hought
disjointedly:

"It seems it's too early for me. Others drink and nothing happens--and
I feel sick."

Somewhere from a distance came the mother's soft voice:

"What sort of a breadgiver will you be to me if you begin to drink?"

He shut his eyes tightly and answered:

"Everybody drinks."

The mother sighed. He was right. She herself knew that besides the
tavern there was no place where people could enjoy themselves; besides
the taste of whisky there was no other gratification. Nevertheless she
said:

"But don't you drink. Your father drank for both of you. And he made
enough misery for me. Take pity on your mother, then, will you not?"

Listening to the soft, pitiful words of his mother, Pavel remembered
that in his father's lifetime she had remained unnoticed in the house.
She had been silent and had always lived in anxious expectation of
blows. Desiring to avoid his father, he had been home very little of
late; he had become almost unaccustomed to his mother, and now, as he
gradually sobered up, he looked at her fixedly.

She was tall and somewhat stooping. Her heavy body, broken down with
long years of toil and the beatings of her husband, moved about
noiselessly and inclined to one side, as if she were in constant fear
of knocking up against something. Her broad oval face, wrinkled and
puffy, was lighted up with a pair of dark eyes, troubled and melancholy
as those of most of the women in the village. On her right eyebrow was
a deep scar, which turned the eyebrow upward a little; her right ear,
too, seemed to be higher than the left, which gave her face the
appearance of alarmed listening. Gray locks glistened in her thick,
dark hair, like the imprints of heavy blows. Altogether she was soft,
melancholy, and submissive.

Tears slowly trickled down her cheeks.

"Wait, don't cry!" begged the son in a soft voice. "Give me a drink."

She rose and said:

"I'll give you some ice water."

But when she returned he was already asleep. She stood over him for a
minute, trying to breathe lightly. The cup in her hand trembled, and
the ice knocked against the tin. Then, setting the cup on the table,
she knelt before the sacred image upon the wall, and began to pray in
silence. The sounds of dark, drunken life beat against the window
panes; an accordion screeched in the misty darkness of the autumn
night; some one sang a loud song; some one was swearing with ugly, vile
oaths, and the excite