Pronka understood that it was a shame to cut it down, because it was also a live thing: "You see it is just the same as blood when we drink the sap from a birch!"
Semka, though he did not say anything, was apparently thinking that there was not much use in it when it was rotten. It seems strange to me to be repeating what we said then, but I remember that we talked over everything, as it seems to me, that could be said about use and about beauty, both plastic and moral.
CHAPTER XV
PROSHCHAÏ AND PROSCHAÏTE
We returned to the village. Fedka had not once let go of my hand. It seemed to me that he held it now out of gratefulness. We were all brought so close together that night!—as we had not been for a long time. Pronka walked abreast with us, along the wide village street.
"See, there's a light at the Mazanofs' yet!" said he. "As I was going to school to-day, Gavriukha[1] was coming out of the tavern—dr-u-u-unk!" he added,—"blind drunk ; his horse was all of a lather, and he was beating her like everything. I feel sorry even now! Indeed, I do! Why should he beat her? And lately, father,"[2] said Semka, "he drove his horse from Tula, and she ran him into a snowdrift, but he was asleep, he was so drunk!"
"But Gavriukha was beating his horse right across the eyes, and I was so sorry to see him," said Pronka, for the second time. "Why did he beat her? and even when he got down he beat her!"
Semka suddenly stopped.
"Our folks are all asleep," said he, looking at the windows of his crooked black cottage. "Won't you come in?"
