“Coward!”
The cook died under our very eyes. She bent down to pick up the samovar, and suddenly sank to the floor without uttering a word, just as if some one had given her a blow on the chest. She moved over on her side, stretched out her arms, and blood trickled from her mouth.
We both understood in a flash that she was dead, but, stupefied by terror, we gazed at her a long time without strength to say a word.
At last Sascha rushed headlong out of the kitchen, and I, not knowing what to do, pressed close to the window in the light.
The master came in, fussily squatted down beside her, and touched her face with his finger.
“She is dead; that’s certain,” he said.
“What can have caused it?”
He went into the corner where hung a small image of Nikolai Chudovortz and crossed himself; and, when he had prayed he went to the door and commanded:
“Kashirin, run quickly and fetch the police!”
The police came, stamped about, received money for drinks, and went. They returned later, accompanied by a man with a cart, lifted the cook by the legs and the head, and carried her into the street.
The mistress stood in the doorway and watched them. Then she said to me:
“Wash the floor!”
And the master said:
“It is a good thing that she died in the evening.”
I could not understand why it was a good thing.
When we went to bed Sascha said to me with unusual gentleness:
“Don’t put out the lamp!”
“Are you afraid?”
He covered his head with the blanket, and lay silent a long time.
The night was very quiet, as if it were listening for something, waiting for something. It seemed to me that the next minute a bell rang out, and suddenly the whole town was running and shouting in a great terrified uproar.
Sascha put his nose out of the blanket and suggested softly:
“Let’s go and lie on the stove together.”
“It is hot there.”
After a silence he said:
“How suddenly she went off, didn’t she?
I am sure she was a witch.
I can’t get to sleep.”
“Nor I, either.”
He began to tell tales about dead people — how they came out of their graves and wandered till midnight about the town, seeking the place where they had lived and looking for their relations.
“Dead people can only remember the town,” he said softly; “but they forget the streets and houses at once.”
It became quieter and quieter and seemed to be getting darker.
Sascha raised his head and asked:
“Would you like to see what I have got in my trunk?”
I had long wanted to know what he hid in his trunk.
He kept it locked with a padlock, and always opened it with peculiar caution. If I tried to peep he would ask harshly:
“What do you want, eh?”
When I agreed, he sat up in bed without putting his feet to the floor, and ordered me in a tone of authority to bring the trunk to the bed, and place it at his feet.
The key hung round his neck with his baptismal cross.
Glancing round at the dark corners of the kitchen, he frowned importantly, unfastened the lock, blew on the lid of the trunk as if it had been hot, and at length, raising it, took out several linen garments.
The trunk was half-full of chemist’s boxes, packets of variously colored tea-paper, and tins which had contained blacking or sardines.
“What is it?”
“You shall see.”
He put a foot on each side of the trunk and bent over it, singing softly:
“Czaru nebesnui ”
I expected to see toys. I had never possessed any myself, and pretended to despise them, but not without a feeling of envy for those who did possess them.
I was very pleased to think that Sascha, such a serious character, had toys, although he hid them shame-facedly; but I quite understood his shame.
Opening the first box, he drew from it the frame of a pair of spectacles, put them on his nose, and, looking at me sternly, said:
“It does not matter about there not being any glasses. This is a special kind of spectacle.”
“Let me look through them.”
“They would not suit your eyes.