Ay, gone off dreaming again! It all ended the way Mother wanted. She got stubborn: there were three generations of intel-lyjeanseeya in the family, she said, I won't allow trodishin to be stepped on. Ay, Mother! She would run to Nikita Ivanich to whisper, and she'd drag him by the arm to the izba so they could both work on Father together, and she'd wave her hands about and set to screeching. Father gave up: ayyy … go to hell all of you, go on and do what you want… Only don't come complaining to me later.

So Benedikt now goes to work in the Work Izba. It's not bad work either. You come there and it's already warm, mouse-lard candles are already burning, the trash is swept away-heaven. They give him a bark notebook, a scroll to copy from, and they mark it: from here to here. You just sit tight in the warmth and make a clean copy. Only leave room for pictures. And that sweetie Olenka will draw the pictures in later with her white hand: a chicken or a bush. They don't much look like chickens or bushes, but still, they're nice to look at.

And Benedikt copies what Fyodor Kuzmich, Glorybe, writes: fairy tales, or teachings, sometimes poems. Fyodor Kuzmich's poems turn out so good that sometimes your hand starts shaking, your eyes go all dark, and it's like you've just gone and floated off somewhere, or else like there's a knot in your throat and you can't swallow. Some poems make sense, every word of them, and some-you could get dizzy trying to figure them out. The other day, for instance, Benedikt copied this one:

The mountain crest

Slumbers in the night;

Quiet valleys

Are filled with fresh dark mist;

The road is free of dust,

And the leaves are still…