![]() A woman appeared in the doorway, shaking the wet from her long hair. Little Alyosha stood on his stool and waved his arms, the better to be heard over his bigger siblings, and Pyotr’s boarhound raised its big, scarred head at the commotion.īut before Dunya could answer, the outer door clattered open and there came a roar from the storm without. The others set up a clamor on hearing Dunya’s question: ![]() Sasha had thrust his head out-of-doors, gotten a faceful of wet, and retired, vanquished, to a stool a little apart from the others, where he sat affecting an expression of pious indifference. But the church was cold, the sleet outside unrelenting. They all loved stories, even the second son, Sasha, who was a self-consciously devout child, and would have insisted-had anyone asked him-that he preferred to pass the evening in prayer. Pyotr’s children sat before her, perched on stools. “What tale will you have tonight?” Dunya inquired, enjoying the fire at her back. The flat top served as a sleeping platform its innards cooked their food, heated their kitchen, and made steam-baths for the sick. ![]() This oven was a massive affair built of fired clay, taller than a man and large enough that all four of Pyotr Vladimirovich’s children could have fit easily inside. That evening, the old lady sat in the best place for talking: in the kitchen, on the wooden bench beside the oven. But no one was thinking of chilblains or runny noses, or even, wistfully, of porridge and roast meats, for Dunya was to tell a story. The brilliant February landscape had given way to the dreary gray of March, and the household of Pyotr Vladimirovich were all sniffling from the damp and thin from six weeks’ fasting on black bread and fermented cabbage. It was late winter in northern Rus’, the air sullen with wet that was neither rain nor snow.
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