"All that is so, of course, but, nevertheless, I cannot.... How am I to sell that inn?"

"But why not sell it, ma'am?"--went on Kirillovna.--"Luckily, a purchaser has turned up. Permit me to inquire, ma'am, how much does he offer you?"

"Over two thousand rubles,"--said Lizaveta Prokhorovna, softly.

"He 'll give more, madam, if he offers two thousand at the first word.

And you can settle with Akim afterward; you can reduce his quit-rent, I suppose.--He will still be grateful."

"Of course, his quit-rent must be reduced. But no, Kirillovna; how can I sell?..." And Lizaveta Prokhorovna paced up and down the room.... "No, it is impossible; it is n't right;.... no; please say no more to me about it ... or I shall get angry...."

But in spite of the prohibition of the excited Lizaveta Prokhorovna, Kirillovna continued to talk, and half an hour later she returned to Naum, whom she had left in the butler's pantry with the samovar.

"What have you to tell me, my most respected?"--said Naum, foppishly turning his empty cup upside down on his saucer.

"This is what I have to tell you,"--returned Kirillovna:--"that you are to go to the mistress; she bids you come."

"I obey, ma'am,"--replied Naum, rising, and followed Kirillovna to the drawing-room.

The door closed behind them.... When, at last, that door opened again and Naum backed out of it bowing, the matter was already settled; Akim's inn belonged to him; he had acquired it for two thousand eight hundred rubles in bank-bills.[42] They had decided to complete the deed of sale as promptly as possible, and not to announce the sale until that was accomplished; Lizaveta Prokhorovna had received one hundred rubles as deposit, and two hundred rubles went to Kirillovna as commission.

"I have got it at a bargain,"--thought Naum, as he climbed into his cart; "I 'm glad it turned out well."

At that very time, when the bargain which we have described was being effected at the manor-house, Akim was sitting alone on the wall-bench under the window, in his own room, and stroking his beard with an air of displeasure.... We have stated above that he did not suspect his wife's fondness for Naum, although kind persons had, more than once, hinted to him that it was high time for him to listen to reason; of course, he himself was sometimes able to observe that his housewife, for some time past, had become more restive; but then, all the world knows that the female s.e.x is vain and capricious. Even when it really seemed to him that something was wrong, he merely waved it from him; he did not wish, as the saying is, to raise a row; his good-nature had not diminished with the years, and, moreover, indolence was making itself felt. But on that day he was very much out of sorts; on the previous evening he had unexpectedly overheard on the street a conversation between his maid-servant and another woman, one of his neighbours....

The woman had asked his maid-servant why she had not run in to see her on the evening of the holiday. "I was expecting thee," she said.

"Why, I would have come,"--replied the maid-servant,--"but, shameful to say, I caught the mistress at her capers .... bad luck to her!"

"Thou didst catch her ...." repeated the peasant-wife in a peculiarly-drawling tone, propping her cheek on her hand.--"And where didst thou catch her, my mother?"

"Why, behind the hemp-patches--the priest's hemp-patches. The mistress, seest thou, had gone out to the hemp-patches to meet that fellow of hers, that Naum, and I could n't see in the dark, whether because of the moonlight, or what not, the Lord knows, and so I ran right against them."

"Thou didst run against them,"--repeated the peasant-wife again.--"Well, and what was she doing, my mother? Was she standing with him?"

"She was standing, right enough. He was standing and she was standing.

She caught sight of me, and says she: 'Whither art thou running to? Take thyself off home.' So I went."

"Thou wentest."--The peasant-wife was silent for a s.p.a.ce.--"Well, good-bye, Fetiniushka,"--she said, and went her way.

This conversation had produced an unpleasant effect on Akim. His love for Avdotya had already grown cold, but, nevertheless, the maid-servant's words displeased him. And she had told the truth: as a matter of fact, Avdotya had gone out that evening to meet Naum, who had waited for her in the dense shadow which fell upon the road from the tall and motionless hemp-patch. The dew had drenched its every stalk from top to bottom; the scent, powerful to the point of oppressiveness, lay all around. The moon had only just risen, huge and crimson, in the dim and the blackish mist. Naum had heard Avdotya's hasty footsteps from afar, and had advanced to meet her. She reached him all pale with running; the moon shone directly in her face.

"Well, how now; hast thou brought it?"--he asked her.

"Yes, I have,"--she replied in an irresolute tone:--"but, Naum Ivanovitch, what ...."

"Give it here, if thou hast brought it,"--he interrupted her, stretching out his hand.

She drew from beneath her kerchief on her neck some sort of packet. Naum instantly grasped it and thrust it into his breast.

"Naum Ivanitch,"--enunciated Avdotya, slowly, and without taking her eyes from him.... "Okh, Naum Ivanitch, I am ruining my soul for thee...."

At that moment the maid-servant had come upon them.

So, then, Akim was sitting on the wall-bench and stroking his beard with his dissatisfaction. Avdotya kept entering the house and leaving it. He merely followed her with his eyes. At last she entered yet again, and taking a warm wadded jacket from the little room, she was already crossing the threshold; but he could endure it no longer, and began to talk, as though to himself:

"I wonder,"--he began,--"what makes these women-folks always so fidgety?

That they should sit still in one spot is something that can't be demanded of them. That 's no affair of theirs. But what they do love is to be running off somewhere or other, morning or evening.--Yes."

Avdotya heard her husband's speech out to the end without changing her att.i.tude; only, at the word "evening," she moved her head a mere trifle, and seemed to become thoughtful.

"Well, Semyonitch,"--she said at last, with irritation,--"'t is well known that when thou beginnest to talk, why...."

She waved her hand and departed, slamming the door behind her. Avdotya did not, in fact, hold Akim's eloquence in high esteem, and it sometimes happened, when he undertook of an evening to argue with the travellers, or began to tell stories, she would yawn quietly or walk out of the room. Akim stared at the closed door.... "When thou beginnest to talk,"

he repeated in an undertone .... "that 's exactly it, that I have talked very little with thee.... And who art thou? My equal, and, moreover ...." And he rose, meditated, and dealt himself a blow on the nape of his neck with his clenched fist....

A few days pa.s.sed after this day in a decidedly queer manner. Akim kept on staring at his wife, as though he were preparing to say something to her; and she, on her side, darted suspicious glances at him; moreover, both of them maintained a constrained silence; this silence, however, was generally broken by some snappish remark from Akim about some neglect in the housekeeping, or on the subject of women in general; Avdotya, for the most part, did not answer him with a single word. But, despite all Akim's good-natured weakness, matters would infallibly have come to a decisive explanation between him and Avdotya had it not been for the fact that, at last, an incident occurred, after which all explanations would have been superfluous.

Namely, one morning, Akim and his wife were just preparing to take a light meal after the noon hour (there was not a single traveller in the inn, after the summer labours), when suddenly a small cart rumbled energetically along the road, and drew up at the porch. Akim glanced through the small window, frowned, and dropped his eyes; from the cart, without haste, Naum alighted. Avdotya did not see him, but when his voice resounded in the anteroom, the spoon trembled weakly in her hand.

He ordered the hired man to put his horse in the yard. At last the door flew wide open, and he entered the room.

"Morning,"--he said, and doffed his cap.

"Morning,"--repeated Akim through his teeth.--"Whence has G.o.d brought thee?"

"From the neighbourhood,"--returned the other, seating himself on the wall-bench.--"I come from the lady-mistress."

"From the mistress,"--said Akim, still not rising from his seat.--"On business, pray?"

"Yes, on business. Avdotya Arefyevna, our respects to you."

"Good morning, Naum,"--she replied.

All remained silent for a s.p.a.ce.

"What have you there--some sort of porridge, I suppose?"--began Naum....

"Yes, porridge,"--retorted Akim, and suddenly paled:--"but it is n't for thee."

Naum darted a glance of astonishment at Akim.

"Why is n't it for me?"

"Why, just because it is n't for thee."--Akim's eyes began to flash, and he smote the table with his fist.--"There is nothing in my house for thee, dost hear me?"

"What ails thee, Semyonitch, what ails thee? What 's the matter with thee?"

"There 's nothing the matter with me, but I 'm tired of _thee_, Naum Ivanitch, that 's what."--The old man rose to his feet, trembling all over.--"Thou hast taken to haunting my house altogether too much, that 's what."

Naum also rose to his feet.