I seemed to have had a wonderful lot of experience during the summer. I felt that I had grown older and cleverer, and the dullness of my master's house seemed worse than ever. They fell ill as often as ever, upsetting their stomachs with offensive poisons, and giving one another detailed accounts of the progress of their illnesses. The old woman prayed to God in the same terrible and malignant way. The young mistress had grown thin, but she moved about just as pompously and slowly as when she was expecting her child. When she stitched at the baby-clothes she always sang the same song softly to herself: "Spiria, Spiria, Spiridon, Spiria, my little brother, I will sit in the sledge myself And Spiria on the foot-board." If any one went into the room she left off singing at once and cried angrily: "What do you want?" I fully believed that she knew no other song but that. In the evenings they used to call me into the sitting-room, and the order was given: "Now tell us how you lived on the boat." I sat on a chair near the door and spoke. I liked to recall a different life from this which I was forced to lead against my will. I was so interested that I forgot my audience, but not for long. The women, who had never been on a boat, asked me: "But it was very alarming, was n't it?" I did not understand. Why should it be alarming? "Why, the boat might go down any moment, and every one would be drowned." The master burst out laughing, and I, although I knew that boats did not sink just because there were deep places, could not convince the women. The old woman was certain that the boat did not float on the water, but went along on wheels on the bottom of the river, like a cart on dry land. "If they are made of iron, how can they float? An ax will not float; no fear!" "But a scoop does not sink in the water." "There's a comparison to make! A scoop is a small thing, nothing to speak of." When I spoke of Smouri and his books they regarded me with contempt. The old lady said that only fools and heretics wrote books. "What about the Psalms and King David?" "The Psalms are sacred writings, and King David prayed God to forgive him for writing the Psalms." "Where does it say so?" "In the palms of my hands; that's where! When I get hold of you by the neck you will learn where." She knew everything; she spoke on all subjects with conviction and always savagely. "A Tatar died on the Pechorka, and his soul came out of his mouth as black as tar." "Soul? Spirit?" I said, but she cried contemptuously: "Of a Tatar! Fool!" The young mistress was afraid of books, too. "It is very injurious to read books, and especially when you are young," she said. "At home, at Grebeshka, there was a young girl of good family who read and read, and the end of it was that she fell in love with the deacon, and the deacon's wife so shamed her that it was terrible to see. In the street, before everybody."