Churis meditated for a moment. “Can’t help falling in,” said he suddenly.
“Well, now you see you had better have said that at the meeting, that you needed to rebuild your whole place, instead of a few props. You see, I should be glad to help you.”
“Many thanks for your kindness,” replied Churis, in an incredulous tone and not looking at the bárin . “If you would give me four joists and some props, then, perhaps, I might fix things up myself; but if anyone is hunting after good-for-nothing timbers, then he’d find them in the joists of the hut.”
“Why, is your hut so wretched as all that?”
“My old woman and I are expecting it to fall in on us any day,” replied Churis indifferently. “A day or two ago, a girder fell from the ceiling, and struck my old woman.”
“What! struck her?”
“Yes, struck her, your excellency: whacked her on the back, so that she lay half dead all night.”
“Well, did she get over it?”
“Pretty much, but she’s been ailing ever since; but then she’s always ailing.”
“What, are you sick?” asked Nekhliudof of the old woman, who had been standing all the time at the door, and had begun to groan as soon as her husband mentioned her.
“It bothers me here more and more, especially on Sundays,” she replied, pointing to her dirty lean bosom.