"Kuzka was sent back home.... I thought it over and took him to bring
up. After all--though a convict's child--still he was a living soul, a
Christian.... I was sorry for him. I shall make him my clerk, and if I
have no children of my own, I'll make a merchant of him. Wherever I go
now, I take him with me; let him learn his work."

All the while Matvey Savitch had been telling his story, Kuzka had sat
on a little stone near the gate. His head propped in both hands, he
gazed at the sky, and in the distance he looked in the dark like a stump
of wood.

"Kuzka, come to bed," Matvey Savitch bawled to him.

"Yes, it's time," said Dyudya, getting up; he yawned loudly and added:

"Folks will go their own way, and that's what comes of it."

Over the yard the moon was floating now in the heavens; she was moving
one way, while the clouds beneath moved the other way; the clouds were
disappearing into the darkness, but still the moon could be seen high
above the yard.

Matvey Savitch said a prayer, facing the church, and saying good-night,
he lay down on the ground near his cart. Kuzka, too, said a prayer, lay
down in the cart, and covered himself with his little overcoat; he
made himself a little hole in the hay so as to be more comfortable, and
curled up so that his elbows looked like knees. From the yard Dyudya
could be seen lighting a candle in his room below, putting on his
spectacles and standing in the corner with a book. He was a long while