The pupils of his hazel eyes were stationary except when he was excited, and then they became merged into the whites. I did not like him. I much preferred the despised idler, Sascha Michailovitch. He was a quiet boy, with sad eyes and a pleasing smile, very like his kind mother. He had ugly, protruding teeth, with a double row in the upper jaw; and being very greatly concerned about this defect, he constantly had his fingers in his mouth, trying to loosen his back ones, very amiably allowing any one who chose to inspect them. But that was the only interesting thing about him. He lived a solitary life in a house swarming with people, loving to sit in the dim corners in the daytime, and at the window in the evening; quite happy if he could remain without speaking, with his face pressed against the pane for hours together, gazing at the flock of jackdaws which, now rising high above it, now sinking swiftly earthwards, in the red evening sky, circled round the dome of Uspenski Church, and finally, obscured by an opaque black cloud, disappeared somewhere, leaving a void behind them. When he had seen this he had no desire to speak of it, but a pleasant languor took possession of him.

Uncle Jaakov's Sascha, on the contrary, could talk about everything fluently and with authority, like a grown-up person. Hearing of my desire to learn the process of dyeing, he advised me to take one of the best white tablecloths from the cupboard and dye it blue.

"White always takes the color better, I know," he said very seriously.

I dragged out a heavy tablecloth and ran with it to the yard, but I had no more than lowered the hem of it into the vat of dark-blue dye when Tsiganok flew at me from somewhere, rescued the cloth, and wringing it out with his rough hands, cried to my cousin, who had been looking on at my work from a safe place:

"Call your grandmother quickly."

And shaking his black, dishevelled head ominously, he said to me:

"You 'll catch it for this."

Grandmother came running on to the scene, wailing, and even weeping, at the sight, and scolded me in her ludicrous fashion:

"Oh, you young pickle! I hope you will be spanked for this."

Afterwards, however, she said to Tsiganok: "You need n't say anything about this to grandfather, Vanka. I 'll manage to keep it from him. Let us hope that something will happen to take up his attention."

Vanka replied in a preoccupied manner, drying his hands on his multi-colored apron:

"Me? I shan't tell: but you had better see that that Sascha does n't go and tell tales."

"I will give him something to keep him quiet," said grandmother, leading me into the house.

On Saturday, before vespers, I was called into the kitchen, where it was all dark and still. I remember the closely shut doors of the shed and of the room, and the gray mist of an autumn evening, and the heavy patter of rain. Sitting in front of the stove on a narrow bench, looking cross and quite unlike himself, was Tsiganok; grandfather, standing in the chimney corner, was taking long rods out of a pail of water, measuring them, putting them together, and flourishing them in the air with a shrill whistling sound. Grandmother, somewhere in the shadows, was taking snuff noisily and muttering:

"Now you are in your element, tyrant!"

Sascha Jaakov was sitting in a chair in the middle of the kitchen, rubbing his eyes with his knuckles, and whining like an old beggar in a voice quite unlike his usual voice:

"Forgive me, for Christ's sake. . . .!"

Standing by the chair, shoulder to shoulder, like wooden figures, stood the children of Uncle Michael, brother and sister.

"When I have flogged you I will forgive you," said grandfather, drawing a long, damp rod across his knuckles.

"Now then . . . take down your breeches!"

He spoke very calmly, and neither the sound of his voice nor the noise made by the boy as he moved on the squeaky chair, nor the scraping of grandmother's feet, broke the memorable stillness of that almost dark kitchen, under the low, blackened ceiling.

Sascha stood up, undid his trousers, letting them down as far as his knees, then bending and holding them up with his hands, he stumbled to the bench. It was painful to look at him, and my legs also began to tremble.

But worse was to come, when he submissively lay down on the bench face downwards, and Vanka, tying him to it by means of a wide towel placed under his arms and round his neck, bent under him and with black hands seized his legs by the ankles.

"Lexei!" called grandfather. "Come nearer! Come! Don't you hear me speaking to you? Look and see what a flogging is. . . . One!"

With a mild flourish he brought the rod down on the naked flesh, and Sascha set up a howl.

"Rubbish!" said grandfather. "That's nothing! . . . But here 's something to make you smart."

And he dealt such blows that the flesh was soon in a state of inflammation and covered with great red weals, and my cousin gave a prolonged howl.

"Is n't it nice?" asked grandfather, as his hand rose and fell.