now the boy was sitting on the box beside the coachman Deniska,
holding on to his elbow to keep from falling off, and dancing up
and down like a kettle on the hob, with no notion where he was going
or what he was going for. The rapid motion through the air blew out
his red shirt like a balloon on his back and made his new hat with
a peacock's feather in it, like a coachman's, keep slipping on to
the back of his head. He felt himself an intensely unfortunate
person, and had an inclination to cry.

When the chaise drove past the prison, Yegorushka glanced at the
sentinels pacing slowly by the high white walls, at the little
barred windows, at the cross shining on the roof, and remembered
how the week before, on the day of the Holy Mother of Kazan, he had
been with his mother to the prison church for the Dedication Feast,
and how before that, at Easter, he had gone to the prison with
Deniska and Ludmila the cook, and had taken the prisoners Easter
bread, eggs, cakes and roast beef. The prisoners had thanked them
and made the sign of the cross, and one of them had given Yegorushka
a pewter buckle of his own making.

The boy gazed at the familiar places, while the hateful chaise flew
by and left them all behind. After the prison he caught glimpses
of black grimy foundries, followed by the snug green cemetery
surrounded by a wall of cobblestones; white crosses and tombstones,
nestling among green cherry-trees and looking in the distance like
patches of white, peeped out gaily from behind the wall. Yegorushka
remembered that when the cherries were in blossom those white patches
melted with the flowers into a sea of white; and that when the
cherries were ripe the white tombstones and crosses were dotted
with splashes of red like bloodstains. Under the cherry trees in