'What fine flowers!' whispered she; 'I will take it home for Mary—a nice plaything for her—I must take it.'
The good old woman smiled, as she thought of her beloved granddaughter, called Mary. She began to search again among the rubbish, and found that there were many fine pieces, and those not too small. 'Oh, the pieces are all here,' said she; 'it is possible perhaps to cement them together.' And taking all the bits she put them by themselves into the pocket of her worn-out petticoat.
It was as dark as in a cellar in the pocket of the old woman, and as oppressively warm as in an uncared-for hospital-room in summer; there were besides an old onion and the crumbs of spoiled, ill-smelling cheese. The broken Cup felt still more sick at heart than before; she shivered; her broken pieces tinkled plaintively at every step the woman took, and she thought, 'Oh, what suffering! I should like to die!'
She did not die. It was light when the old woman came to a large brick house six stories high, near a market-place, in a narrow, dirty lane. She entered through a dirty passage the courtyard, surrounded on all sides with buildings, passed through a gloomy basement door down to the ground-floor, where her lodging was. It was a dark, cheerless room, with small windows high above the brick floor. In every corner of the room there was a whole family of beggars. The old woman approached a heap of rags, groaning, removed from her shoulder the bag with her day's gains in it, and sat down on an old pine candle-box, turned upside down, near the rags; she then took from her pocket all the pieces of the Cup, and put them on another box which stood there for a table. The first thing our Cup now heard was a harsh, noisy scolding from the farthest corner of the room; everybody in this beggars' haunt was so accustomed to it that nobody paid any attention. 'Oh,' thought the Cup, 'this is too much! In what company am I! What rough people there are! Oh, there is surely nobody in the world more unhappy than I! I would like to die as soon as possible!'
The rags in the corner now moved; under them was lying the sick, sallow, emaciated darling of the old woman. She looked at her grandmother with her wearied eyes, and nothing interested her.
'Here is a piece of pryáneek, Mary, which I brought for you,' said the old woman, taking out a piece of pryáneek, which she had bought for a copeck.
This was a cake of white, stone-like consistency, supposed to represent a horse, though it may be doubted whether four stumps instead of feet, a gilded head and a crimson tail, would give a really good idea of one. There was indeed enough flour in it, but little sweetness; still it was a thing as much to delight the heart of a Russian child as a gingerbread cat to rejoice the heart of an English one.
The girl looked at it, but shook her head, and did not eat it; she did not even touch it.
'Why don't you take it, Mary? Do take it, dear, such a nice piece of pryáneek; look!'