at dinner gruel, and in the evening bread again.  As for tea or sour-cabbage soup, the master and the mistress themselves guzzle that.  They make me sleep in the vestibule, and when their brat cries, I don’t sleep at all, but have to rock the cradle.  Dear Grandpapa, for Heaven’s sake, take me away from here, home to our village, I can’t bear this any more...  I bow to the ground to you, and will pray to God for ever and ever, take me from here or I shall die...”

The corners of Vanka’s mouth went down, he rubbed his eyes with his dirty fist, and sobbed.

“I’ll grate your tobacco for you,” he continued, “I’ll pray to God for you, and if there is anything wrong, then flog me like the grey goat.  And if you really think I shan’t find work, then I’ll ask the manager, for Christ’s sake, to let me clean the boots, or I’ll go instead of Fedya as underherdsman.  Dear Grandpapa, I can’t bear this any more, it’ll kill me...  I wanted to run away to our village, but I have no boots, and I was afraid of the frost, and when I grow up I’ll look after you, no one shall harm you, and when you die I’ll pray for the repose of your soul, just like I do for mamma Pelagueya.

“As for Moscow, it is a large town, there are all gentlemen’s houses, lots of horses, no sheep, and the dogs are not vicious.  The children don’t come round at Christmas with a star, no one is allowed to sing in the choir, and once I saw in a shop window hooks on a line and fishing rods, all for sale, and for every kind of fish, awfully convenient.  And there was one hook which would catch a sheat-fish weighing a pound.  And there are shops with guns, like the master’s, and I am sure they must cost 100 rubles each.  And in the meat-shops there are woodcocks, partridges, and hares, but who shot them or where they come from, the shopman won’t say.

“Dear Grandpapa, and when the masters give a Christmas tree, take a golden walnut and hide it in my green box.  Ask the young lady, Olga Ignatyevna, for it, say it’s for Vanka.”

Vanka sighed convulsively, and again stared at the window.  He remembered that his grandfather always went to the forest for the Christmas tree, and took his grandson with him.  What happy times!  The frost crackled, his grandfather crackled, and as they both did, Vanka did the same.  Then before cutting down the Christmas tree his grandfather smoked his pipe, took a long pinch of snuff, and made fun of poor frozen little Vanka...  The young fir trees, wrapt in hoar-frost, stood motionless, waiting for which of them would die.  Suddenly a hare springing from somewhere would dart over the snowdrift...  His grandfather could not help shouting: 

“Catch it, catch it, catch it!  Ah, short-tailed devil!”

When the tree was down, his grandfather dragged it to the master’s house, and there they set about decorating it.  The young lady, Olga Ignatyevna, Vanka’s great friend, busied herself most about it.  When little Vanka’s mother, Pelagueya, was still alive, and was servant-woman in the house, Olga Ignatyevna used to stuff him with sugar-candy, and, having nothing to do, taught him to read, write, count up to one hundred, and even to dance the quadrille.  When Pelagueya died, they placed the orphan Vanka in the kitchen with his grandfather, and from the kitchen he was sent to Moscow to Aliakhin, the shoemaker.