Martuin awoke, rose from the chair, began to rub his eyes. He himself does not know whether he heard those words in his dream, or in reality. He turned down his lamp, and went to bed.
At daybreak next morning, Martuin rose, made his prayer to God, lighted the stove, put on the cabbage soup and the gruel, put the water in the samovar, put on his apron, and sat down by the window to work.
Martuin is working, and at the same time thinking about all that had happened yesterday. He thinks both ways: now he thinks it was a dream, and now he thinks he really heard a voice. “Well,” he thinks, “such things have been.”
Martuin is sitting by the window, and does not work as much as he looks through the window: when any one passes by in boots that he does not know, he bends down, looks out of the window, in order to see, not only the feet, but also the face. The house porter passed by; the water-carrier passed by; then came alongside of the window an old soldier of Nicholas’ time, in an old pair of laced felt boots, with a shovel in his hands. Martuin recognized him by his felt boots. The old man’s name was Stepanuitch; and a neighboring merchant, out of charity, gave him a home with him. He was required to assist the house porte.
Stepanuitch began to shovel away the snow from in front of Martuin’s window. Martuin glanced at him, and took up his work again.
“Pshaw! I must be getting crazy in my old age,” said Martuin, and laughed at himself. “Stepanuitch is clearing away the snow, and I imagine that Christ is coming to see me. I was entirely out of my mind, old dotard that I am!” Martuin sewed about a dozen stitches, and then felt impelled to look through the window again. He looked out again through the window, and sees Stepanuitch has leaned his shovel against the wall, and is either warming himself, or resting.
He is an old, broken-down man: evidently he has not strength enough, even to shovel the snow. Martuin said to himself, “I will give him some tea: by the way, the samovar must be boiling by this time.” Martuin laid down his awl, rose from his seat, put the samovar on the table, made the tea, and tapped with his finger at the glass. Stepanuitch turned around, and came to the window. Martuin beckoned to him, and went to open the door.
“Come in, warm yourself a little,” he said. “You must be cold.”
“May Christ reward you for this! my bones ache,” said Stepanuitch.
Stepanuitch came in and shook off the snow, tried to wipe his feet, so as not to soil the floor, but staggered.
“Don’t trouble to wipe your feet. I will clean it up myself: we are used to such things. Come in and sit down,” said Martuin. “Drink a cup of tea.”
And Martuin filled two glasses, and handed one to his guest; while he himself poured tea into a saucer, an began to blow it.
Stepanuitch finished drinking his glass of tea, turned the glass upside down, put upon it the half-eaten lump of sugar, and began to express his thanks. But it was evident he wanted some more.
“Have some more,” said Martuin, filling both his own glass and his guest’s. Martuin drinks his tea, but from time to time keeps glancing out into the street.
“Are you expecting any one?” asked his guest.
“Am I expecting any one? I am ashamed even to tell whom I expect. I am, and I am not, expecting some one, but one word has impressed itself upon my heart. Whether it is a dream, or something else, I do not know. Don’t you see, brother, I was reading yesterday the gospel about Christ, the Little Father; how he suffered, how he walked on the earth. I suppose you have heard about it?”
“Indeed I have,” replied Stepanuitch: “but we are people in darkness; we can’t read.”
“Well, now, I was reading about that very thing-how he walked upon the earth: I read, you know, how he comes to the Pharisee, and the Pharisee did not treat him hospitably. Well, and so, my brother, I was reading, yesterday, about this very thing, and was thinking to myself how he did not receive Christ with honor. If, for example, he should come to me, or any one else, I think to myself, I should not even know how to receive him. And he gave him no reception at all. Well! while I was thus thinking, I fell asleep, brother, and I hear some one call me by name. I got up: the voice, just as though some one whispered, says, ‘Be on the watch: I shall come tomorrow.’ And this happened twice. Well! would you believe it, it got into my head? I scold myself-and yet I am expecting him.”
Stepanuitch shook his head, and said nothing: he finished drinking his glass of tea, and put it on the side; but Martuin picked up the glass again, and filled it once more. “Drink some more for your good health. You see, I have an idea, that, when the Savior went about on this earth, he disdained no one, and had more to do with the simple people. He always went to see the simple people. He picked out his disciples more from among our brethren, sinners like ourselves from the working-class. He, says he, who exalts himself, shall be humbled, and he who is humbled shall become exalted. You, says he, call me Lord, and I, says he, wash your feet. Whoever wishes, says he, to be the first, the same shall be a servant to all. Because, says he blessed are the poor, the humble, the kind, the generous.” And Stepanuitch forgot about his tea: he was an old man, and easily moved to tears. He is sitting listening, and the tears are rolling down his face.
“Come, now, have some more tea,” said Martuin; but Stepanuitch made the sign of the cross, thanked him, turned up his glass, and arose.
“Thanks to you,” he says, “Martuin, for treating me kindly, and satisfying me, soul and body.”
“You are welcome; come in again: always glad to see a friend,” said Martuin.
Stepanuitch deParted; and Martuin poured out the rest of the tea, drank it up, put away the dishes, and sat down again by the window to work, to stitch on a patch. He is stitching, and at the same time looking through the window. He is expecting Christ, and is all the while thinking of him and his deeds, and his head is filled with the different speeches of Christ.
Two soldiers passed by: one wore boots furnished by the Crown, and the other one, boots that he had made; then the master of the next house, passed by in shining galoshes; then a baker with a basket passed by. All passed by; and now there came also by the window a woman in woolen stockings and wooden shoes. She passed by the window, and stood still near the window-case.
Martuin looked up at her from the window, sees it is a strange woman poorly clad, and with a child: she was standing by the wall with her back to the wind, trying to wrap up the child, and she has nothing to wrap it up in. The woman was dressed in shabby summer clothes: and from behind the frame, Martuin hears the child crying, and the woman trying to pacify it; but she is not able to pacify it. Martuin got up, went to the door, ascended the steps, and cried, “Hey! my good woman!” The woman heard him and turned around.
“Why are you standing in the cold with the child? Come into my room, where it is warm: you can manage it better. Right in this way!”
The woman was astonished. She sees an old, old man in an apron, with spectacles on his nose, calling her to him. She followed him. They descended the steps, entered the room: the old man led the woman to his bed.
“There,” says he, “sit down, my good woman, nearer to the stove: you can get warm, and nurse the child.”
“I have no milk for him. I myself have not eaten anything since morning,” said the woman; but, nevertheless, she took the child to her breast.
Martuin shook his head, went to the table, brought out the bread and a dish, opened the oven-door, poured into the dish some cabbage-soup, took out the pot with the gruel, but it was not done yet; so he filled the dish with broth only, and put it on the table. He got the bread, took the towel down from the hook, and put it upon the table.
“Sit down,” he says, “and eat, my good woman; and I will mind the little one. You see, I once had children of my own: I know how to handle them.”
The woman crossed herself, sat down at the table, and began to eat; while Martuin took a seat on the bed near the infant. Martuin kept smacking and smacking to it with his lips; but it was a poor kind of smacking, for he had no teeth. The little one still cries. And it occurred to Martuin to threaten the little one with his finger: he waves, waves his finger right before the child’s mouth, and hastily withdraws it. He does not put it to its mouth, because his finger is black, and soiled with wax. And the little one looked at
