One June evening—the sun was setting and a scent of hay, warm dung and fresh milk filled the air—a plain cart with three occupants drove into Dyudya's yard. There was a man of about thirty in a sail- cloth suit sitting beside a boy of seven or eight in a long, black coat with big bone buttons, and there was a red-shirted youth as driver.
The youth unhitched the horses and walked them up and do^ the street, while the man washed, faced the church to say a prayer, spread out a rug by the can, and sat do^ with the boy to have supper.
He ate with leisurely dignity. Having seen plenty of travellen in his day, Dyudya recognized his bearing as that of a biisinesslike, serious man who knows his o^ worth.
Dyudya sat in his porch in his waistcoat, without a cap, waiting for the traveller to speak—he was used to visiton telling various bed-time stories of an evening, and liked listening to them. His wife, old Afana- syevna, and his daughter-in-law, Sophia, were milking in the cow- shed, while Barbara—the other daughter-in-law—sat upstain by an open window eating sunflower seeds.
'Would the little boy be your son, then ?' Dyudya asked the traveller.
'No, he's adopted—an orphan. I took him in for my soul's salvation.'
They fell into conversation, and the visitor turned out a talkative man with quite a tum of phrase. From what he said Dyudya learnt that he was a local to^sman of the lower sort and a householder, that he went by the name of Matthew Savvich, that he was now on his way to look at some allotments which he had rented from some German settlers, and that the boy was called Kuzka. It was a hot, stifling evening, and no one felt like sleep. When it was dark, and pale stars twinkled here and there in the sky, Matthew Savvich began telling the story of how Kuzka had come into his care. Afanasyevna and Sophia stood a little way off listening, and Kuzka went to the gate.
'It's a complicated story in the extreme, old man,' Matthew began. 'To tell you all of it would take all night and more. Ten years ago there lived in our street, in the cottage next to mine—where the chand- lery and dairy now are—an old widow called Martha Kapluntsev, who had two sons. One was a railway guard. The other, Vasya, was about my age, and lived at home with his mother. Old Kapluntsev had kept horses, about five pair, and had a carting business in town. The widow carried on her husband's business, and was as good at managing her carriers as the old man, so that the carting cleared about five roubles' profit some days. The lad made a bit of money too, breeding pedigree pigeons and selling them to fanciers. He was for- ever standing on the roof, throwing up a broom and whistling, while his tumblers flew right up in the sky—but not high enough for him, he wanted them higher still. He caught goldfnches and starlings, and made them cages.
'It seemed a waste of time, but his time-wasting was soon bringing in ten roubles a month. Well now, in course of time the old lady loses the use ofher legs and takes to her bed, for which reason the house has no woman to run it, and that's about as good as a man having no eyes! So the old lady bestirs herself and decides to get Vasya married. They call in the matchmaker at once, one thing leads to another, there's lots of women's talk, and Vasya goes to inspect the local girls. He picks on Mashenka, Widow Samokhvalikha's daughter. They're betrothed without much ado, and it's all fixed up in one week. She's a young girl of about seventeen, a small, short little thing, but fair-<:omplexioned and attractive, with all the makings of a high-class young lady, and her dowry isn't bad—about five hundred roubles in cash, a cow and a bed. But the old lady knew what was coming, and two days after the wedding she departs for that heavenly Jerusalem where there's neither illness nor sighing. The young couple bury her and settle do^. For six months everything's fine, but then disaster suddenly strikes again— it never rains but it pours. Vasya's summoned to an office for the con- scription balloting, and they take him for a soldier, poor boy—won't even grant him any exemptions, but shave his head and pack him off to Poland. God's will it was, it couldn't be helped. He's all right as he says good-bye to the wife in his yard, but when he takes his last look at his pigeon-loft he weeps buckets—a sorry sight he is. At first Mashenka gets her mother to live with her to keep her company, and the mother stays on till the confinement, when this boy Kuzka is born. But then she goes to another married daughter in Oboyan, leaving Mashenka alone with her baby. There are the five carters—a drunken, rowdy crew. She has the horses and drays on her hands, besides which there's her fence falling do^, or her chi^ey catching fi.re, see? It's not woman's work, so she turns to me for every little thing, since we're neighbours. I go and fix things up, give her a few tips.
'Well, of course, all this means going indoors, having tea and a chat. I'm a young chap—a bit brainy, like, fond of talking about this and that—and she's a cultured, polite girl too. She dresses nicely and carries a parasol in summer. I'll start talking religion or politics, which flatters her and she'll give me tea and jam.
'In fact, old man, to cut a long story short, within a twelve-month the devil, the adversary of mankind, has me in a proper muddle, I can tell you. I notice that if I don't go and see her, I never feel right that day—I'm bored. And I keep thinking of excuses to call.
'"It's time to put in your window-frames for winter," I say. And I hang around all day with her—putting in her frames, but taking care to leave a couple over for next day.
"'I'd better count Vasya's pigeons," I say, "and see that none of them gets lost''—and so on.
'I keep talking to her over the fcnce, and end by making a little gate in it as a short cut. There's a lot of evil and nastiness in this world from the fcmale sex—even saints have been led astray, let alone us sinners. Mashenka doesn't keep me at arm's length, and instead of thinking of her husband and keeping herself for him, she falls in love with me. I begin noticing that she misses me too, and is always walking near the fence and looking into my yard through the cracks. My mind reels at the thought of her. Early one moriing, at dawn on a Thursday in Easter Week, I'm going past her gate on my way to market when up pops the Evil One. I look through the trellis thing at the top of her gate, and there she is—already awake and feeding her ducks in the middle of the yard. I can't resist calling her. She comes and looks at me through the trellis, her little face all pale, her eyes soft and sleepy- looking.
'I find her very attractive and begin complimenting her, like as if we were at a party instead of standing by that gate, while she blushes, laughs and looks me straight in the eye without blinking. I lose all sense and begin declaring my amorous feelings.
'She opens the gate to let me in, and we live together as man and wife from that morning on.'
Hunchbacked Alyoshka came into the yard from the street, and ran gasping into the house without looking at anyone. A minute later he ran out of doors again with his accordion and vanished through the gate, jingling copper coins in his pocket and cracking sunflower seeds on his way.
'Who's that?' asked Matthew Savvich.
'It's my son Alyoshka,' answered Dyudya. 'The rascal's off on a spree. He's a hunchback, God having afflicted him that way, so we don't ask much of him.'
'He's always with the lads, always having his bit of fun,' sighed Afanasyevna. 'We married him offjust before Shrovetide, and thought he'd improve—but he's even worse, I do declare.'
'It didn't work out,' Dyudya said. 'We only made a strange girl's fortune when we didn't need to.'
Beyond the church someone began singing a magnificent, sad song. The words were inaudible, and only the voices could be heard—two tenors and a bass. While everyone listened, the yard grew as quict as can be.
Two of the singers suddenly broke off with a peal of laughter, but the third—a tenor—went on singing, taking so high a note that all felt impelled to gaze upwards as if the voice had reached the very height of heaven. Barbara came out of doors and looked at the church, shading her eyes with her hand as if blinded by sunlight.