Page 187 (1/1)

In one of the outlying streets of Moscow, in a grey house hite colu a lady, a , surrounded by a nuovernhters were married; she went out very little, and in solitude lived through the last years of her loo of her life was blacker than night

Of all her servants, the e was the porter, Gerasiht, of heroic build, and deaf and duht hie where he lived alone in a little hut, apart from his brothers, and was reckoned about the norial dues Endoith extraordinary strength, he did the work of four men; work flew apace under his hands, and it was a pleasant sight to see hi hard upon the plough, he see bosom of the earth, or when, about St Peter's Day, he plied his scythe with a furious energy thatbirch copse up by the roots, or swiftly and untiringly wielded a flail over two yards long; while the hard oblong muscles of his shoulders rose and fell like a lever His perpetual silence lent a sole labour He was a splendid peasant, and, except for his affliction, any girl would have been glad to ht him boots, had him made a full-skirted coat for summer, a sheepskin for winter, put into his hand a broom and a spade, and appointed him porter

At first he intensely disliked his new mode of life Froe life Shut off by his affliction frohty, as a tree grows on a fruitful soil When he was transported to the town, he could not understand as being done with him; he wasyoung bull, taken straight frorass stood up to his belly, taken and put in the truck of a railway train, and there, while susts of steam puff out upon the sturdy beast, he is whirled onwards, whirled along with loud roar and whistle, whither--God knows! What Gerasim had to do in his new duties seemed a mere trifle to him after his hard toil as a peasant; in half-an-hour, all his as done, and he would onceopen- to wrest fro position; or he would suddenly go off into so way off the brooround, and lie for hours together without stirring, like a caged beast