The old woman sat on the steps, holding the clasps of her Bible in her hand, and looking keenly and sternly at Mishka’s face through her spectacles. He was standing with his back to me.

In spite of the severe, cold gleam in her sharp eyes, there were soft folds at the corners of her mouth; it was plain that the old woman wanted to hide a kindly smile, a smile of forgiveness.

From behind her back showed three heads. Two belonged to women; one had a red face and wore a motley kerchief; the other woman was bare-headed and wall-eyed; above her shoulders appeared a man’s face, wedge-shaped, with gray side-whiskers and a forelock across his forehead. He was continually blinking both eyes in a curious fashion, as though saying to Mishka: “Run, brother! Quick!”

Mishka was hemming and hawing, trying to explain.

“Such a rare book! It says we’re all beasts and curs, dogs. So I thought to myself: it’s true, Lord. Truth to tell, we are riff-raff…damned souls…wretches! And then, too, I thought to myself, the mistress, she’s an old lady; perhaps this book is her one comfort, and she’s get nothing else.…Now, these clasps—how much could we get for them? But if they are on the book, then they amount to something. So I thought it over, and I said to myself, ‘I’ll go and give some pleasure to the godly old lady—take these back to her.…’ Besides, glory be to God, we’ve earned a bit to buy bread with. Well, good-day; I’ll be going.”

“Wait,” the old woman stopped him. “Did you understand what I read yesterday?”

“Me? How could I understand it? I heard it, that’s true, but even then, how did I hear it? Have we ears for God’s Word? We can’t understand it. Good-by to you.”

“So-o!” drawled the old woman. “No, just wait a minute.”

Mishka sighed unhappily, so that he could be heard all over the yard, and shifted his weight from one foot to the other like a bear. This explanation was evidently getting to be too much for him.

“And would you like me to read some more to you?”

“M’m! My comrades are waiting for me.”

“Drop them. You are a good fellow. Have no more to do with them.”

“All right,” Mishka agreed in a low voice.

“You will leave them? Yes?”

“I’ll leave them.”

“That’s a sensible fellow. What a child you are! And look at your beard, it’s almost down to your waist! Are you married?”

“I’m a widower. My wife’s dead.”

“And why do you drink? You’re a drunkard, aren’t you?”

“I am. I drink.”

“Why?”

“Why I drink? Because of foolishness. I’m foolish, and so I drink. Of course, if a man had sense, would he himself work his own ruin?” Mishka said despondently.