Levin still kept between the young peasant and the old man.

The old man, who had put on his short sheepskin jacket, was just as good-humored, jocose, and free in his movements.

Among the trees they were continually cutting with their scythes the so-called "birch mushrooms," swollen fat in the succulent grass.

But the old man bent down every time he came across a mushroom, picked it up and put it in his bosom.

" Another present for my old woman," he said as he did so.