“And yesterday I had a wigging.  The master pulled me out into the yard by my hair, and whacked me with a boot-stretcher because I accidentally fell asleep while I was rocking their brat in the cradle.  And a week ago the mistress told me to clean a herring, and I began from the tail end, and she took the herring and thrust its head in my face.  The workmen laugh at me and send me to the tavern for vodka, and tell me to steal the master’s cucumbers for them, and the master beats me with anything that comes to hand.  And there is nothing to eat.  In the morning they give me bread, for dinner, porridge, and in the evening, bread again; but as for tea, or soup, the master and mistress gobble it all up themselves.  And I am put to sleep in the passage, and when their wretched brat cries I get no sleep at all, but have to rock the cradle.  Dear grandfather, show the divine mercy, take me away from here, home to the village.  It’s more than I can bear.  I bow down to your feet, and will pray to God for you for ever, take me away from here or I shall die.”

Vanka’s mouth worked, he rubbed his eyes with his black fist, and gave a sob.

“I will powder your snuff for you,” he went on.  “I will pray for you, and if I do anything you can thrash me like Sidor’s goat.  And if you think I’ve no job, then I will beg the steward for Christ’s sake to let me clean his boots, or I’ll go for a shepherd-boy instead of Fedka.  Dear grandfather, it is more than I can bear, it’s simply no life at all.  I wanted to run away to the village, but I have no boots, and I am afraid of the frost.  When I grow up big I will take care of you for this, and not let anyone annoy you, and when you die I will pray for the rest of your soul, just as for my mammy’s.”

“Moscow is a big town.  It’s all gentlemen’s houses, and there are lots of horses, but there are no sheep, and the dogs are not spiteful.  The lads here don’t go out with the star, and they don’t let anyone go into the choir, and once I saw in a shop window fishing-hooks for sale, fitted ready with the line and for all sorts of fish, awfully good ones, there was even one hook that would hold a forty-pound sheat-fish.  And I have seen shops where there are guns of all sorts, after the pattern of the master’s guns at home, so that I shouldn’t wonder if they are a hundred roubles each. . . .  And in the butchers’ shops there are grouse and woodcocks and fish and hares, but the shopmen don’t say where they shoot them.”

“Dear grandfather, when they have the Christmas tree at the big house, get me a gilt walnut, and put it away in the green trunk.  Ask the young lady Olga Ignatyevna, say it’s for Vanka.”