"Chick! . . . Chick! . . . Chick!"
Behind her sat a chestnut-coloured dog with pointed ears. When it saw the visitors, it ran towards the gates and barked in a tenor voice (all chestnut-coloured dogs bark in a tenor voice).
"What do you want?" shouted the woman, shielding her eyes from the sun with her hand.
"Good-day!" also shouted Ivan Ivanitch, warding off the chestnut-coloured dog with his stick. "Tell me, if you please, does Nastasia Petrovna Toskunova live here?"
"She does—and what do you want?"
Ivan Ivanitch and Egorooshka went up to her; she looked at them suspiciously, and repeated:
"What do you want with her?"
"Oh, maybe you are Nastasia Petrovna?"
"Well, I am!"
"Very pleased . • . you see, your very old friend Olga 1 vanovna Kniazeva greets you. This is her son. And I, maybe ^ou remember, am her brother Ivan Ivanitch . . . . For you
are from N ; you were brought up with us, and married
from there. . . ."
There was a silence. The plump woman stared idiotically at Ivan Ivanitch, as if she did not believe or understand; then it flashed on her, she clasped her hands, the oats fell out of her apron, and tears welled in her eyes.
"Olga Ivanovna!" she screamed, breathing heavily with emotion. "My very own dear! Ah, batushka, what am I doing standing here like an idiot? And you little angel mine. . . ." She threw her arms round him, bedewed his cheeks with tears, and wept heartily.
"Lord!" she said wringing her hands. "Little Olga's son! What a love! Just like his mother! Exactly like her! But what are you standing here for? Pray come in!"
Crying and breathless, and talking as she went, she hur- ried into the house, the guests following her slowly.
"Nothing is tidy here," she said, ushering her guests into a small stuffy room, all adorned with pictures and flower-pots. "'Ahl Mother of God's Vassilissa open at least the window- shutters! Angel mine! Beauty ineffable! And I did not know that Olga had such a dear little son!"
When she was quieter. and had got accustomed to her guests, Ivan Ivanitch begged to speak to her alone. Egor- ooshka went into the next room; there he found a sewing- machine, in the window a bird<age with a lark in it, and as great a number of pictures and flowers as in the other room. A little girl with flushed and puffy cheeks like Tit's, and wearing a clean print dress, sat motionless by the sewing- machine. She stared at Egorooshka, and apparently felt very shy. Egorooshka looked at her in silence for a. little while, then asked:
"What's your name?"
The girl moved her lips, looked ready to cry, and answered softly:
" 'Atka. . . ."
That meant: Katka.
"He will live with you," whispered Ivan Ivanitch in the other room, "if you will be so kind, and we will pay you ten roubles a month for him. He is not a spoiled little boy—very quiet. . . ."
"I don't know what to say, Ivan Ivanitch!" with a whim- per sighed Nastasia Petrovna. "Ten roubles is a lot of money, but someone else's child is a dreadful responsibility, suppose he suddenly falls ill or something."
When they called Egorooshka back into the parlour, Ivan Ivanitch was standing with his hat in his hand taking his leave.
"So, then, it means for che present he can stay with you?" he said. "Good-bye! You'll stop, Egor . . ." he said, turning towards his nep!.rw. "Don't give trouble, and obey Nastasia Petrovna. . . . Good-bye! I'll come again to-morrow."
He went out, Nastasia Petrovna once more gave Egor- ooshka a hug, called him an angel, and, still shedding tears of joy, began to arrange for the dinner. Not long afterwards, Egorooshka was sitting at the table by her side, answering oer endless questions, and eating greasy hot sour cabbage- soup.
That evening he sat again at that same table with his head in his hand listening to Nastasia Petrovna. She, between laughing and crying, was telling him about his mother's youth; about her own marriage, her children. . . . A cricket chirped by the stove and the lamp-burner droned in an in- audible way. The woman spoke in a low voice, and every now and again dropped her thimble in her emotion; each time her grandchild Katka slid under the table after it, and spent a long time there, probably looking at Egorooshka's feet. Egorooshka sat and listened, musing and gazing at the old woman's face, her wart and its several hairs, and at her tearstains. And he felt sad, very sad! They allowed him the coffer to sleep on, and informed him if he felt hungry in the night, that he was to get up and go himself into the passage, and take some chicken from a covered plate in the window.
The next morning early, Ivan Ivanitch and Father Chris- topher came to say good-bye. Nastasia Petrovna was over- joyed, and was preparing to bring in the samovar, but Ivan Ivanitch, in a great hurry, waved his hand and said:
"Some other time we'll have tea and sugar with you! We are starting at once."
Before saying farewell, they all sat down a moment and remained silent. Nastasia Petrovna heaved a deep sigh, and looked with tearful eyes at the image.
"Well," began Ivan Ivanitch, rising, "so then you'll re- main. . . ."
The stern business-look disappeared from his face, he flushed a little, laughed sadly, and said:
"Mind now, you study. . . . Don't forget your mother, and listen to Nastasia Petrovna. If you are a good boy, Egor, and study well, I won't forsake you."
He drew his purse from his pocket, turned his back to Egorooshka, fumbled a long time among his small change, then finding a ten-kopeck piece, handed it to Egorooshka.
Father Christopher sighed, and slowly gave his blessing to Egorooshka. "In the Kame of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghos: . . . study," he said. "Try hard, lad. . . . If I die, say a prayer for me. And here is a grivenik (ten-kopeck) also from me."
Egorooshka kissed his hand, and cried a little. Something whispered to him that he would never see the old man again.
"I have already, Nastasia Petrovna, forwarded the peti- tion to the Gymnasium," said Ivan Ivanitch in a voice as if there was a corpse in the room. "You'll take him for his examination on the 7th of August. . . . Well, good-bye. God be with you! Good-bye, Egor!"
"If only you'd wait for some tea!" sobbed Nastasia Petrovna.
His eyes were so full of tears that Egorooshka did not see his uncle and Father Christopher leave the room. When he rushed to the window, they had already left the yard, and the chestnut-coloured dog was running back from the gates with the air of having fulfilled his duty of barking at someone. Egorooshka himself, not knowing why, tore from the window and fled from the room. When he got to the gates, Ivan Ivan- itch and Father Christopher, the one waving his crooked stick, and the other his staff, were vanishing round the corner. Egorooshka felt that when these two people went, all that phase of life which he had known up to now was gone for ever. like smoke. . . . In sheer impotency he returned to the house, greeting with bitter tears the new unknown life which was now beginning for him. • . . What will that life be?
ROTHSCHILD'S FIDDLE
THE town was smaU—no better than a village—and it inhabited almost entirely by old people who died so seldom that it was positively painful. In the hospital, and even in the prison, coffins were required very seldom. In one word, busi- ness was bad. If Yakov Ivanov had been coffin-maker in the ^overnment town, he would probably have owned his own house, and called himself Yakov Matveyich; but, as it was, he was known only by the name of Yakov, with the street nickname of "Bronza" given for some obscure reason; and he lived as poorly as a simple muzhik in a little, ancient cabin with only one room; and in this room lived he, Marfa, the stove, a double bed, the coffins, a joiner's bench, and all the rlomestic utensils.