to mix the dough, when her six-year-old grandson Misha, wearing an
apron and with darned stockings on his crooked little legs, ran into the
kitchen with a frightened face.

'Grandma, a dreadful old man wants to see you.'

Lukerya looked out at the door.

'There is a pilgrim of some kind, a man . . .'

Praskovya Mikhaylovna rubbed her thin elbows against one another, wiped
her hands on her apron and went upstairs to get a five-kopek piece
[about a penny] out of her purse for him, but remembering that she had
nothing less than a ten-kopek piece she decided to give him some bread
instead. She returned to the cupboard, but suddenly blushed at the
thought of having grudged the ten-kopek piece, and telling Lukerya to
cut a slice of bread, went upstairs again to fetch it. 'It serves you
right,' she said to herself. 'You must now give twice over.'

She gave both the bread and the money to the pilgrim, and when doing
so--far from being proud of her generosity--she excused herself for
giving so little. The man had such an imposing appearance.

Though he had tramped two hundred versts as a beggar, though he was
tattered and had grown thin and weatherbeaten, though he had cropped his
long hair and was wearing a peasant's cap and boots, and though he bowed
very humbly, Sergius still had the impressive appearance that made him
so attractive. But Praskovya Mikhaylovna did not recognize him. She
could hardly do so, not having seen him for almost twenty years.