aited her reply. Friday, late, it came
at last, Then all hope for me was past! Saturday my life to take I
determined like a man, But for my salvation's sake Sunday morning
changed my plan!'

Then he sang again:

'Oh dee, dee, dee, dee, dee, dim, Say where did they last see him?'

And after that, winking, twitching his shoulders, and footing it to the
tune, he sang:

'I will kiss you and embrace, Ribbons red twine round you; And I'll
call you little Grace. Oh, you little Grace now do Tell me, do you love
me true?'

And he became so excited that with a sudden dashing movement he started
dancing around the room accompanying himself the while.

Songs like 'Dee, dee, dee'--'gentlemen's songs'--he sang for Olenin's
benefit, but after drinking three more tumblers of chikhir he
remembered old times and began singing real Cossack and Tartar songs.
In the midst of one of his favourite songs his voice suddenly trembled
and he ceased singing, and only continued strumming on the balalayka.

'Oh, my dear friend!' he said.

The peculiar sound of his voice made Olenin look round.

The old man was weeping. Tears stood in his eyes and one tear was
running down his cheek.

'You are gone, my young days, and will never come back!' he said,
blubbering and halting. 'Drink, why don't you drink!' he suddenly
shouted with a deafening roar, without wiping away his tears.

There was one Tartar song that specially moved him. It had few words,
but its charm lay in the sad refrain. 'Ay day, dalalay!' Eroshka
translated the words of the song: 'A youth drove his sheep from the
aoul to the mountains: the Russians came and burnt the aoul, they
killed all the men and took all the women into bondage. The youth
returned from the mountains. Where the aoul had stood was an empty
space; his mother not there, nor his brothers, nor his house; one tree
alone was left standing. The youth sat beneath the tree and wept.
"Alone like thee, alone am I left,'" and Eroshka began singing: 'Ay
day, dalalay!' and the old man repeated several times this wailing,
heart-rending refrain.

When he had finished the refrain Eroshka suddenly seized a gun that
hung on the wall, rushed hurriedly out into the yard and fired off both
barrels into the air. Then again he began, more dolefully, his 'Ay day,
dalalay--ah, ah,' and ceased.

Olenin followed him into the porch and looked up into the starry sky in
the direction where the shots had flashed. In the cornet's house