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When Pelagueya died, they placed the orphan Vanka in the kitchen with his grandfather, and from the kitchen he was sent to Moscow to Aliakhin, the shoemaker. "Come quick, dear Grandpapa," continued Vanka, "I beseech you for Christ's sake take me from here. Have pity on a poor orphan, for here they beat me, and I am frightfully hungry, and so sad that I can't tell you, I cry all the time.
On his sharp, glistening nose there always sat a pair of glasses with tortoise-shell rims, which secured him the sobriquet of "bony eyes." In a single breath and without awaiting an answer, he plied Vlasova with dry, crackling words: "How are you, Pelagueya Nilovna, how are you? How is your son? Thinking of marrying him off, hey? He's a youth full ripe for matrimony.
"Yesterday," she said, "a miracle happened in our village. Pelagueya, the cripple, has been ill for a whole year, and no doctors or medicines were any good, but yesterday an old woman muttered over her and she got better." "That's nothing," I said. "One should not go to sick people and old women for miracles. Is not health a miracle? And life itself? A miracle is something incomprehensible."
Yours, Pelagueya, stood for lawyers; and mine said: 'I don't want one. And four declined after him. Hm, ye-es." At his side stood his wife. She blinked frequently, and wiped her nose with the end of her handkerchief. Samoylov took his beard in his hand, and continued looking at the floor.
"It's about women's affairs, your Honor," mumbled Marya, terrorized. On his order to sign the search warrant the mother, with unskilled hand, traced on the paper in printed shining letters: "Pelagueya Nilovna, widow of a workingman." They went away, and the mother remained standing at the window. With her hands folded over her breast, she gazed into vacancy without winking, her eyebrows raised.
My name is Natasha." "And your other name?" inquired the mother. "Vasilyevna. And yours?" "Pelagueya Nilovna." "So here we are all acquainted." "Yes," said the mother, breathing more easily, as if relieved, and looking at the girl with a smile. The Little Russian helped her off with her cloak, and inquired: "Is it cold?" "Out in the open, very! The wind goodness!"
Marya lowered her eyes, and pleaded with the mother softly: "Well, what can be done? You have to submit, Pelagueya Nilovna." As she searched and felt the mother's dress, the blood mounting to her face, she murmured: "Oh, the dogs!" "What are you jabbering about there?" the officer cried rudely, looking into the corner where she was making the search.
How strange, Pelagueya Nilovna! The workingmen live such a hard, outraged life, and yet there is more heart, more goodness in them than in those!" And she waved her hand, pointing somewhere far, very far from herself. "See what sort of a person you are," the older woman answered.
She stood at the window a long time; her feet and eyes grew weary. She heard Marya stop at the window, and shout: "Are you asleep, Pelagueya? You unfortunate, suffering woman, sleep! They abuse everybody, the heretics!" At last she dropped into bed without undressing, and quickly fell into a heavy sleep, as if she had plunged into a deep abyss.
"We'll go, Pelagueya Nilovna." "Yes, we'll go." "Is it far?" "About fifty miles." "Splendid! And now I'm going to play a little. Do you mind listening to music, Pelagueya Nilovna?" "Don't bother about me. Act as if I weren't here," said the mother, seating herself in the corner of the sofa.
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