"Here, take it! I see that you have no shirt. Put it on, and lie down wherever it pleases you,—on the hanging bed or on the oven."
The stranger took off the caftan, put on the shirt, and lay down on the hanging bed. Matréna put out the light, took the caftan, and climbed to where her husband was.
Matréna covered herself with the corner of the caftan, and she lay and could not sleep: the stranger would not leave her mind.
As she thought how he had eaten the last slice of bread and how there would be no bread for the morrow; as she thought how she had given him a shirt and a pair of trousers, she felt pretty bad; but when she thought of how he smiled, her heart was gladdened.
Matréna could not sleep for a long time, and she heard that Semén, too, was not sleeping; he kept pulling the caftan on himself.
"Semén!"
"What is it?"
"We have eaten up the last bread, and I have not set any. I do not know what to do for to-morrow. Maybe I had better ask Gossip Malánya for some."
"If we are alive we shall find something to eat."
The woman lay awhile and kept silence.