‘‘What are you standing all astraddle for, poppet?’’ said the old woman. ‘‘Go sit down!’’
Moving his legs wide apart, Egorushka went over to the table and sat down on a bench by somebody’s head. The head stirred, let out a stream of air from its nose, munched its lips, and grew still. From the head, a lump extended along the bench, covered by a sheepskin coat. It was a sleeping peasant woman.
The old woman, sighing, went out and soon came back with a watermelon and a cantaloupe.
‘‘Eat, laddie! There’s nothing else to give you ...’ she said, yawning, then rummaged in the table drawer and took out a long, sharp knife, very much like the knives with which robbers kill merchants in roadside inns. ‘‘Eat, laddie!’’
Egorushka, trembling as in a fever, ate a slice of cantaloupe with some rye bread, then a slice of watermelon, and that made him feel even more chilled.
‘‘Ours spent the night on the steppe ...’ the old woman sighed while he ate. ‘‘Suffering Jesus... I’d light a candle in front of the icon, but I don’t know where Stepanida put them. Eat, laddie, eat...’
The old woman yawned and, thrusting her right hand behind her back, scratched her left shoulder with it.
‘‘Must be two o’clock now,’’ she said. ‘‘Soon time to get up. Ours spent the night on the steppe ... must be all soaked...’
‘‘Grandma,’’ said Egorushka, ‘‘I’m sleepy.’’
‘‘Lie down, laddie, lie down ...’ the old woman sighed, yawning. ‘‘Lord Jesus Christ! I was asleep, and it seemed I heard somebody knocking. I woke up, looked, and it was this storm God sent us... I should light a candle, but I can’t find any.’’
Talking to herself, she pulled some rags off the bench, probably her own bedding, took two sheepskin coats from a nail by the stove, and started making up a bed for Egorushka.
‘‘The storm won’t be still,’’ she muttered. ‘‘Hope nothing burns down, worse luck. Ours spent the night on the steppe... Lie down, laddie, sleep... Christ be with you, sonny... I won’t put the melon away, maybe you’ll get up and eat it.’’
The old woman’s sighs and yawns, the measured breathing of the sleeping woman, the dimness in the cottage, and the sound of the rain outside the window were conducive to sleep. Egorushka was embarrassed to undress in front of the old woman. He took off only his boots, lay down, and covered himself with a sheepskin coat.
‘‘The lad’s lying down?’’ Pantelei’s whisper was heard a minute later.
‘‘He is!’’ the old woman answered in a whisper. ‘‘Suffering, suffering Jesus! It rumbles and rumbles, and no end to be heard...’
‘‘It’ll soon pass...’ Pantelei hissed, sitting down. ‘‘It’s getting quieter... The boys went to the cottages, but two of them stayed with the horses... The boys, that is... Otherwise... The horses will get stolen... I’ll sit awhile and go to take my shift... Otherwise they’ll get stolen...’
Pantelei and the old woman sat beside each other at Egorushka’s feet and talked in a hissing whisper, interrupting their talk with sighs and yawns. But Egorushka was simply unable to get warm. He was covered with a warm, heavy sheepskin coat, but his whole body was shaking, he had cramps in his arms and legs, his insides trembled... He undressed under the sheepskin coat, but that did not help. The chill became stronger and stronger.
Pantelei went to take his shift and then came back again, but Egorushka still could not sleep and was shivering all over. Something weighed on his head and chest, crushing him, and he did not know what it was: the old people’s whispering or the heavy smell of the sheepskin? There was an unpleasant metallic taste in his mouth from the cantaloupe and watermelon he had eaten. Besides, the fleas were biting.
‘‘I’m cold, grandpa!’’ he said and did not recognize his own voice.
‘‘Sleep, sonny, sleep,’’ sighed the old woman.
Titus came up to his bed on skinny legs and began waving his arms, then grew up to the ceiling and turned into a windmill. Father Khristofor, dressed not as in the britzka but in full vestments and with a sprinkler in his hand, walked around the windmill sprinkling it with holy water, and it stopped waving. Egorushka, knowing it was delirium, opened his eyes.
‘‘Grandpa!’’ he called. ‘‘Give me water!’’
No one answered. Egorushka felt unbearably suffocated and uncomfortable lying down. He got up, dressed, and left the cottage. It was already morning. The sky was overcast, but there was no rain. Shivering and wrapping himself in his wet coat, Egorushka walked around the dirty yard, listening to the silence; a little shed with a half- open rush door caught his eye. He looked into this shed, went in, and sat in the dark corner on a pile of dry dung.
The thoughts tangled in his heavy head, the metallic taste made his mouth feel dry and disgusting. He examined his hat, straightened the peacock feather on it, and remembered how he had gone with his mother to buy this hat. He put his hand in his pocket and took out a lump of brown, sticky putty. How had this putty ended up in his pocket? He thought, sniffed it: it smelled of honey. Aha, it was the Jewish gingerbread! How soggy it was, poor thing!
Egorushka examined his coat. His coat was gray, with big bone buttons, tailored like a frock coat. As a new and expensive thing, it had hung at home not in the front hall but in the bedroom, next to his mother’s dresses; wearing it was permitted only on feast days. Looking it over, Egorushka felt sorry for it, remembered that he and the coat had both been left to the mercy of fate, that they would never return home anymore, and burst into such sobs that he almost fell off the dung pile.
A big white dog, wet with rain, with tufts of fur that looked like curling papers on its muzzle, came into the shed and stared at Egorushka with curiosity. She was apparently wondering whether to bark or not. Deciding there was no need to bark, she warily approached Egorushka, ate the putty, and left.
‘‘They’re Varlamov’s!’’ somebody shouted in the street.
Having wept his fill, Egorushka left the shed and, skirting a puddle, trudged out to the street. On the road, just in front of the gate, stood the wagons. The wet wagoners, with dirty feet, sluggish and sleepy as autumnal flies, wandered about or sat on the shafts. Egorushka looked at them and thought: ‘‘How boring and uncomfortable it is
