Before us stretched for about three versts fields of scanty herbage, intersected by ditches, bounded by woods and the line of birches on the Kazan highroad. From the ditches the twigs of bushes projected, the rays of a cold sunset reddened them like blood. A soft evening breeze shook the gray blades of grass. From a nearer pathway, also like blades of grass, showed the dark form of town lads and girls. On the right, in the distance, stood the red walls of the burial-ground of the Old Believers. They called it "The Bugrovski Hermitage." On the left, beyond the causeway, rose a dark group of trees; there was the Jewish cemetery. All the surroundings were poor, and seemed to lie close to the wounded earth. The little houses on the outskirts of the town looked timidly with their windows on the dusty road. Along the road wandered small, ill-fed fowl. Toward the Dyevichia Monastery went a herd of lowing cows, from the camp came the sound of martial music. The brass instruments brayed.
A drunken man came along, ferociously holding out a harmonica. He stumbled and muttered:
"I am coming to thee—without fail."
"Fool!" said grandmother, blinking in the red sunlight. "Where are you going? Soon you will fall down and go to sleep, and you will be robbed in your sleep. You will lose your harmonica, your consolation."
I told her all about the life on the boat as I looked about me. After what I had seen I found it dull here; I felt like a fish out of water. Grandmother listened in silence and with attention, just as I liked to listen to her. When I told her about Smouri she crossed herself and said:
"He is a good man, help him, Mother of God; he is good! Take care, you, that you do not forget him! You should always remember what is good, and what is bad simply forget."
It was very difficult for me to tell her why they had dismissed me, but I took courage and told her. It made no impression whatever on her. She merely said calmly:
"You are young yet; you don't know how to live."
"That is what they all say to one another, 'You don't know how to live'—peasants, sailors, Aunt Matrena to her son. But how does one learn?"
She compressed her lips and shook her head.