im out with.

Panteley, too, went up to the pail. He took out of his pocket a
little green glass of an ikon lamp, wiped it with a rag, filled it
from the pail and drank from it, then filled it again, wrapped the
little glass in the rag, and then put it back into his pocket.

"Grandfather, why do you drink out of a lamp?" Yegorushka asked
him, surprised.

"One man drinks out of a pail and another out of a lamp," the old
man answered evasively. "Every man to his own taste. . . . You drink
out of the pail--well, drink, and may it do you good. . . ."

"You darling, you beauty!" Vassya said suddenly, in a caressing,
plaintive voice. "You darling!"

His eyes were fixed on the distance; they were moist and smiling,
and his face wore the same expression as when he had looked at
Yegorushka.

"Who is it you are talking to?" asked Kiruha.

"A darling fox, . . . lying on her back, playing like a dog."

Everyone began staring into the distance, looking for the fox, but
no one could see it, only Vassya with his grey muddy-looking eyes,
and he was enchanted by it. His sight was extraordinarily keen, as
Yegorushka learnt afterwards. He was so long-sighted that the brown
steppe was for him always full of life and interest. He had only
to look into the distance to see a fox, a hare, a bustard, or some
other animal keeping at a distance from men. There was nothing
strange in seeing a hare running away or a flying bustard--everyone
crossing the steppes could see them; but it was not vouchsafed to
everyone to see wild animals in their own haunts when they were not
running nor hiding, nor looking about them in alarm. Yet Vassya saw
foxes playing, hares washing themselves with their paws, bustards
preening their wings and hammering out their hollow nests. Thanks
to this keenness of sight, Vassya had, besides the world seen by
everyone, another world of his own, accessible to no one else, and
probably a very beautiful one, for when he saw something and was
in raptures over it it was impossible not to envy him.

When the waggons set off again, the church bells were ringing for
service.

V

The train of waggons drew up on the bank of a river on one side of
a village. The sun was blazing, as it had been the day before; the
air was stagnant and depressing. There were a few willows on the
bank, but the shade from them did not fall on the earth, but on the
water, where it was wasted; even in the shade under the waggon it
was stifling