progress--a
brickyard in Butyokino--and Aksinya went there almost every day in the
chaise. She drove herself, and when she met acquaintances she stretched
out her neck like a snake out of the young rye, and smiled naively and
enigmatically. Lipa spent her time playing with the baby which had been
born to her before Lent. It was a tiny, thin, pitiful little baby, and
it was strange that it should cry and gaze about and be considered a
human being, and even be called Nikifor. He lay in his swinging cradle,
and Lipa would walk away towards the door and say, bowing to him:

"Good-day, Nikifor Anisimitch!"

And she would rush at him and kiss him. Then she would walk away to the
door, bow again, and say:

'Good-day, Nikifor Anisimitch!

And he kicked up his little red legs, and his crying was mixed with
laughter like the carpenter Elizarov's.

At last the day of the trial was fixed. Tsybukin went away five days
before. Then they heard that the peasants called as witnesses had been
fetched; their old workman who had received a notice to appear went too.

The trial was on a Thursday. But Sunday had passed, and Tsybukin was
still not back, and there was no news. Towards the evening on Tuesday
Varvara was sitting at the open window, listening for her husband to
come. In the next room Lipa was playing with her baby. She was tossing
him up in her arms and saying enthusiastically:

"You will grow up ever so big, ever so big. You will be a peasant, we
shall go out to work together! We shall go out to work together!"

"Come, come," said Varvara, offended. "Go out to work, what an idea, you
silly girl! He will be a merchant...!"

Lipa sang softly, but a minute later she forgot and again:

"You will grow ever so big, ever so big. You will be a peasant, we'll go
out to work together."

"There she is at it again!"

Lipa, with Nikifor in her arms, stood still in the doorway and asked:

"Why do I love him so much, mamma? Why do I feel so sorry for him?" she
went on in a quivering voice, and her eyes glistened with tears. "Who
is he? What is he like? As light as a little feather, as a little crumb,
but I love him; I love him like a real person. Here he can do nothing,
he can't talk, and yet I know what he wants with his little eyes."

Varvara was listening; the sound of the evening train coming in to the
station reached her. Had her husband come? She did not hear and she did
not heed what Lipa was saying, she had no idea how