SECOND DAY THE LIVING AND THE DYING · 1

As I sat at my work, Ilyá Vasílyevitch entered softly and, evidently reluctant to disturb me at my work, told me that some wayfarers and a woman had been waiting a long time to see me.

"Here," I said, "please take this, and give it them."

"The woman has come about some business."

I told him to ask her to wait a while, and continued my work. By the time I came out, I had quite forgotten about her, till I saw a young peasant woman with a long, thin face, and clad very poorly and too lightly for the weather, appear from behind a corner of the house.

"What do you want? What is the matter?"

"I've come to see you, your Honour."

"Yes... what about? What is the matter?"

"To see you, your Honour."

"Well, what is it?"

"He's been taken wrongfully.... I'm left with three children."

"Who's been taken, and where to?"

[21]

"My husband... sent off to Krapívny."

"Why? What for?"

"For a soldier, you know. But it's wrong—because, you see, he's the breadwinner! We can't get on without him.... Be a father to us, sir!"

"But how is it? Is he the only man in the family?"

"Just so... the only man!"

"Then how is it they have taken him, if he's the only man?"

"Who can tell why they've done it?... Here am I, left alone with the children! There's nothing for me but to die.... Only I'm sorry for the children! My last hope is in your kindness, because, you see, it was not right!"

I wrote down the name of her village, and her name and surname, and told her I would see about it and let her know.

"Help me, if it's only ever so little!... The children are hungry, and, God's my witness, I haven't so much as a crust. The baby is worst of all... there's no milk in my breasts. If only the Lord would take him!"

"Haven't you a cow?" I asked.

"A cow? Oh, no!... Why, we're all starving!" said she, crying, and trembling all over in her tattered coat.

I let her go, and prepared for my customary walk. It turned out that the doctor, who lives with us, was going to visit a patient in the village[22] the soldier's wife had come from, and another patient in the village where the District Police Station is situated, so I joined him, and we drove off together.

I went into the Police Station, while the doctor attended to his business in that village.

The District Elder was not in, nor the clerk, but only the clerk's assistant—a clever lad whom I knew. I asked him about the woman's husband, and why, being the only man in the family, he had been taken as a conscript.

The clerk's assistant looked up the particulars, and replied that the woman's husband was not the only man in the family: he had a brother.

"Then why did she say he was the only one?"

"She lied! They always do," replied he, with a smile.

I made some inquiries about other matters I had to attend to, and then the doctor returned from visiting his patient, and we drove towards the village in which the soldier's wife lived. But before we were out of the first village, a girl of about twelve came quickly across the road towards us.