hed and shook his head as he said it. Vavila threw something
on the fire, stamped on it--and at once it was very dark; the vision
vanished, and as before there were only the fields, the sky with the
stars, and the noise of the birds hindering each other from sleep. And
the landrail called, it seemed, in the very place where the fire had
been.

But a minute passed, and again she could see the two carts and the old
man and lanky Vavila. The carts creaked as they went out on the road.

"Are you holy men?" Lipa asked the old man.

"No. We are from Firsanovo."

"You looked at me just now and my heart was softened. And the young man
is so gentle. I thought you must be holy men."

"Are you going far?"

"To Ukleevo."

"Get in, we will give you a lift as far as Kuzmenki, then you go
straight on and we turn off to the left."

Vavila got into the cart with the barrel and the old man and Lipa got
into the other. They moved at a walking pace, Vavila in front.

"My baby was in torment all day," said Lipa. "He looked at me with his
little eyes and said nothing; he wanted to speak and could not. Holy
Father, Queen of Heaven! In my grief I kept falling down on the floor.
I stood up and fell down by the bedside. And tell me, grandfather, why
a little thing should be tormented before his death? When a grown-up
person, a man or woman, are in torment their sins are forgiven, but why
a little thing, when he has no sins? Why?"

"Who can tell?" answered the old man.

They drove on for half an hour in silence.

"We can't know everything, how and wherefore," said the old man. "It is
ordained for the bird to have not four wings but two because it is able
to fly with two; and so it is ordained for man not to know everything
but only a half or a quarter. As much as he needs to know so as to live,
so much he knows."

"It is better for me to go on foot, grandfather. Now my heart is all of
a tremble."

"Never mind, sit still."

The old man yawned and made the sign of the cross over his mouth.

"Never mind," he repeated. "Yours is not the worst of sorrows. Life
is long, there will be good and bad to come, there will be everything.
Great is mother Russia," he said, and looked round on each side of him.
"I have been all over Russia, and I have seen everything in her, and you
may believe my words, my dear. There will be good and there will be bad.
I went as a delegate from my village to Siberia, and I have been to the
Amur River and t