out a lump of brownish sticky paste. How had that paste
come into his pocket? He thought a minute, smelt it; it smelt of
honey. Aha! it was the Jewish cake! How sopped it was, poor thing!

Yegorushka examined his coat. It was a little grey overcoat with
big bone buttons, cut in the shape of a frock-coat. At home, being
a new and expensive article, it had not been hung in the hall, but
with his mother's dresses in her bedroom; he was only allowed to
wear it on holidays. Looking at it, Yegorushka felt sorry for it.
He thought that he and the great-coat were both abandoned to the
mercy of destiny; he thought that he would never get back home, and
began sobbing so violently that he almost fell off the heap of dung.

A big white dog with woolly tufts like curl-papers about its face,
sopping from the rain, came into the shed and stared with curiosity
at Yegorushka. It seemed to be hesitating whether to bark or not.
Deciding that there was no need to bark, it went cautiously up to
Yegorushka, ate the sticky plaster and went out again.

"There are Varlamov's men!" someone shouted in the street.

After having his cry out, Yegorushka went out of the shed and,
walking round a big puddle, made his way towards the street. The
waggons were standing exactly opposite the gateway. The drenched
waggoners, with their muddy feet, were sauntering beside them or
sitting on the shafts, as listless and drowsy as flies in autumn.
Yegorushka looked at them and thought: "How dreary and comfortless
to be a peasant!" He went up to Panteley and sat down beside him
on the shaft.

"Grandfather, I'm cold," he said, shivering and thrusting his hands
up his sleeves.

"Never mind, we shall soon be there," yawned Panteley. "Never mind,
you will get warm."

It must have been early when the waggons set off, for it was not
hot. Yegorushka lay on the bales of wool and shivered with cold,
though the sun soon came out and dried his clothes, the bales, and
the earth. As soon as he closed his eyes he saw Tit and the windmill
again. Feeling a sickness and heaviness all over, he did his utmost
to drive away these images, but as soon as they vanished the
dare-devil Dymov, with red eyes and lifted fists, rushed at Yegorushka
with a roar, or there was the sound of his complaint: "I am so
dreary!" Varlamov rode by on his little Cossack stallion; happy
Konstantin passed, with a smile and the bustard in his arms. And
how tedious these people were, how sickening a