Part I

little ones, while I, you see, only left a wife behind. We had a little girl, but God took her before I went as a soldier. I come home on leave and I’ll tell you how it was, I look and see that they are living better than before. The yard full of cattle, the women at home, two brothers away earning wages, and only Mikháilo the youngest, at home. Father, he says, ‘All my children are the same to me: it hurts the same whichever finger gets bitten. But if Platón hadn’t been shaved for a soldier, Mikháilo would have had to go.’ He called us all to him and, will you believe it, placed us in front of the icons. ‘Mikháilo,’ he says, ‘come here and bow down to his feet; and you, young woman, you bow down too; and you, grandchildren, also bow down before him! Do you understand?’ he says. That’s how it is, dear fellow. Fate looks for a head. But we are always judging, ‘that’s not well⁠—that’s not right!’ Our luck is like water in a dragnet: you pull at it and it bulges, but when you’ve drawn it out it’s empty! That’s how it is.”