This week’s homework:

Contains:

1. Articles and a Poem [2 articles: two of

Literature, Social Science, Science, History] and
the others are optional

2. Novel [Optional]

3. Vocabulary [One Unit + Last’s week’s answer

key]

4. Ordering the paragraph + Last’s week’s

answer key

5. Motivational Video

The video below explains exactly what to do in the

homework:
:‫تتفرج ﻋﻠﻰ الفيديو ﻋشان تعرف تعﻤﻞ ايه ﺑالﻈﺒﻂ‬
https://youtu.be/-HP2KREW-vY

EVERYTHING SHOULD BE SUBMITTED ON THURSDAY

11 PM.

To submit the homework, you should upload it in this form.

This homework is obligatory (except the novel part which is optional) and it is for
everyone (for those who registered for the EST, SAT, or ACT and the Beginners).

● The homework takes about 2 to 3 days to be corrected, and in case there is

any questions, you can always contact the assistants.
SOME NOTES YOU NEED TO KNOW

● The weekly homework is sent on Friday afternoon and is

submitted within a week, Thursday 11 pm.
Before starting the homework, you need to read the
instructions and watch the video, which I will send right to
the group to know exactly what to do. If anything isn’t
clear, feel free to text me privately.

TO AVOID ANY CONFUSION

● The articles are NOT an optional part of the homework only
the novel is.
● For the articles’ homework, you are asked to give the
main idea of every one or two paragraphs, not the
summary of the text.

This drive includes samples of the best homeworks we received. If you faced
difficulties while answering the hw, you may use this as a guide.

Google Drive’s Link:

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/19iO0GhaT9ZTMgSNCtHO9cx
_2_RDnqInz
 ARTICLES
Kindly watch the video below to understand what you will
do with the articles.

‫الزم تتفرج ﻋﻠﻰ فيديو شرح المفروض ﻧﻌمﻞ ايه فﻲ ﻛﻞ ﺟزء فﻲ الواﺟب‬

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1dolWZH27_IQtarsvAu8SZaWeiVnw
QLNl/view?usp=sharing

1. Skim the article

2. Write the main idea
3. Start scanning the article and while scanning you
will get the new vocabulary words, and the connection
between paragraphs and the main idea for each
paragraph.

‫ تقرأ المقال قرايه سريﻌه ﻋﻠشان تفهم فكره ﻋامه ﻋﻦ الموضوع‬1

‫ اقرأ‬3 ‫ اﻛتب الفكره الرءيسيه‬2
‫الباسدج قرايه مفصﻠه و اﻧتا بتقرا اﻛتب الفكره لكﻞ ﺟزء و اﻛتب الﻌالقه بينهم‬

For THE ADVANCED GROUPS ONLY:

This part is optional!! For every article, try
to create a question like those in the tests.
 Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points aim for lasting
peace after World War I through open diplomacy,
self-determination, and a League of Nations.

Woodrow Wilson

The Fourteen Points

delivered 8 January 1918 Peace processes should be open and
honest, with no secret agreements,
allowing nations to clearly share their
Magnification goals for justice and global peace. From now

It will be our wish and purpose that the processes of peace, when they are begun,
shall be absolutely open and that they shall involve and permit henceforth no secret
understandings of any kind. The day of conquest and aggrandizement is gone by;
so is also the day of secret covenants entered into in the interest of particular
governments and likely at some unlooked-for moment to upset the peace of the
world. It is this happy fact, now clear to the view of every public man whose
thoughts do not still linger in an age that is dead and gone, which makes it possible
for every nation whose purposes are consistent with justice and the peace of the
world to avow nor or at any other time the objects it has in view.

We entered this war because violations of right had occurred which touched us to
We went to the quick and made the life of our own people impossible unless they were
war to
protect rights corrected and the world secure once for all against their recurrence. What we
and create a demand in this war, therefore, is nothing peculiar to ourselves. It is that the world
safe world be made fit and safe to live in; and particularly that it be made safe for every
for all
peaceful peace-loving nation which, like our own, wishes to live its own life, determine its
nations. own institutions, be assured of justice and fair dealing by the other peoples of the
Justice is
important for
world as against force and selfish aggression. All the peoples of the world are in
everyone. effect partners in this interest, and for our own part we see very clearly that unless
justice be done to others it will not be done to us. The program of the world's
peace, therefore, is our program; and that program, the only possible program, as
we see it, is this:

I. Open covenants of peace, openly arrived at, after which there shall be no private I. Peace
deals must
international understandings of any kind but diplomacy shall proceed always be public; II.
frankly and in the public view. Everyone
Salt works Local should freely
navigate the
II. Absolute freedom of navigation upon the seas, outside territorial waters, alike in seas unless
peace and in war, except as the seas may be closed in whole or in part by restricted by
international action for the enforcement of international covenants. rules.
 Establish fair trade, reduce military
forces, and equitably settle colonial
claims considering both local populations
and governments.

III. The removal, so far as possible, of all economic barriers and the establishment
of an equality of trade conditions among all the nations consenting to the peace and
associating themselves for its maintenance.
Suitable ‫ضمانات‬
IV. Adequate guarantees given and taken that national armaments will be reduced
to the lowest point consistent with domestic safety.
Law
V. A free, open-minded, and absolutely impartial adjustment of all colonial claims,
based upon a strict observance of the principle that in determining all such
questions of sovereignty the interests of the populations concerned must have equal
weight with the equitable claims of the government whose title is to be determined.

VI. The evacuation of all Russian territory and such a settlement of all questions
Discharge affecting Russia as will secure the best and freest cooperation of the other nations Russia should
of the world in obtaining for her an unhampered and unembarrassed opportunity regain its
territory and
for the independent determination of her own political development and national have the
policy and assure her of a sincere welcome into the society of free nations under freedom to self-
institutions of her own choosing; and, more than a welcome, assistance also of determine its
political future,
every kind that she may need and may herself desire. The treatment accorded with support
Russia by her sister nations in the months to come will be the acid test of their from other
good will, of their comprehension of her needs as distinguished from their own nations.
interests, and of their intelligent and unselfish sympathy.

VII. Belgium, the whole world will agree, must be evacuated and restored, without
any attempt to limit the sovereignty which she enjoys in common with all other
Belgium and free nations. No other single act will serve as this will serve to restore confidence
France must
be restored among the nations in the laws which they have themselves set and determined for
to ensure the government of their relations with one another. Without this healing act the
trust in
international
whole structure and validity of international law is forever impaired.
law and Health
lasting VIII. All French territory should be freed and the invaded portions restored, and
peace.
the wrong done to France by Prussia in 1871 in the matter of Alsace-Lorraine,
which has unsettled the peace of the world for nearly fifty years, should be righted,
in order that peace may once more be made secure in the interest of all.

IX. A readjustment of the frontiers of Italy should be effected along clearly

recognizable lines of nationality.
Border

X. The peoples of Austria-Hungary, whose place among the nations we wish to see
 Italy's borders should match
national identities, Austria-
Hungary's peoples deserve
autonomy, and Balkan states
need restored lands and
guaranteed independence.

safeguarded and assured, should be accorded the freest opportunity to autonomous

development.

XI. Rumania, Serbia, and Montenegro should be evacuated; occupied territories

restored; Serbia accorded free and secure access to the sea; and the relations of the
several Balkan states to one another determined by friendly counsel along
historically established lines of allegiance and nationality; and international
guarantees of the political and economic independence and territorial integrity of
the several Balkan states should be entered into.

Turkey XII. The Turkish portion of the present Ottoman Empire should be assured a
maintains secure sovereignty, but the other nationalities which are now under Turkish rule
sovereignty,
while other should be assured an undoubted security of life and an absolutely unmolested
groups gain opportunity of autonomous development, and the Dardanelles should be
autonomy permanently opened as a free passage to the ships and commerce of all nations
and safety,
and Poland under international guarantees.
Standing
should be a
secure state XIII. An independent Polish state should be erected which should include the
with sea
access and territories inhabited by indisputably Polish populations, which should be assured a
international free and secure access to the sea, and whose political and economic independence
protection.
and territorial integrity should be guaranteed by international covenant.

XIV. A general association of nations must be formed under specific covenants for Countries
should unite
the purpose of affording mutual guarantees of political independence and territorial to protect
integrity to great and small states alike. their
independenc
e and
In regard to these essential rectifications of wrong and assertions of right we feel territory,
ourselves to be intimate partners of all the governments and peoples associated standing
together
together against the Imperialists. We cannot be separated in interest or divided in against
purpose. We stand together until the end. imperialism.

We're ready For such arrangements and covenants we are willing to fight and to continue to
to fight for fight until they are achieved; but only because we wish the right to prevail and
peace by desire a just and stable peace such as can be secured only by removing the chief
solving the
main causes provocations to war, which this program does remove. We have no jealousy of
of war. We German greatness, and there is nothing in this program that impairs it. We grudge
want her no achievement or distinction of learning or of pacific enterprise such as have
Germany to
join us as an made her record very bright an d very enviable. We do not wish to injure her or to
equal, not a block in any way her legitimate influence or power. We do not wish to fight her
master.
either with arms or with hostile arrangements of trade if she is willing to associate
herself with us and the other peace-loving nations of the world in covenants of
justice and law and fair dealing. We wish her only to accept a place of equality
among the peoples of the world -- the new world in which we now live -- instead
of a place of mastery.
 The main idea of the article is that gut bacteria
may play a significant role in Parkinson's
disease, influencing symptoms and
progression, but understanding this connection Parkinson's disease may
requires further research and caution against be linked to gut microbes
via the vagus nerve, but its
unproven treatments. cause is still unclear.

How gut bacteria connect to

Parkinson’s disease
Weaken

Growing evidence suggests a link between the debilitating neurological illness and
the microbes that live in our intestines. The vagus nerve may be a pathway.
Growing evidence suggests a link between the debilitating neurological illness and
the microbes that live in our intestines. The vagus nerve may be a pathway.

It can start small: a peculiar numbness; a subtle facial tic; an inexplicably stiff
muscle. But then time goes by — and eventually, the tremors set in.
Roughly a million people in the United States (and roughly 10 million people
worldwide) live with Parkinson’s disease, a potent neurological disorder that
progressively kills neurons in the brain. As it does so, it can trigger a host of
crippling symptoms, from violent tremors to excruciating muscle cramps,
terrifying nightmares and constant brain fog. While medical treatments can
alleviate some of these effects, researchers still don’t know exactly what causes the
disease to occur in the first place.

Studies A growing number of studies, however, are suggesting that it may be tied to an
suggest gut unlikely culprit: bacteria living inside our guts.
bacteria may
relate to
Parkinson's Every one of us has hundreds or thousands of microbial species in our stomach,
disease while small intestine and colon. These bacteria, collectively called our gut microbiome,
helping us are usually considerate guests: Although they survive largely on food that passes
digest food
and provide through our insides, they also give back, cranking out essential nutrients like niacin
important (which helps our body convert food into energy) and breaking down otherwise
nutrients.
indigestible plant fiber into substances our bodies can use.

As Parkinson’s advances in the brain, researchers have reported that the species of
bacteria present in the gut also shift dramatically, hinting at a possible cause for the
disease. A 2022 paper published in the journal Nature Communications recorded
those differences in detail. After sequencing the mixed-together genomes of fecal
bacteria from 724 people — a group with Parkinson’s and another without — the
authors saw a number of distinct changes in the guts of people who suffered from
the disease.
As Parkinson's worsens,
gut bacteria change,
hinting at a possible
cause, according to a
2022 study of 724
people.
 People with Parkinson's have
fewer helpful Prevotella bacteria
and more harmful
Enterobacteriaceae, which may
harm brain cells; the gut and
brain are subtly connected.

The Parkinson’s group had dramatically lower amounts of certain species of

Prevotella, a type of bacterium that helps the body break down plant-based fiber
(changes like this in gut flora could explain why people with Parkinson’s disease
often experience constipation). At the same time, the study found, two harmful
species of Enterobacteriaceae, a family of microbes that includes Salmonella, E.
coli and other bugs, proliferated. Those bacteria may be involved in a chain of
biochemical events that eventually kill brain cells in Parkinson’s patients, says Tim
Sampson, a biologist at Emory University School of Medicine and coauthor of the
study.

At first glance, the relationship between bacteria and brain disease isn’t exactly
obvious. How can a change in gut microbes kick off a devastating
neurodegenerative disorder? The relationship between the two may seem
counterintuitive — but Sampson says it comes down to the subtle ways that the
brain and the gut are connected.

In the walls of the intestines, a network of neurons called the enteric nervous The enteric
nervous
system lets the body sense what’s going on in the gut and respond accordingly. system in the
This circuitry controls muscle movement, local blood flow, secretion of mucus and gut controls
other essential digestive functions. Firm
digestion and
interacts with
bacteria,
Since the cells of the enteric nervous system are embedded in the gut wall, many of including curli
them come into close contact with the lumen — the cavity of the gut that contains proteins that
might be
the microbiome -— where they can interact directly with biochemicals created by linked to
bacteria. Some of these are sticky proteins called curli (pronounced CURL-eye) Parkinson's.
that may be implicated in Parkinson’s.

Under normal circumstances, curli proteins let Enterobacteria build biofilms, the
gooey mats that protect the microbes and help them stay put in the gut. Yet if a
curli molecule touches a common protein created by nerve cells — called alpha-
synuclein — that protein begins to misfold and form a dangerous mass called an
aggregate. Once created, these aggregates can spread widely though the nervous
system, leapfrog from cell to cell and eventually enter the brain through the vagus
nerve, the main pathway that carries signals between the brain and the gut. It’s
thought that in some cases of Parkinson’s in humans, changes in the gut
microbiome may activate that process, says Emeran Mayer, a gastroenterologist
and neuroscientist at UCLA and coauthor of a recent overview of the gut-brain
connection in the Annual Review of Medicine

Curli proteins help

Enterobacteria form
protective biofilms. If curli
touches a nerve protein, it
misfolds and spreads,
potentially reaching the brain
and linking to Parkinson’s.
 Suspicion that the vagus plays a key role in neurodegenerative disease has been
growing in recent years. A 2017 study in the journal Neurology, Mayer notes,
showed that “If you cut the vagus nerve, it decreases the risk for Parkinson’s The vagus
nerve might
disease. That’s a pretty strong indication that … this degenerative material is link gut health
transported, apparently, through the vagus nerve.” to
neurodegener
ative
Over the past few decades, a number of animal studies have shown that the vagus diseases like
provides a physical conduit that molecules can use to move between the gut and Parkinson's.
brain — but although this neurological superhighway could play an important role
in Parkinson’s, it’s still not clear if the nerve is a lynchpin in causing the disease
itself.

In addition to aggregates moving through the vagus, different triggers — like the
Gut bacteria lipids, vitamins and other organic compounds that gut bacteria produce — could
produce travel through blood vessels to the brain, where they may cause inflammation and
substances damage tissue. Likewise, says David Hafler, a neuroimmunologist at Yale
that can travel
to the brain, University, immune cells that are activated in the gut may contribute to the
causing neurological damage and dysfunction that occurs in Parkinson’s.
inflammation
and damage.
Immune cells These immune cells, called T cells, can migrate out of the gut, enter the
from the gut bloodstream and cross the blood-brain barrier, where they ultimately may kill off
may also
harm neurons
neurons. This sort of autoimmune response is the driver for other neurological
in Parkinson's diseases like multiple sclerosis, Hafler reasons, so it’s feasible that it plays a role in
disease. Parkinson’s as well. In both diseases, changes in the gut microbiome could be the
potential trigger.

There’s already strong evidence for this idea. In 2016, Sampson found a direct
connection between gut microbes and Parkinson’s disease: Using fecal samples Gut microbes
from Parkinson’s patients, Sampson inoculated the guts of germ-free mice (animalsmay link to
with no naturally occurring microbiome), and the animals quickly developed Parkinson's, as
Parkinson’s symptoms. Today, using the new genetic survey of gut microbes he mice showed
symptoms
and his colleagues published in Nature Communications, he’s narrowing in on a after receiving
few microbe families and using similar methods to reveal which precise species arepatients' fecal
samples, but
the culprits. multiple
bacteria likely
Sampson’s approach comes with some caveats: Parkinson’s disease, after all, interact
together.
might be linked to multiple bacteria interacting in complex ways — so there likely
won’t be a single smoking gun. It’s also not totally clear if changes in the
microbiome are the root cause or if they just accelerate damage already taking
The gut
place in the brain. The complexity of the microbiome is mind-boggling: There are
microbiome hundreds of different types of bacteria involved, and each creates myriad
is complex molecules that affect digestion, the immune system and other important bodily
and affects
health. It
functions. Sorting through all those components and identifying how they change
will take in the face of disease will be an important next step.
time to Text
understand
its role in And so, as tantalizing as the links between the microbiome and Parkinson’s may
Parkinson's, be, it could be decades before people who suffer from the disorder can reap any
so be tangible benefits. Many of the researchers examining those links, like Mayer, also
cautious
about quick warn patients to be of wary of sweeping claims about drugs, supplements or even
treatments. fecal transplants — seeding the gut with microbes from another, healthy person —
that “treat” Parkinson’s by altering the microbiome.

“A lot of people make a lot of money selling individuals supplements, telling you
that they’re going to slow your cognitive decline or prevent Parkinson’s disease,”
says Mayer. But, he adds, “we don’t know the causal roles of the microbiome for
sure. We know it from animal studies, so we have indirect evidence for it — but
it’s been difficult to show in humans without a doubt that the microbes, and some
of their signal molecules, play the main causal role.”

Until definitive answers are found, researchers like Mayer will continue to chip
away at the problem, microbe by microbe.
Some sell supplements claiming to prevent
Parkinson's, but there's no clear proof of
the microbiome's role in humans.
Researchers will keep studying it.
 Poetry
The poem describes young goldfinches in a
garden in May, showing renewal, as the
speaker enjoys the quiet and sweet cherries.

Black Cherries
By W. S. Merwin

Late in May as the light lengthens

toward summer the young goldfinches

flutter down through the day for the first time

to find themselves among fallen petals

cradling their day's colors in the day's shadows

of the garden beside the old house

after a cold spring with no rain

not a sound comes from the empty village

as I stand eating the black cherries

from the loaded branches above me

saying to myself Remember this

 NOVEL

THE ADVENTURES OF TOM SAWYER by Mark Twain

For the Novel part, we will be reading about 20-30 pages per week. If
you decide to do this task, you’ll be asked to read the chapters
assigned and write the main idea.

Each friday, in the novel’s discussion group, you guys are gonna
discuss the part you were assigned and make memes and have fun
with it and we will also join…

This week’s pages to read :

498-518

This novel’s link:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/16VIRGFON1o45PLMrJBsEyA6JuEsdJy
Zg/view?usp=sharing
 VOCABULARY

First, to practice the vocabulary in context, there is a small

paragraph that includes all the vocabulary words; you will read it
and guess the meanings of the words. Then, to know if you’re on
the right track, head to the unit words and check your guesses.

Afterwards, you will memorize the words and then solve the
questions. To correct and know your mistakes, an answer key will
be sent along with next week’s new homework.

Kindly watch the video below to understand what you will do

with the vocabulary part.

‫الزم تتفرج ﻋﻠﻰ فيديو شرح مفرض تعﻤﻞ يه فﻲ لﺒﺠزء ده مﻦ الواجب‬

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-bxp1hGrOnErH-l1ducGH-VdFn6Tb
5lV/view?usp=drivesdk

Also after this week’s unit, you will find last week’s unit answer
key to check your work
 Backstage
Underestimate

Uproar
Flammable

Amid
Billionaire

Premature
Clumsy

Segregated

Culprits
I

I
 ‫مسرحيه‬

alot of
people Have a lot of
Behind the theater
money

Screech Not important

Middle

Awkward in
Loud noise
movement or action

Able to
burn
T

The billionaire and the theater’s janitor

F
The billionaire’s wife

Because there was a fire started in the theater

The theater’s janitor

Luckily the billionaire’s wife

The floor

The man they blamed was innocent, and the billionaire was guilty. To pay for his error, the
billionaire not only repaired the theater but had it remade to be better than before.
 ORDERING THE PARAGRAPH

You’re asked to rearrange the given random sentences to

form a cohesive text. To correct and know your mistakes,
an answer key will be uploaded next Tuesday.
 This week’s:

1) She found that positive emotions were often felt by the actors as they played those
character's emotions.

2) However, the more negative the emotion of the character, the less likely the actor would
report feeling that emotion onstage.

3) She asked Dutch actors to rate their own emotions and the emotions of the characters
they were playing across a range of affective states (from disgust and anxiety to
tenderness and pleasure).

4) In a wonderful set of studies and subsequent book, Elly A. Konijn looked to the question
of how much actors are aware of their performance as they perform it, and how much
they let the character "take over".

My answer:4,3,1,2
 Last week’s:

41235
 motivational video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kKvK2foOTJM

Nice video
 (optional )

Three Men
by Maxim Gorky

Chapter I

There are many solitary graves amid the woods of Kerschentz; within them moulder the bones of old
men, men of an ancient piety, and of one of these old men, Antipa, this tale is told in the villages of
Kerschentz.

Antipa Lunev, a rich peasant of austere disposition, lived to his fiftieth year, sunken in worldly sins, then
was moved to profound self-examination, and seized with agony of soul, forsook his family and buried
himself in the loneliness of the forest. There on the edge of a ravine he built his hermit's cell, and lived
for eight years, summer and winter. He let no one approach him, neither acquaintances nor kindred.
Sometimes people who had lost their way in the woods came by chance on his hut and saw Antipa
kneeling on the threshold, praying. He was terrible to see—worn with fasting and prayer, and covered
with hair like a wild beast. If he caught sight of any one, he rose up and bowed himself to the ground
before him. If he were asked the way out of the forest, he indicated the path with his hand without
speaking, bowed to the ground again, went into his cell and shut himself in. He was seen many times
during the eight years, but no man ever heard his voice. His wife and children used to visit him, he took
food and clothing from them, bowed himself before them as before others, but, during the time of his
anchorite life, spoke no word with them any more than with strangers.

He died the same year that the hermitages of the wood were swept away, and his death came in this
fashion.

The Chief of Police came through the forest with a detachment of soldiers, and saw Antipa kneeling,
silently praying in his cell.

"You there!" shouted the officer. "Clear out of this, we're going to smash up this den of yours!"

But Antipa heard nothing, and however loudly the captain shouted, the pious hermit answered him
never a word. Then the officer ordered his men to drag Antipa out of his cell. But the soldiers were
troubled before the gaze of the old man, who continued in prayer so steadfastly and earnestly, and
paid no heed to them, and, shaken by such strength of soul, they hesitated to carry out the command.
Then the captain ordered them to break up the hut, and they began to remove the roof silently and
very carefully, to avoid hurting the worshipper within.

The axes rang over Antipa's head, the boards split and fell to the ground, the dull echo of the blows
sounded through the wood, the birds terrified by the noise fluttered uneasily round the cell, and the
leaves trembled on the trees. But the old man prayed on as though he neither saw nor heard. They
began to break up the flooring of the hut, and still its owner knelt undisturbed, and only when the last
timbers were thrown aside and the captain himself went up to Antipa and caught him by the hair, only
then did he speak, his eyes lifted to heaven, quietly, to God, "Merciful Father, forgive them."

Then he fell back and died.

When this happened, Jakov, the eldest son of Antipa, was twenty-three years old, and Terenti, the
youngest, eighteen. Jakov, handsome and strong, gained the name of "scatter-brain," while still a
youngster, and by the time his father died, was already the chief loafer and bully in the country-side. All
complained of him—his mother, the Starost, the neighbours: he was imprisoned, he was whipped, with
and without legal condemnation, but nothing tamed his wild disposition, and day by day he felt more
stifled and constrained in the village among the pious people, busy and hard working as moles, scorners
of every new thing, holding fast to the precepts of their ancient faith. Jakov smoked tobacco, drank
brandy, wore clothes of German cut, and went to no prayers or religious services, and if decent folk
admonished him and reminded him of his father, he would say scornfully, "Wait a bit, good people, all
in good time. When I have sinned enough, I will think of repentance. It's too early yet; you need not
hold up my father as an example to me—he sinned for fifty years, and repented only for eight after all.
My sins now are nothing but as the down on the young bird, but when my full feathers are grown, then
I may think of repentance."

"An evil heretic," was Jakov Lunev's name in the village, where they hated and feared him.

Some two years after his father's death, he married. The farm that his father established by thirty years
strenuous labour, he had thoroughly ruined by his spendthrift life, and no one in the village would give
him a daughter in marriage. But somewhere in a distant village he found a pretty orphan-girl, and he
sold a pair of horses and his father's bee-farm, to raise the money to celebrate his wedding. His brother
Terenti, a timid, silent, humpbacked youth, with unusually long arms, was no hindrance to his mode of
life; his mother lay sick on the stove, and from there only called to him with hoarse foreboding voice,
"Accursed one! Take heed to your soul. Come to your senses."

"Don't worry yourself, my dear mother," answered Jakov. "Father will put in a word for me with the
Almighty."

At first, for close on a year, Jakov lived in peace and content with his wife, and even took to working,
but then began to loaf again, disappeared from the house for a month at a time, and came back to his
wife, worn out, bruised and hungry.

Jakov's mother died; at the funeral, in a drunken fit he assaulted the Starost, his old enemy, and was
arrested in consequence, and imprisoned. His term of imprisonment at an end, he reappeared in the
village, gloomy and ill-tempered. The village people hated him still more and extended their hatred to
his family, especially to the silent, hump-backed Terenti who had been the sport of the boys and girls
from his childhood. They called Jakov jail-bird and thief, but Terenti, monster and wizard. Terenti
endured insult and mockery silently, but Jakov broke out in open threats, "All right, just wait a bit, I'll
teach you."

He was close on forty years of age when a conflagration broke out in the village; he was accused of
incendiarism and sent, a prisoner, to Siberia.

Jakov's wife, who lost her reason at the time of the fire, was left in the care of Terenti, and with her, her
son Ilya, a boy of ten, sturdy, black-eyed, and serious beyond his years. Whenever the lad appeared in
the village streets, the other children ran after him, throwing stones at him, and the bigger ones would
shout, "Ah! the young devil the prison brat, bad luck to you!"

Terenti, unfitted for laborious work, dealt up to the time of the fire in tar, needles and thread, and such
small wares, but the catastrophe which destroyed half the village made an end both of the Lunevs'
house and Terenti's whole stock-in-trade, so that all the Lunevs then possessed in the world amounted
to one horse and thirty-three roubles in money.

As soon as Terenti found that his native village would offer him no way whatever to earn a living, he
entrusted his sister-in-law to the care of an old peasant woman at fifty kopecks a month, bought a
ricketty old cart, and placed his nephew in it, determined to make for the chief town of the district,
where he hoped for some assistance from a distant relative, Petrusha Filimonov, a servant in a small
tavern.

Secretly and like a thief in the night, Terenti left his home. He guided his horse silently, often looking
back with his large dark eyes. The horse trotted on, the cart jolted from side to side and Ilya nestled
into the hay, and soon slept the deep sleep of childhood.

In the middle of the night the boy was awakened by a strange terrifying sound, like the howl of a wolf.
It was a clear night, the cart was standing at the outskirts of a wood, and the horse moved round it
cropping the dewy grass. A great pine tree, its highest branches scorched, stood far apart in the plain,
as though driven out from the forest. The boy's eager eyes looked anxiously for his uncle; but through
the quiet night from time to time the only distant sound was the dull thud of the horse's hoofs, or the
noise of its breathing like heavy sighs, and the same mysterious terrifying sound filled the air, and
frightened the lad.

"Uncle?" he called softly.

"What is it?" answered Terenti, at once, and the doleful sound ceased suddenly.

"Where are you?"

"Here. Go to sleep again."

Then Ilya saw his uncle, sitting on a mound at the edge of the wood, like a black tree-stump rising out of
the earth.

"I'm frightened," said the boy.

"What then—frightened? Why? there's nothing here."

"Some one was crying."

"You've been dreaming," said the hunchback softly.

"No! truly, he was crying."

"A wolf perhaps, far away. Go to sleep again."

But Ilya could sleep no more. He was frightened at the clear stillness, and in his ears the mournful
sound still rang. He looked cautiously at the country round, and then saw that his uncle was gazing in
the direction where, over the mountain, far in the midst of the wood, stood a white church with five
towers, the large round moon shining brightly above it. Ilya knew that this was the church of
Romodanov, and that two versts from it nearer to them, in the wood above the valley, lay their village
Kitschnaja.

"We haven't come far," he said, thoughtfully.

"What?" asked his uncle.

"We must get on further, I said, some one might come."

Ilya nodded in the direction of the village with a look of hate.

"We'll get on presently," replied his uncle.

And again all was quiet round about. Ilya squatted with his knees up to his chin, supported himself
against the front of the cart and began to gaze in the same direction as his uncle. The village was not
visible in the dense black shadow of the forest, but it seemed to him that he saw clearly every house
and all its people, and the old white willow by the well in the middle of the street. Against the willow's
roots lay his father bound with a rope, his shirt torn to rags, his hands tied behind his back, his naked
breast thrust forward, and his head as though it had grown to the willow stem. He lay motionless as a
dead man, and looked with terrible eyes at the peasants, crowding before the house of the Starost,
There were very many, all angry, they shouted, cursed him——. The memory troubled the boy, and a
lump came in his throat. He felt he must soon cry for sorrow and the coldness of the night, but he did
not wish to disturb his uncle, and mastering himself he huddled his little body closer together.

Suddenly a low wail sounded again. First a deep sigh, then sobs, then loud, unspeakable lamentation.

"Oh—oh! oh—oh—oh!"

The boy shivered with terror and stared round him. But the sound quivered again through the air and
grew in volume.

"Uncle! Is it you crying?" called Ilya.

Terenti neither spoke nor moved.

Then the boy sprang from the cart, ran to his uncle, fell in front of him, clasped his knees, and burst into
tears. He heard his uncle's voice broken by sobs.

"They've driven us out—driven us out. Oh! God! Where shall we go? Where? oh!"
But the boy said, swallowing down his tears:

"Wait—when I grow up—I'll show them—just wait."

He cried his sorrow out and then fell asleep. His uncle lifted him in his arms and laid him in the cart, but
he himself went apart again and cried aloud once more, lamenting in bitter agony.