we caught glimpses of white, red, and blue smocks; on all sides we heard the scraping and clanging of spades, the dull thud of clods of earth on the slanting sieves. As she passed by the labourers, my grandmother with her eagle eye noticed at once that one of them was working with less energy than the rest, and that he took off his cap, too, with no show of eagerness. This was a youth, still quite young, with a wasted face, and sunken, lustreless eyes. His cotton smock, all torn and patched, scarcely held together over his narrow shoulders.
'Who's that?' my grandmother inquired of Filippitch, who was walking on tiptoe behind her.
'Of whom. . . you are pleased. . .' Filippitch stammered.
'Oh, fool! I mean the one that looked so sullenly at me. There, standing yonder, not working.'
'Oh, him! Yes. . .th. . .th. . .that's Yermil, son of Pavel Afanasiitch, now deceased.'
Pavel Afanasiitch had been, ten years before, head butler in my grandmother's house, and stood particularly high in her favour. But suddenly falling into disgrace, he was as suddenly degraded to being herdsman, and did not long keep even that position. He sank lower still, and struggled on for a while on a monthly pittance of flour in a little hut far away. At
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