The old men walked for live weeks. They wore out their home-made bast
shoes and began to buy new ones. They reached the country of the
Little-Russians. Heretofore they had been paying for their night's
lodging and for their dinner, but when they came to the Little-Russians,
people vied with each other in inviting them to their houses. They let
them come in, and fed them, and took no money from them, but even filled
their wallets with bread, and now and then with flat cakes. Thus the old
men walked without expense some seven hundred versts. They crossed
another Government and came to a place where there had been a failure of
crops. There they let them into the houses and did not take any money
for their night's lodging, but would not feed them. And they did not
give them bread everywhere,--not even for money could the old men get
any in some places. The previous year, so the people said, nothing had
grown. Those who had been rich were ruined,--they sold everything; those
who had lived in comfort came down to nothing; and the poor people
either entirely left the country, or turned beggars, or just managed to
exist at home. In the winter they lived on chaff and orach.
One night the two old men stayed in a borough. There they bought about
fifteen pounds of bread. In the morning they left before daybreak, so
that they might walk a good distance before the heat. They marched some
ten versts and reached a brook. They sat down, filled their cups with
water, softened the bread with it and ate it, and changed their
leg-rags. They sat awhile and rested themselves. Eliséy took out his
snuff-horn. Efím Tarásych shook his head at him.
"Why don't you throw away that nasty thing?" he asked.
Eliséy waved his hand.
"Sin has overpowered me," he said. "What shall I do?"
They got up and marched on. They walked another ten versts. They came to
a large village, and passed through it. It was quite warm then. Eliséy
was tired, and wanted to stop and get a drink, but Tarásych would not
stop. Tarásych was a better walker, and Eliséy had a hard time keeping
up with him.
"I should like to get a drink," he said.
"Well, drink! I do not want any."
Eliséy stopped.
"Do not wait for me," he said. "I will just run into a hut and get a
drink of water. I will catch up with you at once."
"All right," he said. And Efím Tarásych proceeded by himself along the
road, while Eliséy turned to go into a hut.
Eliséy came up to the hut. It was a small clay cabin; the lower part was
black, the upper white, and the clay had long ago crumbled
off,--evidently it had not been plastered for a long time,--and the roof
was open at one end. The entrance was from the yard. Eliséy stepped into
the yard, and there saw that a lean, beardless man with his shirt stuck
in his trousers in Little-Russian fashion was lying near the earth
mound. The man had evidently lain down in a cool spot, but now the sun
was burning down upon him. He was lying there awake. Eliséy called out
to him, asking him to give him a drink, but the man made no reply. "He
is either sick, or an unkind man," thought Eliséy, going up to the door.
Inside he heard a child crying. He knocked with the door-ring. "Good
people!" No answer. He struck with his staff against the door.
"Christian people!" No stir. "Servants of the Lord!" No reply. Eliséy
was on the point of going away, when he heard somebody groaning within.
"I wonder whether some misfortune has happened there to the people. I
must see." And Eliséy went into the hut.