ages and their characters, had one point in common which made them
+      all alike: they were all people with a splendid past and a very poor
+      present. Of their past they all&mdash; every one of them&mdash;spoke with
+      enthusiasm; their attitude to the present was almost one of contempt. The
+      Russian loves recalling life, but he does not love living. Yegorushka did
+      not yet know that, and before the stew had been all eaten he firmly
+      believed that the men sitting round the cauldron were the injured victims
+      of fate. Panteley told them that in the past, before there were railways,
+      he used to go with trains of waggons to Moscow and to Nizhni, and used to
+      earn so much that he did not know what to do with his money; and what
+      merchants there used to be in those days! what fish! how cheap everything
+      was! Now the roads were shorter, the merchants were stingier, the peasants
+      were poorer, the bread was dearer, everything had shrunk and was on a
+      smaller scale. Emelyan told them that in old days he had been in the choir
+      in the Lugansky works, and that he had a remarkable voice and read music
+      splendidly, while now he had become a peasant and lived on the charity of
+      his brother, who sent him out with his horses and took half his earnings.
+      Vassya had once worked in a match factory; Kiruha had been a coachman in a
+      good family, and had been reckoned the smartest driver of a three-in-hand
+      in the whole district. Dymov, the son of a well-to-do peasant, lived at
+      ease, enjoyed himself and had known no trouble till he was twenty, when
+      his stern harsh father, anxious to train him to work, and afraid he would
+      be spoiled at home, had sent him to a carrier&rsquo;s to work as a hired
+      labourer. Styopka was the only one who said nothing, but from his
+      beardless face it was evident that his life had been a much better one in
+      the past.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thinking of his father, Dymov frowned and left off eating. Sullenly from
+      under his brows he looked round at his companions and his eye rested upon
+      Yegorushka.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You heathen, take off your cap,&rdquo; he said rudely. &ldquo;You can&rsquo;t eat with your
+      cap on, and you a gentleman too!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Yegorushka took off his hat and did not say a word, but the stew lost all
+      savour for him, and he did not hear Panteley and Vassya intervening on his
+      behalf. A feeling of anger with the insulting fellow was rankling
+      oppressively in his breast, and he made up his mind that he would do him
+      some injury, whatever it cost him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After dinner everyone sauntered to the waggons and lay down in the shade.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are we going to start soon, grandfather?&rdquo; Yegorushka asked Panteley.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In God&rsquo;s good time we shall set off. There&rsquo;s no starting yet; it is too
+      hot. . . . O Lord, Thy will be done. Holy Mother. . . Lie down, little
+      lad.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Soon there was a sound of snoring from under the waggons. Yegorushka meant
+      to go back to the village, but on consideration, yawned and lay down by
+      the old man.
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      VI
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      The waggons remained by the river the whole day, and set off again when
+      the sun was setting.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yegorushka was lying on the bales again; the waggon creaked softly and
+      swayed from side to side. Panteley walked below, stamping his feet,
+      slapping himself on his thighs and muttering. The air was full of the
+      churring music of the steppes, as it had been the day before.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yegorushka lay on his back, and, putting his hands under his head, gazed
+      upwards at the sky. He watched the glow of sunset kindle, then fade away;
+      guardian angels covering the horizon with their gold wings disposed
+      themselves to slumber. The day had passed peacefully; the quiet peaceful
+      night had come, and they could stay tranquilly at home in heaven. . . .
+      Yegorushka saw the sky by degrees grow dark and the mist fall over the
+      earth&mdash;saw the stars light up, one after the other. . . .
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When you gaze a long while fixedly at the deep sky thoughts and feelings
+      for some reason merge in a sense of loneliness. One begins to feel
+      hopelessly solitary, and everything one used to look upon as near and akin
+      becomes infinitely remote and valueless; the stars that have looked down
+      from the sky thousands of years already, the mists and the
+      incomprehensible sky itself, indifferent to the brief life of man, oppress
+      the soul with their silence when one is left face to face with them and
+      tries to grasp their significance. One is reminded of the solitude
+      awaiting each one of us in the grave, and the reality of life seems awful
+      . . . full of despair. . . .
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yegorushka thought of his grandmother, who was sleeping now under the
+      cherry-trees in the cemetery. He remembered how she lay in her coffin with
+      pennies on her eyes, how afterwards she was shut in and let down into the
+      grave; he even recalled the hollow sound of the clods of earth on the
+      coffin lid. . . . He pictured his granny in the dark and narrow coffin,
+      helpless and deserted by everyone. His imagination pictured his granny
+      suddenly awakening, not understanding where she was, knocking upon the lid
+      and calling for help, and in the end swooning with horror and dying again.
+      He imagined his mother dead, Father Christopher, Countess Dranitsky,
+      Solomon. But however much he tried to imagine himself in the dark tomb,
+      far from home, outcast, helpless and dead, he could not succeed; for
+      himself personally he could not admit the possibility of death, and felt
+      that he would never die. . . .
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Panteley, for whom death could not be far away, walked below and went on
+      reckoning up his thoughts.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All right. . . . Nice gentlefolk, . . .&rdquo; he muttered. &ldquo;Took his little
+      lad to school&mdash;but how he is doing now I haven&rsquo;t heard say &mdash;in
+      Slavyanoserbsk. I say there is no establishment for teaching them to be
+      very clever. . . . No, that&rsquo;s true&mdash;a nice little lad, no harm in
+      him. . . . He&rsquo;ll grow up and be a help to his father . . . . You, Yegory,
+      are little now, but you&rsquo;ll grow big and will keep your father and mother.
+      . . . So it is ordained of God, &lsquo;Honour your father and your mother.&rsquo; . .
+      . I had children myself, but they were burnt. . . . My wife was burnt and
+      my children, . . . that&rsquo;s true. . . . The hut caught fire on the night of
+      Epiphany. . . . I was not at home, I was driving in Oryol. In Oryol. . . .
+      Marya dashed out into the street, but remembering that the children were
+      asleep in the hut, ran back and was burnt with her children. . . . Next
+      day they found nothing but bones.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      About midnight Yegorushka and the waggoners were again sitting round a
+      small camp fire. While the dry twigs and stems were burning up, Kiruha and
+      Vassya went off somewhere to get water from a creek; they vanished into
+      the darkness, but could be heard all the time talking and clinking their
+      pails; so the creek was not far away. The light from the fire lay a great
+      flickering patch on the earth; though the moon was bright, yet everything
+      seemed impenetrably black beyond that red patch. The light was in the
+      waggoners&rsquo; eyes, and they saw only part of the great road; almost unseen
+      in the darkness the waggons with the bales and the horses looked like a
+      mountain of undefined shape. Twenty paces from the camp fire at the edge
+      of the road stood a wooden cross that had fallen aslant. Before the camp
+      fire had been lighted, when he could still see things at a distance,
+      Yegorushka had noticed that there was a similar old slanting cross on the
+      other side of the great road.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Coming back with the water, Kiruha and Vassya filled the cauldron and
+      fixed it over the fire. Styopka, with the notched spoon in his hand, took
+      his place in the smoke by the cauldron, gazing dreamily into the water for
+      the scum to rise. Panteley and Emelyan were sitting side by side in
+      silence, brooding over something. Dymov was lying on his stomach, with his
+      head propped on his fists, looking into the fire. . . . Styopka&rsquo;s shadow
+      was dancing over him, so that his handsome face was at one minute covered
+      with darkness, at the next lighted up. . . . Kiruha and Vassya were
+      wandering about at a little distance gathering dry grass and bark for the
+      fire. Yegorushka, with his hands in his pockets, was standing by Panteley,
+      watching how the fire devoured the grass.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All were resting, musing on something, and they glanced cursorily at the
+      cross over which patches of red light were dancing. There is something
+      melancholy, pensive, and extremely poetical about a solitary tomb; one
+      feels its silence, and the silence gives one the sense of the presence of
+      the soul of the unknown man who lies under the cross. Is that soul at
+      peace on the steppe? Does it grieve in the moonlight? Near the tomb the
+      steppe seems melancholy, dreary and mournful; the grass seems more
+      sorrowful, and one fancies the grasshoppers chirrup less freely, and there
+      is no passer-by who would not remember that lonely soul and keep looking
+      back at the tomb, till it was left far behind and hidden in the mists. . .
+      .
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Grandfather, what is that cross for?&rdquo; asked Yegorushka.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Panteley looked at the cross and then at Dymov and asked:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nikola, isn&rsquo;t this the place where the mowers killed the merchants?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Dymov not very readily raised himself on his elbow, looked at the road and
+      said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, it is. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A silence followed. Kiruha broke up some dry stalks, crushed them up
+      together and thrust them under the cauldron. The fire flared up brightly;
+      Styopka was enveloped in black smoke, and the shadow cast by the cross
+      danced along the road in the dusk beside the waggons.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, they were killed,&rdquo; Dymov said reluctantly. &ldquo;Two merchants, father
+      and son, were travelling, selling holy images. They put up in the inn not
+      far from here that is now kept by Ignat Fomin. The old man had a drop too
+      much, and began boasting that he had a lot of money with him. We all know
+      merchants are a boastful set, God preserve us. . . . They can&rsquo;t resist
+      showing off before the likes of us. And at the time some mowers were
+      staying the night at the inn. So they overheard what the merchants said
+      and took note of it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;O Lord! . . . Holy Mother!&rdquo; sighed Panteley.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Next day, as soon as it was light,&rdquo; Dymov went on, &ldquo;the merchants were
+      preparing to set off and the mowers tried to join them. &lsquo;Let us go
+      together, your worships. It will be more cheerful and there will be less
+      danger, for this is an out-of-the-way place. . . .&rsquo; The merchants had to
+      travel at a walking pace to avoid breaking the images, and that just
+      suited the mowers. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Dymov rose into a kneeling position and stretched.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; he went on, yawning. &ldquo;Everything went all right till they reached
+      this spot, and then the mowers let fly at them with their scythes. The
+      son, he was a fine young fellow, snatched the scythe from one of them, and
+      he used it, too. . . . Well, of course, they got the best of it because
+      there were eight of them. They hacked at the merchants so that there was
+      not a sound place left on their bodies; when they had finished they
+      dragged both of them off the road, the father to one side and the son to
+      the other. Opposite that cross there is another cross on this side. . . .
+      Whether it is still standing, I don&rsquo;t know. . . . I can&rsquo;t see from here. .
+      . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is,&rdquo; said Kiruha.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They say they did not find much money afterwards.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; Panteley confirmed; &ldquo;they only found a hundred roubles.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And three of them died afterwards, for the merchant had cut them badly
+      with the scythe, too. They died from loss of blood. One had his hand cut
+      off, so that they say he ran three miles without his hand, and they found
+      him on a mound close to Kurikovo. He was squatting on his heels, with his
+      head on his knees, as though he were lost in thought, but when they looked
+      at him there was no life in him and he was dead. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They found him by the track of blood,&rdquo; said Panteley.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Everyone looked at the cross, and again there was a hush. From somewhere,
+      most likely from the creek, floated the mournful cry of the bird: &ldquo;Sleep!
+      sleep! sleep!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There are a great many wicked people in the world,&rdquo; said Emelyan.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A great many,&rdquo; assented Panteley, and he moved up closer to the fire as
+      though he were frightened. &ldquo;A great many,&rdquo; he went on in a low voice.
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve seen lots and lots of them. . . . Wicked people! . . . I have seen a
+      great many holy and just, too. . . . Queen of Heaven, save us and have
+      mercy on us. I remember once thirty years ago, or maybe more, I was
+      driving a merchant from Morshansk. The merchant was a jolly handsome
+      fellow, with money, too . . . the merchant was . . . a nice man, no harm
+      in him. . . . So we put up for the night at an inn. And in Russia the inns
+      are not what they are in these parts. There the yards are roofed in and
+      look like the ground floor, or let us say like barns in good farms. Only a
+      barn would be a bit higher. So we put up there and were all right. My
+      merchant was in a room, while I was with the horses, and everything was as
+      it should be. So, lads, I said my prayers before going to sleep and began
+      walking about the yard. And it was a dark night, I couldn&rsquo;t see anything;
+      it was no good trying. So I walked about a bit up to the waggons, or
+      nearly, when I saw a light gleaming. What could it mean? I thought the
+      people of the inn had gone to bed long ago, and besides the merchant and
+      me there were no other guests in the inn. . . . Where could the light have
+      come from? I felt suspicious. . . . I went closer . . . towards the light.
+      . . . The Lord have mercy upon me! and save me, Queen of Heaven! I looked
+      and there was a little window with a grating, . . . close to the ground,
+      in the house. . . I lay down on the ground and looked in; as soon as I
+      looked in a cold chill ran all down me. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Kiruha, trying not to make a noise, thrust a handful of twigs into the
+      fire. After waiting for it to leave off crackling and hissing, the old man
+      went on:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I looked in and there was a big cellar, black and dark. . . . There was a
+      lighted lantern on a tub. In the middle of the cellar were about a dozen
+      men in red shirts with their sleeves turned up, sharpening long knives. .
+      . . Ugh! So we had fallen into a nest of robbers. . . . What&rsquo;s to be done?
+      I ran to the merchant, waked him up quietly, and said: &lsquo;Don&rsquo;t be
+      frightened, merchant,&rsquo; said I, &lsquo;but we are in a bad way. We have fallen
+      into a nest of robbers,&rsquo; I said. He turned pale and asked: &lsquo;What are we to
+      do now, Panteley? I have a lot of money that belongs to orphans. As for my
+      life,&rsquo; he said, &lsquo;that&rsquo;s in God&rsquo;s hands. I am not afraid to die, but it&rsquo;s
+      dreadful to lose the orphans&rsquo; money,&rsquo; said he. . . . What were we to do?
+      The gates were locked; there was no getting out. If there had been a fence
+      one could have climbed over it, but with the yard shut up! . . . &lsquo;Come,
+      don&rsquo;t be frightened, merchant,&rsquo; said I; &lsquo;but pray to God. Maybe the Lord
+      will not let the orphans suffer. Stay still.&rsquo; said I, &lsquo;and make no sign,
+      and meanwhile, maybe, I shall think of something. . . .&rsquo; Right! . . . I
+      prayed to God and the Lord put the thought into my mind. . . . I clambered
+      up on my chaise and softly, . . . softly so that no one should hear, began
+      pulling out the straw in the thatch, made a hole and crept out, crept out.
+      . . . Then I jumped off the roof and ran along the road as fast as I
+      could. I ran and ran till I was nearly dead. . . . I ran maybe four miles
+      without taking breath, if not more. Thank God I saw a village. I ran up to
+      a hut and began tapping at a window. &lsquo;Good Christian people,&rsquo; I said, and
+      told them all about it, &lsquo;do not let a Christian soul perish. . . .&rsquo; I
+      waked them all up. . . . The peasants gathered together and went with me,
+      . . one with a cord, one with an oakstick, others with pitchforks. . . .
+      We broke in the gates of the inn-yard and went straight to the cellar. . .
+      . And the robbers had just finished sharpening their knives and were going
+      to kill the merchant. The peasants took them, every one of them, bound
+      them and carried them to the police. The merchant gave them three hundred
+      roubles in his joy, and gave me five gold pieces and put my name down.
+      They said that they found human bones in the cellar afterwards, heaps and
+      heaps of them. . . . Bones! . . . So they robbed people and then buried
+      them, so that there should be no traces. . . . Well, afterwards they were
+      punished at Morshansk.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Panteley had finished his story, and he looked round at his listeners.
+      They were gazing at him in silence. The water was boiling by now and
+      Styopka was skimming off the froth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is the fat ready?&rdquo; Kiruha asked him in a whisper.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wait a little. . . . Directly.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Styopka, his eyes fixed on Panteley as though he were afraid that the
+      latter might begin some story before he was back, ran to the waggons; soon
+      he came back with a little wooden bowl and began pounding some lard in it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I went another journey with a merchant, too, . . .&rdquo; Panteley went on
+      again, speaking as before in a low voice and with fixed unblinking eyes.
+      &ldquo;His name, as I remember now, was Pyotr Grigoritch. He was a nice man, . .
+      . the merchant was. We stopped in the same way at an inn. . . . He indoors
+      and me with the horses. . . . The people of the house, the innkeeper and
+      his wife, seemed friendly good sort of people; the labourers, too, seemed
+      all right; but yet, lads, I couldn&rsquo;t sleep. I had a queer feeling in my
+      heart, . . . a queer feeling, that was just it. The gates were open and
+      there were plenty of people about, and yet I felt afraid and not myself.
+      Everyone had been asleep long ago. It was the middle of the night; it
+      would soon be time to get up, and I was lying alone in my chaise and could
+      not close my eyes, as though I were some owl. And then, lads, I heard this
+      sound, &lsquo;Toop! toop! toop!&rsquo; Someone was creeping up to the chaise. I poke
+      my head out, and there was a peasant woman in nothing but her shift and
+      with her feet bare. . . . &lsquo;What do you want, good woman?&rsquo; I asked. And she
+      was all of a tremble; her face was terror-stricken. . . &lsquo;Get up, good
+      man,&rsquo; said she; &lsquo;the people are plotting evil. . . . They mean to kill
+      your merchant. With my own ears I heard the master whispering with his
+      wife. . . .&rsquo; So it was not for nothing, the foreboding of my heart! &lsquo;And
+      who are you?&rsquo; I asked. &lsquo;I am their cook,&rsquo; she said. . . . Right! . . . So
+      I got out of the chaise and went to the merchant. I waked him up and said:
+      &lsquo;Things aren&rsquo;t quite right, Pyotr Grigoritch. . . . Make haste and rouse
+      yourself from sleep, your worship, and dress now while there is still
+      time,&rsquo; I said; &lsquo;and to save our skins, let us get away from trouble.&rsquo; He
+      had no sooner begun dressing when the door opened and, mercy on us! I saw,
+      Holy Mother! the innkeeper and his wife come into the room with three
+      labourers. . . . So they had persuaded the labourers to join them. &lsquo;The
+      merchant has a lot of money, and we&rsquo;ll go shares,&rsquo; they told them. Every
+      one of the five had a long knife in their hand each a knife. The innkeeper
+      locked the door and said: &lsquo;Say your prayers, travellers, . . . and if you
+      begin screaming,&rsquo; they said, &lsquo;we won&rsquo;t let you say your prayers before you
+      die. . . .&rsquo; As though we could scream! I had such a lump in my throat I
+      could not cry out. . . . The merchant wept and said: &lsquo;Good Christian
+      people! you have resolved to kill me because my money tempts you. Well, so
+      be it; I shall not be the first nor shall I be the last. Many of us
+      merchants have been murdered at inns. But why, good Christian brothers,&rsquo;
+      says he, &lsquo;murder my driver? Why should he have to suffer for my money?&rsquo;
+      And he said that so pitifully! And the innkeeper answered him: &lsquo;If we
+      leave him alive,&rsquo; said he, &lsquo;he will be the first to bear witness against
+      us. One may just as well kill two as one. You can but answer once for
+      seven misdeeds. . . Say your prayers, that&rsquo;s all you can do, and it is no
+      good talking!&rsquo; The merchant and I knelt down side by side and wept and
+      said our prayers. He thought of his children. I was young in those days; I
+      wanted to live. . . . We looked at the images and prayed, and so pitifully
+      that it brings a tear even now. . . . And the innkeeper&rsquo;s wife looks at us
+      and says: &lsquo;Good people,&rsquo; said she, &lsquo;don&rsquo;t bear a grudge against us in the
+      other world and pray to God for our punishment, for it is want that drives
+      us to it.&rsquo; We prayed and wept and prayed and wept, and God heard us. He
+      had pity on us, I suppose. . . . At the very minute when the innkeeper had
+      taken the merchant by the beard to rip open his throat with his knife
+      suddenly someone seemed to tap at the window from the yard! We all
+      started, and the innkeeper&rsquo;s hands dropped. . . . Someone was tapping at
+      the window and shouting: &lsquo;Pyotr Grigoritch,&rsquo; he shouted, &lsquo;are you here?
+      Get ready and let&rsquo;s go!&rsquo; The people saw that someone had come for the
+      merchant; they were terrified and took to their heels. . . . And we made
+      haste into the yard, harnessed the horses, and were out of sight in a
+      minute. . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who was it knocked at the window?&rdquo; asked Dymov.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;At the window? It must have been a holy saint or angel, for there was no
+      one else. . . . When we drove out of the yard there wasn&rsquo;t a soul in the
+      street. . . . It was the Lord&rsquo;s doing.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Panteley told other stories, and in all of them &ldquo;long knives&rdquo; figured and
+      all alike sounded made up. Had he heard these stories from someone else,
+      or had he made them up himself in the remote past, and afterwards, as his
+      memory grew weaker, mixed up his experiences with his imaginations and
+      become unable to distinguish one from the other? Anything is possible, but
+      it is strange that on this occasion and for the rest of the journey,
+      whenever he happened to tell a story, he gave unmistakable preference to
+      fiction, and never told of what he really had experienced. At the time
+      Yegorushka took it all for the genuine thing, and believed every word;
+      later on it seemed to him strange that a man who in his day had travelled
+      all over Russia and seen and known so much, whose wife and children had
+      been burnt to death, so failed to appreciate the wealth of his life that
+      whenever he was sitting by the camp fire he was either silent or talked of
+      what had never been.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Over their porridge they were all silent, thinking of what they had just
+      heard. Life is terrible and marvellous, and so, however terrible a story
+      you tell in Russia, however you embroider it with nests of robbers, long
+      knives and such marvels, it always finds an echo of reality in the soul of
+      the listener, and only a man who has been a good deal affected by
+      education looks askance distrustfully, and even he will be silent. The
+      cross by the roadside, the dark bales of wool, the wide expanse of the
+      plain, and the lot of the men gathered together by the camp fire&mdash;all
+      this was of itself so marvellous and terrible that the fantastic colours
+      of legend and fairy-tale were pale and blended with life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All the others ate out of the cauldron, but Panteley sat apart and ate his
+      porridge out of a wooden bowl. His spoon was not like those the others
+      had, but was made of cypress wood, with a little cross on it. Yegorushka,
+      looking at him, thought of the little ikon glass and asked Styopka softly:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why does Grandfather sit apart?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He is an Old Believer,&rdquo; Styopka and Vassya answered in a whisper. And as
+      they said it they looked as though they were speaking of some secret vice
+      or weakness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All sat silent, thinking. After the terrible stories there was no
+      inclination to speak of ordinary things. All at once in the midst of the
+      silence Vassya drew himself up and, fixing his lustreless eyes on one
+      point, pricked up his ears.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is it?&rdquo; Dymov asked him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Someone is coming,&rdquo; answered Vassya.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where do you see him?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yo-on-der! There&rsquo;s something white. . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was nothing to be seen but darkness in the direction in which Vassya
+      was looking; everyone listened, but they could hear no sound of steps.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is he coming by the highroad?&rdquo; asked Dymov.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, over the open country. . . . He is coming this way.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A minute passed in silence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And maybe it&rsquo;s the merchant who was buried here walking over the steppe,&rdquo;
+       said Dymov.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All looked askance at the cross, exchanged glances and suddenly broke into
+      a laugh. They felt ashamed of their terror.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why should he walk?&rdquo; asked Panteley. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s only those walk at night whom
+      the earth will not take to herself. And the merchants were all right. . .
+      . The merchants have received the crown of martyrs.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But all at once they heard the sound of steps; someone was coming in
+      haste.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He&rsquo;s carrying something,&rdquo; said Vassya.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They could hear the grass rustling and the dry twigs crackling under the
+      feet of the approaching wayfarer. But from the glare of the camp fire
+      nothing could be seen. At last the steps sounded close by, and someone
+      coughed. The flickering light seemed to part; a veil dropped from the
+      waggoners&rsquo; eyes, and they saw a man facing them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Whether it was due to the flickering light or because everyone wanted to
+      make out the man&rsquo;s face first of all, it happened, strangely enough, that
+      at the first glance at him they all saw, first of all, not his face nor
+      his clothes, but his smile. It was an extraordinarily good-natured, broad,
+      soft smile, like that of a baby on waking, one of those infectious smiles
+      to which it is difficult not to respond by smiling too. The stranger, when
+      they did get a good look at him, turned out to be a man of thirty, ugly
+      and in no way remarkable. He was a tall Little Russian, with a long nose,
+      long arms and long legs; everything about him seemed long except his neck,
+      which was so short that it made him seem stooping. He was wearing a clean
+      white shirt with an embroidered collar, white trousers, and new high
+      boots, and in comparison with the waggoners he looked quite a dandy. In
+      his arms he was carrying something big, white, and at the first glance
+      strange-looking, and the stock of a gun also peeped out from behind his
+      shoulder.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Coming from the darkness into the circle of light, he stopped short as
+      though petrified, and for half a minute looked at the waggoners as though
+      he would have said: &ldquo;Just look what a smile I have!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Then he took a step towards the fire, smiled still more radiantly and
+      said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Bread and salt, friends!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are very welcome!&rdquo; Panteley answered for them all.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The stranger put down by the fire what he was carrying in his arms &mdash;it
+      was a dead bustard&mdash;and greeted them once more.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They all went up to the bustard and began examining it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A fine big bird; what did you kill it with?&rdquo; asked Dymov.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Grape-shot. You can&rsquo;t get him with small shot, he won&rsquo;t let you get near
+      enough. Buy it, friends! I will let you have it for twenty kopecks.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What use would it be to us? It&rsquo;s good roast, but I bet it would be tough
+      boiled; you could not get your teeth into it. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, what a pity! I would take it to the gentry at the farm; they would
+      give me half a rouble for it. But it&rsquo;s a long way to go&mdash; twelve
+      miles!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The stranger sat down, took off his gun and laid it beside him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He seemed sleepy and languid; he sat smiling, and, screwing up his eyes at
+      the firelight, apparently thinking of something very agreeable. They gave
+      him a spoon; he began eating.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who are you?&rdquo; Dymov asked him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The stranger did not hear the question; he made no answer, and did not
+      even glance at Dymov. Most likely this smiling man did not taste the
+      flavour of the porridge either, for he seemed to eat it mechanically,
+      lifting the spoon to his lips sometimes very full and sometimes quite
+      empty. He was not drunk, but he seemed to have something nonsensical in
+      his head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I ask you who you are?&rdquo; repeated Dymov.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I?&rdquo; said the unknown, starting. &ldquo;Konstantin Zvonik from Rovno. It&rsquo;s three
+      miles from here.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And anxious to show straight off that he was not quite an ordinary
+      peasant, but something better, Konstantin hastened to add:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We keep bees and fatten pigs.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you live with your father or in a house of your own?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No; now I am living in a house of my own. I have parted. This month, just
+      after St. Peter&rsquo;s Day, I got married. I am a married man now! . . . It&rsquo;s
+      eighteen days since the wedding.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s a good thing,&rdquo; said Panteley. &ldquo;Marriage is a good thing . . . .
+      God&rsquo;s blessing is on it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;His young wife sits at home while he rambles about the steppe,&rdquo; laughed
+      Kiruha. &ldquo;Queer chap!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      As though he had been pinched on the tenderest spot, Konstantin started,
+      laughed and flushed crimson.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But, Lord, she is not at home!&rdquo; he said quickly, taking the spoon out of
+      his mouth and looking round at everyone with an expression of delight and
+      wonder. &ldquo;She is not; she has gone to her mother&rsquo;s for three days! Yes,
+      indeed, she has gone away, and I feel as though I were not married. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Konstantin waved his hand and turned his head; he wanted to go on
+      thinking, but the joy which beamed in his face prevented him. As though he
+      were not comfortable, he changed his attitude, laughed, and again waved
+      his hand. He was ashamed to share his happy thoughts with strangers, but
+      at the same time he had an irresistible longing to communicate his joy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She has gone to Demidovo to see her mother,&rdquo; he said, blushing and moving
+      his gun. &ldquo;She&rsquo;ll be back to-morrow. . . . She said she would be back to
+      dinner.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And do you miss her?&rdquo; said Dymov.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, Lord, yes; I should think so. We have only been married such a little
+      while, and she has gone away. . . . Eh! Oh, but she is a tricky one, God
+      strike me dead! She is such a fine, splendid girl, such a one for laughing
+      and singing, full of life and fire! When she is there your brain is in a
+      whirl, and now she is away I wander about the steppe like a fool, as
+      though I had lost something. I have been walking since dinner.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Konstantin rubbed his eyes, looked at the fire and laughed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You love her, then, . . .&rdquo; said Panteley.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She is so fine and splendid,&rdquo; Konstantin repeated, not hearing him; &ldquo;such
+      a housewife, clever and sensible. You wouldn&rsquo;t find another like her among
+      simple folk in the whole province. She has gone away. . . . But she is
+      missing me, I kno-ow! I know the little magpie. She said she would be back
+      to-morrow by dinner-time. . . . And just think how queer!&rdquo; Konstantin
+      almost shouted, speaking a note higher and shifting his position. &ldquo;Now she
+      loves me and is sad without me, and yet she would not marry me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But eat,&rdquo; said Kiruha.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She would not marry me,&rdquo; Konstantin went on, not heeding him. &ldquo;I have
+      been struggling with her for three years! I saw her at the Kalatchik fair;
+      I fell madly in love with her, was ready to hang myself. . . . I live at
+      Rovno, she at Demidovo, more than twenty miles apart, and there was
+      nothing I could do. I sent match-makers to her, and all she said was: &lsquo;I
+      won&rsquo;t!&rsquo; Ah, the magpie! I sent her one thing and another, earrings and
+      cakes, and twenty pounds of honey&mdash;but still she said: &lsquo;I won&rsquo;t!&rsquo; And
+      there it was. If you come to think of it, I was not a match for her! She
+      was young and lovely, full of fire, while I am old: I shall soon be
+      thirty, and a regular beauty, too; a fine beard like a goat&rsquo;s, a clear
+      complexion all covered with pimples&mdash;how could I be compared with
+      her! The only thing to be said is that we are well off, but then the
+      Vahramenkys are well off, too. They&rsquo;ve six oxen, and they keep a couple of
+      labourers. I was in love, friends, as though I were plague-stricken. I
+      couldn&rsquo;t sleep or eat; my brain was full of thoughts, and in such a maze,
+      Lord preserve us! I longed to see her, and she was in Demidovo. What do
+      you think? God be my witness, I am not lying, three times a week I walked
+      over there on foot just to have a look at her. I gave up my work! I was so
+      frantic that I even wanted to get taken on as a labourer in Demidovo, so
+      as to be near her. I was in misery! My mother called in a witch a dozen
+      times; my father tried thrashing me. For three years I was in this
+      torment, and then I made up my mind. &lsquo;Damn my soul!&rsquo; I said. &lsquo;I will go to
+      the town and be a cabman. . . . It seems it is fated not to be.&rsquo; At Easter
+      I went to Demidovo to have a last look at her. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Konstantin threw back his head and went off into a mirthful tinkling
+      laugh, as though he had just taken someone in very cleverly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I saw her by the river with the lads,&rdquo; he went on. &ldquo;I was overcome with
+      anger. . . . I called her aside and maybe for a full hour I said all
+      manner of things to her. She fell in love with me! For three years she did
+      not like me! she fell in love with me for what I said to her. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What did you say to her?&rdquo; asked Dymov.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What did I say? I don&rsquo;t remember. . . How could one remember? My words
+      flowed at the time like water from a tap, without stopping to take breath.
+      Ta-ta-ta! And now I can&rsquo;t utter a word. . . . Well, so she married me. . .
+      . She&rsquo;s gone now to her mother&rsquo;s, the magpie, and while she is away here I
+      wander over the steppe. I can&rsquo;t stay at home. It&rsquo;s more than I can do!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Konstantin awkwardly released his feet, on which he was sitting, stretched
+      himself on the earth, and propped his head in his fists, then got up and
+      sat down again. Everyone by now thoroughly understood that he was in love
+      and happy, poignantly happy; his smile, his eyes, and every movement,
+      expressed fervent happiness. He could not find a place for himself, and
+      did not know what attitude to take to keep himself from being overwhelmed
+      by the multitude of his delightful thoughts. Having poured out his soul
+      before these strangers, he settled down quietly at last, and, looking at
+      the fire, sank into thought.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the sight of this happy man everyone felt depressed and longed to be
+      happy, too. Everyone was dreamy. Dymov got up, walked about softly by the
+      fire, and from his walk, from the movement of his shoulder-blades, it
+      could be seen that he was weighed down by depression and yearning. He
+      stood still for a moment, looked at Konstantin and sat down.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The camp fire had died down by now; there was no flicker, and the patch of
+      red had grown small and dim. . . . And as the fire went out the moonlight
+      grew clearer and clearer. Now they could see the full width of the road,
+      the bales of wool, the shafts of the waggons, the munching horses; on the
+      further side of the road there was the dim outline of the second cross. .
+      . .
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Dymov leaned his cheek on his hand and softly hummed some plaintive song.
+      Konstantin smiled drowsily and chimed in with a thin voice. They sang for
+      half a minute, then sank into silence. Emelyan started, jerked his elbows
+      and wriggled his fingers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Lads,&rdquo; he said in an imploring voice, &ldquo;let&rsquo;s sing something sacred!&rdquo;
+       Tears came into his eyes. &ldquo;Lads,&rdquo; he repeated, pressing his hands on his
+      heart, &ldquo;let&rsquo;s sing something sacred!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know anything,&rdquo; said Konstantin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Everyone refused, then Emelyan sang alone. He waved both arms, nodded his
+      head, opened his mouth, but nothing came from his throat but a discordant
+      gasp. He sang with his arms, with his head, with his eyes, even with the
+      swelling on his face; he sang passionately with anguish, and the more he
+      strained his chest to extract at least one note from it, the more
+      discordant were his gasps.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yegorushka, like the rest, was overcome with depression. He went to his
+      waggon, clambered up on the bales and lay down. He looked at the sky, and
+      thought of happy Konstantin and his wife. Why did people get married? What
+      were women in the world for? Yegorushka put the vague questions to
+      himself, and thought that a man would certainly be happy if he had an
+      affectionate, merry and beautiful woman continually living at his side.
+      For some reason he remembered the Countess Dranitsky, and thought it would
+      probably be very pleasant to live with a woman like that; he would perhaps
+      have married her with pleasure if that idea had not been so shameful. He
+      recalled her eyebrows, the pupils of her eyes, her carriage, the clock
+      with the horseman. . . . The soft warm night moved softly down upon him
+      and whispered something in his ear, and it seemed to him that it was that
+      lovely woman bending over him, looking at him with a smile and meaning to
+      kiss him. . . .
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nothing was left of the fire but two little red eyes, which kept on
+      growing smaller and smaller. Konstantin and the waggoners were sitting by
+      it, dark motionless figures, and it seemed as though there were many more
+      of them than before. The twin crosses were equally visible, and far, far
+      away, somewhere by the highroad there gleamed a red light&mdash;other
+      people cooking their porridge, most likely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Our Mother Russia is the he-ad of all the world!&rdquo; Kiruha sang out
+      suddenly in a harsh voice, choked and subsided. The steppe echo caught up
+      his voice, carried it on, and it seemed as though stupidity itself were
+      rolling on heavy wheels over the steppe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s time to go,&rdquo; said Panteley. &ldquo;Get up, lads.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      While they were putting the horses in, Konstantin walked by the waggons
+      and talked rapturously of his wife.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good-bye, mates!&rdquo; he cried when the waggons started. &ldquo;Thank you for your
+      hospitality. I shall go on again towards that light. It&rsquo;s more than I can
+      stand.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And he quickly vanished in the mist, and for a long time they could hear
+      him striding in the direction of the light to tell those other strangers
+      of his happiness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When Yegorushka woke up next day it was early morning; the sun had not yet
+      risen. The waggons were at a standstill. A man in a white cap and a suit
+      of cheap grey material, mounted on a little Cossack stallion, was talking
+      to Dymov and Kiruha beside the foremost waggon. A mile and a half ahead
+      there were long low white barns and little houses with tiled roofs; there
+      were neither yards nor trees to be seen beside the little houses.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What village is that, Grandfather?&rdquo; asked Yegorushka.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s the Armenian Settlement, youngster,&rdquo; answered Panteley. &ldquo;The
+      Armenians live there. They are a good sort of people, . . . the Arnienians
+      are.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The man in grey had finished talking to Dymov and Kiruha; he pulled up his
+      little stallion and looked across towards the settlement.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What a business, only think!&rdquo; sighed Panteley, looking towards the
+      settlement, too, and shuddering at the morning freshness. &ldquo;He has sent a
+      man to the settlement for some papers, and he doesn&rsquo;t come . . . . He
+      should have sent Styopka.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who is that, Grandfather?&rdquo; asked Yegorushka.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Varlamov.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      My goodness! Yegorushka jumped up quickly, getting upon his knees, and
+      looked at the white cap. It was hard to recognize the mysterious elusive
+      Varlamov, who was sought by everyone, who was always &ldquo;on his rounds,&rdquo; and
+      who had far more money than Countess Dranitsky, in the short, grey little
+      man in big boots, who was sitting on an ugly little nag and talking to
+      peasants at an hour when all decent people were asleep.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He is all right, a good man,&rdquo; said Panteley, looking towards the
+      settlement. &ldquo;God give him health&mdash;a splendid gentleman, Semyon
+      Alexandritch. . . . It&rsquo;s people like that the earth rests upon. That&rsquo;s
+      true. . . . The cocks are not crowing yet, and he is already up and about.
+      . . . Another man would be asleep, or gallivanting with visitors at home,
+      but he is on the steppe all day, . . . on his rounds. . . . He does not
+      let things slip. . . . No-o! He&rsquo;s a fine fellow. . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Varlamov was talking about something, while he kept his eyes fixed. The
+      little stallion shifted from one leg to another impatiently.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Semyon Alexandritch!&rdquo; cried Panteley, taking off his hat. &ldquo;Allow us to
+      send Styopka! Emelyan, call out that Styopka should be sent.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But now at last a man on horseback could be seen coming from the
+      settlement. Bending very much to one side and brandishing his whip above
+      his head like a gallant young Caucasian, and wanting to astonish everyone
+      by his horsemanship, he flew towards the waggons with the swiftness of a
+      bird.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That must be one of his circuit men,&rdquo; said Panteley. &ldquo;He must have a
+      hundred such horsemen or maybe more.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Reaching the first waggon, he pulled up his horse, and taking off his hat,
+      handed Varlamov a little book. Varlamov took several papers out of the
+      book, read them and cried:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And where is Ivantchuk&rsquo;s letter?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The horseman took the book back, looked at the papers and shrugged his
+      shoulders. He began saying something, probably justifying himself and
+      asking to be allowed to ride back to the settlement again. The little
+      stallion suddenly stirred as though Varlamov had grown heavier. Varlamov
+      stirred too.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Go along!&rdquo; he cried angrily, and he waved his whip at the man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then he turned his horse round and, looking through the papers in the
+      book, moved at a walking pace alongside the waggons. When he reached the
+      hindmost, Yegorushka strained his eyes to get a better look at him.
+      Varlamov was an elderly man. His face, a simple Russian sunburnt face with
+      a small grey beard, was red, wet with dew and covered with little blue
+      veins; it had the same expression of businesslike coldness as Ivan
+      Ivanitch&rsquo;s face, the same look of fanatical zeal for business. But yet
+      what a difference could be felt between him and Kuzmitchov! Uncle Ivan
+      Ivanitch always had on his face, together with his business-like reserve,
+      a look of anxiety and apprehension that he would not find Varlamov, that
+      he would be late, that he would miss a good price; nothing of that sort,
+      so characteristic of small and dependent persons, could be seen in the
+      face or figure of Varlamov. This man made the price himself, was not
+      looking for anyone, and did not depend on anyone; however ordinary his
+      exterior, yet in everything, even in the manner of holding his whip, there
+      was a sense of power and habitual authority over the steppe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As he rode by Yegorushka he did not glance at him. Only the little
+      stallion deigned to notice Yegorushka; he looked at him with his large
+      foolish eyes, and even he showed no interest. Panteley bowed to Varlamov;
+      the latter noticed it, and without taking his eyes off the sheets of
+      paper, said lisping:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How are you, old man?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Varlamov&rsquo;s conversation with the horseman and the way he had brandished
+      his whip had evidently made an overwhelming impression on the whole party.
+      Everyone looked grave. The man on horseback, cast down at the anger of the
+      great man, remained stationary, with his hat off, and the rein loose by
+      the foremost waggon; he was silent, and seemed unable to grasp that the
+      day had begun so badly for him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He is a harsh old man, . .&rdquo; muttered Panteley. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a pity he is so
+      harsh! But he is all right, a good man. . . . He doesn&rsquo;t abuse men for
+      nothing. . . . It&rsquo;s no matter. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      After examining the papers, Varlamov thrust the book into his pocket; the
+      little stallion, as though he knew what was in his mind, without waiting
+      for orders, started and dashed along the highroad.
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      VII
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      On the following night the waggoners had halted and were cooking their
+      porridge. On this occasion there was a sense of overwhelming oppression
+      over everyone. It was sultry; they all drank a great deal, but could not
+      quench their thirst. The moon was intensely crimson and sullen, as though
+      it were sick. The stars, too, were sullen, the mist was thicker, the
+      distance more clouded. Nature seemed as though languid and weighed down by
+      some foreboding.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was not the same liveliness and talk round the camp fire as there
+      had been the day before. All were dreary and spoke listlessly and without
+      interest. Panteley did nothing but sigh and complain of his feet, and
+      continually alluded to impenitent deathbeds.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Dymov was lying on his stomach, chewing a straw in silence; there was an
+      expression of disgust on his face as though the straw smelt unpleasant, a
+      spiteful and exhausted look. . . . Vassya complained that his jaw ached,
+      and prophesied bad weather; Emelyan was not waving his arms, but sitting
+      still and looking gloomily at the fire. Yegorushka, too, was weary. This
+      slow travelling exhausted him, and the sultriness of the day had given him
+      a headache.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While they were cooking the porridge, Dymov, to relieve his boredom, began
+      quarrelling with his companions.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Here he lolls, the lumpy face, and is the first to put his spoon in,&rdquo; he
+      said, looking spitefully at Emelyan. &ldquo;Greedy! always contrives to sit next
+      the cauldron. He&rsquo;s been a church-singer, so he thinks he is a gentleman!
+      There are a lot of singers like you begging along the highroad!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What are you pestering me for?&rdquo; asked Emelyan, looking at him angrily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To teach you not to be the first to dip into the cauldron. Don&rsquo;t think
+      too much of yourself!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are a fool, and that is all about it!&rdquo; wheezed out Emelyan.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Knowing by experience how such conversations usually ended, Panteley and
+      Vassya intervened and tried to persuade Dymov not to quarrel about
+      nothing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A church-singer!&rdquo; The bully would not desist, but laughed contemptuously.
+      &ldquo;Anyone can sing like that&mdash;sit in the church porch and sing &lsquo;Give me
+      alms, for Christ&rsquo;s sake!&rsquo; Ugh! you are a nice fellow!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Emelyan did not speak. His silence had an irritating effect on Dymov. He
+      looked with still greater hatred at the ex-singer and said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t care to have anything to do with you, or I would show you what to
+      think of yourself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But why are you pushing me, you Mazeppa?&rdquo; Emelyan cried, flaring up. &ldquo;Am
+      I interfering with you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What did you call me?&rdquo; asked Dymov, drawing himself up, and his eyes were
+      suffused with blood. &ldquo;Eh! I am a Mazeppa? Yes? Take that, then; go and
+      look for it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Dymov snatched the spoon out of Emelyan&rsquo;s hand and flung it far away.
+      Kiruha, Vassya, and Styopka ran to look for it, while Emelyan fixed an
+      imploring and questioning look on Panteley. His face suddenly became small
+      and wrinkled; it began twitching, and the ex-singer began to cry like a
+      child.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yegorushka, who had long hated Dymov, felt as though the air all at once
+      were unbearably stifling, as though the fire were scorching his face; he
+      longed to run quickly to the waggons in the darkness, but the bully&rsquo;s
+      angry bored eyes drew the boy to him. With a passionate desire to say
+      something extremely offensive, he took a step towards Dymov and brought
+      out, gasping for breath:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are the worst of the lot; I can&rsquo;t bear you!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      After this he ought to have run to the waggons, but he could not stir from
+      the spot and went on:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In the next world you will burn in hell! I&rsquo;ll complain to Ivan Ivanitch.
+      Don&rsquo;t you dare insult Emelyan!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Say this too, please,&rdquo; laughed Dyrnov: &ldquo;&lsquo;every little sucking-pig wants
+      to lay down the law.&rsquo; Shall I pull your ear?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Yegorushka felt that he could not breathe; and something which had never
+      happened to him before&mdash;he suddenly began shaking all over, stamping
+      his feet and crying shrilly:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Beat him, beat him!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Tears gushed from his eyes; he felt ashamed, and ran staggering back to
+      the waggon. The effect produced by his outburst he did not see. Lying on
+      the bales and twitching his arms and legs, he whispered:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mother, mother!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And these men and the shadows round the camp fire, and the dark bales and
+      the far-away lightning, which was flashing every minute in the distance&mdash;all
+      struck him now as terrible and unfriendly. He was overcome with terror and
+      asked himself in despair why and how he had come into this unknown land in
+      the company of terrible peasants? Where was his uncle now, where was
+      Father Christopher, where was Deniska? Why were they so long in coming?
+      Hadn&rsquo;t they forgotten him? At the thought that he was forgotten and cast
+      out to the mercy of fate, he felt such a cold chill of dread that he had
+      several times an impulse to jump off the bales of wool, and run back full
+      speed along the road; but the thought of the huge dark crosses, which
+      would certainly meet him on the way, and the lightning flashing in the
+      distance, stopped him. . . . And only when he whispered, &ldquo;Mother, mother!&rdquo;
+       he felt as it were a little better.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The waggoners must have been full of dread, too. After Yegorushka had run
+      away from the camp fire they sat at first for a long time in silence, then
+      they began speaking in hollow undertones about something, saying that it
+      was coming and that they must make haste and get away from it. . . . They
+      quickly finished supper, put out the fire and began harnessing the horses
+      in silence. From their fluster and the broken phrases they uttered it was
+      apparent they foresaw some trouble. Before they set off on their way,
+      Dymov went up to Panteley and asked softly:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What&rsquo;s his name?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yegory,&rdquo; answered Panteley.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Dymov put one foot on the wheel, caught hold of the cord which was tied
+      round the bales and pulled himself up. Yegorushka saw his face and curly
+      head. The face was pale and looked grave and exhausted, but there was no
+      expression of spite in it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yera!&rdquo; he said softly, &ldquo;here, hit me!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Yegorushka looked at him in surprise. At that instant there was a flash of
+      lightning.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s all right, hit me,&rdquo; repeated Dymov. And without waiting for
+      Yegorushka to hit him or to speak to him, he jumped down and said: &ldquo;How
+      dreary I am!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Then, swaying from one leg to the other and moving his shoulder-blades, he
+      sauntered lazily alongside the string of waggons and repeated in a voice
+      half weeping, half angry:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How dreary I am! O Lord! Don&rsquo;t you take offence, Emelyan,&rdquo; he said as he
+      passed Emelyan. &ldquo;Ours is a wretched cruel life!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a flash of lightning on the right, and, like a reflection in the
+      looking-glass, at once a second flash in the distance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yegory, take this,&rdquo; cried Panteley, throwing up something big and dark.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is it?&rdquo; asked Yegorushka.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A mat. There will be rain, so cover yourself up.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Yegorushka sat up and looked about him. The distance had grown perceptibly
+      blacker, and now oftener than every minute winked with a pale light. The
+      blackness was being bent towards the right as though by its own weight.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Will there be a storm, Grandfather?&rdquo; asked Yegorushka.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, my poor feet, how they ache!&rdquo; Panteley said in a high-pitched voice,
+      stamping his feet and not hearing the boy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the left someone seemed to strike a match in the sky; a pale
+      phosphorescent streak gleamed and went out. There was a sound as though
+      someone very far away were walking over an iron roof, probably barefoot,
+      for the iron gave a hollow rumble.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s set in!&rdquo; cried Kiruha.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Between the distance and the horizon on the right there was a flash of
+      lightning so vivid that it lighted up part of the steppe and the spot
+      where the clear sky met the blackness. A terrible cloud was swooping down,
+      without haste, a compact mass; big black shreds hung from its edge;
+      similar shreds pressing one upon another were piling up on the right and
+      left horizon. The tattered, ragged look of the storm-cloud gave it a
+      drunken disorderly air. There was a distinct, not smothered, growl of
+      thunder. Yegorushka crossed himself and began quickly putting on his
+      great-coat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am dreary!&rdquo; Dymov&rsquo;s shout floated from the foremost waggon, and it
+      could be told from his voice that he was beginning to be ill-humoured
+      again. &ldquo;I am so dreary!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      All at once there was a squall of wind, so violent that it almost snatched
+      away Yegorushka&rsquo;s bundle and mat; the mat fluttered in all directions and
+      flapped on the bale and on Yegorushka&rsquo;s face. The wind dashed whistling
+      over the steppe, whirled round in disorder and raised such an uproar from
+      the grass that neither the thunder nor the creaking of the wheels could be
+      heard; it blew from the black storm-cloud, carrying with it clouds of dust
+      and the scent of rain and wet earth. The moonlight grew mistier, as it
+      were dirtier; the stars were even more overcast; and clouds of dust could
+      be seen hurrying along the edge of the road, followed by their shadows. By
+      now, most likely, the whirlwind eddying round and lifting from the earth
+      dust, dry grass and feathers, was mounting to the very sky; uprooted
+      plants must have been flying by that very black storm-cloud, and how
+      frightened they must have been! But through the dust that clogged the eyes
+      nothing could be seen but the flash of lightning.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yegorushka, thinking it would pour with rain in a minute, knelt up and
+      covered himself with the mat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Panteley-ey!&rdquo; someone shouted in the front. &ldquo;A. . . a. . . va!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can&rsquo;t!&rdquo; Panteley answered in a loud high voice. &ldquo;A . . . a . . . va!
+      Arya . . . a!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was an angry clap of thunder, which rolled across the sky from right
+      to left, then back again, and died away near the foremost waggon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Holy, holy, holy, Lord of Sabaoth,&rdquo; whispered Yegorushka, crossing
+      himself. &ldquo;Fill heaven and earth with Thy glory.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The blackness in the sky yawned wide and breathed white fire. At once
+      there was another clap of thunder. It had scarcely ceased when there was a
+      flash of lightning so broad that Yegorushka suddenly saw through a slit in
+      the mat the whole highroad to the very horizon, all the waggoners and even
+      Kiruha&rsquo;s waistcoat. The black shreds had by now moved upwards from the
+      left, and one of them, a coarse, clumsy monster like a claw with fingers,
+      stretched to the moon. Yegorushka made up his mind to shut his eyes tight,
+      to pay no attention to it, and to wait till it was all over.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The rain was for some reason long in coming. Yegorushka peeped out from
+      the mat in the hope that perhaps the storm-cloud was passing over. It was
+      fearfully dark. Yegorushka could see neither Panteley, nor the bale of
+      wool, nor himself; he looked sideways towards the place where the moon had
+      lately been, but there was the same black darkness there as over the
+      waggons. And in the darkness the flashes of lightning seemed more violent
+      and blinding, so that they hurt his eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Panteley!&rdquo; called Yegorushka.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      No answer followed. But now a gust of wind for the last time flung up the
+      mat and hurried away. A quiet regular sound was heard. A big cold drop
+      fell on Yegorushka&rsquo;s knee, another trickled over his hand. He noticed that
+      his knees were not covered, and tried to rearrange the mat, but at that
+      moment something began pattering on the road, then on the shafts and the
+      bales. It was the rain. As though they understood one another, the rain
+      and the mat began prattling of something rapidly, gaily and most
+      annoyingly like two magpies.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yegorushka knelt up or rather squatted on his boots. While the rain was
+      pattering on the mat, he leaned forward to screen his knees, which were
+      suddenly wet. He succeeded in covering his knees, but in less than a
+      minute was aware of a penetrating, unpleasant dampness behind on his back
+      and the calves of his legs. He returned to his former position, exposing
+      his knees to the rain, and wondered what to do to rearrange the mat which
+      he could not see in the darkness. But his arms were already wet, the water
+      was trickling up his sleeves and down his collar, and his shoulder-blades
+      felt chilly. And he made up his mind to do nothing but sit motionless and
+      wait till it was all over.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Holy, holy, holy!&rdquo; he whispered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Suddenly, exactly over his head, the sky cracked with a fearful deafening
+      din; he huddled up and held his breath, waiting for the fragments to fall
+      upon his head and back. He inadvertently opened his eyes and saw a
+      blinding intense light flare out and flash five times on his fingers, his
+      wet sleeves, and on the trickles of water running from the mat upon the
+      bales and down to the ground. There was a fresh peal of thunder as violent
+      and awful; the sky was not growling and rumbling now, but uttering short
+      crashing sounds like the crackling of dry wood.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Trrah! tah! tah! tah!&rdquo; the thunder rang out distinctly, rolled over the
+      sky, seemed to stumble, and somewhere by the foremost waggons or far
+      behind to fall with an abrupt angry &ldquo;Trrra!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The flashes of lightning had at first been only terrible, but with such
+      thunder they seemed sinister and menacing. Their magic light pierced
+      through closed eyelids and sent a chill all over the body. What could he
+      do not to see them? Yegorushka made up his mind to turn over on his face.
+      Cautiously, as though afraid of being watched, he got on all fours, and
+      his hands slipping on the wet bale, he turned back again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Trrah! tah! tah!&rdquo; floated over his head, rolled under the waggons and
+      exploded &ldquo;Kraa!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Again he inadvertently opened his eyes and saw a new danger: three huge
+      giants with long pikes were following the waggon! A flash of lightning
+      gleamed on the points of their pikes and lighted up their figures very
+      distinctly. They were men of huge proportions, with covered faces, bowed
+      heads, and heavy footsteps. They seemed gloomy and dispirited and lost in
+      thought. Perhaps they were not following the waggons with any harmful
+      intent, and yet there was something awful in their proximity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yegorushka turned quickly forward, and trembling all over cried:
+      &ldquo;Panteley! Grandfather!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Trrah! tah! tah!&rdquo; the sky answered him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He opened his eyes to see if the waggoners were there. There were flashes
+      of lightning in two places, which lighted up the road to the far distance,
+      the whole string of waggons and all the waggoners. Streams of water were
+      flowing along the road and bubbles were dancing. Panteley was walking
+      beside the waggon; his tall hat and his shoulder were covered with a small
+      mat; his figure expressed neither terror nor uneasiness, as though he were
+      deafened by the thunder and blinded by the lightning.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Grandfather, the giants!&rdquo; Yegorushka shouted to him in tears.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But the old man did not hear. Further away walked Emelyan. He was covered
+      from head to foot with a big mat and was triangular in shape. Vassya,
+      without anything over him, was walking with the same wooden step as usual,
+      lifting his feet high and not bending his knees. In the flash of lightning
+      it seemed as though the waggons were not moving and the men were
+      motionless, that Vassya&rsquo;s lifted foot was rigid in the same position. . .
+      .
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yegorushka called the old man once more. Getting no answer, he sat
+      motionless, and no longer waited for it all to end. He was convinced that
+      the thunder would kill him in another minute, that he would accidentally
+      open his eyes and see the terrible giants, and he left off crossing
+      himself, calling the old man and thinking of his mother, and was simply
+      numb with cold and the conviction that the storm would never end.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But at last there was the sound of voices.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yegory, are you asleep?&rdquo; Panteley cried below. &ldquo;Get down! Is he deaf, the
+      silly little thing? . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Something like a storm!&rdquo; said an unfamiliar bass voice, and the stranger
+      cleared his throat as though he had just tossed off a good glass of vodka.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yegorushka opened his eyes. Close to the waggon stood Panteley, Emelyan,
+      looking like a triangle, and the giants. The latter were by now much
+      shorter, and when Yegorushka looked more closely at them they turned out
+      to be ordinary peasants, carrying on their shoulders not pikes but
+      pitchforks. In the space between Panteley and the triangular figure,
+      gleamed the window of a low-pitched hut. So the waggons were halting in
+      the village. Yegorushka flung off the mat, took his bundle and made haste
+      to get off the waggon. Now when close to him there were people talking and
+      a lighted window he no longer felt afraid, though the thunder was crashing
+      as before and the whole sky was streaked with lightning.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It was a good storm, all right, . . .&rdquo; Panteley was muttering. &ldquo;Thank
+      God, . . . my feet are a little softened by the rain. It was all right. .
+      . . Have you got down, Yegory? Well, go into the hut; it is all right. . .
+      .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Holy, holy, holy!&rdquo; wheezed Emelyan, &ldquo;it must have struck something . . .
+      . Are you of these parts?&rdquo; he asked the giants.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, from Glinovo. We belong to Glinovo. We are working at the Platers&rsquo;.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Threshing?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All sorts. Just now we are getting in the wheat. The lightning, the
+      lightning! It is long since we have had such a storm. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Yegorushka went into the hut. He was met by a lean hunchbacked old woman
+      with a sharp chin. She stood holding a tallow candle in her hands,
+      screwing up her eyes and heaving prolonged sighs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What a storm God has sent us!&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;And our lads are out for the
+      night on the steppe; they&rsquo;ll have a bad time, poor dears! Take off your
+      things, little sir, take off your things.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Shivering with cold and shrugging squeamishly, Yegorushka pulled off his
+      drenched overcoat, then stretched out his arms and straddled his legs, and
+      stood a long time without moving. The slightest movement caused an
+      unpleasant sensation of cold and wetness. His sleeves and the back of his
+      shirt were sopped, his trousers stuck to his legs, his head was dripping.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What&rsquo;s the use of standing there, with your legs apart, little lad?&rdquo; said
+      the old woman. &ldquo;Come, sit down.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Holding his legs wide apart, Yegorushka went up to the table and sat down
+      on a bench near somebody&rsquo;s head. The head moved, puffed a stream of air
+      through its nose, made a chewing sound and subsided. A mound covered with
+      a sheepskin stretched from the head along the bench; it was a peasant
+      woman asleep.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The old woman went out sighing, and came back with a big water melon and a
+      little sweet melon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Have something to eat, my dear! I have nothing else to offer you, . . .&rdquo;
+       she said, yawning. She rummaged in the table and took out a long sharp
+      knife, very much like the one with which the brigands killed the merchants
+      in the inn. &ldquo;Have some, my dear!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Yegorushka, shivering as though he were in a fever, ate a slice of sweet
+      melon with black bread and then a slice of water melon, and that made him
+      feel colder still.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Our lads are out on the steppe for the night, . . .&rdquo; sighed the old woman
+      while he was eating. &ldquo;The terror of the Lord! I&rsquo;d light the candle under
+      the ikon, but I don&rsquo;t know where Stepanida has put it. Have some more,
+      little sir, have some more. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The old woman gave a yawn and, putting her right hand behind her,
+      scratched her left shoulder.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It must be two o&rsquo;clock now,&rdquo; she said; &ldquo;it will soon be time to get up.
+      Our lads are out on the steppe for the night; they are all wet through for
+      sure. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Granny,&rdquo; said Yegorushka. &ldquo;I am sleepy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Lie down, my dear, lie down,&rdquo; the old woman sighed, yawning. &ldquo;Lord Jesus
+      Christ! I was asleep, when I heard a noise as though someone were
+      knocking. I woke up and looked, and it was the storm God had sent us. . .
+      . I&rsquo;d have lighted the candle, but I couldn&rsquo;t find it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Talking to herself, she pulled some rags, probably her own bed, off the
+      bench, took two sheepskins off a nail by the stove, and began laying them
+      out for a bed for Yegorushka. &ldquo;The storm doesn&rsquo;t grow less,&rdquo; she muttered.
+      &ldquo;If only nothing&rsquo;s struck in an unlucky hour. Our lads are out on the
+      steppe for the night. Lie down and sleep, my dear. . . . Christ be with
+      you, my child. . . . I won&rsquo;t take away the melon; maybe you&rsquo;ll have a bit
+      when you get up.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The sighs and yawns of the old woman, the even breathing of the sleeping
+      woman, the half-darkness of the hut, and the sound of the rain outside,
+      made one sleepy. Yegorushka was shy of undressing before the old woman. He
+      only took off his boots, lay down and covered himself with the sheepskin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is the little lad lying down?&rdquo; he heard Panteley whisper a little later.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; answered the old woman in a whisper. &ldquo;The terror of the Lord! It
+      thunders and thunders, and there is no end to it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It will soon be over,&rdquo; wheezed Panteley, sitting down; &ldquo;it&rsquo;s getting
+      quieter. . . . The lads have gone into the huts, and two have stayed with
+      the horses. The lads have. . . . They can&rsquo;t; . . . the horses would be
+      taken away. . . . I&rsquo;ll sit here a bit and then go and take my turn. . . .
+      We can&rsquo;t leave them; they would be taken. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Panteley and the old woman sat side by side at Yegorushka&rsquo;s feet, talking
+      in hissing whispers and interspersing their speech with sighs and yawns.
+      And Yegorushka could not get warm. The warm heavy sheepskin lay on him,
+      but he was trembling all over; his arms and legs were twitching, and his
+      whole inside was shivering. . . . He undressed under the sheepskin, but
+      that was no good. His shivering grew more and more acute.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Panteley went out to take his turn with the horses, and afterwards came
+      back again, and still Yegorushka was shivering all over and could not get
+      to sleep. Something weighed upon his head and chest and oppressed him, and
+      he did not know what it was, whether it was the old people whispering, or
+      the heavy smell of the sheepskin. The melon he had eaten had left an
+      unpleasant metallic taste in his mouth. Moreover he was being bitten by
+      fleas.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Grandfather, I am cold,&rdquo; he said, and did not know his own voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Go to sleep, my child, go to sleep,&rdquo; sighed the old woman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Tit came up to the bedside on his thin little legs and waved his arms,
+      then grew up to the ceiling and turned into a windmill. . . . Father
+      Christopher, not as he was in the chaise, but in his full vestments with
+      the sprinkler in his hand, walked round the mill, sprinkling it with holy
+      water, and it left off waving. Yegorushka, knowing this was delirium,
+      opened his eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Grandfather,&rdquo; he called, &ldquo;give me some water.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      No one answered. Yegorushka felt it insufferably stifling and
+      uncomfortable lying down. He got up, dressed, and went out of the hut.
+      Morning was beginning. The sky was overcast, but it was no longer raining.
+      Shivering and wrapping himself in his wet overcoat, Yegorushka walked
+      about the muddy yard and listened to the silence; he caught sight of a
+      little shed with a half-open door made of reeds. He looked into this shed,
+      went into it, and sat down in a dark corner on a heap of dry dung.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a tangle of thoughts in his heavy head; his mouth was dry and
+      unpleasant from the metallic taste. He looked at his hat, straightened the
+      peacock&rsquo;s feather on it, and thought how he had gone with his mother to
+      buy the hat. He put his hand into his pocket and took out a lump of
+      brownish sticky paste. How had that paste come into his pocket? He thought
+      a minute, smelt it; it smelt of honey. Aha! it was the Jewish cake! How
+      sopped it was, poor thing!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yegorushka examined his coat. It was a little grey overcoat with big bone
+      buttons, cut in the shape of a frock-coat. At home, being a new and
+      expensive article, it had not been hung in the hall, but with his mother&rsquo;s
+      dresses in her bedroom; he was only allowed to wear it on holidays.
+      Looking at it, Yegorushka felt sorry for it. He thought that he and the
+      great-coat were both abandoned to the mercy of destiny; he thought that he
+      would never get back home, and began sobbing so violently that he almost
+      fell off the heap of dung.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A big white dog with woolly tufts like curl-papers about its face, sopping
+      from the rain, came into the shed and stared with curiosity at Yegorushka.
+      It seemed to be hesitating whether to bark or not. Deciding that there was
+      no need to bark, it went cautiously up to Yegorushka, ate the sticky
+      plaster and went out again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There are Varlamov&rsquo;s men!&rdquo; someone shouted in the street.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After having his cry out, Yegorushka went out of the shed and, walking
+      round a big puddle, made his way towards the street. The waggons were
+      standing exactly opposite the gateway. The drenched waggoners, with their
+      muddy feet, were sauntering beside them or sitting on the shafts, as
+      listless and drowsy as flies in autumn. Yegorushka looked at them and
+      thought: &ldquo;How dreary and comfortless to be a peasant!&rdquo; He went up to
+      Panteley and sat down beside him on the shaft.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Grandfather, I&rsquo;m cold,&rdquo; he said, shivering and thrusting his hands up his
+      sleeves.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Never mind, we shall soon be there,&rdquo; yawned Panteley. &ldquo;Never mind, you
+      will get warm.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It must have been early when the waggons set off, for it was not hot.
+      Yegorushka lay on the bales of wool and shivered with cold, though the sun
+      soon came out and dried his clothes, the bales, and the earth. As soon as
+      he closed his eyes he saw Tit and the windmill again. Feeling a sickness
+      and heaviness all over, he did his utmost to drive away these images, but
+      as soon as they vanished the dare-devil Dymov, with red eyes and lifted
+      fists, rushed at Yegorushka with a roar, or there was the sound of his
+      complaint: &ldquo;I am so dreary!&rdquo; Varlamov rode by on his little Cossack
+      stallion; happy Konstantin passed, with a smile and the bustard in his
+      arms. And how tedious these people were, how sickening and unbearable!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Once&mdash;it was towards evening&mdash;he raised his head to ask for
+      water. The waggons were standing on a big bridge across a broad river.
+      There was black smoke below over the river, and through it could be seen a
+      steamer with a barge in tow. Ahead of them, beyond the river, was a huge
+      mountain dotted with houses and churches; at the foot of the mountain an
+      engine was being shunted along beside some goods trucks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yegorushka had never before seen steamers, nor engines, nor broad rivers.
+      Glancing at them now, he was not alarmed or surprised; there was not even
+      a look of anything like curiosity in his face. He merely felt sick, and
+      made haste to turn over to the edge of the bale. He was sick. Panteley,
+      seeing this, cleared his throat and shook his head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Our little lad&rsquo;s taken ill,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;He must have got a chill to the
+      stomach. The little lad must. . . away from home; it&rsquo;s a bad lookout!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <h3>
+      VIII
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      The waggons stopped at a big inn for merchants, not far from the quay. As
+      Yegorushka climbed down from the waggon he heard a very familiar voice.
+      Someone was helping him to get down, and saying:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We arrived yesterday evening. . . . We have been expecting you all day.
+      We meant to overtake you yesterday, but it was out of our way; we came by
+      the other road. I say, how you have crumpled your coat! You&rsquo;ll catch it
+      from your uncle!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Yegorushka looked into the speaker&rsquo;s mottled face and remembered that this
+      was Deniska.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your uncle and Father Christopher are in the inn now, drinking tea; come
+      along!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And he led Yegorushka to a big two-storied building, dark and gloomy like
+      the almshouse at N. After going across the entry, up a dark staircase and
+      through a narrow corridor, Yegorushka and Deniska reached a little room in
+      which Ivan Ivanitch and Father Christopher were sitting at the tea-table.
+      Seeing the boy, both the old men showed surprise and pleasure.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Aha! Yegor Ni-ko-la-aitch!&rdquo; chanted Father Christopher. &ldquo;Mr. Lomonosov!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, our gentleman that is to be,&rdquo; said Kuzmitchov, &ldquo;pleased to see you!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Yegorushka took off his great-coat, kissed his uncle&rsquo;s hand and Father
+      Christopher&rsquo;s, and sat down to the table.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, how did you like the journey, puer bone?&rdquo; Father Christopher pelted
+      him with questions as he poured him out some tea, with his radiant smile.
+      &ldquo;Sick of it, I&rsquo;ve no doubt? God save us all from having to travel by
+      waggon or with oxen. You go on and on, God forgive us; you look ahead and
+      the steppe is always lying stretched out the same as it was&mdash;you
+      can&rsquo;t see the end of it! It&rsquo;s not travelling but regular torture. Why
+      don&rsquo;t you drink your tea? Drink it up; and in your absence, while you have
+      been trailing along with the waggons, we have settled all our business
+      capitally. Thank God we have sold our wool to Tcherepahin, and no one
+      could wish to have done better. . . . We have made a good bargain.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At the first sight of his own people Yegorushka felt an overwhelming
+      desire to complain. He did not listen to Father Christopher, but thought
+      how to begin and what exactly to complain of. But Father Christopher&rsquo;s
+      voice, which seemed to him harsh and unpleasant, prevented him from
+      concentrating his attention and confused his thoughts. He had not sat at
+      the table five minutes before he got up, went to the sofa and lay down.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, well,&rdquo; said Father Christopher in surprise. &ldquo;What about your tea?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Still thinking what to complain of, Yegorushka leaned his head against the
+      wall and broke into sobs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, well!&rdquo; repeated Father Christopher, getting up and going to the
+      sofa. &ldquo;Yegory, what is the matter with you? Why are you crying?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;m . . . I&rsquo;m ill,&rdquo; Yegorushka brought out.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ill?&rdquo; said Father Christopher in amazement. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s not the right thing,
+      my boy. . . . One mustn&rsquo;t be ill on a journey. Aie, aie, what are you
+      thinking about, boy . . . eh?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He put his hand to Yegorushka&rsquo;s head, touched his cheek and said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, your head&rsquo;s feverish. . . . You must have caught cold or else have
+      eaten something. . . . Pray to God.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Should we give him quinine? . . .&rdquo; said Ivan Ivanitch, troubled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No; he ought to have something hot. . . . Yegory, have a little drop of
+      soup? Eh?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I . . . don&rsquo;t want any,&rdquo; said Yegorushka.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you feeling chilly?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I was chilly before, but now . . . now I am hot. And I ache all over. . .
+      .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ivan Ivanitch went up to the sofa, touched Yegorushka on the head, cleared
+      his throat with a perplexed air, and went back to the table.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I tell you what, you undress and go to bed,&rdquo; said Father Christopher.
+      &ldquo;What you want is sleep now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He helped Yegorushka to undress, gave him a pillow and covered him with a
+      quilt, and over that Ivan Ivanitch&rsquo;s great-coat. Then he walked away on
+      tiptoe and sat down to the table. Yegorushka shut his eyes, and at once it
+      seemed to him that he was not in the hotel room, but on the highroad
+      beside the camp fire. Emelyan waved his hands, and Dymov with red eyes lay
+      on his stomach and looked mockingly at Yegorushka.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Beat him, beat him!&rdquo; shouted Yegorushka.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He is delirious,&rdquo; said Father Christopher in an undertone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a nuisance!&rdquo; sighed Ivan Ivanitch.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He must be rubbed with oil and vinegar. Please God, he will be better
+      to-morrow.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      To be rid of bad dreams, Yegorushka opened his eyes and began looking
+      towards the fire. Father Christopher and Ivan Ivanitch had now finished
+      their tea and were talking in a whisper. The first was smiling with
+      delight, and evidently could not forget that he had made a good bargain
+      over his wool; what delighted him was not so much the actual profit he had
+      made as the thought that on getting home he would gather round him his big
+      family, wink slyly and go off into a chuckle; at first he would deceive
+      them all, and say that he had sold the wool at a price below its value,
+      then he would give his son-in-law, Mihail, a fat pocket-book and say:
+      &ldquo;Well, take it! that&rsquo;s the way to do business!&rdquo; Kuzmitchov did not seem
+      pleased; his face expressed, as before, a business-like reserve and
+      anxiety.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If I could have known that Tcherepahin would give such a price,&rdquo; he said
+      in a low voice, &ldquo;I wouldn&rsquo;t have sold Makarov those five tons at home. It
+      is vexatious! But who could have told that the price had gone up here?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A man in a white shirt cleared away the samovar and lighted the little
+      lamp before the ikon in the corner. Father Christopher whispered something
+      in his ear; the man looked, made a serious face like a conspirator, as
+      though to say, &ldquo;I understand,&rdquo; went out, and returned a little while
+      afterwards and put something under the sofa. Ivan Ivanitch made himself a
+      bed on the floor, yawned several times, said his prayers lazily, and lay
+      down.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think of going to the cathedral to-morrow,&rdquo; said Father Christopher. &ldquo;I
+      know the sacristan there. I ought to go and see the bishop after mass, but
+      they say he is ill.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He yawned and put out the lamp. Now there was no light in the room but the
+      little lamp before the ikon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They say he can&rsquo;t receive visitors,&rdquo; Father Christopher went on,
+      undressing. &ldquo;So I shall go away without seeing him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He took off his full coat, and Yegorushka saw Robinson Crusoe reappear.
+      Robinson stirred something in a saucer, went up to Yegorushka and
+      whispered:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Lomonosov, are you asleep? Sit up; I&rsquo;m going to rub you with oil and
+      vinegar. It&rsquo;s a good thing, only you must say a prayer.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Yegorushka roused himself quickly and sat up. Father Christopher pulled
+      down the boy&rsquo;s shirt, and shrinking and breathing jerkily, as though he
+      were being tickled himself, began rubbing Yegorushka&rsquo;s chest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost,&rdquo; he whispered,
+      &ldquo;lie with your back upwards&mdash;that&rsquo;s it. . . . You&rsquo;ll be all right
+      to-morrow, but don&rsquo;t do it again. . . . You are as hot as fire. I suppose
+      you were on the road in the storm.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You might well fall ill! In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy
+      Ghost, . . . you might well fall ill!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      After rubbing Yegorushka, Father Christopher put on his shirt again,
+      covered him, made the sign of the cross over him, and walked away. Then
+      Yegorushka saw him saying his prayers. Probably the old man knew a great
+      many prayers by heart, for he stood a long time before the ikon murmuring.
+      After saying his prayers he made the sign of the cross over the window,
+      the door, Yegorushka, and Ivan Ivanitch, lay down on the little sofa
+      without a pillow, and covered himself with his full coat. A clock in the
+      corridor struck ten. Yegorushka thought how long a time it would be before
+      morning; feeling miserable, he pressed his forehead against the back of
+      the sofa and left off trying to get rid of the oppressive misty dreams.
+      But morning came much sooner than he expected.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It seemed to him that he had not been lying long with his head pressed to
+      the back of the sofa, but when he opened his eyes slanting rays of
+      sunlight were already shining on the floor through the two windows of the
+      little hotel room. Father Christopher and Ivan Ivanitch were not in the
+      room. The room had been tidied; it was bright, snug, and smelt of Father
+      Christopher, who always smelt of cypress and dried cornflowers (at home he
+      used to make the holy-water sprinklers and decorations for the ikonstands
+      out of cornflowers, and so he was saturated with the smell of them).
+      Yegorushka looked at the pillow, at the slanting sunbeams, at his boots,
+      which had been cleaned and were standing side by side near the sofa, and
+      laughed. It seemed strange to him that he was not on the bales of wool,
+      that everything was dry around him, and that there was no thunder and
+      lightning on the ceiling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He jumped off the sofa and began dressing. He felt splendid; nothing was
+      left of his yesterday&rsquo;s illness but a slight weakness in his legs and
+      neck. So the vinegar and oil had done good. He remembered the steamer, the
+      railway engine, and the broad river, which he had dimly seen the day
+      before, and now he made haste to dress, to run to the quay and have a look
+      at them. When he had washed and was putting on his red shirt, the latch of
+      the door clicked, and Father Christopher appeared in the doorway, wearing
+      his top-hat and a brown silk cassock over his canvas coat and carrying his
+      staff in his hand. Smiling and radiant (old men are always radiant when
+      they come back from church), he put a roll of holy bread and a parcel of
+      some sort on the table, prayed before the ikon, and said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;God has sent us blessings&mdash;well, how are you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Quite well now,&rdquo; answered Yegorushka, kissing his hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thank God. . . . I have come from mass. I&rsquo;ve been to see a sacristan I
+      know. He invited me to breakfast with him, but I didn&rsquo;t go. I don&rsquo;t like
+      visiting people too early, God bless them!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He took off his cassock, stroked himself on the chest, and without haste
+      undid the parcel. Yegorushka saw a little tin of caviare, a piece of dry
+      sturgeon, and a French loaf.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;See; I passed a fish-shop and brought this,&rdquo; said Father Christopher.
+      &ldquo;There is no need to indulge in luxuries on an ordinary weekday; but I
+      thought, I&rsquo;ve an invalid at home, so it is excusable. And the caviare is
+      good, real sturgeon. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The man in the white shirt brought in the samovar and a tray with
+      tea-things.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Eat some,&rdquo; said Father Christopher, spreading the caviare on a slice of
+      bread and handing it to Yegorushka. &ldquo;Eat now and enjoy yourself, but the
+      time will soon come for you to be studying. Mind you study with attention
+      and application, so that good may come of it. What you have to learn by
+      heart, learn by heart, but when you have to tell the inner sense in your
+      own words, without regard to the outer form, then say it in your own
+      words. And try to master all subjects. One man knows mathematics
+      excellently, but has never heard of Pyotr Mogila; another knows about
+      Pyotr Mogila, but cannot explain about the moon. But you study so as to
+      understand everything. Study Latin, French, German, . . . geography, of
+      course, history, theology, philosophy, mathematics, . . . and when you
+      have mastered everything, not with haste but with prayer and with zeal,
+      then go into the service. When you know everything it will be easy for you
+      in any line of life. . . . You study and strive for the divine blessing,
+      and God will show you what to be. Whether a doctor, a judge or an
+      engineer. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Father Christopher spread a little caviare on a piece of bread, put it in
+      his mouth and said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The Apostle Paul says: &lsquo;Do not apply yourself to strange and diverse
+      studies.&rsquo; Of course, if it is black magic, unlawful arts, or calling up
+      spirits from the other world, like Saul, or studying subjects that can be
+      of no use to yourself or others, better not learn them. You must undertake
+      only what God has blessed. Take example . . . the Holy Apostles spoke in
+      all languages, so you study languages. Basil the Great studied mathematics
+      and philosophy&mdash;so you study them; St. Nestor wrote history&mdash;so
+      you study and write history. Take example from the saints.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Father Christopher sipped the tea from his saucer, wiped his moustaches,
+      and shook his head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good!&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I was educated in the old-fashioned way; I have
+      forgotten a great deal by now, but still I live differently from other
+      people. Indeed, there is no comparison. For instance, in company at a
+      dinner, or at an assembly, one says something in Latin, or makes some
+      allusion from history or philosophy, and it pleases people, and it pleases
+      me myself. . . . Or when the circuit court comes and one has to take the
+      oath, all the other priests are shy, but I am quite at home with the
+      judges, the prosecutors, and the lawyers. I talk intellectually, drink a
+      cup of tea with them, laugh, ask them what I don&rsquo;t know, . . . and they
+      like it. So that&rsquo;s how it is, my boy. Learning is light and ignorance is
+      darkness. Study! It&rsquo;s hard, of course; nowadays study is expensive. . . .
+      Your mother is a widow; she lives on her pension, but there, of course . .
+      .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Father Christopher glanced apprehensively towards the door, and went on in
+      a whisper:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ivan Ivanitch will assist. He won&rsquo;t desert you. He has no children of his
+      own, and he will help you. Don&rsquo;t be uneasy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He looked grave, and whispered still more softly:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Only mind, Yegory, don&rsquo;t forget your mother and Ivan Ivanitch, God
+      preserve you from it. The commandment bids you honour your mother, and
+      Ivan Ivanitch is your benefactor and takes the place of a father to you.
+      If you become learned, God forbid you should be impatient and scornful
+      with people because they are not so clever as you, then woe, woe to you!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Father Christopher raised his hand and repeated in a thin voice:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Woe to you! Woe to you!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Father Christopher&rsquo;s tongue was loosened, and he was, as they say, warming
+      to his subject; he would not have finished till dinnertime but the door
+      opened and Ivan Ivanitch walked in. He said good-morning hurriedly, sat
+      down to the table, and began rapidly swallowing his tea.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, I have settled all our business,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;We might have gone home
+      to-day, but we have still to think about Yegor. We must arrange for him.
+      My sister told me that Nastasya Petrovna, a friend of hers, lives
+      somewhere here, so perhaps she will take him in as a boarder.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He rummaged in his pocket-book, found a crumpled note and read:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;Little Lower Street: Nastasya Petrovna Toskunov, living in a house of
+      her own.&rsquo; We must go at once and try to find her. It&rsquo;s a nuisance!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Soon after breakfast Ivan Ivanitch and Yegorushka left the inn.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a nuisance,&rdquo; muttered his uncle. &ldquo;You are sticking to me like a
+      burr. You and your mother want education and gentlemanly breeding and I
+      have nothing but worry with you both. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      When they crossed the yard, the waggons and the drivers were not there.
+      They had all gone off to the quay early in the morning. In a far-off dark
+      corner of the yard stood the chaise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good-bye, chaise!&rdquo; thought Yegorushka.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At first they had to go a long way uphill by a broad street, then they had
+      to cross a big marketplace; here Ivan Ivanitch asked a policeman for
+      Little Lower Street.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I say,&rdquo; said the policeman, with a grin, &ldquo;it&rsquo;s a long way off, out that
+      way towards the town grazing ground.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They met several cabs but Ivan Ivanitch only permitted himself such a
+      weakness as taking a cab in exceptional cases and on great holidays.
+      Yegorushka and he walked for a long while through paved streets, then
+      along streets where there were only wooden planks at the sides and no
+      pavements, and in the end got to streets where there were neither planks
+      nor pavements. When their legs and their tongues had brought them to
+      Little Lower Street they were both red in the face, and taking off their
+      hats, wiped away the perspiration.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tell me, please,&rdquo; said Ivan Ivanitch, addressing an old man sitting on a
+      little bench by a gate, &ldquo;where is Nastasya Petrovna Toskunov&rsquo;s house?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There is no one called Toskunov here,&rdquo; said the old man, after pondering
+      a moment. &ldquo;Perhaps it&rsquo;s Timoshenko you want.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, Toskunov. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Excuse me, there&rsquo;s no one called Toskunov. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ivan Ivanitch shrugged his shoulders and trudged on farther.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You needn&rsquo;t look,&rdquo; the old man called after them. &ldquo;I tell you there
+      isn&rsquo;t, and there isn&rsquo;t.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Listen, auntie,&rdquo; said Ivan Ivanitch, addressing an old woman who was
+      sitting at a corner with a tray of pears and sunflower seeds, &ldquo;where is
+      Nastasya Petrovna Toskunov&rsquo;s house?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The old woman looked at him with surprise and laughed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, Nastasya Petrovna live in her own house now!&rdquo; she cried. &ldquo;Lord! it
+      is eight years since she married her daughter and gave up the house to her
+      son-in-law! It&rsquo;s her son-in-law lives there now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And her eyes expressed: &ldquo;How is it you didn&rsquo;t know a simple thing like
+      that, you fools?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And where does she live now?&rdquo; Ivan Ivanitch asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, Lord!&rdquo; cried the old woman, flinging up her hands in surprise. &ldquo;She
+      moved ever so long ago! It&rsquo;s eight years since she gave up her house to
+      her son-in-law! Upon my word!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She probably expected Ivan Ivanitch to be surprised, too, and to exclaim:
+      &ldquo;You don&rsquo;t say so,&rdquo; but Ivan Ivanitch asked very calmly:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where does she live now?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The old woman tucked up her sleeves and, stretching out her bare arm to
+      point, shouted in a shrill piercing voice:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Go straight on, straight on, straight on. You will pass a little red
+      house, then you will see a little alley on your left. Turn down that
+      little alley, and it will be the third gate on the right. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ivan Ivanitch and Yegorushka reached the little red house, turned to the
+      left down the little alley, and made for the third gate on the right. On
+      both sides of this very old grey gate there was a grey fence with big gaps
+      in it. The first part of the fence was tilting forwards and threatened to
+      fall, while on the left of the gate it sloped backwards towards the yard.
+      The gate itself stood upright and seemed to be still undecided which would
+      suit it best &mdash;to fall forwards or backwards. Ivan Ivanitch opened
+      the little gate at the side, and he and Yegorushka saw a big yard
+      overgrown with weeds and burdocks. A hundred paces from the gate stood a
+      little house with a red roof and green shutters. A stout woman with her
+      sleeves tucked up and her apron held out was standing in the middle of the
+      yard, scattering something on the ground and shouting in a voice as shrill
+      as that of the woman selling fruit:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Chick! . . . Chick! . . . Chick!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Behind her sat a red dog with pointed ears. Seeing the strangers, he ran
+      to the little gate and broke into a tenor bark (all red dogs have a tenor
+      bark).
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Whom do you want?&rdquo; asked the woman, putting up her hand to shade her eyes
+      from the sun.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good-morning!&rdquo; Ivan Ivanitch shouted, too, waving off the red dog with
+      his stick. &ldquo;Tell me, please, does Nastasya Petrovna Toskunov live here?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes! But what do you want with her?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps you are Nastasya Petrovna?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, yes, I am!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very pleased to see you. . . . You see, your old friend Olga Ivanovna
+      Knyasev sends her love to you. This is her little son. And I, perhaps you
+      remember, am her brother Ivan Ivanitch. . . . You are one of us from N. .
+      . . You were born among us and married there. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A silence followed. The stout woman stared blankly at Ivan Ivanitch, as
+      though not believing or not understanding him, then she flushed all over,
+      and flung up her hands; the oats were scattered out of her apron and tears
+      spurted from her eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Olga Ivanovna!&rdquo; she screamed, breathless with excitement. &ldquo;My own
+      darling! Ah, holy saints, why am I standing here like a fool? My pretty
+      little angel. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She embraced Yegorushka, wetted his face with her tears, and broke down
+      completely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Heavens!&rdquo; she said, wringing her hands, &ldquo;Olga&rsquo;s little boy! How
+      delightful! He is his mother all over! The image of his mother! But why
+      are you standing in the yard? Come indoors.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Crying, gasping for breath and talking as she went, she hurried towards
+      the house. Her visitors trudged after her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The room has not been done yet,&rdquo; she said, ushering the visitors into a
+      stuffy little drawing-room adorned with many ikons and pots of flowers.
+      &ldquo;Oh, Mother of God! Vassilisa, go and open the shutters anyway! My little
+      angel! My little beauty! I did not know that Olitchka had a boy like
+      that!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      When she had calmed down and got over her first surprise Ivan Ivanitch
+      asked to speak to her alone. Yegorushka went into another room; there was
+      a sewing-machine; in the window was a cage with a starling in it, and
+      there were as many ikons and flowers as in the drawing-room. Near the
+      machine stood a little girl with a sunburnt face and chubby cheeks like
+      Tit&rsquo;s, and a clean cotton dress. She stared at Yegorushka without
+      blinking, and apparently felt very awkward. Yegorushka looked at her and
+      after a pause asked:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What&rsquo;s your name?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The little girl moved her lips, looked as if she were going to cry, and
+      answered softly:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Atka. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This meant Katka.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He will live with you,&rdquo; Ivan Ivanitch was whispering in the drawing-room,
+      &ldquo;if you will be so kind, and we will pay ten roubles a month for his keep.
+      He is not a spoilt boy; he is quiet. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I really don&rsquo;t know what to say, Ivan Ivanitch!&rdquo; Nastasya Petrovna sighed
+      tearfully. &ldquo;Ten roubles a month is very good, but it is a dreadful thing
+      to take another person&rsquo;s child! He may fall ill or something. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      When Yegorushka was summoned back to the drawing-room Ivan Ivanitch was
+      standing with his hat in his hands, saying good-bye.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, let him stay with you now, then,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Good-bye! You stay,
+      Yegor!&rdquo; he said, addressing his nephew. &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t be troublesome; mind you
+      obey Nastasya Petrovna. . . . Good-bye; I am coming again to-morrow.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And he went away. Nastasya once more embraced Yegorushka, called him a
+      little angel, and with a tear-stained face began preparing for dinner.
+      Three minutes later Yegorushka was sitting beside her, answering her
+      endless questions and eating hot savoury cabbage soup.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the evening he sat again at the same table and, resting his head on his
+      hand, listened to Nastasya Petrovna. Alternately laughing and crying, she
+      talked of his mother&rsquo;s young days, her own marriage, her children. . . . A
+      cricket chirruped in the stove, and there was a faint humming from the
+      burner of the lamp. Nastasya Petrovna talked in a low voice, and was
+      continually dropping her thimble in her excitement; and Katka her
+      granddaughter, crawled under the table after it and each time sat a long
+      while under the table, probably examining Yegorushka&rsquo;s feet; and
+      Yegorushka listened, half dozing and looking at the old woman&rsquo;s face, her
+      wart with hairs on it, and the stains of tears, and he felt sad, very sad.
+      He was put to sleep on a chest and told that if he were hungry in the
+      night he must go out into the little passage and take some chicken, put
+      there under a plate in the window.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Next morning Ivan Ivanitch and Father Christopher came to say good-bye.
+      Nastasya Petrovna was delighted to see them, and was about to set the
+      samovar; but Ivan Ivanitch, who was in a great hurry, waved his hands and
+      said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We have no time for tea! We are just setting off.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Before parting they all sat down and were silent for a minute. Nastasya
+      Petrovna heaved a deep sigh and looked towards the ikon with tear-stained
+      eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; began Ivan Ivanitch, getting up, &ldquo;so you will stay. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      All at once the look of business-like reserve vanished from his face; he
+      flushed a little and said with a mournful smile:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mind you work hard. . . . Don&rsquo;t forget your mother, and obey Nastasya
+      Petrovna. . . . If you are diligent at school, Yegor, I&rsquo;ll stand by you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He took his purse out of his pocket, turned his back to Yegorushka,
+      fumbled for a long time among the smaller coins, and, finding a ten-kopeck
+      piece, gave it to Yegorushka.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Father Christopher, without haste, blessed Yegorushka.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. . . . Study,&rdquo; he
+      said. &ldquo;Work hard, my lad. If I die, remember me in your prayers. Here is a
+      ten-kopeck piece from me, too. . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Yegorushka kissed his hand, and shed tears; something whispered in his
+      heart that he would never see the old man again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have applied at the high school already,&rdquo; said Ivan Ivanitch in a voice
+      as though there were a corpse in the room. &ldquo;You will take him for the
+      entrance examination on the seventh of August. . . . Well, good-bye; God
+      bless you, good-bye, Yegor!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You might at least have had a cup of tea,&rdquo; wailed Nastasya Petrovna.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Through the tears that filled his eyes Yegorushka could not see his uncle
+      and Father Christopher go out. He rushed to the window, but they were not
+      in the yard, and the red dog, who had just been barking, was running back
+      from the gate with the air of having done his duty. When Yegorushka ran
+      out of the gate Ivan Ivanitch and Father Christopher, the former waving
+      his stick with the crook, the latter his staff, were just turning the
+      corner. Yegorushka felt that with these people all that he had known till
+      then had vanished from him for ever. He sank helplessly on to the little
+      bench, and with bitter tears greeted the new unknown life that was
+      beginning for him now. . . .
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What would that life be like?
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 6em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <pre>
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg&rsquo;s The Bishop and Other Stories, by Anton Chekhov
+
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+</pre>
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