"Has Sergei ever given you any money?" "No." "Never?" "Never." "He does not tell lies," said Smouri to the steward, who answered at once in his low voice: "It comes to the same thing, please--" "Come!" cried the cook to me, and he came to my table, and rapped my crown lightly with his fingers. "Fool! And I am a fool, too. I ought to have looked after you." At Nijni the steward dismissed me. I received nearly eight rubles, the first large money earned by me. When Smouri took farewell of me he said roughly: "Well, here you are. Now keep your eyes open,--do you understand? You mustn't go about with your mouth open." He put a tobacco-pouch of colored beads into my hand. "There you are! That is good handwork. My godchild made it for me. Well, good-by. Read books; that is the best thing you can do." He took me under the arms, lifted me up, kissed me, and placed me firmly on the jetty. I was sorry for him and for myself. I could hardly keep from crying when I saw him returning to the steamer, pushing aside the porters, looking so large, heavy, solitary. So many times since then I have met people like him, kind, lonely, cut off from the lives of other people. CHAPTER VII Grandfather and grandmother had again gone into the town. I went to them, prepared to be angry and warlike; but my heart was heavy. Why had they accounted me a thief? Grandmother greeted me tenderly, and at once went to prepare the samovar. Grandfather asked as mockingly as usual: "Have you saved much money?" "What there is belongs to me," I answered, taking a seat by the window. I triumphantly produced a box of cigarettes from my pocket and began to smoke importantly. "So-o-o," said grandfather, looking at me fixedly--"so that sit! You smoke the devil's poison? Isn't it rather soon?" "Why, I have even had a pouch given to me," I boasted. "A pouch?" squeaked grandfather. "What! Are you saying this to annoy me?" He rushed upon me, with his thin, strong hands outstretched, his green eyes flashing. I leaped up, and stuck my head into his stomach. The old man sat on the floor, and for several oppressive moments looked at me, amazedly blinking, his dark mouth open. Then he asked quietly: "You knock me down, your grandfather? The father of your mother?" "You have knocked me about enough in the past," I muttered, not understanding that I had acted abominably. Withered and light, grandfather rose from the floor, sat beside me, deftly snatched the cigarette from me, threw it out of the window, and said in a tone of fear: "You mad fool! Don't you understand that God will punish you for this for the rest of your life? Mother,"--he turned to grandmother,--"did you see that? He knocked me down--he! Knocked me down! Ask him!" She did not wait to ask. She simply came over to me, seized me by the hair, and beat me, saying: "And for that--take this--and this!"