back and powerful shoulders and clad in a thin print shirt — then the second son, also broad-shouldered, who acted as head of the house, and then a lean red-haired peasant — the neighbour.

Having had a drink of vodka and something to eat, they were about to take tea, and the samovar standing on the floor beside the brick oven was already humming. The children could be seen in the top bunks and on the top of the oven. A woman sat on a lower bunk with a cradle beside her. The old housewife, her face covered with wrinkles which wrinkled even her lips, was waiting on Vasili Andreevich.

As Nikita entered the house she was offering her guest a small tumbler of thick glass which she had just filled with vodka.

‘Don’t refuse, Vasili Andreevich, you mustn’t!