There passed by two soldiers, one in Crown boots, the other in boots of his own; then the proprietor of a neighbouring house came by in clean galoshes, and then a baker with a basket. All of these went past the window, and then a woman in woollen stockings and peasant shoes came in line with the window. She went by the window and stopped near a wall. Avdyéich looked at her through the window, and saw that she was a strange, poorly dressed woman, with a child: she had stopped with her back to the wind and was trying to wrap the child, though she did not have anything to wrap it in. The woman's clothes were for the summer, and scanty at that. Avdyéich could hear the child cry in the street, and her vain attempt to quiet it. Avdyéich got up and went out of his room and up to the staircase, and called out: "Clever Woman! Clever woman!" The woman heard him and turned around. "Why are you standing there in the cold with the child? Come in here! It will be easier for you to wrap the child in a warm room. Here, this way!" The woman was surprised. She saw an old man in an apron, with glasses over his nose, calling to her. She followed him in. They went down the stairs and entered the room, and Martýn took the woman up to the bed. "Sit down here, clever woman, nearer to the stove, and get warm and feed the child." "There is no milk in my breasts,--I have not had anything to eat since morning," said the woman, but still she took the child to her breast. Avdyéich shook his head, went to the table, fetched some bread and a bowl, opened a door in the stove, filled the bowl with beet soup, and took out the pot of porridge, but it was not done yet. He put the soup on the table, put down the bread, and took off a rag from a hook and put it down on the table. "Sit down, clever woman, and eat, and I will sit with the babe,--I used to have children of my own, and so I know how to take care of them." The woman made the sign of the cross, sat down at the table, and began to eat, while Avdyéich seated himself on the bed with the child. He smacked his lips at it, but could not smack well, for he had no teeth. The babe kept crying all the time. Avdyéich tried to frighten it with his finger: he quickly carried his finger down toward the babe's mouth and pulled it away again. He did not put his finger into the child's mouth, because it was black,--all smeared with pitch. But the child took a fancy for his finger and grew quiet, and then began even to smile. Avdyéich, too, was happy. The woman was eating in the meantime and telling him who she was and whither she was going.