iChina.com

Nekhludoff felt more at case with the boys than with the grown-up people, and he began talking to them as they went along. The little one with the pink shirt stopped laughing, and spoke as sensibly and as exactly as the elder one. "Can you tell me who are the poorest people you have got here?" asked Nekhludoff. "The poorest? Michael is poor, Simon Makhroff, and Martha, she is very poor." "And Anisia, she is still poorer; she's not even got a cow. They go begging," said little Fedka. "She's not got a cow, but they are only three persons, and Martha's family are five," objected the elder boy. "But the other's a widow," the pink boy said, standing up for Anisia. "You say Anisia is a widow, and Martha is no better than a widow," said the elder boy; "she's also no husband." "And where is her husband?" Nekhludoff asked. "Feeding vermin in prison," said the elder boy, using this expression, common among the peasants. "A year ago he cut down two birch trees in the land-lord's forest," the little pink boy hurried to say, "so he was locked up; now he's sitting the sixth month there, and the wife goes begging. There are three children and a sick grandmother," he went on with his detailed account. "And where does she live?" Nekhludoff asked.