Page:Complete Works of Count Tolstoy - 02.djvu/31

 III.

walked into the hut. The uneven, grimy walls were in the kitchen corner covered with all kinds of rags and clothes, while the corner of honour was literally red with cockroaches that swarmed about the images and benches. In the middle of this black, ill-smelling, eighteen-foot hut there was a large crack in the ceiling, and although supports were put in two places, the ceiling was so bent that it threatened to fall down any minute. "Yes, the hut is in a very bad shape," said the master, gazing at the face of Churís, who, it seemed, did not wish to begin a conversation about this matter. "It will kill us, and the children, too," the old woman kept saying, in a tearful voice, leaning against the oven under the hanging beds. "Don't talk!" sternly spoke Churís, and, turning to the master, with a light, barely perceptible smile, which had formed itself under his quivering moustache, he said: "I am at a loss, your Grace, what to do with this hut. I have braced it and mended it, but all in vain." "How are we to pass a winter in it? Oh, oh, oh!" said the woman. "Now, if I could put in a few braces and fix a new strut," her husband interrupted her, with a calm, businesslike expression, "and change one rafter, we might be able to get through another winter. We might be able to live here, only it will be all cut up by the braces; and if anybody should touch it, not a thing would be left alive; but Rh