Zhílin and his friend lived in this way for a whole month. The master always laughed and said: “You, Iván, good! I, Abdul, good!” But he fed them badly, giving them nothing but unleavened bread of millet-flour baked into flat cakes, or sometimes only unbaked dough.
Kostílin wrote home a second time, and did nothing but mope and wait for the money to arrive. He would sit for days together in the barn sleeping, or counting the days till a letter could come.
Zhílin knew his letter would reach no one, and he did not write another. He thought: “Where could my mother get enough money to ransom me? As it is she lived chiefly on what I sent her. If she had to raise five hundred roubles, she would be quite ruined. With God’s help I’ll manage to escape!”
So he kept on the lookout, planning how to run away.