Shivering with cold and shrugging squeamishly, Yegorushka pulled off his drenched overcoat, then stretched out his arms and straddled his legs, and stood a long time without moving.  The slightest movement caused an unpleasant sensation of cold and wetness.  His sleeves and the back of his shirt were sopped, his trousers stuck to his legs, his head was dripping.

“What’s the use of standing there, with your legs apart, little lad?” said the old woman.  “Come, sit down.”

Holding his legs wide apart, Yegorushka went up to the table and sat down on a bench near somebody’s head.  The head moved, puffed a stream of air through its nose, made a chewing sound and subsided.  A mound covered with a sheepskin stretched from the head along the bench; it was a peasant woman asleep.

The old woman went out sighing, and came back with a big water melon and a little sweet melon.

“Have something to eat, my dear!  I have nothing else to offer you, . . .” she said, yawning.  She rummaged in the table and took out a long sharp knife, very much like the one with which the brigands killed the merchants in the inn.  “Have some, my dear!”

Yegorushka, shivering as though he were in a fever, ate a slice of sweet melon with black bread and then a slice of water melon, and that made him feel colder still.

“Our lads are out on the steppe for the night, . . .” sighed the old woman while he was eating.  “The terror of the Lord!  I’d light the candle under the ikon, but I don’t know where Stepanida has put it.  Have some more, little sir, have some more. . . .”

The old woman gave a yawn and, putting her right hand behind her, scratched her left shoulder.

“It must be two o’clock now,” she said; “it will soon be time to get up.  Our lads are out on the steppe for the night; they are all wet through for sure. . . .”

“Granny,” said Yegorushka.  “I am sleepy.”

“Lie down, my dear, lie down,” the old woman sighed, yawning.  “Lord Jesus Christ!  I was asleep, when I heard a noise as though someone were knocking.  I woke up and looked, and it was the storm God had sent us. . . .  I’d have lighted the candle, but I couldn’t find it.”

Talking to herself, she pulled some rags, probably her own bed, off the bench, took two sheepskins off a nail by the stove, and began laying them out for a bed for Yegorushka.  “The storm doesn’t grow less,” she muttered.  “If only nothing’s struck in an unlucky hour.  Our lads are out on the steppe for the night.  Lie down and sleep, my dear. . . .  Christ be with you, my child. . . .  I won’t take away the melon; maybe you’ll have a bit when you get up.”

The sighs and yawns of the old woman, the even breathing of the sleeping woman, the half-darkness of the hut, and the sound of the rain outside, made one sleepy.  Yegorushka was shy of undressing before the old woman.  He only took off his boots, lay down and covered himself with the sheepskin.