“Uncle Pankrat,” she cried, addressing the surly man, “I have your boots here; what shall I do with them?”
“The devil take them; throw them into the oven,” said the surly man, flinging them into the farther corner.
“Come here, you wise one, Nastka,” said the tailor; “the journeyman needs some one to pacify him.”
“Christ save you, little girl. It is so comfortable,” said Tikhonovna. “Only, my dear young man, we have dis-turbed you,” said the old woman, addressing Pankrat.
“It is of no consequence,” said Pankrat.
Tikhonovna sat down on the bench, taking off her zipun and carefully folding it up, and then she began to take off her foot-gear. First of all, she unwound her cords, which she had smoothed with the greatest solici-tude for this pilgrimage; then she unwound carefully the lamb’s-wool white leg-wrappers, and, carefully fold-ing them, laid them on her wallet.
While she was unwinding the second leg, Marina awkwardly again caught the pot on something, and t it spilt over, and she began once more to scold, grasping it with her oven-hook.
“Something has evidently burnt out the hearth. You ought to have it plastered,” said Tikhonovna.
How can I get it plastered? The chimney is not right; you put in two loaves of bread a day, you take out some, but the others are spoiled.”
In answer to Marina’s complaints about the loaves and the burnt-out hearth, the tailor stood up in defense of the conveniences of the Chernuishevsky house, and he explained how they had come suddenly to Moscow, that the whole izba had been built in three weeks, and the oven set up; and there were at least a hundred domestics, all of whom had to be fed.
“It ‘s evident it is hard work. It is a great establish-ment,” said Tikhonovna.
“And where did God bring you from, babushka?” asked the tailor.
And immediately Tikhonovna, while still continuing to divest herself of her wraps, told whence she came and where she had been and how she was on her way home. But she said nothing about the petition. The con-versation went on uninterruptedly. The tailor learned all about the old woman, and the old woman learned about the awkward and handsome Marina, how her hus-% band was a soldier and she had been taken as a cook, that the tailor himself was making kaftans for the coach-men, that the little girl who ran errands was the house-keeper’s orphan, and that the shaggy, surly Pankrat was in the employ of the overseer, Ivan Vasilyevitch.
Pankrat left the izba, stumbling at the door; the tailor told how he was such a clownish peasant, but to-day was particularly surly. That afternoon he had broken two of the overseer’s windows, and that day they were going to flog him at the stable. Ivan Vasilyevitch is coming now to attend to the flogging. The little coachman was a countryman taken to be postilion, 1 and he is growing up, and is now getting his hand in to take care of the horses, and he plays the balalafka, but he is not very skilled at it
The End
