"She went to Demidovo to her mother!"' he said, blushing, and removing his gun from one place to another. "To-morrow she comes back. She said she would be back to dinner."
"Are you bored?" asked Dimov.
"But Lord, what do you think? Married such a little while, then for her to go away. . . . Eh? But it's the worst, spare me, God! She is so sweet, so precious, so mirthful, so full of song, it's all the purest enchantment. With her your head goes whirling round, and without her you are lost; see, here I tramp about the steppe like a fool. I have walked since dinner hardly heeding where I go."
Constantine rubbed his eyes, looked at the fire, and smiled.
"You are in love, that is," said Panteli.
"She is so sweet, so precious/' repeated Constantine, not listening, "such a little housewife, so sensible, so very sensible, there is no other like her in the entire district. She left; she finds it wearisome, I know! I know, little magpie! She said she would return for dinner to-morrow. . . . But then, what a muddle it is!" almost screamed Constantine, suddenly go- ing a tone higher and changing his position—"now she is in love and bored, and also she did not want to marry me!"
"Yes, but eat," said Kiruha.
"She did not want to marry me!" continued Constantine not listening. "I was at her for three years! I saw her at the fair at Kalatchika, I fell madly in love—hurtling head over heels. But I to Rovno, she to Demidovo, friend divided from friend by twenty-five versts, and nothing I coulrl do. I des- patched a marriage-promoter, and she answers: 'I will not!' Oh! you little magpie. So I try this and the other, earrings, ginger-breads, and honey: 'I will not!' Well, I must go my- self. She no doubt considers I am no match for her. She is young, pretty, all sunbeams, and I am old, shall soon be thirty, and so handsome, a bushy beard—all ends, a clean face—all over pimples! What comparison was there with her? If we had even lived very comfortably; but then they too, the Vahremenki, live in comfort—they have three pairs of oxen and two labourers. I fell in love, mates, and grew muddle- brained. . . . Could not sleep, could not eat, and in my head, the Lord have mercy, thoughts like a prickly bush! ... I want to see her, and she is in Demidovo. . . . So what do you think? Spare me, God, I am not raving. Three times in a week I went there on foot, just to have a look at her. I chucked my work. So eclipsed became my reason that I thought of hiring myself as a labourer in Demidovo, so as to be nearer to her. I was in torment! My mother spoke of a witch, my father took ten times to beating me. Well, I suf- fered three years, then I resolved: be thrice anathema, but I'll to the town and be a droshky-driver. . . • Yet I was not!
On a Saint's day, I went to Demidovo for one last look a» her. . . ."
Constantine threw back his head and broke into a soft merry laugh, as if he had that moment very cunningly taken someone in.
"I see her, she is by the stream with her washing," he con- tinued. "Malice spoke to me. . . .I called her to one side, and for the space of an hour I talked. . . . She fell in lave l Three years she had not loved me, and fell in love at my words! . . ."
"And what words?" inquired Dimov.
"Words? I don't remember. . . . Would you remember? Then, they flowed without respite like water from a spout and now I cannot utter a single one. . . . Well, she came to me. . . . And the little magpie has now gone to her mother, so I without her roam the steppe. I cannot stay at home—it is more than I can bear! "
Constantine clumsily freed his foot from underneath him, stretched himself out on the ground, rested his head on his hands, then raised himself again into a sitting posture. They all thoroughly understood that the man was very enamoured and happy—almost painfully so; his smile, his eyes, and every gesture expressed a languid bliss. He could not rest, did not know what pose to take or what to do not to succumb to the superabundance of pleasant thoughts. Having poured ou1 his soul to the others, he was able, at last, to sit quietly look- ing at the fire and think.
At the sight of this happy man they all felt ve.xed, each desiring happiness too. They became very thoughtful. Dimov rose from his place and walked around the fire; by his walk and the movement of his shoulders, it was evident that he felt languid and bored; he stood still, looked at Constantine, and sat down again.
The fire was going out; it no longer flared, and the red halo had shrunk and grown dim. . . . And the faster the fire went out, the clearer became the moonlit night. Already the road in all its great width was visible, the bales of wool, the waggon-thills, and the browsing horses. On the far side the dim outline of the other cross could be seen.
Dimov rested his cheek in his hand, and softly sang some plaintive ditty. Constantine sleepily smiled, and accompanied him in a faint voice; they sang for half a minute, then stopped. Emilian gave a start, his elbows began to move, and his fingers to become restless.
"Mates," said he in a supplicating voice, "let us sing some sacred song!"
The tears sprang to his eyes.
"Mates," he repeated, pressing his hand to his heart, "let us sing sacred music!"
"I don't know how to," said Constantine.
They all refused, so then Emilian sang alone. He began to wave both hands about, to nod his head; he opened his mouth, but from his throat only proceeded a hoarse hollow gasp. He sang with his hands, his head, his eyes, and even with the lump; he sang passionately and with longing, and the more he strained his chest to extract from it but one note, the more hollow grew his breathing. • . .
Egorooshka, as were they all, was overcome by weariness; he walked to his waggon, clambered up on to the bales, and lay down. He gazed up at the sky, and thought of happy Constantine and his wife. "Why do people marry? Why are there women in the world?" Egorooshka asked himself these obscure questions, and decided that men were surely always happy when a fond, cheerful, pretty woman lived beside them. For some reason he thought of the Countess Dranitska, and reflected that it was probably very pleasant to live with a woman like that; he would have been very glad, if you like, to marry her if it had not been so wicked. He remembered her eyebrows, her distended pupils, her carriage, the clock with the horseman. . . . The silent warm night came ilown to :him and whispered something in his ear, and it seemed to him that it was a lovely woman bending over him and smiling, and that she was about to kiss him. . . .
Two little red eyes, ever growing smaller and smaller, were all that remained of the fire; the drivers and Constantine, black and motionless figures, sat beside it, and it seemed as if their number had increased. Both crosses were likewise visible, and far, far away, somewhere by the highway, burned a little fire; very likely other people were cooking gruel.
"Our mother Russia is head of all the world!" suddenly sang Kiruha in a loud voice, then choked and was silent. The steppe-echo caught up the sound, and those senseless words rolled away, borne on heavy wheels over the steppe.
"It is time to move on," said Panteli. "Get up, boys!"
While they put the horses to, Constantine walked around the waggons talking in transports about his wife.
"Good-bye, mates!" he shouted when the waggons moved on. "Thank you for your good cheer! I shall walk on to that fire. I can't bear it!"
He soon vanished in the gloom, and for a long while his steps were heard receding in the direction of the fire, where he would disclose his happiness to other strangers.
When Egorooshka awoke the next morning it was very early, the sun had not risen. The \vaggons were standing still. Some man in a white foraging-cap and wearing a costume of cheap grey material, and riding a Cossack cob, \vas by th( foremost waggon talking with Dimov and Kiruha. About two versts ahead of the waggons was the outline of some long low store-houses, and cottages with tiled roofs; there were neither yards not trees around the cottages.