III + 

Seryozha saw his mother coming home hugging a large bleating linen basket to her stomach. + 

Seryozha, born in an air too rarefied for most illusions, retained only oneтБатАФthe illusion of his own dignity. He did not mind what strange, boisterous, misunderstood activities the outer Seryozha took part in, as long as the inner Seryozha could explain to himself these seeming pranks by some formula of secret though freakish dignity. One has seen a weighted wooden tumbling toy, knocked down on a flat surface, preserving its integrity and fulfilling its purpose by finding, in the end, its own odd balance regardless of the mockery of the watchersтБатАФand only robbed of its birthright of eccentric equilibrium when the gods themselves fight against it and overset it on an unfairly tilted plane. So Seryozha, left to himself, could always account to himself for himself. But outside were parents, gods, insects, landscapes, animals, machines, and the elementsтБатАФtraitors to young individual dignityтБатАФall conspiring together unfairly to destroy the balance of valiant dignity. + 

To lack a camera or a wireless set, to be at home in a wooden Korean house with little squinting windows and a chronic smell, was bad enough, but to see a perspiring mother coming toward the home carrying a goat in a clothesbasket, in the sight of dozens of her less respectable Oriental neighbors, made Seryozha doubt whether he ever would attain to his rightful place in a world full of the rude laughter of inferiors. However, though he did not know it, Seryozha was very fond of his mother and, though she often shamed him, he very seldom punished her. He was much harsher to his father, and the same instinct in him that allowed his mother license to play the fool in her own wholehearted hen-like way, resented the poverty of his fatherтАЩs vitality. He did not mind, for instance, the fact that his motherтАЩs large blousy bun of hair was always coming down, so much as he minded the way his father cautiously combed four or five streaks of hair from one ear to the other. + 

тАЬIтАЩve got something new here, Seryozha,тАЭ said Anna, putting down the basket to push a wisp of hair out of her eyes. She spilled the kid very gently out on to the living-room floor. For a moment the little creature did not remember that it knew how to stand. It crouched on the floor, its awkward pale legs crumpled under its body, its neck stretched, its pinched mouth open to utter an almost voiceless bleat. + 

SeryozhaтАЩs grievance against his mother was overlaid for the moment by his pleasure in the color of the kid. Things that were pale below and colored above always looked dramatic and beautiful to his eye, as though he had some secret arctic memory of light growing from a low seed of moon. Japanese orchards of young fruit-trees with trunks painted white; great trees illuminated by a bonfire till they looked like cardboard trees towering over footlights; young horses with milky pale fur on legs and stomach darkening to shining russet along the upper ribs and back; young girls with light stockings and skirts and colored jacketsтБатАФperhaps he felt a sort of kinship of pantomime youth with these footlight schemes of upslanting color. + 

He watched the kid and said nothing of his pleasure, however, and underneath his pleasure the feeling of soreness persisted. He knew obscurely that something in his mind was sore; he had forgotten what had wounded him; he did not know that the sore place was his vanity, bruised by his motherтАЩs lack of self-respect. Vanity is so reluctant to identify itselfтБатАФyet it always is hurt vanity that gives that sense of live yet nameless tragedy. + 

Anna, having dipped a piece of clean rag in milk, was holding it to the kidтАЩs mouth. + 

тАЬAh-yah-yah!тАЭ sang Seryozha, loudly, feeling he was achieving something by thwarting his mother. The kid, startled, recoiled from the offered drop. + 

тАЬBe quiet, child!тАЭ cried Anna, jolted into anger by the check in her breathless experiment. Her forehead sweated a little and her hand trembled as she stroked once more the kidтАЩs silly lips with the rag. + 

тАЬAh-yah-yah!тАЭ sang Seryozha, and shook the floor with a sudden bounce, to make sure. + 

Tears of anger came into AnnaтАЩs eyes as she knelt, ungainly. She was so very whole-souled in all that she did. тАЬCurse you, boyтБатАФтАЭ but she stopped, for the kid was nibbling with its lips upon the rag. Success was in sight. + 

тАЬAh-yah-yah!тАЭ yelled Seryozha, almost against his own inclination. He had got into a kind of groove of contradiction; for the moment it was entirely impossible for him to relent. Anna jumped to her feet, treading on her skirt and tearing it. She rushed at her son, swinging the linen basket by the handle, and dealt him a heavy blow which he caught partly on his defensive elbow and partly on the side of his nose. Through this tempest of bustle and anger he saw suddenly the rocklike fact that he was nearly nineteen years old and that this scene was inconsistent with his essential quiet manliness. His nose was scratched now, too. + 

тАЬOh, all right,тАЭ he said, speaking, on purpose, in a foolish voice as though he had a potato in his mouth, since he was somehow ashamed to regain his amiability too abruptly. тАЬGet the little brute fed, then, and get rid of it out of the house. It smells like the devil.тАЭ + 

тАЬWhat smells?тАЭ asked Old Sergei, feeling his way into the living-room from the yard. + 

The kid, swept aside and terrified by the bustle and noise, stood drooping on bent, trembling legs in a far corner, and gave a faint creaking bleat. + 

тАЬA lamb?тАЭ cried Old Sergei. тАЬWhere did you get a lamb?тАЭ + 

тАЬIt is a kid,тАЭ said Anna, crouching once more on the floor and taking the kid under her arm again with a gentle impatience. тАЬGive me that cup of milk, Seryozha. Mrs.┬аButters gave me a kid today, as well as the two yen, for sewing her babyтАЩs dress quite wrongly.тАЭ + 

тАЬWhy should she give you a kid for making sewing mistakes?тАЭ asked Old Sergei. тАЬYou canтАЩt sew; you never could sew.тАЭ + 

Of course, everything he was wearing was sewn by Anna, but he felt that no stitch of it did either him or her credit. Almost all the seams either had, or would soon, burst. Anna never repaired things. She was far cleverer at contriving than at stitching, and mending was a work she never had time for until actual nakedness was in sight. She would always prefer to invent a new cut of trouser, or a new method of fastening a shoe, to patching existing trousers or replacing old laces. She would rather have a new kid or puppy every night to feed, than cook the supper for the same old everyday husband and son. + 

тАЬYou donтАЩt really earn a sen with your sewing,тАЭ said Old Sergei, тАЬmuch less a kid. The missionaries only pay you out of charity, because they know I am blind and cannot support my wife and child as I used to.тАЭ + 

Seryozha made a rude noise. + 

тАЬSo why,тАЭ persisted Old SergeiтБатАФтАЬwhy should the missionaries be such fools as to give you a kid in addition to the two yen you donтАЩt earn? I donтАЩt believe they did give it to you.тАЭ + 

тАЬWhy, here is the kid. Feel it,тАЭ said Anna. тАЬHow do you suggest it got here? Did I steal it, do you think?тАЭ + 

тАЬHeaven knows how it got here. Heaven knows what you will do next. How do I know you didnтАЩt steal it? We are sunk so low that nothing would surprise me. Or perhaps Mrs.┬аButters was joking and did not mean to give it to you at all and you made a mistake, as usual, and walked off with the creature. Why should she give us a smelly kid? We donтАЩt want a kid; we didnтАЩt ask for a kid; and it will make a mess in the house, too. What a place for a kidтБатАФin a gentlemanтАЩs living-room! And, of course no supper prepared, I am sure, for me and Seryozha.тБатАКтБатАж Oh no! the stolen kid must be fed before your husband and sonтБатАФтАЭ + 

тАЬBe silent, you horrid old man!тАЭ cried Anna, now full of anger and a diffident panic, because her sensitive conscience admitted the possibility that Mrs.┬аButters perhaps had not meant her offer of the kid to be accepted so literally and immediately. Anna heard, with her suddenly awakened mindтАЩs ear, her own boisterous voice crying, тАЬOh, Mrs.┬аButters, most cheerfully I accept.тБатАКтБатАжтАЭ Too soonтБатАФtoo soonтБатАФand now too late remembered. To remember the sound of her own voice was almost always, for poor Anna, to hear a sort of bugle call calling to retreatтБатАФand retreat was always, alas, by then impossible. Every battle was always fought and lost by the time she heard that dreaded call. + 

тАЬTake the creature,тАЭ she said to Seryozha in a broken voice. тАЬLet it die if you like, or take it back to the mission.тАЭ She went out, loaded with sadness, to cook the supper. + 

Seryozha took the kid and the cup of milk out into the yard and sat crooning into its winking ear as he held it in his arms and dipped and redipped the rag. тАЬYoodle-doodle-dooтБатАКтБатАж yoodle-doodle-dido,тАЭ he sang in a small falsetto voice which the kid seemed to like. The breast of SeryozhaтАЩs blouse was soon soaked in milk. The kidтАЩs yellow cynical eyes, slotted with vertical irises, were fixed on him as though it were trying to persuade itself that this was some eccentric relation of its late motherтАЩs. + 

Old Sergei sat alone in the living-room, his trembling veined old hands clasping and unclasping limply between his knees. Anna came to the door, mixing some egg and flour in a bowl, and said: тАЬYou horrid old manтБатАКтБатАж you wearisome old manтБатАКтБатАж running about honoring strangers and then coming home to break my heart. That kid was given to meтБатАФit was.тБатАКтБатАжтАЭ + 

тАЬGod knows whether it was or not,тАЭ said Old Sergei, but under his breath, thus satisfying his honor as a Husband with a Righteous Grievance without speaking loud enough to provoke the violence of his wife. Anna sighed petulantly and noisily and returned to the stove. Old Sergei sat drooping, opening and shutting his blind eyes to remind himself that he could not see. He laid his hand on his throbbing throat, for he craved to feel life always under his hand in order to titillate his fancy about death. He swallowed; his AdamтАЩs apple moved under his hand, and his vague thoughts floated round and round the strangeness of life and death. + 

He was old, he thought; he was not loved. He loved no one. He felt the breath climbing foolishly up and down the unsteady shaft that was his body, like an imprisoned bird never losing hope of escape. Some day the prisoner would find the loophole and fly from his lips. The sooner the better, thought Old SergeiтБатАФor rather he thought that he thought so; life was a curse without serenity. Who could be serene by AnnaтАЩs side? He felt as homesick for serenity as though he had once enjoyed it. He believed he had left it behind him in old lost Russia. He believed he would find it again in heaven, which was the only province of lost Russia left to him to visit now. + 

тАЬTo dieтБатАФto dieтБатАФto dieтБатАКтБатАжтАЭ whispered Old Sergei, enjoying the feeling of tears brimming over the quivering skin of his eye-sockets. He stroked and stroked his too living throat; in his sightless eyes he saw the sad picture of his lovelessness. Clasping his hands together, he laid this sad picture before his God, hoping to soften GodтАЩs heart by a prostrate-spirited humility. тАЬI have sinned, O God,тАЭ he thought, for his vanity felt defiled by AnnaтАЩs reproaches. тАЬI have sinned, I am reproached, so let me die. I am cursed; I am found outтБатАКтБатАж all life is too difficult for me, for I belong to a cursed raceтБатАКтБатАж wretched RussiaтБатАФexiled and despoiledтБатАФa dying raceтБатАФa reproach to all the nations of the earth among whom we are dispersed.тБатАКтБатАж Here am I, a wretched sinner, a reproached sinner, member of a wretched and reproached race. O God, let me die. ItтАЩs the only way to make people sorry for me instead of angry with me.тБатАКтБатАжтАЭ He thought of oblivion as a revenge; death, not penitence, seemed to him the apposite answer to a justified reproach; he had no courage for penitence. He would refuse to be anything more responsible than a pitiful memory in AnnaтАЩs mind, and in GodтАЩs. тАЬLet my spirit be taken from meтБатАКтБатАж let me be dissolved and become earth.тБатАКтБатАж Let me go into the everlasting place,тАЭ he implored of his God, as a man faced by the irritation of shaving on a cold morning almost decides to go back to bed and sleep the day out. + 

He was interrupted in this limp ecstasy by hearing SeryozhaтАЩs peaceful тАЬYoodle-doodle-doo,тАЭ outside in the yard. He had heard it for some time, but it had not come to the forefront of his attention till now, suddenly, in a pause in AnnaтАЩs kitchen clatter. + 

тАЬSeryozha,тАЭ called Old Sergei, тАЬbring me that kid.тАЭ + 

Seryozha, whistling very softly between his teeth, brought the kid, more than half asleep, huddled in a length of sacking, and put it on the floor between his fatherтАЩs feet. Old SergeiтАЩs handsтБатАФtense, as though they expected to find something newтБатАФstroked the kidтАЩs hard little brow, the thin ridge of its neck, the harsh hair on its narrow shoulders, the heaving bulging ribs, the upturned hoofs tipping the awkwardly kneeling legs.тБатАКтБатАж Old SergeiтАЩs fingers ran up and down the sleepy little animalтАЩs backbone, as though it were an ecstatic instrument. + 

тАЬSeryozha,тАЭ said Old Sergei, turning his face down toward the kid as though he could see it, тАЬif I should dieтБатАКтБатАжтАЭ + 

Emotion checked his speech, and so long was the pause that Seryozha, who was tapping with his foot the already flat corpse of a cockroach in cold abstraction, as though it deserved to die a hundred deaths, was obliged to say, тАЬOh, nonsense, papa! ThereтАЩs no reason why you should dieтБатАКтБатАжтАЭ + 

тАЬThere is every reason,тАЭ said Old Sergei, feeling a little baffled as Seryozha began again whistling, almost in a whisper, through his teethтБатАФan unsuitable obbligato to a talk on death. тАЬNo one values my presence hereтБатАФstill less do I value it myself. I am a weariness to those around me and to myself.тБатАКтБатАжтАЭ + 

тАЬYou donтАЩt really think that, papa,тАЭ said Seryozha. His father, with some surprise, took this as an affectionate filial disclaimer of his proposition. Really Seryozha meant his remark quite literally. He knew that his father did not mean his statement that the necessity for him to remain in the world was now at an end. тАЬNobody believes that,тАЭ thought Seryozha, тАЬhowever much they may say so. PapaтАЩs world wouldnтАЩt be there if he werenтАЩt there. My world wouldnтАЩt if I werenтАЩt. This cockroachтАЩs isnтАЩt, now itтАЩs dead. So none of us really thinks our world can do without us. IтАЩm sure it had never before occurred to this cockroach that its world could do without itтБатАФthat anybody could wish it dead. Its vanity was all comfortable inside itselfтБатАФit felt valuable. When it saw my foot coming, it thoughtтБатАФтАШan unnatural accident is happening to a noble and unreplaceable cockroachтБатАФme!тАЩ ThatтАЩs what papa thinks.тАЭ Seryozha scanned his fatherтАЩs rather tiresome face, his leaking eyes, nose, mouth, dispassionately. тАЬPoor old ass,тАЭ thought Seryozha. тАЬHis vanityтАЩs a bit uncomfortable, inside himтБатАКтБатАж hungry, perhaps.тБатАКтБатАжтАЭ + 

тАЬJust now I have been praying to die,тАЭ said Old Sergei. (тАЬPretty safe,тАЭ thought his son, arrogantly, тАЬas experience must have shown him. Funny how old people donтАЩt learn by experience. Only we young people do that.тАЭ) + 

тАЬтБатАФand as I prayed I remembered how penniless and friendless you and your mother would be were I to leave you. The shop needs a business head, and if I were not here to talk things over with your cousin Andryusha, God knows what would happen. You and your mother do not realize the value of a business head quietly yet actively in the backgroundтБатАФan asset quite as necessary to a familyтАЩs prosperity, I assure you, as all this cadging of goats and hacking of logs. However, these things are not appreciated until one is dead, and, as I told you, I have been praying for death.тАЭ + 

In order to prove to his wife and son the value of a business head, he had prayed to have it chopped off. Old Sergei had a different vanity every day. Sometimes he changed twice or thrice a day. When he got up in the morning, Anna and Seryozha usually gleanedтБатАФthough too often in a rebellious spiritтБатАФwhat fancy aspect of his nature he was displaying for their admiration for the next few hours. Since four oтАЩclock today he had been, as Seryozha saw, a Business Man, afflicted with blindness, to be sure, but quietly effective nevertheless. + 

тАЬAnd as I prayedтБатАФsince even in meditation and worship my business sense is awakeтБатАФI remembered that two hundred rubles I left with Gavril Ilitch Isaev at Seoul, to invest in his hotel, many years ago, at a time when I feared for the safety of Chinese banks and decided that Seoul was safer. He banked the money in his own name, but I have the receipt. I wrote it and he signed it. I think it is in that volume of PushkinтАЩs poems that props up the short leg of our bed. You see what it is, Seryozha, to have an orderly business mind. You would probably never have remembered that two hundred dollars.тАЭ + 

тАЬI couldnтАЩt have remembered it, since I never heard of it before,тАЭ said Seryozha. тАЬAnd I donтАЩt know now whether you mean dollars or rubles. You say both.тАЭ + 

тАЬI mean neither,тАЭ said Old Sergei. тАЬReally, Seryozha, you are not using your mind. What is the currency of Korea? Yen, of course. Should I be likely to have my savings put away in a bank in a currency not native to the country in which the bank does business? Yours is the kind of question which shows me how ill able to look after your mother you would be were I to leave you. You should certainly cultivate a business sense. Now my idea is that you should go on foot over the mountains to Seoul and fetch that money from Gavril Ilitch.тАЭ + 

тАЬWhy donтАЩt you write and ask him to send it?тАЭ + 

тАЬI did, of course, write to him, some time ago, in the summer of 1924, I think it was. Isaev did not answer. He is by no means a business man and I should say hardly knows how to put pen to paper except just to sign his name. He is a peasantтБатАФwas my brotherтАЩs gardener before the revolution, in Vladivostok. A devoted creature, but evidently deficient in business methods. Since I wrote to him my mind has been occupied with other matters and I only thought of the money just now, when praying to die. But, having once thought of it, I have no difficulty at all in recollecting every detail of the transaction, and in deciding on the best and most businesslike solution of the problemтБатАФwhich is that you should walk to Seoul andтБатАФтАЭ + 

тАЬWhy in the world did you give your two hundred yen to a peasant who could neither read nor write? That wasnтАЩt very businesslike, it seems to me.тАЭ + 

тАЬSeryozha, you are not using your mind. Surely you cannot expect me to explain all my business dealings to a raw lad like you, without financial experience of any kind. As a matter of fact, it was the best thing to do; I was in Seoul buying stock for the shop, and found that, since the goods I expected could not be delivered, I had two hundred yen too muchтБатАФmore than was safe to carry across the robber-infested Manchurian border. Isaev had had a good position as coachman to the Japanese bank-manager and was thinking of starting a hotel. His savings were banked in the Chosen Bank. Naturally I gave him my savings, too, to invest with his own until I should ask for them. I dare say the poor fellow is wondering every day why I do not return to claim my money.тАЭ + 

тАЬAfter ten years of wondering every day I should have thought he might have got a friend who could write to try and get in touch with you,тАЭ said Seryozha, sulkily, but his mind was already, as it were, packing its wits for the journey; his toes were already throbbing with the starting fever. Every day in his unpromising life he woke up feeling тАЬperhaps something great will happen today,тАЭ and here was something greatтБатАФa lonely, dignified journey, without any father and mother to be ashamed of at every turn. + 

Old Sergei straightened his back, and in doing so awoke the kid, which, after innocently making a little mess on the floor, tottered on unsteady legs toward Seryozha, who, it seemed to the kid, gave forth an inviting smell of milk and mother. Old Sergei did not notice the departure of his toy, he was so much interested in the deathbed advice he was determined to give his son before his fount of tears and high principles should be dried up by the arid discomforts of an actual deathbed. + 

тАЬI have a feeling,тАЭ he said, his words dipping under his shaking upper lip like chickens escaping under a rabbit-wire fence, тАЬI have a feeling that this is the last talk we shall have together, Seryozha.тБатАКтБатАж If, when you return, I should be already no more, I entreat you, my boy, to be good to your mother. Remember the dangers she went through for your sake in bearing youтБатАФтАЭ + 

тАЬThat wasnтАЩt for my sake, papaтБатАФshe didnтАЩt know me thenтБатАФit was for her pleasure and yours that she bore me,тАЭ said Seryozha. + 

тАЬLet her lie by my side in the grave,тАЭ said Old Sergei, trying to ignore the possibility of an interval of healthy widowhood for poor Anna, тАЬas she has lain so many nights by my side in the big bed.тАЭ + 

тАЬOh, donтАЩt worry, papa,тАЭ said Seryozha. тАЬYouтАЩll both of you live till ninety, IтАЩm sure.тАЭ And he began to whistle softly through his teeth again. + 

Tears squeezed between Old SergeiтАЩs eyelids as he half-realized his impotence in imposing his posthumous pathos on the living. How could he force his wife and son to regret him all their lives? There was no way. There was no love or loyalty in the world. + 

тАЬSupper is ready,тАЭ said Anna, and stood in the doorway, suddenly thinking of something else, her eyes fixed on a fly on the wall. She was trying to think what had irritated and hurt her just before she began cooking the fish pie. Somehow she craved to identify that scar on her temper. But she could not trace any thought to its source because the tiresome wilderness of her old husbandтАЩs presence kept on blossoming into silly words that distracted her attention. To stop him talking she said again, тАЬSupper is ready.тАЭ But Old Sergei went on talking. Anna went on thinking. Seryozha went on whistling. Anna caught words. + 

тАЬтАж┬аand giving to those who are poorer than yourself. God remembers it even if the ungrateful forget it. He will repay.тБатАКтБатАжтАЭ + 

тАЬAn investment onlyтБатАФnot a gift,тАЭ thought Anna, and stood in abstraction, scratching her head, till the next words intruded: + 

тАЬтАж┬аsleeping with women, Seryozha. Remember your Russian blood is a pure sacred inheritanceтБатАКтБатАж an insult to the land of your fathers to mix your blood withтБатАКтБатАжтАЭ + 

тАЬFor poor Seryozha,тАЭ thought Anna, тАЬRussia is unluckily becoming nothing but thatтБатАФthe land of his fathersтБатАФтАШfatherтАЩтБатАФтАШRussiaтАЩтБатАФboring peevish words. And yet the high Russian fieldsтБатАКтБатАжтАЭ + 

тАЬSupper is ready,тАЭ she said aloud. Seryozha, goaded by his empty stomach, got up so abruptly that he knocked his chair over. But still Old Sergei went on talkingтБатАФcommanding them to stay, with his weak, blind, upraised face. + 

тАЬтАж┬аworth your while to earn, as I have earned, the reputation of a sound manтБатАФa man with a stake in the communityтБатАФone who pays what he owes, no more, no less.тБатАКтБатАжтАЭ + 

AnnaтАЩs thought ran off to the little shop on the other side of the matchwood partition she leaned againstтБатАФa place of business closed since the Chinese soldiersтАЩ raid, but still containing a tall pile of unwanted tins of Milkex, two dozen fancy diaries, four or five dozen celluloid hand mirrors in pastel shades, a case of comic can-openers in the form of bulldogs, a hundred or so silk-padded coat-hangers, and a few other temptations that could not even tempt thieves. These goods, Anna felt, shone in an idealized form in her old husbandтАЩs imagination, and gave him the right, in his own eyes, to claim a stake in the community. + 

тАЬтАж┬аand never was drunk in my life, Seryozha,тАЭ she heard. It was true, she knew, the taste of alcohol had always made him feel sick. тАЬSome young men think that manliness is found in drunkenness and coarseness and fornication, but there is a truer manlinessтБатАФтАЭ + 

тАЬFor GodтАЩs sake!тАЭ said Anna. тАЬSupper is ready, I tell you.тАЭ As Old SergeiтАЩs blind face turned to her, Anna remembered what it was that had offended her: he had suggested, by accident, what was probably true, that the offer of the kid had been accepted more precipitately than Mrs.┬аButters had intended. тАЬDo you want to starve yourself as well as talk yourself hoarse, you silly old man?тАЭ she said, vehemently. + 

Old Sergei was conscious of an indecorous anticlimax to a Dying ManтАЩs Advice to His Son. тАЬMy son is going on a journey and I am giving him a few parting words of advice, since I am an old man and by the time he comes back I may have been called away on the longтБатАФтАЭ + 

тАЬWhat journey do you mean?тАЭ + 

Old Sergei felt that her horrified question gave him an opportunity for tragic drama such as he seldom wrested from his family. тАЬWhat journey? Why, death, Anna.тАЭ + 

тАЬNo. I mean what journey is Seryozha taking, idiot?тАЭ said Anna, stamping irritably with both feet. + 

тАЬIтАЩm going to Seoul,тАЭ said Seryozha, happily, тАЬto fetch some money that papa forgotтБатАФтАЭ + 

тАЬForgot, Seryozha!тАЭ exclaimed his father. тАЬIt is you that forgetтБатАФтАЭ + 

тАЬBut Seoul is four daysтАЩ journey by train and road even when you get to the train,тАЭ said Anna. тАЬAnd on foot.тБатАКтБатАж The police in Korea are most dangerous to poor Russians.тБатАКтБатАж The bandits on the borderтБатАФтАЭ + 

тАЬOh, thatтАЩs all quite easy,тАЭ said Seryozha. тАЬThree weeksтАЩ walking will do it. And IтАЩd like to see the Japanese policeman or the Chinese bandit thatтБатАФтАЭ + 

тАЬYou will see neither,тАЭ said Anna. тАЬYou will take no such journey. The idea!тБатАКтБатАж Only a couple of imbeciles would have such an idea. Dancing off alone into nowhere. What a notionтБатАФand you a mere child still! Let us hear no more of it. Come, must I tell you for the hundredth time that supper is ready? For GodтАЩs sake, old man, are you glued to your chair?тАЭ + 