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 Русский язык
в упражнениях

Russian
in Exercises
S.A. Кhavronina, А.1. Shirochenskaya

Russian
in Exercises

19 th edition

RЯ
вu�р
MOSCOW
2009
С.А. Хавронина, А.И. Широченская

Русский язык
в упражнениях

19-е издание

МОСКВА
2009
УДК 808.2 (075.8)-054.6
ББК 81.2 Рус-923
Х12

Translated Ьу Vladimir Korotky

Drawings Ьу Valery Karasyov

Х12 Хавронина, С.А.

Русский язык в упражнениях. Учебное пособие (для говорящих на анг­
лийском языке)/ С.А. Хавронина, А.И. Широченская. - 19-е изд. - М.: Рус­
ский язык. Курсы, 2009. -384 с.

ISBN 978-5-88337-155-3

Книга являеrся практическим пособием по русскому языку и может бьпь

использована как дополнительный материал к любому начальному курсу
русского языка.
Пособие содержит разнообразные упражнения, направленные на выра­
ботку правильных и прочных грамматических навыков, необходимых для
овладения речью на русском языке. Грамматический материал представля­
ется в речевых образцах, в таблицах, в кратких комментариях. Ко многим
упражнениям даны ключи.

ISBN 978-5-88337-1 55-3 ©«Русский язык» Курсы, 2007

© Хавронина С.А., Широченская А.И., 2007
Репродуцирование (воспроизведение) любым
способом данного издания без договора с
издательством запрещается.
 PREFACE

Russian in Exercises is intended for beginners. It contains exercises designed to consolidate

and activise basic Russian grammar and vocabulary. Russian iп Exercises falls into two parts:
1. An Introductory Lexical and Grammatical Course, and 2. Тhе Main Course.

1. An Introductory Lexical and Grammatical Course

Тhе exercises given in this part are based on а limited vocabulary (approximately 350
words) and will еnаЫе the student to master the main types of the Russian simple sentence and
also а number of points of Russian grammar, such as personal verb forms and tenses, and the
plural of nouns. At the sате time they will acquaint him with the main ways of expressing the
agent, place and time of an action, possession, an attribute of an object, and affцmation and
negation. Тhе exercises will teach the student, how to ask various types of questions containing
the question words кто? 'who?', когда? 'when?', где? 'where?', чей? 'whose?' and какой?
'what (kind of)?', and to understand and make simple statements. Тhе Introductory Course lays
the foundation for further study of the language.

2. Тhе Main Course

Тhе Main Course falls into three large sections: Тhе Use of the Cases; Тhе VerЬ; and Com­
plex Sentences.
One of the principal peculiarities of Russian gramma r is the category of case, the essence of
which is the fact that every Russian noun, adjective, pronoun, ordinal numeral and participle
has а whole system of forms expressing different meanings, е. g. Это студент. 'Тhis is а
student.' Нет студента. 'Тhere is no student.' Пишу студенту. '1 ат writing to а student.'
Вйжу студента. '1 see а student.' Знаком со студентом. '1 know а student.' Говорйм о
студенте. 'We are talking about а student.'
Тhis often presents difficulty to non-Russian students of the language. It is impossiЫe to
speak Russian coпectly without а thorough knowledge of the case forms and without learning
to use these forms automatically in speech. Тhis has determined the structure of the Main
Course, the arrangement of its contents and the number of exercises in each section.
Тhе authors introduce the cases and their meanings in the order generally followed in prac­
tical teaching of the language to non-Russians. First of all the student is introduced to graт­
matical features most essential for everyday communication. Тhus, Ье should fust Ье аЫе to
name objects (Это учебник. 'Тhis is а textbook. '), then to nате the place of an action (Я живу
в Лондоне. '1 live in London.'), then to nате an object acted upon (Я читаю кнUгу. '1 ат
reading а book. '), etc.

5
 The case is а unity of form, meaning and function. Each case is therefore introduced and
practised in а sentence (which is the smallest speech unit) and also in very short texts. The
numerous exercises will help the student assimilate not only the case forms, but also the con­
structions in which they are used. Thus, having mastered the cases, the student will have mas­
tered the structure of the Russian simple sentence as well.
The verb also presents difficulty to non-Russian students of the language. А peculiarity of
the verЬ is the fact that it has two stems: the infinitive stem (рисова-ть 'to draw') and the pre­
sent tense stem (рису-ю '1 am drawing'). Other categories of the Russian verЬ - aspect and
transitiveness/intransitiveness - are also unusual for most foreigners. The group of prefixed
and unprefixed verbs of motion also warrants close attention.
Since the verЬ fulfils the function of the predicate in а sentence, it forms its nucleus. There­
fore the aЬility to use verЬs properly is an indispensaЫe condition for understanding and speak­
ing Russian.
The exercises in the Complex Sentences section aim to help the student master the structure
of complex sentences and the most frequent conjunctions and conjunctive words. In this sec­
tion the student is introduced to complex sentences with clauses of reason, condition, purpose,
etc. Special attention is given to clauses introduced Ьу the conjunctive word который and the
conjunction чтобы, since their misuse accounts for the greater part of mistakes made Ьу forc­
ing speakers ofRussian.
The book should Ье studied in а cyclic pattern and not straight through from Ьeginning to
end. This should prevent the student from learning the accusative of direction in isolation from
verЬs of motion, or the instrumental in isolation ftom the short form of passive participles; it is
useful to study the accusative of the object of action in conjunction with the section devoted to
verbal aspects, etc.
Russian in Exercises is based on а limited number of the commonest Russian words, а fea­
ture which makes it possiЫe to use it to supplement any comprehensive Russian course.
The authors would Ье grateful for any remarks and suggestions which would help improve
this work in future editions. They should Ье forwarded to 125047, Москва, 1-.я Тверская­
Ямска.я ул., д. 18. Издательство <<Русский язык». Курсы. Тел./факс: (495) 251-08-45;
тел.: (495) 250-48-68; e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected];
www.rus-lang.ru/eng/contents.
 CONTENTS
PART ONE. AN INТRODUCТORY LEXICAL AND GRAММAТICAL COURSE
Nouns in the Singular. Questions: Кто :iто? Что Это? .............................•.......................... 13
Тhе Present Tense ofthe VerЬ ............................................................................. ,.................... 17
lst Conjugation ................................................................................................................... 17
2nd Conjugation .................................................................................................................. 2 1
Question: Как? . ........................................................................................................................ 23
Question: Когда? . . . .
.................. .. ... ............................................... ................ ...... . .. ............. . .. . .. 26
Question: Что дiлает? .......... . .. . ........ . .. ... . ....
.. .. . . .. . . ... . .
............ .... ...... .... . .. . .
. ...... .... .. . . . .
.. . . ....... 29
Revision Exercises ........................ ... ... .... . . . .
. . . . . . . . . .. .
. . .. ... ......... .................... .. .. . . .. . ..................... 33
Тhе Gender of Nouns .
............................ ....... .. . . .. .. .
........................................ . ... . .. ....... ............ . 34
Тhе Possessive Pronouns мой, твой, наш, ваш .. . .
............... ....... ............ ... . ... . .
. ...................... 35
Тhе PastTense ofthe VerЬ........................................................................................................ 37
Тhе Future Tense ofthe VerЬ .................................................................................................... 4 1
Nouns in the Plural .............. :.................................................................................................... 43
Questions: Чей? Чья? Чьё? Чьи? Тhе Possessive Pronouns мo й, твой, наш, ваш ............... 41
Тhе Possessive Pronouns егО, её, их .. .. .. . . . .. . . .
................ ... ..... . ........... ... ............ ..... ................. . 49
Тhе Genitive Expressing Possession ........................................................................................ 5 1
Тhе Construction У меюi (у тебЯ... ) есть... ........................................................................... 53
Тhе PresentTense ............................................................................................................... 53
Тhе PastTense .................................................................................................................... 56
Тhе FutureTense ................................................................................................................ 56
Questions: Какой? Какtiя? Какое? Каюiе? Тhе Demonstrative Pronouns
Этот, Эта, Это, Эти . . . . .. .
..... ......... ..... . . . . . . . .. . . 51
. ..... ..... ... ....... ....................... ... .. . ......... ..... ....

Adjectives ............................................................................................................:.................... 6 1
Adj ectives with theStem Terminating in а Hard Consonant .............................................. 6 1
Adjectives with theStemTerminating i n аSoft Consonant ............................................... 6 1
Adjectives with theStemTerminating in г, к, х ... . .
............ . . ........... .... ..................... ......... . 62
Adjectives with the StemTerminating in ж, ш, ч, щ . . . . ..
. . .......... . .......... . ....... ......... . .. .
. ...... 63
Тhе Adjective and the Adverb. Тhе Questions Какой? and Как? . . .
. .......... .. ........................... 68
Тhе General Concept of VerЬ Aspects ..................................................................................... 69
Тhе Verbs хотеть, любuть, мочь and theShort-Form Adj ective должен
with ап Infinitive ................................................................................................................. 7 1
VerЬs with the Particle -ся.The VеrЬsучuть (что?) andyчrimьcя (где?). . . ... .. . . . . .
.... .... ... ...... 74

7
 PART ТWО. ТНЕ МAIN COURSE

Тhе Uses of the Cases

The Prepositional Case
The Prepositional Denoting the Place of ап Action ............................................................ 76
Nouns in the Prepositional Singular with the Prepositions в and на ................................... 76
The Prepositional with the Preposition о (об, обо) Denoting the Object of Speech
or Thought ..................................................................................................................... 86
Personal Pronouns in the Prepositional ............................................................................... 88
Adjectives in the Prepositional Singular ...... .............................................. ......................... 89
Possessive Pronouns in the Prepositional ........................................................................... 93
The Possessive Pronoun свой in the Prepositional ............................................................. 95
Nouns and Adjectives in the Prepositional Plural ............................................................... 97
The Prepositional Denoting Time ....................................................................................... 99
Тhе Accusative Case
The Accusative Denoting ап Object Acted Upon ............................................................. 102
Inanimate Nouns in the Accusative Singular .................................................................... 102
Animate Nouns in the Accusative Singular ....................................................................... 105
Personal Pronouns in the Accusative ................................................................................ 107
Adjectives and Possessive Pronouns in the Accusative Singular ...................................... 109
Nouns i n the Accusative Plural ......................................................................................... 1 16
Adjectives and Possessive Pronouns in the Accusative Plural ......................................... 1 18
The Accusative with the Verbs ofMotion ......................................................................... 120
The Accusative with the VerЬs класть - положUть, ставить - поставить,
вешать - повесить ··································································································· 1 28
The Accusative Denoting Time ................................................................... ..................... 1 32
The Dative Case
The Dative Denoting the Recipient ................................................................................... 1 35
Nouns in the Dative Singular ........................................................ .................................... 135
Personal Pronouns in the Dative ....... ................................................................................ 139
Adjectives and Possessive Pronouns in the Dative Singular ............................................. 140
Nouns in the Dative Plural ................................................................................................ 142
Adjectives and Possessive Pronouns in the Dative Plural ................................................ 145
The Dative with the Verb нравиться-понравиться ....................................................... 146
The Dative Denoting Age ................................................................................................. 149
The Dative in Impersonal Sentences ................................................................................. 152
Тhе Dative with the Preposition к .................... .......................... ....................................... 1 54
The Dative with the Preposition по ............... ................................................................... 1 56
The Genitive Case
The Genitive in Negative Sentences with the Words нет, не было, не будет ................ 159

8
 Nouns in the Genitive Singular ................ ".................... "............ "............ "............ "....... 159
Personal Pronouns in the Genitive . . .
. ...................... ............ .............. ............................... . 163
Adjectives and Possessive Pronouns in the Genitive Singular ............................... .......... . 164
The Genitive with the Numerals два (две), три, четЫре . . ...
.... ... . ....... .... ... ............ ........ . 167
Nouns in the Genitive Plural .
............... ........ ...................... . .. .
...... ............ ... . .. .. . . . ..... .. . .. . . .. 169
Тhе Genitive with the Words много, мdло, сколько, несколько, немного
and Cardinal Numerals . . .. . ..
... .......................... ....... . .......... ... . ........ .. ........ ................. . . . 169
Adjectives and Possessive Pronouns in the Genitive Plural .
...... ....... .... . . . . ............ . ......... .. 177
Тhе Genitive Denoting Possession .
......... ......................................... .............. ................. . . 178
Тhе Adnominal Genitive ................................................................................................... 182
Тhе Genitive with the Comparative Degree . . . .. . . . . ..
... . ...... ... .. . . . . ... ... . . ... .......... . . .. . . ..... .. . . . .. 184.

Тhе Genitive Denoting Dates . . . ... . .

. ......... ...... . . .. ... ................. . ... ............................ .... .
.... ... 185
The Genitive Denoting Time .
........... .......... .. . ..
............. ........... . ................. ........ . .. . ........... 186
The Genitive with the Prepositions из and с Denoting Direction ..................................... 188
The Genitive with the Prepositiony .
............................. .................................................... 192
Тhе Genitive with the Prepositions недалеко от, около, напротив, от ... до .. . ............ 195
Тhе Instrumental Case
Nouns in the Instrumental Singular ............... . . . .. .......... . ......... .. . . . . .
.. . .. . . ........... . .. ............ .. . 196
The Instrumental Denoting Joint Action . .
..... .............. ............ ... . .. . . ............... . ................ .. 199
Personal Pronouns in the Instrumental ............................................... . . ............. ... . ............. 149
Adjectives and Possessive Pronouns in the lnstrumental Singular .
....... . . . ........................ 20 1
Nouns, Adjectives and Possessive Pronouns in the Instrumental Plural ........................... 203
Тhе Instrumental in the Compound Predicate after the VerЬs быть and стать ............. 205
The Instrumental with the VerЬs интересоваться and заниматься,
and the Short-Form Adjective доволен .
..................... .................... .... ........................ . 209
The Instrumental with the Prepositions над, под, перед, за, рЯдом с Denoting Place ..... 211
Тhе Instrumental in Passive Constructions .. . . . .................. . ... ........................ ... ... ........... . . . 2 12
The Instrumental Denoting the Instrument of Action .. ..
...... . .............. . ............................. 2 13
The Instrumental with Prepositions Used in Various Meanings . . .. . . ... .. 2 13
. . .............. ..... . . .....

Revisioп Exercises . . . ..
. .... . .. . .
... . ..... ..... ........... :......................................................................... 215
ТheVerb
Verbs ofMotion
Unprefixed Verbs ofMotion and the Verbs пойтu and поехать . .
... ......... ....... ........... . . . . ... ... 2 19
The Verb идтu. The Present Tense . . . . . ..
........... . . . .. . . .
....... . . . . . . . ... .. . . ... ...... ........ . ..... ...... ...... 2 19
Тhе Verb ходuть. The Past Tense ................. ... .
..................... ...... ............. ... . .. . . . . . .. . ......... 220
The Verb пойтu. Тhе Future Tense . ..................... ........ .. . . .. .
. ....... .. ... .... .. . ... ....... .... ......... . 223
Тhе VerЬ ехать. The Present Tense ... . .
..... . . . .. ..................................... ............................ . 225
Тhе Verb ездить. Тhе Past Tense . . ... . .
........... ..... .. . . ................ ... .... ... ........... ... ... ......... . . . . . 226
The Verb поехать. The Future Tense . . .
.......................... ... ....... . . . . . . . . . ....... ......... ....... .... . . . 229
The Verbs идтu - ходuть .. . . .. . . ............. .... ... .
. .
. ... ..... ...... . .. . .. .
. ... . .
. . . . .... ......... . . ...... ..
. . . ...... 23 1

9
 The Verbs ехать - ездить .......................................... ".................................................. 235
The Verbs нестu - нос�iть, везтu - возuть .
........................ .................. ...................... . 238
Prefixed Verbs ofMotion
Тhе Prefix по- ................................................................................................................... 241
The Prefixes при- and у- . . .
....................................... ...... ................. .................................. 243
Тhе Prefixes в- (во-) and вы- ............................................................................................ 248
The Prefixes под- (подо-) and от- (ото-) . . . .
...... .... ....... ...... ............................................ 250
Тhе Prefix до- . . .. .
. ........ . .
. .................... ........................................................ ..... . . ........... . ... 251
Тhе Prefixes про-, пере-, за- ............................................................................................ 252
Revisioп Exercises . . . .
................ ......................................... .... ...... ........................ ... . .. . ... ......... 252
Verbs with the Particle -ся
VerЬs with PassiveMeaning . .
.. ............................... .................... .. ............................ .... .. . . 256
VerЬs withMiddle ReflexiveMeaning . ..
........ ................................. . ............... ................ . 258
VerЬs with theMeaning of Reciprocal Action .
.................................. .............................. 265
VerЬs with Proper ReflexiveMeaning . . .
.... .......................... ............................ ......... ..... . . 267
Revisioп Exercises . . . . .
..... .... ....................... ................................. .... ........................................ 268
VerЬ Aspects
PrincipalMeanings of Perfective and Imperfective VerЬs ............................... ............... . 270
The Use of the lmperfective Aspect after the Verbs начинать - начать,
продолжать - продолжить. кончать - кончить . .. . . . . ....................................... .... . 279
Тhе Use of lmperfective and Perfective Verbs in the Future Tense . ..
...................... . ....... 280
The Use of the Aspect Pairs of Some VerЬs .
.................................. .......... ....... . . ..... ..... . ... . 283
Тhе Use of the VerЬs вuдеть-увUдеть, слЫшать-услЫшать, знать-узнать ........ . .. . . 285
Perfective VerЬs with the Prefixes по- and за- . . .. . ..................... .......... .. .. ......................... 287
Revisioп Exercises .. .. . ..
...... . ............... . .. ................. . ........... ...... . .. ... .
................ . . ...... ...... .... .... . . 288
Complex Sentences
Complex Sentences Containing the Conjunctions and Conjunctive Words кто, что,
какой, как, когда, где, куда, откуда, почему, зачем. сколько 292 ································

Complex Sentences Containing the Conjunctions потому что and поЭтому ................ 293
Complex Sentences Containing the Conjunctions если, если бы . . 294 ....................... ........... .

Complex Sentences Containing the Conjunction чтобы . . . 297 ................. ... ...................... ....

Complex Sentences Containing the Conjunction хотЯ . . . 298 .................... ..... .. ......................

Complex Sentences Containing the Correlative Words тот, то .................................... 300

Complex Sentences Containing the Conjunctive Word который . 301 ......... .........................

.Direct and Indirect Speech

1. Direct Speech in the Form of а Statement . .. . . ... . ............ ............. ................ . ...... ........ .. . 308
2. Direct Speech in the Form of а Question with а Question Word .. ... .
.................. .......... 309
3. Direct Speech in the Form of а Question without а Question Word . ..................... ...... . 309

10
 4. Direct Speech in the Form of an lnjunction with the Predicate
in the Imperative Mood .. .. . ..
..................... . ........... . .. ........... . ...... ....... ......... . . ""."".."..... 31 О
Revision Exercises "......."..................................................................................................".. 31 1
.

Sentences Containing Participial and VerЬal Adverb Constructions

Тhе Participle ........ "..."...........".............................."..................."...........................""".. 314
Active Participles ..................."..................................""..."......."."............"""................ 31 4
Тhе Fonnation of Active Participles ....... "."............................................"....................... 317
Тhе PresentTense ............... ".........." ..............."""..............................."....................... 317
Тhe PastTense .
............. .................. ".............................................""""..."................... 311
Passive Participles .............................." ................."................................"".."...."............ 321
Тhе Formation of Passive Participles """."""...""""............................"".....""..........". 322
..

Тhе PastTense .
... .... "..""".."."...".."............................."..."................"""................... 322
Тhе PresentTense .
........................ ............... .... .......... . . "................................................ 324
Short-Foпn Passive Participles . . .. . . .. . . ... .... .... . .... . .. ""..."."......................................""...".. 328
Long-Foпn andShort-Form Participles .... ... . """""..".........."............................"".."...... 330
Тhе VerЬal AdverЬ .................".."...".................."..".."....."..."".....".................................... 332
Imperfective VerЬal AdverЬs ......".................."....".."....."..."....."................................... 332
Тhе Formation of Imperfective VerЬal AdverЬs ""...........".............................................. 332
Perfective VerЬal AdverЬs ........... . .. .. . .... ............. ...... ...... ...... .. . .
... . . . . . " ................. 333
. . . . . .. ......

Тhе Foпnation of Perfective VerЬal AdverЬs "......................."".................. 334

....................

Кеу to the Exercises .............................................................................................................. 340

 Русский алфавит

Аа .4а Кк Лк. Хх Ix
Бб �d Лл .L..t Цц 11, и,
Вв /J! Мм Д,,а Чч 1i "t

Гr :Т-� Ни н н. Шш Шш
Дд JJp Оо Оо Щщ Щ14
Ее [е Пп ffл ъ 'Ъ

Ёё tё Рр .?р ы

Жж Жж Се Се ь h

Зз 31 Тт JlТm Ээ Ээ
Ии и{/, Уу Уу Юю Юю
v

Ий Zl tl Фф !Ptp Яя g Sl.

12
PartOne AN INTRODUCTORY LEXICAL
AND GRAMMATICAL COURSE
Nouns in the Singular
Questions: Кто Это? Что Это?

- Это студент? -Это дом?

- Да, Это студент. -Да, Это дом.

Exercise 1.Read the questions and answer them. Write down the questions and the answers.

1. Это стол? 2. Это стул? З. Это шкаф? 4. Это лампа?

~ • Jt?
-

' '.•\ ' .-�

'
·-.·-·

,•· ·1 · 1 '

Зпо�.Р 3по иииир? Зм J4/Vl,Q,.

, :>

5. Это кнйга? 6. Это рjчка? 7. Это карандаш? 8. Это письмо?

� , р
t.A'lt4 /fN/1114, •

13
9. Это дом? 10. Это окно? 1 1 . Это мальчик? 12. Это девочка?

13. Это собака? 14. Это кошка?

�-- - ,
Jfl'W � .7

Exercise 2.Read the sentences and write them out

1. Это улица. Это дом. Это магаз:Ин, а Это школа. Это автобус, а Это трамвай.

ko�. kop. Зпо�аiню�

� dmddjc, Эпю �· а

2. Это стол. Это газета, а Это кнйга. Это р:Учка, а Это карандаш.

3. Это мальчик, а Это девочка. Это врач, а Это преподаватель. Это студент, а Это
студентка.

14
 / -Это рjчка?
- Нет, Это не рjчка. Эго карандаш.

Exercise 3. Read the questions and answer them. Write down the questions and the answers.

1. Это кн:йrа? 2. Это журнсiл? 3. Это девочка? 4. Это стол?

! 'rci'_'\i."I�:I ''111

-�l���i�
5. Это доска? 6. Это преподаватель? 7. Это школа? 8. Это дверь?

h Exercise 4. Read the questions and answer them. Write down the questions and the answers.

Model: - Это карандаш? (рjчка)

- Нет, Это не карандсiш. Эго рjчка.
1 . Это студент? (студентка) 2. Эго тетрадь? (кнИ:га) 3. Это газета? (журнсiл)
4. Это стол? (стул) 5. Это окно? (дверь) 6. Это всiза? (лампа) 7. Эго шкаф? (стол)
8. Это преподавсiтель? (студент) 9. Эго мальчик? (девочка)

- Кто Это? - Что Это?

- Это студент. - Это письмо.

15
 -
h Exercise 5. Ask questions about the drawings and answer them. Write down the

�
questions and the answers.

Model: Что Это? - Кто Это?

- Это газета.

- Это врач . �

1 2 3 4

5 6 7 8

&i 6il 6iJ & 6i! liil

/
liil liil liil liil liil lii
liil 6i1
&il lil

9 10 11 12

" 13 14

16
 Exercise 6. Ask the question Кто Это? or Что Это? aЬout the italicised words. Arrange
the sentences in two columns.

Model:
Кто Это? -Что Это?

Это врач. Это телевUзор.

1. Это стол. Это стул. Это студентка. Это письмо. Это преподаватель. Это
ручка. Это студент. Это ктiга. Это карандаш. Это автобус.
2. Это словарь. Это упражнение. Это слово. Это школа. Это сестра. Это
брат. Это университет. Это машuна. Это девочка. Это мiльчик. Это собака.

The Present Tense of the Verb

lst Conjugation

читать
Я читаю. Мы читаем.
Ты читаешь. Вы читаете.
Он читает. ОнИчитают.
Она читает.

h Exercise 7. Write out the sentences, using the required forms of the verb читать.

Model: Я . . . текст.
я читаю текст.
1 . Ты . . роман. 2. Мы ... текст. 3. Она . .. журнал. 4. Он ... письмо. 5. ОнИ . .
. .

упражнение. 6. Я . . рассказ. 7. Она .. . предложение. 8. Вы ... упражнение. 9. ОнИ

.

. . . правило.

h Exercise 8.Read the sentences, using the required pronouns.

Model: . . . читаем текст.

Мы читаем текст.
1 . .. читает роман. 2 . ... читаю журнал. 3.. . читаете текст. 4. .. читаешь
. . .

письмо. 5. . .. читают упражнение. 6. . . читает предложение. 7 . .. . читаем прави­

.

ло. 8 . . читают рассказ.

..

Z-980 17
h Exercise 9. Write out the sentences, using the required forms of the verb повторЯть.
Model: Он ... урок.
Он повторЯет урок.
1. Мы . . правило. 2. Я ... текст. 3. Он ... слово. 4. Она ... глагол. 5. Вы ... пред­
.

ложение. 6. ОнИ ... урок.

Exercise 10. Conjugate the following verbs оп the pattem of the verЬ читать.
Работать, отдыхать,гулЯть, знать.

Exercise 11. Conjugate the verbs слушать, понимать, отвечать and изучать in the'
following sentences. Write out the conjugation of the fourth sentence.

Model: Я читаю письмо. Мы читаем письмо.

Ты читаешь письмо. Вы читаете письмо.
Он читает письмо. ОнИ читают письмо.
1. Я слушаю рсiдио. 2. Я понимаю вопрос. 3. Я отвечаю урок. 4. Я изучаю
русский яз:Ь�к.

-Он читает?
- Да, он читает.
- Нет, он не чиniет.

Exercise 12. Answer the questions. Write out the questions and the answers.
Model: - Павел работает? (отдыхать)
- Нет, он не работает. Он отдыхает.
1

1 . Анна читает? (обедать) 2. Она работает? (гуmiть) 3. Борне обедает? (отды­

хать) 4. Он гуmiет? (работать) 5. ОнИ отдыхают? (.Ужинать)

- Он знает русский язЪ1к?

- Да, он знает русский яз:Ь1к.
- Нет, он не знает русский яз:Ь�к.

h Exercise 13. Answer the questions in the affirmative or the negative.

1. мальчик сл.Ушает радио? 2. Девочка читает письмо? 3. Студенты повторЯют

18
текст? 4. Анна читает журнаn? 5. Джон знает алфавйт? 6. Он понимает текст?
7. Анна и Джон изучают русский язЬIК?

Exercise 14. Answer the questions in the affirmative and the negative.
1. Вы понимаете вопр6с? 2. Вы слУшаете рсiдио? 3. Вы читаете журнаn? 4. Ты
знаешь правило? 5. Ты повтор.Яешъ текст? 6. Вы повтор.Яете диалоr? 7. Ты по­
нимаешь предложение?

h Exercise 15. Answer the questions and write down the answers.
Model: -Вера читсiет письмо?
- Нет, Вера сл:Ушает радио.

1. Мар:И:я слjшает · 4 . ОиИ слjшают

рсiдио? рсiдио?

2. Джон читает 5. Андрей рабо­

журнал? тает?

3. Джон и Марйя
читают?

- Кто Это? - Кто Это?

- Это Иrорь. - ЭтоЛИдия.
- Кто он? - Кто она?
-Он врач. -Она медсестра.

19
h Exercise 16. А. Read the dialogues.

1. -Это Бор:йс?
- Да, Это Бор:йс.
-Он студент?
-Нет, он инженер.
- Он читает журнал?
-Да, он читает журнал.

2. -Кто Это?
-Это В:йктор.
-Кто он?
- Он студент.
-Он слушает радио?
-Нет, он читает письмо.

В. Complete the dialogues.

1 . -Это Анна?

-Она студентка?

-Она читает журнал?

2. -Кто Это?

-Кто она?

- Она слушает радио?

20
 С. Compose similar dialogues based оп the drawings.

Это Сергей. ЭтоНИна.

2nd Conjugation

говорнть

Я говорЮ. Мыговорнм.
Тыговорншь. Выговорнте.
Он говорИт. Онй говорЯт.
Она говорнт.

All Russian verbs сап Ье divided into two groups: 1 st conjugation verbs and
2nd conjugation verЬs.

'
lst conjugation verbs take the endings -ю/-у; -ешь; -ет; -ем; -ете and
8 -
-ют/ .
ут
2nd conjugation verbs take the endings -ю/-у; -ишь; -вт; -им; -ите and
-ят/-ат.

Я говор.О по-русски.
Джон говорнт по-анrлнйски.
Жан и Марй говорЯт по-французски.

h Exercise 17. Answer the questions in the affirmative or the negative. Write out
questions 1, 2, 4 and 5, and the answers to them.
1 . Вера говорйт по-французски? 2. Жан говорйт по-англййски? 3. Джим гово­
рйт по-русски? 4. Он говорйт по-англййски? 5. Вы говорйте по-русски? 6. Нйна
и Борне говорЯт по-англййски? 7. Ты rоворйшь по-франц)fзски? 8. Онй rоворЯт
по-русски?

21
 Compare the conjugation of the verbs:

lst Conjugation 2nd Conjugation

знать учнть

я знаю. Мы знаем. я учу. Мы:Учим.

Ты знаешь. Вы знаете. Ты:Учишь. Вы :Учите.
Он (она) знает. ОнИ:знают. Он (она) Учит. ОнИ:Учат.

гулЯть смотреть

Я гуmiю. Мы гуmiем. Я смотрЮ. Мы см6трим.

Ты гуmiешь. Вы гулЯете. Ты смотришь. Вы смотрите.
Он (она) гуmiет. Он:И гуmiют. Он (она) смотрит. ОнИ смотрят.

я читаю журнал.
Студент читает журнал.
Кто читает журне:iл?
Студентка читает журнал.
Студенты1 читают журим

h Exercise 18. Read the questions and answer them.

Model: - Кто повторЯет диалог? (я)
- Я повторЯю диалог2.

1 . Кто чите:iет текст? (Анна) 2. Кто хорошо читает текст? (Анна и Джон)
3. Кто знает диалог? (я) 4. Кто хорошо знает диалог? (студент и студентка)
5. Кто хорошо говор:Ит по-русски? (он:И) 6. Кто изучает русский язЬ1к? (мы )

1 студенты, the plural of the noun студент.

2 If the words containing the answer to а question stand at the Ьeginning of the sentence, they
are emphasised Ьу а stronger stress: Кто читает журнал? - Журнал чиniет БорИс. and -

Борuс читает журнал.

22
h Exereise 19. Ask questions aЬout the italicised words and write them down.
Model: Джон и Анна говорЯт по-русски.
Кто говорйт по-русски?
1 . Павел слУшает радио. 2. Анна читает журнал. 3. Мы говорй:м по-русски.
4. Онu говорЯт по-англййски. 5 . Поль и МарU.я работают. 6. Онu изучают рус­
ский яз:Ь1к. 7. я читаю письмо.

h Exercise 20. Answer the questions, as in the model. Write out questions 1, 2 and 5, and
the answers to them.
Model: - Анна студеIПКа?
- я не знаю, кто она.
1 . Борне инженер? 2. НИна врач? 3. Серrей лаборант? 4. Таня студеIПКа?
5 . Игорь и Лена студенты:? 6. Николай Петрович и Паsел Илъйч преподаватели?1

Question: Как?

- Как Джон читает?

- Джон читает бЫстро.

Exercise 21. Read the questions and answers. Write out the words which answer
the question Как?
1. - Как студеIПКа отвечает ур6к? 3. - Как студенты сфают?
- Студентка отвечает ур6к правильно. - Студе1ПЫ слУшают внимательно.
2. Как Вй:ктор читает?
- 4. - Как Анна раб6тает?
- ВИ:ктор читает громко. - Анна раб6тает хорошо.

хорошо - плохо
б:Ь1стро - медленно
громко - тйхо
правильно - неправильно
внимательно -невнимательно

1 преподаватели, the plural of the noun преподаватель.

23
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wanted to buy one of them old houses for.”
A long whistle sounded.
“That’s your train,” said the Winkle-Man. “Oh, no hurry! It lets off
steam five miles down the cape.”
I began to run, and passed other people doing the same thing. Half
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rounded the curve and drew up at the end of the line. The engineer
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cans sounded from the baggage-car. Jasper was swinging off the last
platform, and I rushed toward him, suddenly and unexpectedly
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He looked so different from any one whom I had seen in five days
that he seemed a magnificent stranger. He waved his hat, dropped
his luggage, and ran to meet me. When I felt his rough, tweed coat
against my face, I could hardly look up into his eyes. It was too
much to believe that this was my husband.
“Jasper,” I said, “I nearly died while you were gone.”
“So did I,” said Jasper, keeping his arm around me and gathering up
suit-cases with the other hand. “Horrible in the city! I don’t see why
people live there.”
He looked fagged, and I realized that he had been working hard and
fast to get back here the sooner. He had never understood that I
was not going to stay.
“I brought the typewriter.” He pointed out a square black box. “All
ready to go to work again. I suppose you’ve got things fixed?”
“No,” I answered helplessly. “Things aren’t ready at all.” Hating to
disillusion him, yet knowing I must get rid of my burden somehow, I
threw down three more words. “Not even lunch!”
“Not even lunch?”
The full significance of a disastrous domestic breakdown finally
overwhelmed him. “What do you mean, my darling? What is the
matter up there at the House of the Five Pines?”
So I told him, sitting down on the empty truck on the sunny platform
after the crowd had scattered, for I thought he might as well know
before going any further. There was no need in carrying suit-cases
and typewriters up the street, only to lug them back. The afternoon
train would leave at three, and I intended to take it.
Jasper listened in silence, giving me close attention and now and
then a little pat on the arm or a sympathetic squeeze. Toward the
end, as I came to the part about the séance and the aura and the
fourth and fifth nights, I could see that he wanted to interrupt me
and was barely able to restrain himself till I had finished. Then he
jumped off the truck, laughed, and said,
“Now I’ll tell you what is the matter with you.”
And because I looked so doubtful and pathetic, I suppose, he
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easily; it doesn’t take a psychoanalyst to understand it!”
“What is it, then?”
“Self-hypnotism! No, don’t be angry!”—for I had turned away in
disgust; I had really thought he might elucidate the mystery. “It is a
pure case of materialization from the subconscious mind, drawing an
image of the subconscious across the threshold of consciousness
and reproducing it in sound, or motion, or color, or some other
tangible form. It is the same thing that the spiritualists take for
evidence of the return of the dead, but it is actually only the return,
or the recall, of dead thoughts.”
“I wouldn’t use the word ‘actually,’ if I were you,” I said.
“No, but wait. I have been listening to you for half an hour, and,
while it was very interesting, you must see, my dear—” Jasper
looked into my eyes so earnestly that I almost laughed, for I knew
he thought I was on the verge of insanity and I had a dreadful
temptation to convince him of it by giggling hysterically and not
listening at all. “You must see,” he repeated, “that these
manifestations, these nightly hallucinations, follow a regular
sequence. First you fill yourself up on the traditions of the house
before you enter it. You do not share them with any one, not even
me, and the first night you are subjected to a sort of dream about
the headboard moving. I was here that night, but I did not see it.
Then you read a lot of stuff about materialization, and when you try
to go to sleep your disordered brain conjures up footsteps.”
“My what?” I demanded.
Jasper did not bother to contradict his outrageous statement.
“The third night, after you had discovered the secret room, you
materialize the child who you have decided lived in it. The fourth
night, after you read about auras, you contrive one of your own in
the skylight. The fifth night you conjure up the scene of the murder
which was suggested to you by that fraud over there on the sand-
dunes. By the way, I’m going over there and have that place raided.
He’s a fake. He knew all about you. He’s the same colored man that
came up on the train with us last Monday.
“The only thing I’m not sure about is the cat. There is something
tremendously psychic about a cat. I haven’t gone into the science of
the occult very extensively, but I would not pretend to say that there
is nothing in it. The theory of reincarnation is just as plausible a
theory of what becomes of the spirit as any other, so far as I know.
Personally, I don’t believe or disbelieve anything.”
“I have heard you say so before,” I interrupted, “but you do believe
in the cat.” I was glad to point out to him that his logic was not
invulnerable. “There is not a soul living who is not superstitious
about something. Call it what you like. Say I am crazy and that the
cat is ‘actually’ the soul of a woman who is drowned. It is all the
same to me. But as the cat is left over from the régime of Mattie,
her soul must have been reincarnated before she died, which is
spinning the ‘wheel of life’ a little fast, isn’t it?”
Jasper grinned.
“If we are going to walk back to the House of the Five Pines,” I
finished more amiably, “we had better start, or we shall miss the
afternoon train.”
We left the luggage, the new suit-case that Jasper had invested in
and the typewriter that he had carried for three hundred miles, and
walked off up the street. He told me then about his play that he had
been working over, and I tried to renew my interest in New York.
Myrtle had been dropped unconditionally and ignominiously, much to
her chagrin. She had attempted to get an interview with my
husband for the purpose of being reinstated by him over the
expressed wishes of the manager, but he had succeeded in avoiding
her devices and had at last left the city without seeing her at all.
(“And I am dragging him back there!” I said to myself.) Gaya Jones
had persuaded Burton to try a young friend of hers in the part of
ingénue, and the two were doing such excellent team-work that the
play was swinging in triumph through its difficult first six weeks and
was billed to last all winter.
“I’m glad I’m through with it,” finished Jasper. “It’s funny how sick
you get of a thing, even a good thing, before you finish grinding it
out. I had no idea plays were so difficult. Writing them is all right,
but it’s a life job to get rid of them. I’m going to settle down here
and write a long novel. I’ve got it all worked out.” He began to tell
me the beginning. “It will take me all winter, and I’m not going back
to New York at all. I’m tired of that crowd. Quiet is what a person
needs. Christmas on the cape! How will that be?”
I stared at him mutely.
“What is the matter with you, my dear?” he asked. “You’ve told me
what is the matter with the house, but that’s nothing. If you think
anything is wrong with me—anything has happened,” he went on
lamely, “that would make any difference between us—why, you are
wasting your worries. Everything is just as I have told you, my
darling, and everything is all right. I want to be with you, and I am
glad you found this place. We can afford to live anywhere we please
as long as ‘The Shoals of Yesterday’ lasts. Why do you try and create
obstacles?”
And I, who had been struggling for this very opportunity, who had
withstood the city and endured the country to this end, that we
might have a home together where we wanted it, was now the one
to refuse what I had longed for when it lay in the palm of my hand.
“I’m sorry, Jasper,” I said. “I’m terribly sorry. I know I was the one to
bring you up here, and now I won’t stay. But all I can say is that I
am sorry, and that I won’t stay. You take a look at the house
yourself.”
He took one long look inside the kitchen door and stopped short.
Then with an exclamation of horror, he dove out of sight. By the
time I stood where he had been standing, no one was there.
 CHAPTER XVIII
THE DISAPPEARANCE OF MRS. DOVE

A YAWNING hole was in the center of the kitchen floor.

“Jasper,” I called, “where are you?”
“Here!” answered a far-off voice.
The kitchen oilcloth had been torn up and rolled to one side,
exposing a trap-door. I leaned over the edge and peered into a pit.
“Are you there, Jasper?”
“Yes.”
“Is Mrs. Dove there?”
“No.”
“Anybody else?”
“No, nobody but me; come on down.”
But on learning that he was safe, my fears leaped to the finding of
Mrs. Dove. If it was she who had opened up that trap-door, or if
some one had unfastened it from underneath, I was terror-stricken.
What had burst forth, and what had happened to her?
“Mrs. Dove!” I called out. “O Mrs. Dove!”
There was chowder scorching in the bottom of a kettle on the stove,
which she must have forgotten. I ran through the house, looking
into corners and stairways for her and crying everywhere, “Mrs.
Dove!”
But there was no one in them; the rooms were so quiet that they
seemed to have been deserted for a long time.
Jasper’s voice followed me. “Come here!” he kept shouting.
I let myself backward through the trap-door in the kitchen floor and
felt the top rung of a ladder under my feet. The next rung was gone,
and I slid. Jasper caught me.
We were in a circular underground room, like a dry cistern, about
twelve feet across, with plastered sides and a damp earth floor. The
first thing I saw was a mattress, strewn with clothing, overalls,
shirts, and trousers. On a hanging shelf were quantities of cans,
some of them empty. A portable stove with dozens of boxes of
condensed cubes showed how cooking had been done. I
remembered the coffee I had smelled, not made by human hands.
There was a can of oil and a pail half-full of water. I picked up a
ship’s lantern with a red bull’s-eye.
“The aura,” said I, handing it to Jasper.
“The what?”
“The aura.”
But he had never seen it; the red light meant nothing to him.
“Look!” he said; “he got out that way!”
In the gloom I made out double wooden doors halfway up the
further wall of the round room, one of which was open, but through
which came no light. I followed his lead up over a box that had been
placed beneath them, and found myself in the “under.” We crawled
out from behind a boat which concealed and darkened the entrance,
and discovered that we were banked in on every side by the stuff
that had been stored there.
“What is it all about?” asked Jasper.
“I hardly know myself,” said I, “but those doors must have been in
plain sight at the back of the house, if they were there before the
captain’s wing was built. The rubbish thrown in here from year to
year has covered them up. Perhaps they used that place for
something.”
“Some one is using it now, all right,” said Jasper. “Who do you think
it is?”
“Oh, don’t ask me.”
I doubled up in a heap on an old wheelbarrow. Neither of us could
stand upright, or we would have bumped our heads on the flooring.
Jasper was leaning over me, uncertain what to do.
“Go and find Mrs. Dove!” I wept. “Run down to her house on the
back street; she may have gone there, if she got away at all. And
bring her husband back with you.” I pointed out the direction from
beneath the house. “Run! We’ve got to find her. Hurry!”
Jasper, with a perplexed glance at the chaos he was leaving, dashed
off down the yard. If I had had my wits about me, I should never
have sent him. He had no sooner left than I heard something
moving. Peeping between the heaps of piled-up furniture, I saw two
legs vanishing upward at the further end of the “under.”
“Mrs. Dove!” I called wildly. But Mrs. Dove did not wear red rubber
boots.
I began crawling over to where they had disappeared, and found a
well defined path in that direction, as if the broken beds and old
chests had been drawn aside to make it possible for some one,
crouching, to reach the further end of the “under” without being
seen.
Standing upright at last, in the higher part beneath the chimney, I
suddenly realized that I had raised myself much too far. What was I
looking at? My head had passed the floor and my eyes were on a
level with the captain’s room. There was the old rosewood desk and
the cat asleep in the rocking-chair. Wheeling about, I confronted the
back entrance to the secret stairs.
I had stood up directly under the chimney-closet, whose whole floor
was lifted against the wall. There it was, to one side, with the hasp
that had fastened it from underneath hanging loosely. In the hasp
was an open padlock.
I had no time to wonder how it came to be that way or why I had
never noticed it before. Some one had just opened this door and
gone through it. He was still going. I could hear him on the secret
stairs.
We were not so far behind the ghost as I had thought. I swung
myself up into the opening, but could climb no further. Horror held
me and gripped me from above and from below. What was I
chasing? What would I find? I slammed the trap at my feet, which
comprised the entire floor of the closet, and, stepping on it firmly,
wired shut the door of the secret stairs. It would be futile to lock the
door of the closet that led into the captain’s room. I wondered how
many times that strong looking copper wire had been unfastened
and fastened again, while I remained oblivious beyond the further
door. As I wound the wire around the hook all was silent, but when I
had finished and had withdrawn I heard footsteps crossing
overhead. I ran through the kitchen, skirting the great rolled-up
oilcloth and avoiding the opening in the floor, and climbed the
kitchen companionway three steps at a time. I must be sure that the
little door above was still nailed shut, and as a double precaution I
shoved the bureau once more in front of it.
“If you can’t get out by night,” I muttered, “you won’t get out by
day!”
The footsteps came to the inside door of the eaves closet, tried the
latch, shook it furiously, and, leaning against it, shoved with mortal
might. But the mirror of the bureau did not move, the door on the
further side of the eaves closet held, and the frail partition remained
firm. I heard the footsteps start the other way, and ran down to
watch results.
In the kitchen doorway two men were standing, open-jawed. I did
not even pause to see who they were, but dashed on into the
captain’s room, and was in time to see the latch of the secret door
raised stealthily, then dropped, then clicked again. Some one rattled
and shook it, but it would not open.
I smiled grimly.
“It’s different, isn’t it,” I said, “when some one wires it up after you
get in? You’re human, you are; you can’t get out of there any more
than I could!”
“Who are you talking to?” asked the judge. It was he who had
arrived with his arm in a sling, and Alf had followed him.
“I don’t know,” said I. “Wait a while and we will all find out.”
They seemed in doubt as to how to take this information.
“What’s up?” asked Alf, pointing to the kitchen floor.
“You can see,” I answered.
“I see the door open to the round cellar, but what for?”
“You know as much about it as I do! Why would any one build a
round cellar?”
“So the sand can’t wedge off the corners. You know,” Alf reminded
me, “I told you they didn’t build cellars on the cape. Well, they don’t,
not regular ones, but that’s the kind they do build. Round, like a well
under the kitchen, to keep food cool.”
“Sure,” said the judge, seeing the doubt in my eyes. “All the good
houses have them. I’ve got one myself.”
“I never heard of such a thing,” said I. “But then,” I added, “there
are so many things I never heard of.”
“That reminds me,” said the judge. “I heard you was leaving. We
came to say good-by.”
“I haven’t got time to go just now,” I answered.
“I brought this back.” The judge showed me a wooden sign he was
carrying—“For Sale. Enquire Within.”
Much good it had ever done any one to enquire within!
“I’m glad we got here when we did,” said Alf. “Looks as if we was in
on the killin’.”
I winced. I was strung so taut that every word vibrated on naked
nerves. I could hear the footsteps over my head, pacing back and
forth, as they always did, trying one door and then the other, and I
knew, with nameless dread, that whatever they were, this would be
the last hour they would walk that floor.
“What became of Mrs. Dove?” asked the judge.
“Oh,” I broke down, “I don’t know! I wish I knew!”
He picked up the great iron poker that had once mounted the secret
stairs with me and weighed it speculatively.
“I guess that’s all right,” he said, “for a one-armed man to handle.”
Jasper came running back across the yard with Will Dove, who
carried a shotgun, and Caleb Snow, whom they had annexed with
his winkle-fork.
“Did you find any one?” shouted Jasper.
We motioned to him to be quiet and pointed to the room above.
“How about Mrs. Dove?” I asked anxiously.
“Oh, she’s all right,” said her husband; “she’s to home.”
The men fell silent, listening to the ominous footsteps that crossed
and recrossed the ceiling.
Will Dove began to whisper. “My wife, she thought”—we all drew
closer together—“she had to find a place to put the beach-plum jelly
—she’s like that! She looked all over the rooms, and then decided
she would rip up the kitchen oilcloth and see what was below. And
there it was—the door to the round cellar! While she was taking up
the tacks she kept hearing noises, so she thought she must be right
and kept on going. Maybe it was rats running around. She ain’t
afraid of rats.
“The trap wasn’t locked, just covered over, and she jerked it up and
was going down, when she see a man in there.
“‘Who’s that?’ she yelled.
“He never answered, but he disappeared! He wasn’t there any more!
She looked down, and lit a candle and held it over, but he was gone.
She could see where he had been livin’, but it was empty.
“That was too much for her. My wife ain’t afraid of rats or men, but
that cellar was too much for her. She cleared out by the kitchen
door, and run all the way home. I can tell you I was scairt myself,
the way she looked when she come pantin’ in. She ain’t a hand to
carry on; I never seen her that way; and when she said there was
something wrong over here—why, I believed her. I was just thinkin’
about puttin’ my hat on, when he,” indicating Jasper, “showed up!
Then the missus she had another fit. She says it must have been the
captain livin’ down in the round cellar the last five years, ever since
he was supposed to be dead, and if it was, he was a crazy man by
this time, and it was all tom-foolishness to leave the lady here in the
house with him loose. And if it wasn’t the captain, it wouldn’t be
anything that we could catch anyhow, but for the Lord’s sake to
hurry!”
As he stopped whispering the footsteps upstairs ceased. There was
a new sound. Something was being dragged across the floor.
We did not stand and talk about it any longer. The judge seized the
poker and vanished up the kitchen companionway.
“Even a man with a broken arm can guard a door that’s nailed tight
shut,” he called back.
Will Dove made for the front door.
“I’ll watch outside,” he said. “I’ve got a gun.”
The other three men fell into a single file. Jasper flourished a gourd
that had hung over the sink; Alf had a great glass paperweight;
Caleb Snow came last, with his winkle-fork ahead of him.
“Good-by,” said Jasper. “I may never see you again!”
I laughed, and to my own ears it had a horrid sound.
“It’s more likely,” I answered, “that you won’t see anything up
there.”
Simultaneously they turned and frowned at me, as if they did not
like the strangeness of my remark. Jasper leaned down and
whispered,
“Steady, dear!”
But what I said was true.
I unwired the door, and as they crept up the secret stairs fear
fastened my feet to the spot on which I stood.
The dragging and pushing noise increased. There was the crash of
glass, and before any one realized what was happening a black
shadow slid down off the roof. I ran to the window and saw a little
old man pick himself up off the ground and crawl quickly under the
house.
At the same time Will Dove’s gun went off, wildly. He had aimed for
the skylight, and knocked off two shingles.
“Quit that!” called one of the men above. They were rushing about
the empty room, wrenching open the doors of the eaves closet,
trying to mount through the hole in the roof and getting in each
other’s way.
I let myself down the ladder into the round cellar just as the ghost
came scrambling into it by the outside door.
The little scuttling figure wilted down in a heap at my feet upon the
earthen floor. Confronted by me, when he thought he had reached a
haven, the pitiful thing collapsed. Raising hunted eyes, clawing at
my skirt with skinny hands, he moaned in a queer thin voice, “Save
me!”
The oilskin hat fell back from the creature’s head, and there was the
scraggly, drawn-back, wispy gray hair of a woman. I had seen that
face and heard that voice before, and in spite of the flannel shirt and
rubber boots, in spite of the fact that she was drowned, I knew that
I looked at Mattie!
 CHAPTER XIX
I HIDE THE GHOST

I COULD hear the men above me, like bloodhounds on the trail.
Will Dove, following his shot, had rushed off down the back street,
hoping to find what he had aimed at. I drew down the cellar doors
which opened beneath the house and locked them, just as Alf began
to prowl around the “under.”
“Stay here!” I whispered.
Mounting the ladder, I shut the trap-door before the judge had time
to negotiate the kitchen companionway.
“There is no one in the round cellar,” I lied.
And he was saying, “No one entered Mattie’s room.”
“Look over on the back street,” I advised, and so got rid of him.
To every one I met I gave the same word; “I saw him jump off the
roof and escape that way,” pointing in the direction Will Dove had
taken, and seeing his retreating figure yelling and brandishing the
shotgun they did not lose any time in following. The house was soon
cleared.
Only to Jasper did I say, at a moment when no one heard me, “Wait,
I’ve caught the ghost!”
But as soon as I had said it I regretted confiding in him. Unequal to
facing the horror alone, he immediately set up a shout after the last
man in sight, “Hi, wait a minute!”
Luckily the Winkle-Man did not hear him and kept on going. He had
tripped on his long fork two or three times and was desperately
trying to catch up.
“Before they return,” said I, “look here!” And I opened the trap and
led Jasper down the ladder.
A huddled figure lay prone upon the earth where it had fallen, as if it
had not moved since I had left.
“What?”
“Stop!” I cried, for Jasper would have wrenched the creature to its
feet. “Can’t you see?” I turned the lifeless body over and tried to
raise it from the damp floor. “Help me lift her on the mattress!”
Jasper caught hold of the limp form, and at the feel of the light body
in his strong arms exclaimed again, “What—what is it?”
“It’s Mattie,” said I. “Don’t you understand? Mattie ‘Charles T.
Smith.’”
“She’s not dead?” he asked.
“I hope not!”
I bathed her face with water from the pail and made her limbs lie
comfortably.
“I think we had better leave her here till she comes to,” I said. “I
don’t want all those men pursuing her.”
“Just as you say,” he answered. He was nonplussed and confused,
willing to let me manage matters any way I wanted to. “Suppose
you stay down here and watch, and I’ll go up to the door and head
them off if they come back. If you want anything, call. I’ll be right
near.”
Jasper went up the ladder again, and I sat down beside the
prostrate form of Mattie and waited for her return to consciousness.
The round cellar was dark now. Early dusk was stealing the light of
the short autumn day, and except for the shaft of strained sunshine
that seeped through the trap-door the pit was dark. I opened the
doors into the “under,” but only a faint ray filtered in from behind the
boat.
“How gloomy it always must have been!” I thought. “If it had not
been for that outside door, she would not even have had air. I
suppose it was when she was going for water to the spring in the
woods that the half-witted child saw her and told people it was the
New Captain. That was what she wanted every one to think! She has
always counted on that.... She must have gone out of here through
the ‘under’ and up the stairs to the secret room every night. But
why?”
“I went because I always went,” said Mattie.
Had I been talking aloud or had she answered my unspoken
thought? Startled, I looked at the prone figure of the haggard
woman in the tattered overalls and saw she had not even opened
her eyes but was lying in the same exhausted position in which we
had dropped her—that not a muscle moved, except for the faint
breathing of her flat chest and her trembling jaw. She was speaking,
or trying to speak again, and I leaned over her in the dark to catch
every precious word. It was as if I listened to the unrelated
utterances of an oracle. No one could tell whether Mattie would
recover from this wanton chase or live through her devastating
imprisonment. Each syllable, I thought, might be her last, and
whatever clue she gave was important.
The house above me, where Jasper sat waiting on the doorstep, was
so silent that I thought perhaps he might be able to hear her talking.
I took hold of one of Mattie’s claw-like hands and stroked it gently.
“I went—up there,” the fluttering voice repeated, “because I always
went. Every night of my life I spent in that room—ever since—it
happened.”
“Yes, Mattie,” I whispered, trying not to frighten her.
“Jerry was a beautiful boy,” murmured Mattie. “Jerry—we named him
for his grandfather—but his grandmother never knew it. Don’t you
think his grandmother would have liked to know it?”
“Yes, Mattie.”
“You would never have forgotten him if you had ever seen him.”
“I shall never forget him now,” I said softly.
“No one ever saw him.”
The burden of her life came back to her as she regained
consciousness completely. Tears trickled down her withered cheeks
beneath her closed veined lids.
“No one ever saw him,” she repeated.
I was crying.
It was Mattie who sat up weakly and laid her thin arm around my
shaking shoulders, the mood of motherliness so strong in her that
she could protect even her worst enemy.
“Don’t take on,” she said; “it can’t be helped. It never could be
helped.”
But I wept on and would not be comforted. For the five nights that I
had spent listening to her presentation of her story, and the five
days I had wondered whether it were true, and for all the empty
days of Mattie’s life, and the lost opportunity of her neighbors and
the lonely people whom she served, tears of contrition coursed
unchecked.
“Mattie,” I sobbed, “what can I do for you, what can I do for you?”
She answered my question strangely.
“I’m ready to go,” she said.
I thought she meant that she was prepared to die.
Jasper could not stand the sound of crying any longer and had
descended the ladder. When she saw him she looked worried, swung
her two feet in their absurd boots to the floor, and stood up shakily.
“You can take me to the town home now,” she said, with a brave
little swagger.
Jasper and I were too surprised to speak.
At the amazement on our faces she became disconcerted herself. A
new terror assailed her.
“Or is it the jail you will take me to, eh? Is it against the law to be a
ghost?” She staggered back against the white-washed wall.
Jasper caught her in his arms.
“Here,” he cried to me, “let’s get her out of this! Put her in bed, for
Heaven’s sake. We’ve been down in this cave long enough!”
“Where are you taking me?” she implored.
“To your own room,” said I; “to the gabled room over the kitchen,
where you belong.”
Between us we managed her, and as I laid her down once more and
stripped off the captain’s ridiculous old clothes, and dressed her in a
decent nightgown and tucked her in between the linen sheets with a
hot-water bottle, she said brokenly,
“Seems as if I couldn’t stand havin’ you sleep in my bed.”
“I know. It won’t be that way any more, I promise you.”
Jasper went back to his vigil on the doorstep.
Mattie looked from me to the bureau and the nailed-up door.
“You’ve changed things,” she mumbled drowsily, and then; “my, but
you are a brave woman!”
I smiled, and she smiled, too.
“I thought you would leave the house after the first time,” she
continued. “I didn’t mean to do it before you come—not when I
wrote that note. I never meant to bother you. Did you get a letter
from me in a book?”
“Yes.”
“But afterward, when I knew you was asleep in my room, the both
of you, I just gave way and threw myself against the little door. I
didn’t care if you found me and settled things then and there, but
you didn’t do nothing. You never did.”
“No,” I answered, “I didn’t think you were anything—but my
imagination.”
Mattie turned her face from me.
“You didn’t imagine nothing,” she replied.
My heart stood still.
“I didn’t make anything up. I just went over and over it, like I always
done, in my mind. Seems as if I never thought of anything else ever
since.”
“Then the only psychic thing,” said I, more to myself than to her,
“was thought-transference.”
I fell silent, but Mattie knew what was in my mind.
“That last night—” she began, and seemed to strangle.
“Hush, Mattie, it’s all right; nobody believes anything about that fifth
night but me, and I’m your friend!”
Her eyes burned into mine, beseechingly.
“I believe you are.” And then her feeble fingers began to pick at the
basket-pattern in the quilt. “I never had none,” she said, at length.
“Mattie,” I tried to make her understand, “you have me now to take
care of you, and you can have this room and stay here as long as
you live.”
“I can still work,” said Mattie, with a tired sigh.
“No, I don’t mean that. I don’t want you to work for me. I just want
you to be here and be one of us, and—if you can—be happy.”
Mattie shook her head as if she hardly believed me.
“That is,” I added, “if you are willing to let me and my husband live
here, too.”
Her answer surprised me.
“Have you any children?”
I looked at her and hesitated, blushing to the roots of my hair.
“Why, no.”
“I’d be more glad to stay,” said Mattie, “if you had some children.
Oh, don’t go away! I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings after you’ve
been so kind to me, and all. I only meant there’s plenty of room in
the house for all of us, and room for more than us, too.... Because it
always seemed to me, when people were married and everything
was easy for them, and everybody knew it and was glad, and would
bring them presents—wedding-presents and silver spoons for
christenings—and they could show the little dresses all around—well,
I don’t understand it, that’s all, them not having any.... You must
excuse me.”
I wished that Jasper had heard what she said, just as she said it, for
I never could repeat it to him in the same way, although I went right
downstairs and tried.
We sat for a long time on the doorstep talking it over and
reconstructing our lives to suit new necessities. Building our lives
around the house, one might have called it, instead of building a
house around our lives. It was easy to do that, with a home like the
House of the Five Pines. A life built around the way we had been
living hitherto would have been as difficult as growing ivy on a
moving-van.
“The only disappointment is our room,” I said. “I have given it back
to Mattie.”
“Well, there are three other bedrooms upstairs,” replied Jasper, “and
one down.”
Probably he would never understand how much that little room,
where so many things had happened, had come to mean to me.
“The nursery is all ready,” I continued, following my own train of
thought; “and a nurse is living with us who not only will never leave,
but fairly begs that we give her something to rock to sleep.”
My husband smiled, and put his hand over mine as we lingered
there in our doorway, in the starlight.

Our intimate conversation was interrupted by Caleb Snow and Judge

Bell, who came back tired and discouraged from the chase on which
I had sent them. Will Dove had dropped off at his own house on the
way back from the woods, and Alf had been obliged to give up the
hunt long ago and go back to the Sailor’s Rest for supper.
“So it was Mattie!” said the judge, trying to cover his
disappointment. “I thought so all the time.”
“Yes, you did!” The Winkle-Man waxed indignant. “You didn’t know
no more who it was than the rest of us.”
“Didn’t I keep telling Will Dove not to fire that gun off in the
woods?”
“Sure! You says that he couldn’t hit nothin’ with nothin’; that’s what
you says!”
“Well, I meant that it was either Mattie or her ghost.”
“I don’t know what you meant,” said Caleb, “but when I told him to
quit shootin’ I meant I was gosh-darned afraid he was goin’ to hit
me.”
They continued their argument as they went down the street, and
Jasper and I sat and smiled. They were not half so surprised as I
thought they would be. They had lived too close to the sea to be
much amazed at anything. If we wanted to keep Mattie and take
care of her, they had no objections. The ways of city people were
inexplicable, but as we had taken the burden of decision off their
hands, they were glad to be relieved. The future of Mattie “Charles
T. Smith” would not rest with the town council and the town home,
nor would her financial needs embarrass the tax-payers. They eased
their conscience by saying we would not be bothered very long.
Consoling us and congratulating themselves, they went off arguing.
It was something, after the trouble of their long evening’s hunt
through the woods, to have the glory of spreading the news.
 CHAPTER XX
JEZEBEL

“BUT what made her do it?” asked Jasper.

We had gone into the house and prepared a supper, and as it was
the first meal either of us had eaten since early morning, we were
sitting a long time at the kitchen table. The oil-lamp shed a cosy
radiance over the blue china on the red checkered cloth, and a bowl
of golden-rod between four brass candlesticks added a touch of
festivity to our late repast. We had begun our home-making.
“She wanted to frighten us away,” I answered.
“Do you think she was here, all those weeks before we moved in,
after they thought she was drowned?”
“She never left the house, I fancy; she moved into the cellar. You
see, Jasper, she always thought the place belonged to her. All her life
she had known no other home, no other way of living, except here.
She could not allow herself to be evicted, because she had nowhere
to go. The New Captain left her nothing to live on, and she had no
earning capacity. You heard how those men talked. She would have
become an unwelcome public charge, and she had suffered too
much from the townspeople to tolerate having them support her.
She preferred death.”
“Well, then, why didn’t she really drown herself, instead of just
pretending she did?”
“Ah, that is different,” I answered; “that leads us out of practical
speculation into the realms of psychology. She was not that kind of
person.”
I had thought so much about Mattie that it seemed to me she was
perfectly apparent in her motives and sane in her actions.
“To each one who takes his own life there must be five who go to
the brink of death and, looking over its fearful abyss, retreat again
and let their bark drift on the tide without them. It has never been
demonstrated that people who take their lives in their own hands do
better with it than God. The wreckage of one’s life is mostly caused
by self. Mattie was the sort of person who does not take any sinful
initiative, but to whom life is a whiphandle. The crimes of those
around her made her what she was. In other circumstances she
would have been what is known as ‘a good woman.’ The old mother
who refused to let them marry might have had enough
determination to have committed suicide if she had wanted to, but
not Mattie. Or the New Captain might have taken his own life, for he
took Mattie’s life and spoiled it, and her son’s—and willed her home
away from her in his evil legacy after he had no further use for it
himself.”
Jasper motioned for me not to speak so loud.
“Do you still believe—about the boy—what you told me coming from
the train?”
“More than ever,” I answered sadly.
We did not want to question Mattie. We felt that the repose due her
spirit was as important as that which must resuscitate her weakened
body, if she was ever to be a normal human being again. And so for
months, all the time that we were getting ready for winter on the
cape, we learned nothing more about her story.
The walking up and down of the first three nights was self-evident,
as was the bending wall and the swinging mirror; the aura had been
created by her natural need for light and the fact that her only
lantern happened to be red. That I had only seen the aura on the
night I read the occult magazine was not her responsibility; she
must have always had the lantern with her when she went up to the
secret room. It was the boy who arrived with the message from the
judge that tempted me outside, where I happened to see the red
light shining through the skylight. The séance was more readily
understandable when one day Mattie happened to mention casually
that she was afraid to go to the spring for water because once,
when she was masquerading, she had met a colored man there late
at night who asked her questions. The rogue had not known who
she was, but he had doubtless followed her and guessed enough to
piece out a plausible spirit for his control to interpret at the séance.
It was not until one quiet evening the following winter, when we
three sat in front of the blazing fire in the captain’s chimney, as was
our custom, that Mattie brought up the subject of the fifth night. We
had been snow-bound for a week, and the white frost sparkled on
the crust of the drifts when I opened the door upon the starlight and
let in Mattie’s cat. The creature had been hunting fish too long on
the icy shore and was stiff with cold, despairing in its dumb way of
regaining our hospitality before it froze to death on the doorstep. It
bounded into the house like a bad omen, as it had done that day
before the hurricane, and dashed through the kitchen and into
Mattie’s arms, leaping upon her before she could straighten herself
up in her chair and shake off her fireside doze. She tumbled the cat
back to the hearth and looked at it reproachfully.
“That’s the way you done, Jezebel, that night you seen me through
the crack in the door,” she said. “You jumped at me as I was carrying
my lantern down them steep steps and knocked me over. I had
hardly time”—she turned to us with her wistful crinkled smile—“to
get back down through the trap-door. I thought sure you would
catch me.”
“I didn’t try,” said I, and Jasper laid down his book and leaned
forward intently to listen. “I thought it part of the manifestations—
the way that the New Captain murdered his son.”
There was an acute silence, broken by the pine-logs crackling higher
in the fireplace.
Mattie put her hands across her eyes to shield them from the blaze.
“It was,” she whispered.