Starting very early on, old Timofei had taught his only son, Yegor, songs one by one, and by the time the boy was five, he already knew how to sing more songs and how to sing them more accurately than all the grown-up youths in the village and the whole region around. All the same, mostly on holidays when he was a bit tipsy, the old man would say to the boy, “Yegoruschka, my little dove, I have already taught you to sing a lot of songs, many bylini, and also the legends of the saints—practically one for every day. But, as you know, I am the most accomplished singer in the whole province, and my father pretty well knew the songs of all of Russia and some Tatar stories into the bargain. You are still very young, and therefore I have not yet told you the most beautiful bylini, whose words are like icons and cannot be compared to ordinary words; and you have not yet learned those tunes that no one—be he Cossack or peasant—has ever been able to listen to without crying.”

Timofei repeated this to his son every Sunday and on all of the many holidays of the Russian calendar—that is to say, fairly often. Until the son, after a passionate quarrel with the old man, immediately disappeared with beautiful Ustyenka, the daughter of a poor peasant.

The third year after this incident, Timofei fell ill, just as one of the many pilgrimages that are constantly being made from all parts of the vast country to Kiev was about to begin. At that time Ossip, his neighbor, appeared at the sick man’s house.

“I’m going along with the pilgrims, Timofei Ivanovitch; allow me to embrace you one more time.” Ossip was not particularly close to the old man, but now that he was about to set forth on a long journey, he found it necessary to take leave of him as of a father. “I have sometimes hurt your feelings,” he blubbered; “forgive me, dear heart. It happened when I’d been drinking, and there is nothing one can do about that, as you know. So now I’m going to pray for you and light a candle for you. Farewell, Timofei Ivanovitch, my little father. Perhaps you’ll get well again, God willing, and then you’ll sing for us again.

Yes, yes, it’s been a long time since you’ve sung for us. What songs those were! The one about Duke Stepanovitch, for example—do you think I’ve forgotten it? How stupid of you! I still know it very, very well. Of course, not like you—you really had it mastered, that we have to say. God gave you that; to others he gave other things. Me, for example . . .”

The old man, who lay on the stove, turned over, groaning, and made a movement as though he wanted to say something. It was as if one could hear very faintly the name Yegor. Maybe he wanted to send him a message. But when the neighbor asked him from the doorway, “Did you say something, Timofei Ivanovitch?” he was already lying there again quite quietly, and he shook his white head. Nevertheless, God knows how it happened, hardly a year after Ossip set out, Yegor returned home quite unexpectedly. The old man did not recognize him immediately, because it was dark in the hut, and the old eyes were reluctant to register a new, unfamiliar form. But when Timofei heard the stranger’s voice, he was startled and jumped down off the stove on his wobbly old legs. Yegor caught him, and they held each other in their arms. Timofei wept. The young man asked him repeatedly, “Have you been sick long, father?” When the old man had calmed down a bit, he crawled back on top of the stove, and inquired in a different, stern tone of voice, “And your wife?” A pause. Then Yegor blurted out: