“What am I to write?” Yegor asked again.

“What?” asked Vasilisa, looking at him angrily and suspiciously.  “Don’t worry me!  You are not writing for nothing; no fear, you’ll be paid for it.  Come, write:  ’To our dear son-in-law, Andrey Hrisanfitch, and to our only beloved daughter, Yefimya Petrovna, with our love we send a low bow and our parental blessing abiding for ever.’”

“Written; fire away.”

“’And we wish them a happy Christmas; we are alive and well, and I wish you the same, please the Lord... the Heavenly King.’”

Vasilisa pondered and exchanged glances with the old man.

“‘And I wish you the same, please the Lord the Heavenly King,’” she repeated, beginning to cry.

She could say nothing more.  And yet before, when she lay awake thinking at night, it had seemed to her that she could not get all she had to say into a dozen letters.  Since the time when her daughter had gone away with her husband much water had flowed into the sea, the old people had lived feeling bereaved, and sighed heavily at night as though they had buried their daughter.  And how many events had occurred in the village since then, how many marriages and deaths!  How long the winters had been!  How long the nights!

“It’s hot,” said Yegor, unbuttoning his waistcoat.  “It must be seventy degrees.  What more?” he asked.

The old people were silent.

“What does your son-in-law do in Petersburg?” asked Yegor.

“He was a soldier, my good friend,” the old man answered in a weak voice.  “He left the service at the same time as you did.  He was a soldier, and now, to be sure, he is at Petersburg at a hydropathic establishment.  The doctor treats the sick with water.  So he, to be sure, is house-porter at the doctor’s.”

“Here it is written down,” said the old woman, taking a letter out of her pocket.  “We got it from Yefimya, goodness knows when.  Maybe they are no longer in this world.”

Yegor thought a little and began writing rapidly: 

“At the present time”—­he wrote—­“since your destiny through your own doing allotted you to the Military Career, we counsel you to look into the Code of Disciplinary Offences and Fundamental Laws of the War Office, and you will see in that law the Civilization of the Officials of the War Office.”

He wrote and kept reading aloud what was written, while Vasilisa considered what she ought to write:  how great had been their want the year before, how their corn had not lasted even till Christmas, how they had to sell their cow.  She ought to ask for money, ought to write that the old father was often ailing and would soon no doubt give up his soul to God... but how to express this in words?  What must be said first and what afterwards?

“Take note,” Yegor went on writing, “in volume five of the Army Regulations soldier is a common noun and a proper one, a soldier of the first rank is called a general, and of the last a private....”