Page:Leo Tolstoi - Life Is Worth Living and Other Stories - tr. Adolphus Norraikow (1892).djvu/167

 160 slowly from the bench, in great doubt as to whether the words he had heard were real or only the result of a dream. Not hearing the words repeated, however, he decided to extinguish the light and go to bed.

He arose before daylight, and after his usual morning devotions he built a fire in the stove. Having placed water in the samovar and live coals underneath, he prepared his breakfast of cabbage-soup and gruel, after which he put on his apron and took his accustomed seat at the window ready for work.

But Martin could not banish from his mind the occurrences of the previous day. Now he would conclude that he had been only dreaming, and again he would think that he had actually heard a voice calling him. "Well," he said, "such things have really occurred."

While Martin was at work by the window he could not resist the desire constantly to look out upon the street, and when any one would pass whose shoes he did not recognize he would