The host began offering vódka a third time, but the lads refused, rose, said grace, thanked the hosts, and went out.
In the street, the lamentations recommenced at once. The first to raise her voice was a very old woman with a bent back. She lamented in such a peculiarly piteous voice, and wailed so, that the women kept soothing the sobbing, staggering old creature, and supported her by her elbows.
"Who is she?" I inquired.
"Why, it's his granny; Vasíly's mother, that is."
The old woman burst into hysterical laughter and fell into the arms of the women who supported her, and just then the procession started again, and again the accordion and the merry voices struck up their tune. At the end of the village the procession was overtaken by the carts which were to carry the conscripts to the District Office. The weeping and wailing stopped. The accordion-player, getting more and more elated, bending his head to one side and resting on one foot, turned out the toes of the other and stamped with it, while his fingers produced brilliant fioritures, and exactly at the right instant the bold, high, merry tones of his song, and the second of Vasíly's son, again chimed in. Old and young, and especially the children who surrounded the crowd, and I with them, fixed their eyes admiringly on the singer.
"He is clever, the rascal!" said one of the peasants.
"'Sorrow weeps, and sorrow sings!'" replied another.
At that moment one of the young fellows whom we were seeing off—the tall one—came up with long, energetic strides, and stooped to speak to the one who played the accordion.
"What a fine fellow," I thought; "they will put him in the Guards." I did not know who he was or what house he belonged to.
"Whose son is that one? That gallant fellow?" I asked a little old man, pointing to the fine lad.