rstand!"

And the man's weeping blended with the child's. This voice of human
sorrow, in the midst of the howling of the storm, touched the girl's
ear with such sweet human music that she could not bear the delight
of it, and wept too. She was conscious afterwards of a big, black
shadow coming softly up to her, picking up a shawl that had dropped
on to the floor and carefully wrapping it round her feet.

Mile. Ilovaisky was awakened by a strange uproar. She jumped up and
looked about her in astonishment. The deep blue dawn was looking
in at the window half-covered with snow. In the room there was a
grey twilight, through which the stove and the sleeping child and
Nasir-ed-Din stood out distinctly. The stove and the lamp were both
out. Through the wide-open door she could see the big tavern room
with a counter and chairs. A man, with a stupid, gipsy face and
astonished eyes, was standing in the middle of the room in a puddle
of melting snow, holding a big red star on a stick. He was surrounded
by a group of boys, motionless as statues, and plastered over with
snow. The light shone through the red paper of the star, throwing
a glow of red on their wet faces. The crowd was shouting in disorder,
and from its uproar Mile. Ilovaisky could make out only one couplet:

"Hi, you Little Russian lad,
Bring your sharp knife,
We will kill the Jew, we will kill him,
The son of tribulation. . ."

Liharev was standing near the counter, looking feelingly at the
singers and tapping his feet in time. Seeing Mile. Ilovaisky, he
smiled all over his face and came up to her. She smiled too.

"A happy Christmas!" he said. "I saw you slept well."

She looked at him, said nothing, and went on smiling.

After the conversation in the night he seemed to her not tall and
broad shouldered, but little, just as the biggest steamer seems to
us a little thing when we hear that it has crossed the ocean.

"Well, it is time for me to set off," she said. "I must put on my
things. Tell me where you are going now?"

"I? To the station of Klinushki, from there to Sergievo, and from
Sergievo, with horses, thirty miles to the coal mines that belong
to a horrid man, a general called Shashkovsky. My brothers have got
me the post of superintendent there. . . . I am going to be a coal
miner."

"Stay, I know those mines. Shashkovsky is my uncle, you know. But
. . . what are you going there for?" asked Mlle. Ilovaisky, looking
at Liharev in surprise.

"A