IV.
Eliséy turned the ring,—the door was not locked. He pushed the door open and walked through the vestibule. The door into the living-room was open. On the left there was an oven; straight ahead was the front corner; in the corner stood a shrine and a table; beyond the table was a bench, and on it sat a bareheaded old woman, in nothing but a shirt; her head was leaning on the table, and near her stood a lean little boy, his face as yellow as wax and his belly swollen, and he was pulling the old woman's sleeve, and crying at the top of his voice and begging for something.
Eliséy entered the room. There was a stifling air in the house. He saw a woman lying behind the oven, on the floor. She was lying on her face without looking at anything, and snoring, and now stretching out a leg and again drawing it up. And she tossed from side to side,—and from her came that oppressive smell: evidently she was very sick, and there was nobody to take her away. The old woman raised her head, when she saw the man.
"What do you want?" she said, in Little-Russian. "What do you want? We have nothing, my dear man."
Eliséy understood what she was saying: he walked over to her.
"Servant of the Lord," he said, "I have come in to get a drink of water."
"There is none, I say, there is none. There is nothing here for you to take. Go!"
Eliséy asked her:
"Is there no well man here to take this woman away?"