The master also laughed, heard the interpreter, and said: “I will give them the best of clothes: a cloak and boots fit to be married in. I will feed them like princes; and if they like they can live together in the barn. But I can’t take off the shackles, or they will run away. They shall be taken off, however, at night.” And he jumped up and slapped Zhílin on the shoulder, exclaiming: “You good, I good!”
Zhílin wrote the letter, but addressed it wrongly, so that it should not reach its destination, thinking to himself: “I’ll run away!”
Zhílin and Kostílin were taken back to the barn and given some maize straw, a jug of water, some bread, two old cloaks, and some worn-out military boots—evidently taken from the corpses of Russian soldiers. At night their shackles were taken off their feet, and they were locked up in the barn.