Amid the tangled herbage of the forecourt, a spot overgrown with mallow and bramble shoots, there was standing a cart which, lacking wheels, had its axle-points dark with mildew. Presently a herd of cattle was driven past the hut, and over the hamlet there seemed to arise, drift, and float, a perfect wave of sound. Also, as evening descended, I could see an ever-increasing number of grey shadows come creeping forth from the forecourt's recesses, and overlaying and darkening the turf. "One day all of us must die," remarked Ufim, with empressement as he tapped the bowl of his pipe against a wall. The next moment the barefooted, red-cheeked young woman showed herself at the gate, and asked in tones rather less vehement than recently: "Are you coming, or are you not?" "Presently," replied Ufim. "One thing at a time." For supper I was given a hunch of bread and a bowl of milk; whereupon the dog rose, laid its aged, slobbering muzzle upon my knee, and gazed into my face with its dim eyes as though it were saying, "May I too have a bite?" Next, like an eventide breeze among withered herbage, there floated across the forecourt the hoarse voice of the crook-backed old woman. "Let us pray," she said. "Oh God, take away from us all sorrow, and receive therefore requitement in twofold measure!" As she recited the prayer with a mien as dark as fate, the supplicant rolled her long neck from side to side, and nodded her ophidian-shaped head in accordance with a sort of regular, lethargic rhythm. Next I heard sink to earth, at my feet, some senile words uttered in a sort of singsong. "Some folk need work just as much as they wish, and others need do no work at all. Yet OUR folk have to work beyond their strength, and to work without any recompense for the toil which they undergo." Upon this the smaller of the old crones whispered: "But the Mother of God will recompense them. She recompenses everyone." Then a dead silence fell--a weighty silence, a silence seemingly fraught with matters of import, and inspiring in one an assurance that presently there would be brought forth impressive reflections--there would reach the ear words of mark. "I may tell you," at length the crook-backed old woman remarked as she attempted to straighten herself, "that though my husband was not without enemies, he also had a particular friend named Andrei, and that when failing strength was beginning to make life difficult for us in our old home on the Don, and folk took to reviling and girding at my husband, Andrei came to us one day, and said: 'Yakov, let not your hands fail you, for the earth is large, and in all parts has been given to men for their use. If folk be cruel, they are so through stupidity and prejudice, and must not be judged for being so. Live your own life. Let theirs be theirs, and yours yours, so that, dwelling in peace, while yielding to none, you shall in time overcome them all.'"