only did none of us
ever dare to touch her with his hand, she never even heard a free
jest from us. It may be that this was because she never stayed long
with us; she flashed before our eyes like a star coming from the sky
and then disappeared, or, perhaps, because she was small and very
beautiful, and all that is beautiful commands the respect even of
rude people. And then, though our hard labor had turned us into dull
oxen, we nevertheless remained human beings, and like all human
beings, we could not live without worshipping something. We had
nobody better than she, and none, except her, paid any attention to
us, the dwellers of the cellar; no one, though tens of people lived
in the house. And finally--this is probably the main reason--we all
considered her as something of our own, as something that existed
only because of our biscuits. We considered it our duty to give her
hot biscuits and this became our daily offering to the idol, it
became almost a sacred custom which bound us to her the more every
day. Aside from the biscuits, we gave Tanya many advices--to dress
more warmly, not to run fast on the staircase, nor to carry heavy
loads of wood. She listened to our advice with a smile, replied to
us with laughter and never obeyed us, but we did not feel offended at
this. All we needed was to show that we cared for her. She often
turned to us with various requests. She asked us, for instance, to
open the heavy cellar door, to chop some wood. We did whatever she
wanted us to do with joy, and even with some kind of pride.

But when one of us asked her to mend his only shirt, she declined,
with a contemptuous sneer.

We laughed heartily at the queer fellow, and never again asked her
for anything. We loved her; all is said in this. A human being
always wants to bestow his love upon some one, although he may
sometime choke or slander him; he may poison the life of his neighbor
with his love, because, loving, he does not respect the beloved. We
had to love Tanya, for there was no one else we could love.

At times some one of us would suddenly begin to reason thus:

"And why do we make so much of the girl? What's in her? Eh? We
have too much to do with her." We quickly and rudely checked the man
who dared to say such words. We had to love something. We found it
out and loved it, and the something which the twenty-six of us loved
had to be inaccessible to each of us as our sanctity, and any one
com