He reached Zhukovo towards evening.  In his memories of childhood he had pictured his home as bright, snug, comfortable.  Now, going into the hut, he was positively frightened; it was so dark, so crowded, so unclean.  His wife Olga and his daughter Sasha, who had come with him, kept looking in bewilderment at the big untidy stove, which filled up almost half the hut and was black with soot and flies.  What lots of flies!  The stove was on one side, the beams lay slanting on the walls, and it looked as though the hut were just going to fall to pieces.  In the corner, facing the door, under the holy images, bottle labels and newspaper cuttings were stuck on the walls instead of pictures.  The poverty, the poverty!  Of the grown-up people there were none at home; all were at work at the harvest.  On the stove was sitting a white-headed girl of eight, unwashed and apathetic; she did not even glance at them as they came in.  On the floor a white cat was rubbing itself against the oven fork.

“Puss, puss!” Sasha called to her.  “Puss!”

“She can’t hear,” said the little girl; “she has gone deaf.”

“How is that?”

“Oh, she was beaten.”

Nikolay and Olga realized from the firs t glance what life was like here, but said nothing to one another; in silence they put down their bundles, and went out into the village street.  Their hut was the third from the end, and seemed the very poorest and oldest-looking; the second was not much better; but the last one had an iron roof, and curtains in the windows.  That hut stood apart, not enclosed; it was a tavern.  The huts were in a single row, and the whole of the little village—­quiet and dreamy, with willows, elders, and mountain-ash trees peeping out from the yards—­had an attractive look.

Beyond the peasants homesteads there was a slope down to the river, so steep and precipitous that huge stones jutted out bare here and there through the clay.  Down the slope, among the stones and holes dug by the potters, ran winding paths; bits of broken pottery, some brown, some red, lay piled up in heaps, and below there stretched a broad, level, bright green meadow, from which the hay had been already carried, and in which the peasants’ cattle were wandering.  The river, three-quarters of a mile from the village, ran twisting and turning, with beautiful leafy banks; beyond it was again a broad meadow, a herd of cattle, long strings of white geese; then, just as on the near side, a steep ascent uphill, and on the top of the hill a hamlet, and a church with five domes, and at a little distance the manor-house.

“It’s lovely here in your parts!” said Olga, crossing herself at the sight of the church.  “What space, oh Lord!”

Just at that moment the bell began ringing for service (it was Saturday evening).  Two little girls, down below, who were dragging up a pail of water, looked round at the church to listen to the bell.

“At this time they are serving the dinners at the Slavyansky Bazaar,” said Nikolay dreamily.