Deafened with the noise of the bar, Ilya betook himself to the courtyard. Here Savel was striking great blows on the anvil with his hammer and quarrelling with his mates. Out of the cellar the jolly song of the cobbler Perfishka rang out into the open, and from above came the scolding and shrieking of the drunken women. Savel's son Pashka, called "the rowdy," was riding round the yard on a stick shouting angrily to his steed: "Get on you devil." His round, pert face was covered with dirt and soot; there was a boil on his forehead; his strong healthy body shone through the countless holes in his shirt. Pashka was the leading bully and brawler in the courtyard; twice already he had thrashed Ilya soundly, and when Ilya complained tearfully, his uncle shrugged his shoulders and said: "What can I do? You must bear it. It'll pass off." "I'll give it to him next time though, see if I don't," threatened Ilya through his tears. "No, don't do that," said his uncle decidedly. "You mustn't do that, anyway." "Then he may do it and I'm not to?" "He!--he belongs here, d'you see, and you're a stranger." Ilya went on pouring out threats against Pashka, but his uncle became angry all at once, and stormed at him, a thing that very rarely happened. So the consciousness dawned in Ilya, that he was not the equal of the children who belonged to the place, and while from that time he hid his enmity to Pashka, he clung all the closer to Jakov. Jakov always behaved himself very well; he never fought the other boys and seldom so much as shouted at them. Even in the games, he hardly ever joined the others though he loved to speak of the games the children of the rich played in the town park. Jakov's only friend among the other children of the house, excepting Ilya, was Mashka, the seven-year-old daughter of the cobbler Perfishka. Mashka was a dirty, delicate, sickly child. Her little head of black curls flitted about the court from morning to night. Her mother sat almost all the time in the doorway leading to the cellar. She was tall, with a long plait of hair down her back, and sewed incessantly, bent double over her work. Whenever she raised her head to look after her daughter, Ilya could see her face. It was a purplish, expressionless, bloated face--like the face of a corpse. Even her pleasant black eyes had about them something fixed, immovable. She spoke to no one, even to her daughter she used to beckon if she wanted her. Only very rarely she would cry in a hoarse, half-choked voice: "Mashka!" At first, something about this woman took Ilya's fancy. But later, when he learnt that she had been a cripple for three years and would soon die, he grew afraid of her. Once, as Ilya passed close to her, she stretched out an arm, caught him by the sleeve and drew him, terrified, up to her.