78 A SUMMER ON THE YENESEI 



and unless they were employed, as they constantly were, 

 in rolling cigarettes, they twitched as they rested on his 

 knee. It was easy to see that his nerves were all on edge, 

 and not difficult to guess the reason why. The girl who 

 was attending to the samovar by the stove was slight and 

 pale, like a bleached plant. Her soft brown hair was 

 arranged neatly, and her hands, which wore no wedding- 

 ring, were slender and refined. She was unlike any of 

 the balagan women that I had seen before. Her face was 

 extraordinarily composed. Its expression was not exactly 

 sad, but she seemed to have no vitality. At first sight 

 she seemed to lack character, but afterwards I changed my 

 opinion. The spiritwas perhaps numbed, but nevertheless 

 it was there. Strange to say, she had a voice which 

 entirely belied the gentleness of her appearance. It was 

 both loud and harsh, and when she raised it to speak to 

 her husband, or to the little native girl who helped her, 

 it sounded as if a dove were speaking with the voice of 

 a crow. 



Round her petticoats crept a whimpering baby of 

 some eighteen months old. I have never seen such a 

 heart-breaking baby. In the heat of the room it was 

 clad only in a little chemise, under which its pitiably 

 thin arms and legs appeared. Its tiny body had shrunk 

 out of all proportion to its face, from which two terrible 

 great eyes stared at us, as if demanding dumbly why 

 the sins of its father should thus be visited upon its 

 innocent head. Whenever its wailing became too 

 insistent, its mother took it up and hushed it. Indeed, 

 it never seemed contented out of her arms, and she 

 seemed to have accustomed herself to do most of her 



