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I put it on like a tiara, and I was all brightness directly; I made the whole field light around me. And, behold! over the very top of the ears there came gliding very quickly towards me, not Vassya, but Christ Himself! And how I knew it was Christ I can't say; they don't paint Him like that only it was He!

The old woman drove away the chicken, while Vassya clung to her petticoat. 'So, you see, they're beating him, sir. 'Why beating him? What for? 'I don't know, your honour. No doubt, he deserves it. And, indeed, why not beat him? You know, your honour, he crucified Christ!

A minute later he comes out from behind the stove and asks: "Where is my greatcoat?" The grandmother and the other children look for the greatcoat together, they waste a long time in looking for it, but the greatcoat has utterly vanished. Where is it? The grandmother and Vassya are pale and frightened. Even Yegoritch is surprised. Putohin is the only one who does not move.

Emelyan, who had not long been back from the church, was sitting beside Panteley, waving his arm and humming just audibly in a husky voice: "To Thee we sing. . . ." Dymov was moving about by the horses. When they had finished cleaning them, Kiruha and Vassya put the fish and the living crayfish together in the pail, rinsed them, and from the pail poured them all into the boiling water.

All sat silent, thinking. After the terrible stories there was no inclination to speak of ordinary things. All at once in the midst of the silence Vassya drew himself up and, fixing his lustreless eyes on one point, pricked up his ears. "What is it?" Dymov asked him. "Someone is coming," answered Vassya. "Where do you see him?" "Yo-on-der! There's something white. . ."

Yet Vassya saw foxes playing, hares washing themselves with their paws, bustards preening their wings and hammering out their hollow nests. Thanks to this keenness of sight, Vassya had, besides the world seen by everyone, another world of his own, accessible to no one else, and probably a very beautiful one, for when he saw something and was in raptures over it it was impossible not to envy him.

"It does, it does," giggles Lizotchka, and hands him her gold watch from the little table. "Mend it." Vassya takes the watch, examines the mechanism for a long time, and wriggling and shrugging, says: "She can not be mended . . . in vun veel two cogs are vanting. . . ." This is the whole performance. Lizotchka laughs and claps her hands. "Capital," she exclaims. "Wonderful.

There was nothing to be seen but darkness in the direction in which Vassya was looking; everyone listened, but they could hear no sound of steps. "Is he coming by the highroad?" asked Dymov. "No, over the open country. . . . He is coming this way." A minute passed in silence. "And maybe it's the merchant who was buried here walking over the steppe," said Dymov.

Vassya as before sits at her feet, struggles with drowsiness, changes her compress, plays at being a Jew, and in the morning after a second night of suffering, Liza is prinking before the looking-glass and putting on her hat. "Wherever are you going, my dear?" asks Vassya, with an imploring look at her.

"A darling fox, . . . lying on her back, playing like a dog." Everyone began staring into the distance, looking for the fox, but no one could see it, only Vassya with his grey muddy-looking eyes, and he was enchanted by it. His sight was extraordinarily keen, as Yegorushka learnt afterwards. He was so long-sighted that the brown steppe was for him always full of life and interest.