Whether it was the flickering light or because everyone was anxious to see that man’s face before anything else, oddly enough what struck them at first glance was not his face or his clothes, but his smile. It was unusually broad, good-natured, gentle – like that of a wakened child, one of those infectious smiles to which it is difficult not to respond in kind. After they had taken a closer look, the stranger turned out to be a man of about thirty, not at all good-looking – in fact, quite unremarkable. He was from the south, with a long nose, long arms and long legs. Everything about him was long, only his neck was so short it gave him a stooping look. He wore a clean white shirt with an embroidered collar, white baggy trousers and new high boots. In comparison with the drivers he looked the perfect dandy. He was carrying something large and white and at first glance rather strange, while over his shoulder peeped the barrel of a gun – which was also long.
When he emerged from the darkness and came into the bright circle he stopped dead in his tracks and for a full thirty seconds looked at the drivers as if he meant to say, ‘Now, just admire that smile of mine!’ Then he stepped over to the fire and beamed even more.
‘How about some grub, lads?’ he asked.
‘Help yourself,’ Panteley answered for everyone.
The stranger put what he had been carrying down by the fire – it was a dead bustard – and greeted them again.
Everyone went to have a look at the bustard.
‘That’s a fine big bird! What did you kill it with?’ asked Dymov.
‘Buckshot… wouldn’t have got near it with grape… Come on, buy it, lads. I’ll take twenty copecks.’
‘And what shall we do with it? It’d be fine roasted, but boiled it’d be much too tough – we’d never get our teeth into it!’
‘Oh, that’s a nuisance! If I took it to the gents on the estate I’d get half a rouble for it. But it’s a long walk – ten miles!’
The stranger sat down, unslung his gun and put it down by his side. He seemed listless and sleepy, and as he smiled and screwed up his eyes in the firelight he was evidently thinking the most agreeable thoughts. They gave him a spoon and he began to eat.
‘And who might you be?’ Dymov asked.
The stranger couldn’t have heard the question, as he made no reply and did not even look at Dymov. Most likely that smiling man found the stew tasteless, for he chewed mechanically, lazily, first raising a full spoon to his mouth, then a completely empty one. He wasn’t drunk, but he appeared to be a little touched in the head.
‘I asked you a question – who are you?’ Dymov repeated.
‘Me?’ replied the stranger with a start. ‘I’m Konstantin Zvonyk, from Rovno, about three miles from ’ere.’
Anxious to make clear from the start that he was a cut above your ordinary peasant, Konstantin hastened to add:
‘We keep bees and pigs.’
‘Do you live with your father or have you got a place of your own?’
‘I live in me own place now, set up on me own… Got married the month after St Peter’s Day.21 I’m a married man now, today’s the eighteenth since I got spliced!’
‘That’s good!’ Panteley exclaimed. ‘A wife’s a good thing – a blessing from on high!’
‘So, his young wife’s sleeping at home, all alone, while he’s gadding around the steppe,’ laughed Kiryukha. ‘He’s a queer fish all right!’
Just as if he had been nipped in the tenderest spot, Konstantin started, laughed and flushed.
‘God, she’s not at home!’ he exclaimed, quickly taking the spoon from his mouth and surveying everyone in joyous amazement. ‘She’s not at home – she’s gone to her ma’s for two days. Yes, I swear it, off she went and now it’s like I was a bachelor again!’
Konstantin waved his arm and shook his head. He wanted to go on thinking these thoughts, but the joy that lit up his face hindered him. As though he found it uncomfortable sitting there he changed position, laughed and waved his hand again. Despite his inhibitions about divulging his agreeable thoughts to strangers, he still had an overwhelming desire to share his joy with others.
‘She gone to her ma’s at Demidovo,’ he said, blushing and shifting his gun. ‘She’s coming back tomorrow – she said she’d be back by dinner-time.’
‘Do you miss her?’ asked Dymov.
‘Good God, how I miss her! What do you expect? Married only a few days and off she goes… Eh? Oh, she’s a real bundle of mischief, God help me! She’s wonderful, she’s marvellous, always laughing and singing – real fireworks! When I’m with her me thoughts are all in a whirl, but without her I feel as if I’ve lost something and here I am wandering over the steppe like a fool! Been doing it since dinner and I’m all adrift!’
Konstantin rubbed his eyes, looked at the fire and laughed.
‘So you must love her,’ Panteley said.
‘She’s wonderful, absolutely marvellous,’ Konstantin repeated, not listening. ‘And what a housewife – so capable, so sensible! You won’t find another like her in the whole province – not from common folk like us. And now she’s gone away… But I know she misses me, I know! Yes, you little spitfire! She said she’d be back by dinner-time tomorrow… But what a business it was!’ Konstantin was almost shouting now and he suddenly pitched his voice a tone higher and changed position. ‘Now she loves me and misses me – but she didn’t want to marry me, you know.’
‘Now, you eat up,’ said Kiryukha.
‘No, she didn’t want to marry me,’ Konstantin continued. ‘Three years I had a real ding-dong with her. I saw her at Kalachik Fair and fell madly in love – I was ready to hang myself for her, I was! I was in Rovno, but she was in Demidovo. We were best part of twenty miles from each other, so I couldn’t do a thing. So I send matchmakers over, but she says, “Don’t want to!” – the little minx! So I send her this and that, earrings, cakes, twenty pound of honey and still she says “Don’t want to!” Would you believe it! Come to think of it, what sort of match was I? She was young, beautiful, full of pep, but I was old – nigh on thirty – and really so handsome! – me with me lovely beard thin as a nail and me nice smooth face a mass of pimples! If you think about it I didn’t stand a chance. Only, I was well off, but them Vakramenkos are well off, too. They keep six oxen and two workmen. So, lads, I were in love, went right off me rocker I did! Couldn’t sleep, couldn’t eat. I were all befuddled, God save us! I was dying to see her, but she was at Demidovo… And what do you think – God strike me dead if I’m lying! I would walk over there three times a week to have a look at her. I stopped working. I was in such a stew that I even wanted to hire myself out as a labourer in Demidovo so as to be near her. I went through sheer hell! Me ma called in a wise old woman, me father was ready to give me ten good whackings. Well, I had to grin and bear it for three years, then I says to meself: to hell with it, I’ll get a job as a cabbie in town. But it wasn’t to be! At Easter I went to Demidovo to have one last look at her…’
Konstantin threw his head back and broke into such peals of light, cheerful laughter that it seemed he had just cleverly fooled someone.
‘I see her near the stream with some lads,’ he went on, ‘and I get proper mad… I call her to one side and tell her all sorts of things – for a whole hour, maybe. And she falls in love with me! For three years she didn’t love me but she falls for me ’cos of them words!’
‘What words?’ asked Dymov.
‘The words? Can’t remember. How could I? They flowed like water from a gutter – rat-tat-tat – non-stop. But now I couldn’t say any of them words. So, she marries me. And now that little imp’s gone to see her ma and here I am wandering around the steppe without her – I can’t stay at home! Oh, I just can’t stand it any more!’
Konstantin awkwardly freed his legs from under him, stretched out on the ground and propped his head on his fists. Then he stood up and sat down again. Everyone understood perfectly that here was a man happy in love, poignantly happy. His smile, his eyes, his every movement expressed overwhelming happiness. He kept fidgeting, not knowing what attitude to take and what he should do to avoid exhausting himself from an excess of delightful thoughts. Having unburdened himself to complete strangers he finally settled down and became lost in thought as he gazed at the fire.