Once when I came to the chicken-legged hut, as my habit was, just before dark, I was immediately struck by the anxiety of its occupants. The old woman sat with her feet on the bed, hunched up, and swayed to and fro with her head in her hands, murmuring something I could not catch. She paid no attention to my greeting. Olyessia welcomed me kindly as always, but our conversation made no headway. She listened to me absently and answered me inconsequently. On her beautiful face lay the shadow of some unceasing secret trouble.

‘Something bad has happened to you, Olyessia, I can see,’ I said cautiously, touching her hand which lay on the bench.

Olyessia quickly turned her face to the window, as though she were examining something. She tried to look calm, but her eyebrows drew together and trembled, and her teeth violently bit her under lip.

‘No, ... what could have happened to us?’ she said with a dull voice. ‘Everything is just as it was.’

‘Olyessia, why don’t you tell me the truth? It’s wrong of you.... I thought that we had become real friends.’

186 ‘It’s nothing, really.... Nothing.... Our troubles ... trifles.’

‘No, Olyessia, they don’t seem to be trifles. You’re not like yourself.’

‘That’s only your fancy.’

‘Be frank with me, Olyessia. I don’t know whether I can help, but I can give you some advice perhaps.... And, anyhow, you’ll feel better when you’ve shared your trouble.’

‘But it’s really not worth talking about,’ Olyessia replied impatiently. ‘You can’t possibly help us at all, now.’

Suddenly, with unexpected passion, the old woman broke into the conversation.

‘Why are you so stubborn, you little fool? Some one talks business to you, and you hold up your nose. As if nobody in the world was cleverer than you! If you please, sir, I’ll tell you the whole story,’ she said, turning towards me, ‘beginning with the beginning.’

The trouble appeared much more considerable than I could have supposed from Olyessia’s proud words. The evening before, the local policeman had come to the chicken-legged hut.

‘First he sat down, nice and politely, and asked for vodka,’ Manuilikha said, ‘and then he began and went on and on. “Clear out of the hut in twenty-four hours with all your belongings. If I come next time,” he says, “and find you ............