1Once more I was in the town, in a two-storied white house which reminded me of a coffin meant to hold a lot of people. It was a new house, but it looked as if were in ill health, and was bloated like a beggar who has suddenly become rich and has overeaten. It stood sidewise to the street, and had eight windows to each floor, but where the face of the house ought to have been there were only four windows. The lower windows looked on a narrow passage and on the yard, and the upper windows on the laundress's little house and the causeway.

2No street, as I understood the term, existed. In front of the house a dirty causeway ran in two directions, cut in two by a narrow dike. To the left, it extended to the House of Detention, and was heaped with rubbish and logs, and at the bottom stood a thick pool of dark-green filth. On the right, at the end of the causeway, the slimy Xvyexdin Pond stagnated. The middle of the causeway was exactly opposite the house, and half of it was strewn with filth and overgrown with nettles and horse sorrel, while in the other half the priest Doriedont Pokrovski had planted a garden in which was a summer-house of thin lathes painted red. If one threw stones at it, the lathes split with a crackling sound.

3The place was intolerably depressing and shamelessly dirty. The autumn had ruthlessly broken up the filthy, rotten earth, changing it into a sort of red resin which clung to one's feet tenaciously. I had never seen so much dirt in so small a space before, and after being accustomed to the cleanliness of the fields and forests, this corner of the town aroused my disgust.

4Beyond the causeway stretched gray, broken-down fences, and in the distance I recognized the little house in which I had lived when I was shop-boy. The nearness of that house depressed me still more. I had known my master before; he and his brother used to be among mother's visitors. His brother it was who had sung so comically:

5"Andrei—papa, Andrei—papa—"

6They were not changed. The elder, with a hook nose and long hair, was pleasant in manner and seemed to be kind; the younger, Victor, had the same horse-like face and the same freckles. Their mother, grandmother's sister, was very cross and fault-finding. The elder son was married. His wife was a splendid creature, white like bread made from Indian corn, with very large, dark eyes. She said to me twice during the first day:

7"I gave your mother a silk cloak trimmed with jet."

8Somehow I did not want to believe that she had given, and that my mother had accepted, a present. When she reminded me of it again, I said:

9"You gave it to her, and that is the end of the matter; there is nothing to boast about."

10She started away from me.

11"Wh-a-at? To whom are you speaking?"

12Her face came out in red blotches, her eyes rolled, and she called her husband.

13He came into the kitchen, with his compasses in his hand and a pencil behind his ear, listened to what his wife had to say, and then said to me:

14"You must speak properly to her and to us all. There must be no insolence." Then he said to his wife, impatiently, "Don't disturb me with your nonsense!"

15"What do you mean—nonsense? If your relatives—"

16"The devil take my relatives!" cried the master, rushing away.

17I myself was not pleased to think that they were relatives of grandmother. Experience had taught me that relatives behave worse to one another than do strangers. Their gossip is more spiteful, since they know more of the bad and ridiculous sides of one another than strangers, and they fall out and fight more often.

18I liked my master. He used to shake back his hair with a graceful movement, and tuck it behind his ears, and he reminded me somehow of "Good Business." He often laughed merrily; his gray eyes looked kindly upon me, and funny wrinkles played divertingly about his aquiline nose.

19"You have abused each other long enough, wild fowl," he would say to his mother and his wife, showing his small, closely set teeth in a gentle smile.

20The mother-in-law and the daughter-in-law abused each other all day. I was surprised to see how swiftly and easily they plunged into a quarrel. The first thing in the morning, with their hair unbrushed and their clothes unfastened, they would rush about the rooms as if the house were on fire, and they fussed about all day, only pausing to take breath in the dining-room at dinner, tea, or supper. They ate and drank till they could eat and drink no more, and at dinner they talked about the food and disputed lethargically, preparing for a big quarrel. No matter what it was that the mother-in-law had prepared, the daughter-in-law was sure to say:

21"My mother did not cook it this way."

22"Well, if that is so, she did it badly, that's all." "On the contrary, she did it better."

23"Well, you had better go back to your mother."

24"I am mistress here."

25"And who am I?"

26Here the master would intervene.

27"That will do, wild fowl! What is the matter with you? Are you mad?"

28For some inexplicable reason everything about that house was peculiar and mirth-provoking. The way from the kitchen to the dining-room lay through a small closet, the only one in the house, through which they carried the samovar and the food into the dining-room. It was the cause of merry witticisms and often of laughable misunderstandings. I slept in the kitchen, between that door and the one leading to the stairs. My head was hot from the heat of the cooking-stove, but the draft from the stairs blew on my feet. When I retired to bed, I used to take all the mats off the floor and wrap them round my feet.

29The large reception-room, with its two pier-glasses, its pictures in gilt frames, its pair of card-tables, and its dozen Vienna chairs, was a dreary, depressing place. The small drawing-room was simply packed with a medley of soft furniture, with wedding presents, silver articles, and a tea-service. It was adorned with three lamps, one larger than the other two.

30In the dark, windowless bedroom, in addition to the wide bed, there were trunks and cupboards from which came the odors of leaf tobacco and Persian camomile. These three rooms were always unoccupied, while the entire household squeezed itself into the little dining-room. Directly after breakfast, at eight o'clock, the master and his brother moved the table, and, laying sheets of white paper upon it, with cases, pencils, and saucers containing Indian ink, set to work, one at each end of the table. The table was shaky, and took up nearly the whole of the room, and when the mistress and the nurse came out of the nursery they had to brush past the corners.

31"Don't come fussing about here!" Victor would cry.

32"Vassia, please tell him not to shout at me," the mistress would say to her husband in an offended tone.

33"All right; but don't come and shake the table," her husband would reply peaceably.

34"I am stout, and the room is so small."

35"Well, we will go and work in the large drawingroom."

36But at that she cried indignantly:

37"Lord! why on earth should you work in the large drawing-room?"

38At the door of the closet appeared the angry face of Matrena Ivanovna, flushed with the heat of the stove. She called out:

39"You see how it is, Vassia? She knows that you are working, and yet she can't be satisfied with the other four rooms."

40Victor laughed maliciously, but the master said: "That will do!"

41And the daughter-in-law, with a venomously eloquent gesture, sank into a chair and groaned:

42"I am dying! I am dying!"

43"Don't hinder my work, the devil take you!" roared the master, turning pale with the exertion. "This is nothing better than a mad-house. Here am I breaking my back to feed you. Oh, you wild fowl!"

44At first these quarrels used to alarm me, especially when the mistress, seizing a table knife, rushed into the closet, and, shutting both the doors, began to shriek like a mad thing. For a minute the house was quiet, then the master, having tried to force the door, stooped down, and called out to me:

45"Climb up on my back and unfasten the hook."

46I swiftly jumped on his back, and broke the pane of glass over the door; but when I bent down, the mistress hit me over the head with the blade of the knife. However, I succeeded in opening the door, and the master, dragging his wife into the dining-room after a struggle, took the knife away from her. As I sat in the kitchen rubbing my bruised head, I soon came to the conclusion that I had suffered for nothing. The knife was so blunt that it would hardly cut a piece of bread, and it would certainly never have made an incision in any one's skin. Besides, there had been no need for me to climb on the master's back. I could have broken the glass by standing on a chair, and in any case it would have been easier for a grown person to have unfastened the hook, since his arms would have been longer. After that episode the quarrels in the house ceased to alarm me.

47The brothers used to sing in the church choir; sometimes they used to sing softly over their work. The elder would begin in a baritone:

48"The ring, which was the maiden's heart,

49I cast from me into the sea. "

50And the younger would join with his tenor:

51"And I with that very ring

52Her earthly joy did ruin. "

53The mistress would murmur from the nursery:

54"Have you gone out of your minds? Baby is asleep," or: "How can you, Vassia, a married man, be singing about girls? Besides, the bell will ring for vespers in a minute."

55"What's the matter now? We are only singing a church tune."

56But the mistress intimated that it was out of place to sing church tunes here, there, and everywhere. Besides, and she pointed eloquently to the little door.

57"We shall have to change our quarters, or the devil knows what will become of us," said the master.

58He said just as often that he must get another table, and he said it for three years in succession.

59When I listened to my employers talking about people, I was always reminded of the boot-shop. They used to talk in the same way there. It was evident to me that my present masters also thought themselves better than any one in the town. They knew the rules of correct conduct to the minutest detail, and, guided by these rules, which were not at all clear to me, they judged others pitilessly and unsparingly. This sitting in judgment aroused in me a ferocious resentment and anger against the laws of my employers, and the breaking of those laws became a source of pleasure to me.

60I had a lot of work to do. I fulfilled all the duties of a housemaid, washed the kitchen over on Wednesday, cleaning the samovar and all the copper vessels, and on Saturday cleaned the floor of the rest of the house and both staircases. I had to chop and bring in the wood for the stoves, wash up, prepare vegetables for cooking, and go marketing with the mistress, carrying her basket of purchases after her, besides running errands to the shops and to the chemist.

61My real mistress, grandmother's sister, a noisy, indomitable, implacably fierce old woman, rose early at six o'clock, and after washing herself in a hurry, knelt before the icon with only her chemise on, and complained long to God about her life, her children, and her daughter-in-law.

62"Lord," she would exclaim, with tears in her voice, pressing her two first fingers and her thumbs against her forehead—"Lord, I ask nothing, I want nothing; only give me rest and peace, Lord, by Thy power!"

63Her sobs used to wake me up, and, half asleep, I used to peep from under the blanket, and listen with terror to her passionate prayers. The autumn morning looked dimly in at the kitchen window through panes washed by the rain. On the floor in the cold twilight her gray figure swayed from side to side; she waved her arms alarmingly. Her thin, light hair fell from her small head upon her neck and shoulders from under the swathing handkerchief, which kept slipping off. She would replace it angrily with her left hand, muttering "Oh, bother you!"

64Striking her forehead with force, beating her breast and her shoulders, she would wail:

65"And my daughter-in-law—punish her, O Lord, on my account! Make her pay for all that she has made me suffer! And open the eyes of my son—open his eyes and Victor's! Lord, help Victor; be merciful to him!"

66Victorushka also slept in the kitchen, and, hearing the groans of his mother, would cry in a sleepy voice:

67"Mamasha, you are funning down the young wife again. It is really dreadful."

68"All right; go to sleep," the old woman would whisper guiltily. She would be silent for a minute perhaps, and then she would begin to murmur vindictively, "May their bones be broken, and may there be no shelter for them on earth, Lord!"

69Even grandfather had never prayed so terribly.

70When she had said her prayers she used to wake me up.

71"Wake up! You will never get on if you do not get up early. Get the samovar ready! Bring the wood in! Did n't you get the sticks ready over night?"

72I tried to be quick in order to escape hearing the frothy whisper of the old woman, but it was impossible to please her. She went about the kitchen like a winter snow-storm, hissing:

73"Not so much noise, you little devil! Wake Victorushka up, and I will give you something! Now run along to the shop!"

74On week-days I used to buy two pounds of wheaten bread and two copecks' worth of rolls for the young mistress. When I brought it in, the women would look at it suspiciously, and, weighing it in the palms of their hands, would ask;

75"Was n't there a make-weight? No? Open your mouth!" And then they would cry triumphantly: "He has gobbled up the make-weight; here are the crumbs in his teeth! You see, Vassia?"

76I worked willingly enough. It pleased me to abolish dirt from the house, to wash the floors, to clean the copper vessels, the warm-holes, and the door-handles. More than once I heard the women remark about me in their peaceful moments:

77"He is zealous."

78"And clean."

79"Only he is very impudent."

80"Well, Mother, who has educated him?"

81They both tried to educate me to respect them, but I regarded them as half witted. I did not like them; I would not obey them, and I used to answer them back. The young mistress must have noticed what a bad effect their speeches had upon me, for she said with increasing frequency:

82"You ought to remember from what a poor family you have been taken. I gave your mother a silk cloak trimmed with jet."

83One day I said to her:

84"Do you want me to skin myself to pay for the cloak?"

85"Good gracious!" she cried in a tone of alarm, "this boy is capable of setting fire to the place!"

86I was extremely surprised. Why did she say that? They both complained to the master about me on this occasion, and he said to me sternly:

87"Now, my boy, you had better look out." But one day he said coolly to his wife and his mother: "You are a nice pair! You ride the boy as if he were a gelding! Any other boy would have run away long ago if you had not worked him to death first."

88This made the women so angry that they wept, and his wife stamped her foot, crying:

89"How can you speak like that before him, you longhaired fool? What can I do with him after this? And in my state of health, too!"

90The mother cried sadly:

91"May God forgive you, Vassia Vassilich! Only, mark my words, you are spoiling that boy."

92When they had gone away raging, the master said to me sternly:

93"You see, you little devil, what row's you cause! I shall take you back to your grandfather, and you can be a rag-picker again."

94This insult was more than I could bear, and I said: "I had a better life as a rag-picker than I have with you. You took me as a pupil, and what have you taught me? To empty the dish-water!"

95He took me by the hair, but not roughly, and looked into my eyes, saying in a tone of astonishment:

96"I see you are rebellious. That, my lad, won't suit me. N-o-o."

97I thought that I should be sent away for this, but a few days later he came into the kitchen with a roll of thick paper, a pencil, a square, and a ruler in his hands.

98"When you have finished cleaning the knives, draw this."

99On one sheet of paper was outlined the façade of a two-storied house, with many windows and absurd decorations.

100"Here are compasses for you. Place dots on the paper where the ends of the lines come, and then draw from point to point with a ruler, lengthwise first—that will be horizontal—and then across—that will be vertical. Now get on with it."

101I was delighted to have some clean work to do, but I gazed at the paper and the instruments with reverent fear, for I understood nothing about them. However, after washing my hands, I sat down to learn. I drew all the horizontal lines on the sheet and compared them. They were quite good, although three seemed superfluous. I drew the vertical lines, and observed with astonishment that the face of the house was absurdly disfigured. The windows had crossed over to the partition wall, and one came out behind the wall and hung in mid-air. The front steps were raised in the air to the height of the second floor; a cornice appeared in the middle of the roof; and a dormer-window on the chimney.

102For a long time, hardly able to restrain my tears, I gazed at those miracles of inaccuracy, trying to make out how they had occurred; and not being able to arrive at any conclusion, I decided to rectify the mistakes by the aid of fancy. I drew upon the façade of the house, upon the cornices, and the edge of the roof, crows, doves, and sparrows, and on the ground in front of the windows, people with crooked legs, under umbrellas which did not quite hide their deformities. Then I drew slanting lines across the whole, and took my work to my master.

103He raised his eyebrows, ruffled his hair, and gruffly inquired:

104"What is all this about?"

105"That is rain coming down," I explained. "When it rains, the house looks crooked, because the rain itself is always crooked. The birds—you see, these are all birds—are taking shelter. They always do that when it rains. And these people are running home. There—that is a lady who has fallen down, and that is a peddler with lemons to sell."

106"I am much obliged to you," said my master, and bending over the table till his hair swept the paper, he burst out laughing as he cried:

107"Och! you deserve to be torn up and thrown away yourself, you wild sparrow!"

108The mistress came in, and having looked at my work, said to her husband:

109"Beat him!"

110But the master said peaceably:

111"That's all right; I myself did not begin any better."

112Obliterating the spoiled house with a red pencil, he gave me some paper.

113"Try once more."

114The second copy came out better, except that a window appeared in place of the front door. But I did not like to think that the house was empty, so I filled it with all sorts of inmates. At the windows sat ladies with fans in their hands, and cavaliers with cigarettes. One of these, a non-smoker, was making a "long nose" at all the others. A cabman stood on the steps, and near him lay a dog.

115"Why, you have been scribbling over it again!" the master exclaimed angrily.

116I explained to him that a house without inhabitants was a dull place, but he only scolded me.

117"To the devil with all this foolery! If you want to learn, learn! But this is rubbish!"

118When at length I learned to make a copy of the façade which resembled the original he was pleased.

119"There, you see what you can do! Now, if you choose, we shall soon get on," and he gave me a lesson.

120"Make a plan of this house, showing the arrangement of the rooms, the places of the doors and windows, and the rest. I shall not show you how. You must do it by yourself."

121I went to the kitchen and debated. How was I to do it? But at this point my studies in the art of drawing came to a standstill.

122The old mistress came to me and said spitefully:

123"So you want to draw?"

124Seizing me by the hair, she bumped my head on the table so hard that my nose and lips were bruised. Then she darted upon and tore up the paper, swept the instruments from the table, and with her hands on her hips said triumphantly:

125"That was more than I could stand. Is an outsider to do the work while his only brother, his own flesh and blood, goes elsewhere?"

126The master came running in, his wife rushed after him, and a wild scene began. All three flew at one another, spitting and howling, and it ended in the women weeping, and the master saying to me:

127"You will have to give up the idea for a time, and not learn. You can see for yourself what comes of it!"

128I pitied him. He was so crushed, so defenseless, and quite deafened by the shrieks of the women. I had realized before that the old woman did not like my studying, for she used to hinder me purposely, so I always asked her before I sat down to my drawing:

129"There is nothing for me to do?"

130She would answer frowningly:

131"When there is I will tell you," and in a few minutes she would send me on some errand, or she would say: "How beautifully you cleaned the staircase to-day! The corners are full of dirt and dust. Go and sweep them!"

132I would go and look, but there was never any dust. "Do you dare to argue with me?" she would cry. One day she upset kvass all over my drawings, and at another time she spilt oil from the image lamp over them. She played tricks on me like a young girl, with childish artfulness, and with childish ignorance trying to conceal her artfulness. Never before or since have I met a person who was so soon put into a temper and for such trivial reasons, nor any one so passionately fond of complaining about every one and everything. People, as a rule, are given to complaining, but she did it with a peculiar delight, as if she were singing a song.

133Her love for her son was like an insanity. It amused me, but at the same time it frightened me by what I can only describe as its furious intensity. Sometimes, after her morning prayers, she would stand by the stove, with her elbows resting on the mantel-board, and would whisper hotly:

134"My luck! My idol! My little drop of hot blood, like a jewel! Light as an angel! He sleeps. Sleep on, child! Clothe thy soul with happy dreams! Dream to thyself a bride, beautiful above all others, a princess and an heiress, the daughter of a merchant! As for your enemies, may they perish as soon as they are born! And your friends, may they live for a hundred years, and may the girls run after you like ducks after the drake!"

135All this was inexpressibly ludicrous to me. Coarse, lazy Victor was like a woodpecker, with a woodpecker's large, mottled nose, and the same stubborn and dull nature. Sometimes his mother's whispers awoke him, and he muttered sleepily:

136"Go to the devil, Mamasha! What do you mean by snorting right in my face? You make life unbearable."

137Sometimes she stole away humbly, laughing:

138"Well, go to sleep! Go to sleep, saucy fellow!"

139But sometimes her legs seemed to give way, her feet came down heavily on the edge of the stove, and she opened her mouth and panted loudly, as if her tongue were on fire, gurgling out caustic words.

140"So-o? It's your mother you are sending to the devil. Ach! you! My shame! Accursed heart-sore! The devil must have set himself in my heart to ruin you from birth!"

141She uttered obscene words, words of the drunken streets. It was painful to listen to her. She slept little, fitfully jumping down from the stove sometimes several times in the night, and coming over to the couch to wake me.

142"What is it?"

143"Be quiet!" she would whisper, crossing herself and looking at something in the darkness. "O Lord, Elias the prophet, great martyr Varvara, save me from sudden death!"

144She lighted the candle with a trembling hand. Her round, nosy face was swollen tensely; her gray eyes, blinking alarmingly, gazed fixedly at the surroundings, which looked different in the twilight. The kitchen, which was large, but encumbered with cupboards and trunks, looked small by night. There the moonbeams lived quietly; the flame of the lamp burning before the icon quivered; the knives gleamed like icicles on the walls; on the floor the black frying-pans looked like faces without eyes.

145The old woman would clamber down cautiously from the stove, as if she were stepping into the water from a river-bank, and, slithering along with her bare feet, went into the corner, where over the wash-stand hung a ewer that reminded me of a severed head. There was also a pitcher of water standing there. Choking and panting, she drank the water, and then looked out of the window through the pale-blue pattern of hoar-frost on the panes.

146"Have mercy on me, O God! have mercy on me!" she prayed in a whisper. Then putting out the candle, she fell on her knees, and whispered in an aggrieved tone: "Who loves me, Lord? To whom am I necessary?"

147Climbing back on the stove, and opening the little door of the chimney, she tried to feel if the flue-plate lay straight, soiling her hands with soot, and fell asleep at that precise moment, just as if she had been struck by an invisible hand. When I felt resentful toward her I used to think what a pity it was that she had not married grandfather. She would have led him a life!

148She often made me very miserable, but there were days when her puffy face became sad, her eyes were suffused with tears, and she said very touchingly:

149"Do you think that I have an easy time? I brought children into the world, reared them, set them on their feet, and for what? To live with them and be their general servant. Do you think that is sweet to me? My son has brought a strange woman and new blood into the family. Is it nice for me? Well?"

150"No, it is not," I said frankly.

151"Aha! there you are, you see!" And she began to talk shamelessly about her daughter-in-law. "Once I went with her to the bath and saw her. Do you think she has anything to flatter herself about? Can she be called beautiful?"

152She always spoke objectionably about the relations of husband and wife. At first her speeches aroused my disgust, but I soon accustomed myself to listen to them with attention and with great interest, feeling that there was something painfully true about them.

153"Woman is strength; she deceived God Himself. That is so," she hissed, striking her hand on the table. "Through Eve are we all condemned to hell. What do you think of that?"

154On the subject of woman's power she could talk endlessly, and it always seemed as if she were trying to frighten some one in these conversations. I particularly remembered that "Eve deceived God."

155Overlooking our yard was the wing of a large building, and of the eight flats comprised in it, four were occupied by officers, and the fifth by the regimental chaplain. The yard was always full of officers' servants and orderlies, after whom ran laundresses, housemaids, and cooks. Dramas and romances were being carried on in all the kitchens, accompanied by tears, quarrels, and fights. The soldiers quarreled among themselves and with the landlord's workmen; they used to beat the women.

156The yard was a seething pot of what is called vice, immorality, the wild, untamable appetites of healthy lads. This life, which brought out all the cruel sensuality, the thoughtless tyranny, the obscene boastfulness of the conqueror, was criticized in every detail by my employers at dinner, tea, and supper. The old woman knew all the stories of the yard, and told them with gusto, rejoicing in the misfortunes of others. The younger woman listened to these tales in silence, smiling with her swollen lips. Victor used to burst out laughing, but the master would frown and say:

157"That will do, Mamasha!"

158"Good Lord! I mustn't speak now, I suppose!" the story-teller complained; but Victor encouraged her.

159"Go on, Mother! What is there to hinder you? We are all your own people, after all."

160I could never understand why one should talk shamelessly before one's own people.

161The elder son bore himself toward his mother with contemptuous pity, and avoided being alone with her, for if that happened, she would surely overwhelm him with complaints against his wife, and would never fail to ask him for money. He would hastily press into her hand a ruble or so or several pieces of small silver.

162"It is not right, Mother; take the money. I do not grudge it to you, but it is unjust."

163"But I want it for beggars, for candles when I go to church."

164"Now, where will you find beggars there? You will end by spoiling Victor."

165"You don't love your brother. It is a great sin on your part."

166He would go out, waving her away.

167Victor's manner to his mother was coarse and derisive. He was very greedy, and he was always hungry. On Sundays his mother used to bake custards, and she always hid a few of them in a vessel under the couch on which I slept. When Victor left the dinner-table he would get them out and grumble:

168"Couldn't you have saved a few more, you old' fool?"

169"Make haste and eat them before any one sees you."

170"I will tell how you steal cakes for me behind their backs."

171Once I took out the vessel and ate two custards, for which Victor nearly killed me. He disliked me as heartily as I disliked him. He used to jeer at me and make me clean his boots about three times a day, and when I slept in the loft, he used to push up the trapdoor and spit in the crevice, trying to aim at my head.

172It may be that in imitation of his brother, who often said "wild fowl," Victor also needed to use some catchwords, but his were all senseless and particularly absurd.

173"Mamasha! Left wheel! where are my socks?"

174And he used to follow me about with stupid questions.

175"Alesha, answer me. Why do we write 'sinenki' and pronounce it 'phiniki'? Why do we say 'Kolokola' and not 'Okolokola'? Why do we say 'K'derevou' and not 'gdye plachou'?"

176I did not like the way any of them spoke, and having been educated in the beautiful tongue which grandmother and grandfather spoke, I could not understand at first how words that had no sort of connection came to be coupled together, such as "terribly funny," "I am dying to eat," "awfully happy." It seemed to me that what was funny could not be terrible, that to be happy could not be awful, and that people did not die for something to eat.

177"Can one say that?" I used to ask them; but they jeered at me:

178"I say, what a teacher! Do you want your ears plucked?"

179But to talk of "plucking" ears also appeared incorrect to me. One could "pluck" grass and flowers and nuts, but not ears. They tried to prove to me that ears could be plucked, but they did not convince me, and I said triumphantly:

180"Anyhow, you have not plucked my ears."

181All around me I saw much cruel insolence, filthy shamelessness. It was far worse here than in the Kunavin streets, which were full of "houses of resort" and "street-walkers." Beneath the filth and brutality in Kunavin there was a something which made itself felt, and which seemed to explain it all—a strenuous, half-starved existence and hard work. But here they were overfed and led easy lives, and the work went on its way without fuss or worry. A corrosive, fretting weariness brooded over all.

182My life was hard enough, anyhow, but I felt it still harder when grandmother came to see me. She would appear from the black flight of steps, enter the kitchen, cross herself before the icon, and then bow low to her younger sister. That bow bent me down like a heavy weight, and seemed to smother me.

183"Ah, Akulina, is it you?" was my mistress's cold and negligent greeting to grandmother.

184I should not have recognized grandmother. Her lips modestly compressed, her face changed out of knowledge, she set herself quietly on a bench near the door, keeping silence like a guilty creature, except when she answered her sister softly and submissively. This was torture to me, and I used to say angrily: "What are you sitting there for?"

185Winking at me kindly, she replied:

186"You be quiet. You are not master here.".

187"He is always meddling in matters which do not concern him, however we beat him or scold him," and the mistress was launched on her complaints.

188She often asked her sister spitefully:

189"Well, Akulina, so you are living like a beggar?"

190"That is a misfortune."

191"It is no misfortune where there is no shame."

192"They say that Christ also lived on charity."

193"Blockheads say so, and heretics, and you, old fool, listen to them! Christ was no beggar, but the Son of God. He will come, it is said, in glory, to judge the quick and dead—and dead, mind you. You will not be able to hide yourself from Him, Matushka, although you may be burned to ashes. He is punishing you and Vassili now for your pride, and on my account, because I asked help from you when you were rich."

194"And I helped you as much as it was in my power to do," answered grandmother, calmly, "and God will pay us back, you know."

195"It was little enough you did, little enough."

196Grandmother was bored and worried by her sister's untiring tongue. I listened to her squeaky voice and wondered how grandmother could put up with it. In that moment I did not love her.

197The young mistress came out of her room and nodded affably to grandmother.

198"Come into the dining-room. It is all right; come along!"

199The master would receive grandmother joyfully.

200"Ah, Akulina, wisest of all, how are you? Is old man Kashirin still alive?"

201And grandmother would give him her most cordial smile.

202"Are you still working your hardest?"

203"Yes; always working, like a convict."

204Grandmother conversed with him affectionately and well, but in the tone of a senior. Sometimes he called my mother to mind.

205"Ye-es, Varvara Vassilievna. What a woman! A heroine, eh?"

206His wife turned to grandmother and put in:

207"Do you remember my giving her that cloak—black silk trimmed with jet?"

208"Of course I do."

209"It was quite a good one."

210"Ye-es," muttered the master, "a cloak, a palm; and life is a trickster."[1]

211[1]A play on the words "tal'ma, cloak; pal'ma, palm; shelma, trickster.

212"What are you talking about?" asked his wife, suspiciously.

213"I? Oh, nothing in particular. Happy days and good people soon pass away."

214"I don't know what is the matter with you," said my mistress, uneasily.

215Then grandmother was taken to see the new baby, and while I was clearing away the dirty cups and saucers from the table the master said to me:

216"She is a good old woman, that grandmother of yours."

217I was deeply grateful to him for those words, and when I was alone with grandmother, I said to her, with a pain in my heart:

218"Why do you come here? Why? Can't you see how they—".

219"Ach, Olesha, I see everything," she replied, looking at me with a kind smile on her wonderful face, and I felt conscience-stricken. Why, of course she saw everything and knew everything, even what was going on in my soul at that moment. Looking round carefully to see that no one was coming, she embraced me, saying feelingly:

220"I would not come here if it were not for you. What are they to me? As a matter of fact, grandfather is ill, and I am tired with looking after him. I have not been able to do any work, so I have no money, and my son Mikhail has turned Sascha out. I have him now to give food and drink, too. They promised to give you six rubles a month, and I don't suppose you have had a ruble from them, and you have been here nearly half a year." Then she whispered in my ear: "They say they have to lecture you, scold you, they say that you do not obey; but, dear heart, stay with them. Be patient for two short years while you grow strong. You will be patient, yes?"

221I promised. It was very difficult. That life oppressed me; it was a threadbare, depressing existence. The only excitement was about food, and I lived as in a dream. Sometimes I thought that I would have to run away, but the accursed winter had set in. Snow-storms raged by night, the wind rushed over the top of the house, and the stanchions cracked with the pressure of the frost. Whither could I run away?

222*

223They would not let me go out, and in truth it was no weather for walking. The short winter day, full of the bustle of housework, passed with elusive swiftness. But they made me go to church, on Saturday to vespers and on Sunday to high mass.

224I liked being in church. Standing somewhere in a corner where there was more room and where it was darker, I loved to gaze from a distance at the iconastasis, which looked as if it were swimming in the candlelight flowing in rich, broad streams over the floor of the reading-desk. The dark figures of the icons moved gently, the gold embroidery on the vestments of the priests quivered joyfully, the candle flames burned in the dark-blue atmosphere like golden bees, and the heads of the women and children looked like flowers. All the surroundings seemed to blend harmoniously with the singing the choir. Everything seemed to be imbued with the weird spirit of legends. The church seemed to oscillate like a cradle, rocking in pitch-black space.

225Sometimes I imagined that the church was sunk deep in a lake in which it lived, concealed, a life peculiar to itself, quite different from any other form of life. I have no doubt now that this idea had its source in grandmother's stories of the town of Kitej, and I often found myself dreamily swaying, keeping time, as it were, with the movement around me. Lulled into somnolence by the singing of the choir, the murmur of prayers, the breath of the congregation, I concentrated myself upon the melodious, melancholy story:

226"They are closing upon us, the accursed Tatars.

227Yes, these unclean beasts are closing in upon Kite;

228The glorious; yea, at the holy hour of matins.

229O Lord, our God!

230Holy Mother of God!

231Save Thy servants

232To sing their morning praises,