ing in the young grass.

When they had driven three-quarters of a mile from the Crooked
Ravine, Tortchakov looked round and stared intently into the distance.

"I can't see the Cossack," he said. "Poor, dear fellow, to take it
into his head to fall ill on the road. There couldn't be a worse
misfortune, to have to travel and not have the strength. . . . I
shouldn't wonder if he dies by the roadside. We didn't give him any
Easter cake, Lizaveta, and we ought to have given it. I'll be bound
he wants to break his fast too."

The sun had risen, but whether it was dancing or not Tortchakov did
not see. He remained silent all the way home, thinking and keeping
his eyes fixed on the horse's black tail. For some unknown reason
he felt overcome by depression, and not a trace of the holiday
gladness was left in his heart. When he had arrived home and said,
"Christ is risen" to his workmen, he grew cheerful again and began
talking, but when he had sat down to break the fast and had taken
a bite from his piece of Easter cake, he looked regretfully at his
wife, and said:

"It wasn't right of us, Lizaveta, not to give that Cossack something
to eat."

"You are a queer one, upon my word," said Lizaveta, shrugging her
shoulders in surprise. "Where did you pick up such a fashion as
giving away the holy Easter cake on the high road? Is it an ordinary
loaf? Now that it is cut and lying on the table, let anyone eat it
that likes--your Cossack too! Do you suppose I grudge it?"

"That's all right, but we ought to have given the Cossack some. . . .
Why, he was worse off than a beggar or an orphan. On the road,
and far from home, and sick too."

Tortchakov drank half a glass of tea, and neither ate nor drank
anything more. He had no appetite, the tea seemed to choke him, and
he felt depressed again. After breaking their fast, his wife and
he lay down to sleep. When Lizaveta woke two hours later, he was
standing by the window, looking into the yard.

"Are you up already?" asked his wife.

"I somehow can't sleep. . . . Ah, Lizaveta," he sighed. "We were
unkind, you and I, to that Cossack!"

"Talking about that Cossack again!" yawned his wife. "You have got
him on the brain."

"He has served his Tsar, shed his blood maybe, and we treated him
as though he were a pig. We ought to have brought the sick man home
and fed him, and we did not even give him a morsel of bread."

"Catch me letting you spoil the Easter cake for nothing! And on