There passed another year, and a third, and Mikháyla was now living the
sixth year with Semén. He was living as before. He went nowhere, did not
speak an unnecessary word, and all that time had smiled but twice: once,
when they gave him the supper, and the second time when the gentleman
came. Semén did not get tired admiring his workman. He no longer asked
him where he came from; he was only afraid that Mikháyla might leave
him.
One day they were sitting at home. The housewife was putting the iron
pots into the oven, and the children were running on the benches, and
looking out of the window. Semén was sharpening his knives at one
window, and Mikháyla was heeling a shoe at the other.
One of the little boys ran up to Mikháyla on the bench, leaned against
his shoulder, and looked out of the window.
"Uncle Mikháyla, look there: a merchant woman is coming to us with some
little girls. One of the girls is lame."
When the boy said that, Mikháyla threw down his work, turned to the
window, and looked out into the street.
And Semén marvelled. Mikháyla had never before looked into the street,
and now he had rushed to the window, and was gazing at something. Semén,
too, looked out of the window: he saw, indeed, a woman who was walking
over to his yard. She was well dressed, and led two little girls in fur
coats and shawls. The girls looked one like the other, so that it was
hard to tell them apart, only one had a maimed left leg,--she walked
with a limp.
The woman walked up the porch to the vestibule, felt for the entrance,
pulled at the latch, and opened the door. First she let the two girls
in, and then entered herself.
"Good day, people!"
"You are welcome! What do you wish?"
The woman seated herself at the table. The girls pressed close to her
knees: they were timid before the people.
"I want you to make some leather boots for the girls for the spring."
"Well, that can be done. We have not made such small shoes, but we can
do it. We can make sharp-edged shoes, or turnover shoes on linen.
Mikháyla is my master."
Semén looked around at Mikháyla, and he saw that Mikháyla had put away
his work and was sitting and gazing at the girls.
And Semén marvelled at Mikháyla. Indeed, the girls were pretty:
black-eyed, chubby, ruddy-faced, and the fur coats and shawls which they
had on were fine; but still Semén could not make out why he was gazing
at them as though they were friends of his.
Semén marvelled, and began to talk with the woman and to bargain. They
came to an agreement, and he took the measures. The woman took the lame
girl on her knees, and said:
"For this girl take two measures: make one shoe for the lame foot, and
three for the sound foot. They have the same size of feet, exactly
alike. They are twins."
Semén took the measure, and he said about the lame girl:
"What has made her lame? She is such a pretty girl. Was she born this
way?"
"No, her mother crushed her."
Matréna broke in,--she wanted to know who the woman was, and whose the
children were, and so she said:
"Are you not their mother?"
"I am not their mother, nor their kin, housewife! I am a stranger to
them: I have adopted them."
"Not your children! How you care for them!"
"Why should I not care for them? I nursed them with my own breast. I had
a child of my own, but God took him away. I did not care for him so much
as I have cared for them."
"Whose are they, then?"