If Uncle Piotr gave Yashka a box on the ear, or pulled his hair, Aunt Agafya puckered up her lips and muttered angrily: "Ugh, you telltale!" And then Yashka found him somewhere, and pummeled him long and assiduously upon back, sides, and stomach. Yevsey endured the drubbing as something inevitable. It would not have been profitable to complain of Yashka, because if Uncle Piotr beat his son, Aunt Agafya repaid the punishment with interest upon her nephew, and her blows were more painful than Yashka's. So when Yevsey saw that Yashka wanted to attack him, he merely ran away, though he was always overtaken. Then the Old Man dropped to the ground, and pressed his body to the soil with all his might, pulling up his knees to his stomach, covering his face and his head with his hands, and silently yielding his sides and back to his cousin's fists. The more patiently he bore the buffeting, the angrier grew Yashka. Sometimes Yashka even cried and shouted, while he kicked his cousin's body: "You nasty louse, you, scream!" Once Yevsey found a horseshoe and gave it to the little pugilist, because he knew Yashka would take it from him at any rate. Mollified by the present, Yashka asked: "Did I hurt you very much when I beat you the last time?" "Very much," answered Yevsey. Yashka thought a while, scratched his head, and said in embarrassment: "It's nothing. It will pass away." He left Yevsey, but somehow his words settled deep in the Old Man's heart, and he repeated hopefully in an undertone: "It will pass away." Once Yevsey saw some women pilgrims rubbing their tired feet with nettles. He followed their example, and applied the nettles to his bruised sides. It seemed to him his pain was greatly assuaged. From that time he religiously rubbed his wounds with the down of the noxious and despised weed. He was poor at his lessons, because he came to school full of dread of beatings, and he left school swelling with a sense of insult. His apparent apprehension of being wronged evoked in others the unconquerable desire to ply the Old Man with blows. It turned out that Yevsey had a counter-tenor, and the teacher took him to the church choir. After this he had to be at home less, but to compensate he met his schoolmates more frequently, at the rehearsals, and they all fought no less than Yashka. The old frame church pleased Yevsey. He was always strongly drawn to peep into the snug warm quiet of its many dark corners, expecting to find in one of them something uncommon and good, which would embrace him, press him tenderly to itself, and speak to him the way his mother used to. All the sacred images, black with many years of soot, with their good yet stern expression, recalled the dark-bearded face of Uncle Piotr.