burning it for no fault of its own; it urged that it ardently longed
to live, that it was young and might have been beautiful but for
the heat and the drought; it was guiltless, but yet it prayed
forgiveness and protested that it was in anguish, sad and sorry for
itself. . . .

Yegorushka listened for a little, and it began to seem as though
this dreary, mournful song made the air hotter, more suffocating
and more stagnant. . . . To drown the singing he ran to the sedge,
humming to himself and trying to make a noise with his feet. From
there he looked about in all directions and found out who was
singing. Near the furthest hut in the hamlet stood a peasant woman
in a short petticoat, with long thin legs like a heron. She was
sowing something. A white dust floated languidly from her sieve
down the hillock. Now it was evident that she was singing. A couple
of yards from her a little bare-headed boy in nothing but a smock
was standing motionless. As though fascinated by the song, he stood
stock-still, staring away into the distance, probably at Yegorushka's
crimson shirt.

The song ceased. Yegorushka sauntered back to the chaise, and to
while away the time went again to the trickle of water.

And again there was the sound of the dreary song. It was the same
long-legged peasant woman in the hamlet over the hill. Yegorushka's
boredom came back again. He left the pipe and looked upwards. What
he saw was so unexpected that he was a little frightened. Just above
his head on one of the big clumsy stones stood a chubby little boy,
wearing nothing but a shirt, with a prominent stomach and thin legs,
the same boy who had been standing before by the peasant woman. He