Page:Complete Works of Count Tolstoy - 02.djvu/83



they entered the hut, the old man bowed again, wiped off the bench in the front corner with the flap of his coat, and, smiling, asked:

"What may we serve to you, your Grace?"

The hut was white (with a chimney), spacious, and had both hanging and bench beds. The fresh aspen-wood beams, between which the moss-calking had just begun to fade, had not yet turned black; the new benches and beds had not yet become smooth, and the floor was not yet stamped down.

A young, haggard peasant woman, with an oval, pensive face, Ilyá's wife, was sitting on the bench-bed, and rocking with her foot a cradle that hung down from the ceiling by a long pole. In the cradle a suckling babe lay stretched out, and slept, barely breatliing, and closing its eyes. Another, a plump, red-cheeked woman, Karp's wife, stood, with her sunburnt arms bared above the elbows, near the oven, and cut onions into a wooden bowl. A third, a pockmarked, pregnant woman, stood at the oven, shielding herself with her sleeve. The hut was hot, not only from the sun, but from the oven also, and was fragrant with freshly baked bread. From the hanging beds the flaxen heads of two boys and a girl, who had climbed there in expectation of dinner, looked down with curiosity at the master.

Nekhlyúdov was happy to see this well-being; but, at the same time, he felt embarrassed before these women