Again a problem for Grisha: Pelageya was living in freedom, doing
as she liked, and not having to account to anyone for her actions,
and all at once, for no sort of reason, a stranger turns up, who
has somehow acquired rights over her conduct and her property!
Grisha was distressed. He longed passionately, almost to tears, to
comfort this victim, as he supposed, of man's injustice. Picking
out the very biggest apple in the store-room he stole into the
kitchen, slipped it into Pelageya's hand, and darted headlong away.


SLEEPY

NIGHT. Varka, the little nurse, a girl of thirteen, is rocking the
cradle in which the baby is lying, and humming hardly audibly:

"Hush-a-bye, my baby wee,
While I sing a song for thee."

A little green lamp is burning before the ikon; there is a string
stretched from one end of the room to the other, on which baby-clothes
and a pair of big black trousers are hanging. There is a big patch
of green on the ceiling from the ikon lamp, and the baby-clothes
and the trousers throw long shadows on the stove, on the cradle,
and on Varka. . . . When the lamp begins to flicker, the green patch
and the shadows come to life, and are set in motion, as though by
the wind. It is stuffy. There is a smell of cabbage soup, and of
the inside of a boot-shop.

The baby's crying. For a long while he has been hoarse and exhausted
with crying; but he still goes on screaming, and there is no knowing