ers.

But besides the songs, we had one other good thing, something we all
loved and which, perhaps, came to us instead of the sun. The second
story of our house was occupied by an embroidery shop, and there,
among many girl workers, lived the sixteen year old chamber-maid,
Tanya. Every morning her little, pink face, with blue, cheerful
eyes, leaned against the pane of the little window in our hallway
door, and her ringing, kind voice cried to us: "Little prisoners!
Give me biscuits!"

We all turned around at this familiar, clear sound and joyously,
kind-heartedly looked at the pure maiden face as it smiled to us
delightfully. We were accustomed and pleased to see her nose
flattened against the window-pane, and the small, white teeth that
flashed from under her pink lips, which were open with a smile. We
rush to open the door for her, pushing one another; she enters,
cheerful and amiable, and holding out her apron. She stands before
us, leaning her head somewhat on one side and smiles all the time. A
thick, long braid of chestnut hair, falling across her shoulder, lies
on her breast. We, dirty, dark, deformed men, look up at her from
below--the threshold was four steps higher than the floor--we look at
her, lifting our heads upwards, we wish her a good morning. We say
to her some particular words, words we use for her alone. Speaking
to her our voices are somehow softer, and our jokes lighter.
Everything is different for her. The baker takes out a shovelful of
the brownest and reddest biscuits and throws them cleverly into
Tanya's apron.

"Look out that the boss doesn't see you!" we always warn her. She
laughs roguishly and cries to us cheerfully:

"Good-by, little prisoners!" and she disappears quickly, like a
little mouse. That's all. But long after her departure we speak
pleasantly of her to one another. We say the very same thing we said
yesterday and before, because she, as well as we and everything
around us, is also the same as yesterday and before. It is very hard
and painful for one to live, when nothing changes around him, and if
it does not kill his soul for good, the immobility of the
surroundings becomes all the more painful the longer he lives. We
always spoke of women in such a manner that at times we were
disgusted at our own rude and shameless words, and this is quite
clear, for the women we had known, perhaps, never deserved any better
words. But of Tanya we never spoke ill. Not