“Is the little lad lying down?” he heard Panteley whisper a little later.

“Yes,” answered the old woman in a whisper.  “The terror of the Lord!  It thunders and thunders, and there is no end to it.”

“It will soon be over,” wheezed Panteley, sitting down; “it’s getting quieter. . . .  The lads have gone into the huts, and two have stayed with the horses.  The lads have. . . .  They can’t; . . . the horses would be taken away. . . .  I’ll sit here a bit and then go and take my turn. . . .  We can’t leave them; they would be taken. . . .”

Panteley and the old woman sat side by side at Yegorushka’s feet, talking in hissing whispers and interspersing their speech with sighs and yawns.  And Yegorushka could not get warm.  The warm heavy sheepskin lay on him, but he was trembling all over; his arms and legs were twitching, and his whole inside was shivering. . . .  He undressed under the sheepskin, but that was no good.  His shivering grew more and more acute.

Panteley went out to take his turn with the horses, and afterwards came back again, and still Yegorushka was shivering all over and could not get to sleep.  Something weighed upon his head and chest and oppressed him, and he did not know what it was, whether it was the old people whispering, or the heavy smell of the sheepskin.  The melon he had eaten had left an unpleasant metallic taste in his mouth.  Moreover he was being bitten by fleas.

“Grandfather, I am cold,” he said, and did not know his own voice.

“Go to sleep, my child, go to sleep,” sighed the old woman.

Tit came up to the bedside on his thin little legs and waved his arms, then grew up to the ceiling and turned into a windmill. . . .  Father Christopher, not as he was in the chaise, but in his full vestments with the sprinkler in his hand, walked round the mill, sprinkling it with holy water, and it left off waving.  Yegorushka, knowing this was delirium, opened his eyes.

“Grandfather,” he called, “give me some water.”

No one answered.  Yegorushka felt it insufferably stifling and uncomfortable lying down.  He got up, dressed, and went out of the hut.  Morning was beginning.  The sky was overcast, but it was no longer raining.  Shivering and wrapping himself in his wet overcoat, Yegorushka walked about the muddy yard and listened to the silence; he caught sight of a little shed with a half-open door made of reeds.  He looked into this shed, went into it, and sat down in a dark corner on a heap of dry dung.

There was a tangle of thoughts in his heavy head; his mouth was dry and unpleasant from the metallic taste.  He looked at his hat, straightened the peacock’s feather on it, and thought how he had gone with his mother to buy the hat.  He put his hand into his pocket and took out a lump of brownish sticky paste.  How had that paste come into his pocket?  He thought a minute, smelt it; it smelt of honey.  Aha! it was the Jewish cake!  How sopped it was, poor thing!