“Are you going to have a snack?”
“It is not yours,” said grandmother.
“However, you can sit down with us if you like; there’s enough for you.”
He sat down at the table, murmuring:
“Pour out —”
Everything in the room was in its old place. Only my mother’s corner was sadly empty, and on the wall over grandfather’s bed hung a sheet of paper on which was inscribed in large, printed letters:
“Jesus save. Life of the world!
May Thy holy name be with me all the days and hours of my life!”
“Who wrote that?”
Grandfather did not reply, and grandmother, waiting a little, said with a smile:
“The price of that paper is — a hundred rubles!”
“That is not your business!” cried grandfather.
“I give away everything to others.”
“It is all right to give now, but time was when you did not give,” said grandmother, calmly.
“Hold your tongue!” he shrieked.
This was all as it should be, just like old times.
In the corner, on a box, in a wicker basket, Kolia woke up and looked out, his blue, washed-out eyes hardly visible under their lids.
He was grayer, more faded and fragile-looking, than ever. He did not recognize me, and, turning away in silence, closed his eyes.
Sad news awaited me in the street. Viakhir was dead. He had breathed his last in Passion Week. Khabi had gone away to live in town. Yaz’s feet had been taken off, and he would walk no more.
As he was giving me this information, black-eyed Kostrom said angrily:
“Boys soon die!”
“Well, but only Viakhir is dead.”
“It is the same thing. Whoever leaves the streets is as good as dead.
No sooner do we make friends, get used to our comrades, than they either are sent into the town to work or they die.
There are new people living in your yard at Chesnokov’s; Evsyenki is their name. The boy, Niushka, is nothing out of the ordinary.
He has two sisters, one still small, and the other lame. She goes about on crutches; she is beautiful!”
After thinking a moment he added:
“Tchurka and I are both in love with her, and quarrel.”
“With her r
“Why with her?
Between ourselves.
With her — very seldom.”
Of course I knew that big lads and even men fell in love. I was familiar also with coarse ideas on this subject.
I felt uncomfortable, sorry for Kostrom, and reluctant to look at his angular figure and angry, black eyes.
I saw the lame girl on the evening of the same day.
Coming down the steps into the yard, she let her crutch fall, and stood helplessly on the step, holding on to the balustrade with her transparent, thin, fragile hands.
I tried to pick up the crutch, but my bandaged hands were not much use, and I had a lot of trouble and vexation in doing it. Meanwhile she, standing above me, and laughing gently, watched me.
“What have you done to your hands?” she said.
“Scalded them.”
“And I— am a cripple.
Do you belong to this yard?
Were you long in the hospital?
I was there a lo-o-ong time.”
She added, with a sigh,
“A very long time.”
She had a white dress and light blue overshoes, old, but clean; her smoothly brushed hair fell across her breast in a thick, short plait.
Her eyes were large and serious; in their quiet depths burned a blue light which lit up the pale, sharp-nosed face.
She smiled pleasantly, but I did not care about her.
Her sickly figure seemed to say,
“Please don’t touch me!”