And Avdyeeich leaned both his elbows on the table and, without perceiving it, fell a-dozing.

“Martin!”—­it was as though the voice of some one close to his ear.

Martin started up from his nap.  “Who’s there?”

He turned round, he gazed at the door, but there was no one.  Again he dozed off.  Suddenly he heard quite plainly, “Martin, Martin, I say!  Look to-morrow into the street.  I am coming.”

Martin awoke, rose from his chair, and began to rub his eyes.  And he did not know himself whether he had heard these words asleep or awake.  He turned down the lamp and laid him down to rest.

At dawn next day, Avdyeeich arose, prayed to God, lit his stove, got ready his gruel and cabbage soup, filled his samovar, put on his apron, and sat him down by his window to work.  There Avdyeeich sits and works, and thinks of nothing but the things of yesternight.  His thoughts were divided.  He thought at one time that he must have gone off dozing, and then again he thought he really must have heard that voice.  It might have been so, thought he.

Martin sits at the window and looks as much at his window as at his work, and whenever a strange pair of boots passes by he bends forward and looks out of the window, so as to see the face as well as the feet of the passers-by.  The house porter passed by in new felt boots, the water-carrier passed by, and after that there passed close to the window an old soldier, one of Nicholas’s veterans, in tattered old boots, with a shovel in his hands.  Avdyeeich knew him by his boots.  The old fellow was called Stepanuich, and lived with the neighboring shopkeeper, who harbored him of his charity.  His duty was to help the porter.  Stepanuich stopped before Avdyeeich’s window to sweep away the snow.  Avdyeeich cast a glance at him, and then went on working as before.

“I’m not growing sager as I grow older,” thought Avdyeeich, with some self-contempt.  “I make up my mind that Christ is coming to me, and lo! ’tis only Stepanuich clearing away the snow.  Thou simpleton, thou! thou art wool-gathering!” Then Avdyeeich made ten more stitches, and then he stretched his head once more towards the window.  He looked through the window again, and there he saw that Stepanuich had placed the shovel against the wall, and was warming himself and taking breath a bit.

“The old man is very much broken,” thought Avdyeeich to himself.  “It is quite plain that he has scarcely strength enough to scrape away the snow.  Suppose I make him drink a little tea! the samovar, too, is just on the boil.”  Avdyeeich put down his awl, got up, placed the samovar on the table, put some tea in it, and tapped on the window with his fingers.  Stepanuich turned round and came to the window.  Avdyeeich beckoned to him, and then went and opened the door.

“Come in and warm yourself a bit,” cried he.  “You’re a bit chilled, eh?”

“Christ requite you!  Yes, and all my bones ache too,” said Stepanuich.  Stepanuich came in, shook off the snow, and began to wipe his feet so as not to soil the floor, but he tottered sadly.