The Sukha Vershina is a small Chuvash village. All around there are wilds where the snow still lies. Chuvashs had been deported from the Volga.
The House I entered stricken me, a large room pretending to be wealthy but beside of the hosts there are six tenants and two calves in that very room! Swelter and stench...
"Shochesh panya? Moi shena topil panya,"* an old man suffering of the incredible pulmonary emphysema.
What Polish woman his wife sank, I thought frightened. But it proved to be the bath.
What tramp would reject the bath?
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* "Do you want a bath? My wife heated the bath." A wordplay: panya (a Polish woman) and banya (bath) sound similarly. The words topil meaning "heated" and "sank" are homonyms.