The deacon’s wife, as always, walked heavily and painfully. Tikhonovna, as usual, went along with a free and easy gait, like a young woman. The pilgrims paused at the very gates. The deacon’s wife did not know the place; a new izba had been built there; it had not been there before. But when the deacon’s wife saw a well and pump at one corner of the dvor she recognized it. The dogs began to bark, and sprang toward the old women who appeared with staves.
“Don’t be afraid, they won’t hurt you,” cried the dvornik. “Back, you rascals,” said he to the dogs, waving his broom at them. “You see they are country dogs, and they hanker after country folks. Come round this way. God keeps the frost off.”
But the deacon’s wife, afraid of the dogs, pitifully mumbling, sat down on a bench at the gate, and asked the dvornik to take the dogs away. Tikhonovna, bow-ing low before the dvornik, and leaning on her staff, spreading wide her legs, tightly bound with leg-wrap-pers, halted near the other, calmly looking ahead, and waiting for the dvornik, who was coming toward them.
“Whom do you want?” asked the dvornik.
“Don’t you know us, benefactor? Is n’t your name Yegor? “asked the deacon’s wife. “We have been on a pilgrimage, and here we have come to her excellency.”
“You are from Izlegoshchi,” said the dvornik. “Are you not the old deacon’s wife? Well, well! Come into the izba. They will receive you. No one is ever turned away. But who is this woman?”
He pointed to Tikhonovna.
“I am from Izlegoshchi. I am Gerasim’s wife; I was a Fadeyef,” said Tikhonovna. “I am from Izle-goshchi too.”
“Is that so? I have heard your man is in jail. Is that so?”
Tikhonovna made no reply. She only sighed, and with a powerful gesture shifted her wallet and her shuba on her back.
The deacon’s wife asked if the old princess was at home, and, learning that she was, asked to be taken to her. Then she asked after her son, who had been made a functionary, and through the prince’s favor was serving in Petersburg. The dvornik could not answer her question, and he took them along a planked walk, across the yard, into the common izba. The old women entered the izba, which was full of people, women and children, young and old, domestic serfs, and there they bowed low toward the images. The laundress and the old princess’s chambermaid immediately recognized the deacon’s wife and immediately engaged her in conver-sation; they took her wallet from her, and sat her down at a table, and offered her something to eat.
Tikhonovna, meantime, crossing herself toward the images and greeting every one, stood by the door wait-ing to be invited in. At the very door, by the first win-dow, sat an old man mending boots.
“Sit down, babushka; why do you stand? Sit down here and take off your wallet,” said he.
“There is no room in there for her to sit down. Take her into the dark room,” l remarked some woman.
“Ah, here we have Madame de Chalme,” said a young lackey, pointing to the cocks on the back of Tikhonovna’s zipun; “stockings and slippers too! “He pointed to her leg wrappers and bark shoes nov-elties for Moscow.
“You ought to have some like them, Parasha.”
“Come, come into the izba. I will show you the way.”
And the old cobbler, thrusting in his awl, got up, but as he caught sight of a young girl he called to her and bade her lead the old woman into the kitchen.
Tikhonovna not only paid no heed to what was said around her and about her, but she did not even hear it or notice it. Ever since she had left her home she had been impressed with the sense of the necessity of laboring in God’s service, and with one other feeling which had come into her soul she knew not how the necessity of presenting the petition. As she left the sitting-room where the people were, she went close to the deacon’s wife, and bowing low said :
“For Christ’s sake, Matushka Paramonovna, don’t forget my business. Ask if there isn’t some man.”
“What does the old woman want?”
“She has a grievance, and the people advise her to present a petition to the Tsar.”
“Go straight to the Tsar and take it,” said the joker of a lackey.
“Oh, fool, what an ill-bred fool,” said the old cobbler. “I will teach you with my last, in spite of your good coat, not to make sport of old women.”
The lackey began to call names, but the old man, not heeding him, led Tikhonovna into the kitchen. Tikho-novna was glad to be sent out from the crowded sitting-room and led into the “black “izba which the coach-men frequented. In the sitting-room everything was too clean and the people were all clean, and Tikhonovna did not feel at home. But in the coachmen’s “black” izba it was like the hut of a peasant, and Tikhonovna was much more contented. The room was finished in spruce, and measured about twenty-one feet, and dark, with a great stove and with sleeping-benches and berths, and the newly laid floor was all trampled over with mud. When Tikhonovna entered the izba she found there the cook, a white, ruddy, fat peasant woman with the sleeves of her chintz dress rolled up, laboriously putting a pot into the oven with an oven-hook; then a fine-looking young coachman practising the balalai’ka, and a crooked-legged old man with a full, white, soft beard sit-ting on the sleeping-bench, with a skein of silk in his mouth, sewing something delicate and beautiful; a ragged, dark young man in a shirt and blue trousers, with a surly face, chewing bread, was sitting on a bench near the stove, leaning his head on both hands, sup-ported on his knees.
The barefooted girl with shining eyes ran with her light young legs in advance of the old woman, and opened the door, which was dripping with steam, and whined with her high-pitched voice :
“Auntie Marina, Simonuitch sends this old woman to you and tells you to give her something to eat. She is from our parts, and has been making a pilgrimage to the saints with Paramonovna. They are giving Paramonovna some tea, and Vlasyevna sends this one to you.”
The fluent little girl would have continued still longer talking glibly; the words seemed to flow from her mouth, and she evidently liked to hear her own voice. But Marina, who was sweating over the oven, not having settled to her satisfaction the pot of shchi which stuck half way in the oven, cried out angrily to her :
“Now, that’ll do. Stop your chatter; how can we feed any more old women; we can’t even feed our own. Curse you,” she cried, to the pot which almost tipped over as it moved from its hearth on which it had stuck.
But having once got her pot settled she looked round, and seeing the pleasant-faced Tikhonovna with her wal-let and in regular country attire, kissing the cross and bowing low to the corner where the images were, she instantly felt compunction for her words; and, appar-ently bethinking her of the labors which tormented her, and putting her hand to her breast where below the collar-bone the buttons fastened her dress, she felt to see if one was unfastened, and, putting her hand to her head, she pulled back the knot of her kerchief which covered her well-oiled hair, and thus she stood leaning on her oven-fork waiting for the greeting of the pleasant-look-ing old woman. Having bowed for the last time to the image, Tikhonovna turned round and bowed to the three directions.
“God be your refuge! I wish your health,” 1 said she.
“We ask your blessing, auntie,” said the tailor.
“Thank you, babushka, take off your wallet. There is a place for you,” said the cook, pointing to the bench where the ragged man sat. “Make yourself at home, if you can. How cold it is growing, is n’t it?”
The ragged fellow, scowling still more angrily, got up, moved along, and, still chewing his bread, kept his eyes fixed on the old woman. The young coachman bowed low, and, ceasing to strum his instrument, began to tune up the strings of his balalai’ka, looking first at the old woman, then at the tailor, not knowing how to treat the old woman : whether with deference as it seemed to him proper, because the old woman wore the same kind of attire as his babushka and the mother of his house did he was a postilion taken from among the muzhiks or banteringly, as he would have liked to do, and as it seemed to him the suitable thing for him in his present position in his blue poddevka and his top boots. The tailor closed one eye and seemed to smile, pushing the skein of silk to one side of his mouth, and he also looked at her. Marina started to put in another pot, but, though she was buzy with her work, she looked at the old woman as she cleverly and deftly took off her wallet, and, en-deavoring not to
