“What’s left of our father is a hut full. And all the girls. Of the men, Tikhon was the only one. And there is no handful of flour in the bottom of the barrel. Matenka fights day and night, then drenches herself in blood, but still nothing, the bread bin is still empty. Well, for a long time or for a short time, she scattered us among people. Brother Tikhon went to the city, and she took me, when I was twelve years old, to a monastery. Just think, I survived there, in some kind of hell, for nine years. I spent nine years washing hairy devils...”