We all turned around at this familiar, clear sound and joyously, kind-heartedly looked at the pure maiden face as it smiled to us delightfully.  We were accustomed and pleased to see her nose flattened against the window-pane, and the small, white teeth that flashed from under her pink lips, which were open with a smile.  We rush to open the door for her, pushing one another; she enters, cheerful and amiable, and holding out her apron.  She stands before us, leaning her head somewhat on one side and smiles all the time.  A thick, long braid of chestnut hair, falling across her shoulder, lies on her breast.  We, dirty, dark, deformed men, look up at her from below—­the threshold was four steps higher than the floor—­we look at her, lifting our heads upwards, we wish her a good morning.  We say to her some particular words, words we use for her alone.  Speaking to her our voices are somehow softer, and our jokes lighter.  Everything is different for her.  The baker takes out a shovelful of the brownest and reddest biscuits and throws them cleverly into Tanya’s apron.

“Look out that the boss doesn’t see you!” we always warn her.  She laughs roguishly and cries to us cheerfully: 

“Good-by, little prisoners!” and she disappears quickly, like a little mouse.  That’s all.  But long after her departure we speak pleasantly of her to one another.  We say the very same thing we said yesterday and before, because she, as well as we and everything around us, is also the same as yesterday and before.  It is very hard and painful for one to live, when nothing changes around him, and if it does not kill his soul for good, the immobility of the surroundings becomes all the more painful the longer he lives.  We always spoke of women in such a manner that at times we were disgusted at our own rude and shameless words, and this is quite clear, for the women we had known, perhaps, never deserved any better words.  But of Tanya we never spoke ill.  Not only did none of us ever dare to touch her with his hand, she never even heard a free jest from us.  It may be that this was because she never stayed long with us; she flashed before our eyes like a star coming from the sky and then disappeared, or, perhaps, because she was small and very beautiful, and all that is beautiful commands the respect even of rude people.  And then, though our hard labor had turned us into dull oxen, we nevertheless remained human beings, and like all human beings, we could not live without worshipping something.  We had nobody better than she, and none, except her, paid any attention to us, the dwellers of the cellar; no one, though tens of people lived in the house.  And finally—­this is probably the main reason—­we all considered her as something of our own, as something that existed only because of our biscuits.  We considered it our duty to give her hot biscuits and this became our daily offering to the idol, it became almost a sacred custom which bound us to her the more