Good-bye.»

And he went slowly out into the road accompanied by Yefrem. Naum

ordered the horse to be unharnessed and with a wave of his hand went

back into the house.

«Where are you off to, Akim Semyonitch? Aren’t you coming back to me?»

cried Yefrem, seeing that Akim was hurrying to the right out of the

high road.

«No, Yefremushka, thank you,» answered Akim. «I am going to see what

my wife is doing.»

«You can see afterwards…. But now we ought to celebrate the

occasion.»

«No, thank you, Yefrem…. I’ve had enough. Good-bye.»

And Akim walked off without looking round.

«Well! ‘I’ve had enough’!» the puzzled sacristan pronounced. «And I

pledged my word for him! Well, I never expected this,» he added, with

vexation, «after I had pledged my word for him, too!»

He remembered that he had not thought to take his knife and his pot

and went back to the inn…. Naum ordered his things to be given to

him but never even thought of offering him a drink. He returned home

thoroughly annoyed and thoroughly sober.

«Well?» his wife inquired, «found?»

«Found what?» answered Yefrem, «to be sure I’ve found it: here is your

pot.»

«Akim?» asked his wife with especial emphasis.

Yefrem nodded his head.

«Yes. But he is a nice one! I pledged my word for him; if it had not

been for me he’d be lying in prison, and he never offered me a drop!

Ulyana Fyodorovna, you at least might show me consideration and give

me a glass!»

But Ulyana Fyodorovna did not show him consideration and drove him out

of her sight.

Meanwhile, Akim was walking with slow steps along the road to Lizaveta

Prohorovna’s house. He could not yet fully grasp his position; he was

trembling all over like a man who had just escaped from a certain

death. He seemed unable to believe in his freedom. In dull

bewilderment he gazed at the fields, at the sky, at the larks

quivering in the warm air. From the time he had woken up on the

previous morning at Yefrem’s he had not slept, though he had lain on

the stove without moving; at first he had wanted to drown in vodka the

insufferable pain of humiliation, the misery of frenzied and impotent

anger … but the vodka had not been able to stupefy him completely;

his anger became overpowering and he began to think how to punish the

man who had wronged him…. He thought of no one but Naum; the idea of

Lizaveta Prohorovna never entered his head and on Avdotya he mentally

turned his back. By the evening his thirst for revenge had grown to a

frenzy, and the good-natured and weak man waited with feverish

impatience for the approach of night and ran, like a wolf to its prey,

to destroy his old home…. But then he had been caught … locked

up…. The night had followed. What had he not thought over during

that cruel night! It is difficult to put into words all that a man

passes through at such moments, all the tortures that he endures; more

difficult because those tortures are dumb and inarticulate in the man

himself…. Towards morning, before Naum and Yefrem had come to the

door, Akim had begun to feel as it were more at ease. Everything is

lost, he thought, everything is scattered and gone … and he

dismissed it all. If he had been naturally bad-hearted he might at

that moment have become a criminal; but evil was not natural to Akim.

Under the shock of undeserved and unexpected misfortune, in the

delirium of despair he had brought himself to crime; it had shaken him

to the depths of his being and, failing, had left in him nothing but

intense weariness…. Feeling his guilt in his mind he mentally tore

himself from all things earthly and began praying, bitterly but

fervently. At first he prayed in a whisper, then perhaps by accident

he uttered a loud «Oh, God!» and tears gushed from his eyes…. For a

long time he wept and at last grew quieter…. His thoughts would

probably have changed if he had had to pay the penalty of his

attempted crime … but now he had suddenly been set free … and he

was walking to see his wife, feeling only half alive, utterly crushed

but calm.

Lizaveta Prohorovna’s house stood about a mile from her village to the

left of the cross road along which Akim was walking. He was about to

stop at the turning that led to his mistress’s house … but he walked

on instead. He decided first to go to what had been his hut, where his

uncle lived.

Akim’s small and somewhat dilapidated hut was almost at the end of the

village; Akin walked through the whole street without meeting a soul.

All the people were at church. Only one sick old woman raised a little

window to look after him and a little girl who had run out with an

empty pail to the well gaped at him, and she too looked after him. The

first person he met was the uncle he was looking for. The old man had

been sitting all the morning on the ledge under his window taking

pinches of snuff and warming himself in the sun; he was not very well,

so he had not gone to church; he was just setting off to visit another

old man, a neighbour who was also ailing, when he suddenly saw

Akim…. He stopped, let him come up to him and glancing into his

face, said:

«Good-day, Akimushka!»

«Good-day,» answered Akim, and passing the old man went in at the

gate. In the yard were standing his horses, his cow, his cart; his

poultry, too, were there…. He went into the hut without a word. The

old man followed him. Akim sat down on the bench and leaned his fists

on it. The old man standing at the door looked at him compassionately.

«And where is my wife?» asked Akim.

«At the mistress’s house,» the old man answered quickly. «She is

there. They put your cattle here and what boxes there were, and she

has gone there. Shall I go for her?»

Akim was silent for a time.

«Yes, do,» he said at last.

«Oh, uncle, uncle,» he brought out with a sigh while the old man was

taking his hat from a nail, «do you remember what you said to me the

day before my wedding?»

«It’s all God’s will, Akimushka.»

«Do you remember you said to me that I was above you peasants, and now

you see what times have come…. I’m stripped bare myself.»

«There’s no guarding oneself from evil folk,» answered the old man,

«if only someone such as a master, for instance, or someone in

authority, could give him a good lesson, the shameless fellow—but as

it is, he has nothing to be afraid of. He is a wolf and he behaves

like one.» And the old man put on his cap and went off.

Avdotya had just come back from church when she was told that her

husband’s uncle was asking for her. Till then she had rarely seen him;

he did not come to see them at the inn and had the reputation of being

queer altogether: he was passionately fond of snuff and was usually

silent.

She went out to him.

«What do you want, Petrovitch? Has anything happened?»

«Nothing has happened, Avdotya Arefyevna; your husband is asking for

you.»

«Has he come back?»

«Yes.»

«Where is he, then?»

«He is in the village, sitting in his hut.»

Avdotya was frightened.

«Well, Petrovitch,» she inquired, looking straight into his face, «is

he angry?»

«He does not seem so.»

Avdotya looked down.

«Well, let us go,» she said. She put on a shawl and they set off

together. They walked in silence to the village. When they began to

get close to the hut, Avdotya was so overcome with terror that her

knees began to tremble.

«Good Petrovitch,» she said, «go in first…. Tell him that I have

come.»

The old man went into the hut and found Akim lost in thought, sitting

just as he had left him.

«Well?» said Akim raising his head, «hasn’t she come?»

«Yes,» answered the old man, «she is at the gate….»

«Well, send her in here.»

The old man went out, beckoned to Avdotya, said to her, «go in,» and

sat down again on the ledge. Avdotya in trepidation opened the door,

crossed the threshold and stood still.

Akim looked at her.

«Well, Arefyevna,» he began, «what are we going to do now?»

«I am guilty,» she faltered.

«Ech Arefyevna, we are all sinners. What’s the good of talking about

it!»

«It’s he, the villain, has ruined us both,» said Avdotya in a cringing

voice, and tears flowed down her face. «You must not leave it like

that, Akim Semyonitch, you must get the money back. Don’t think of me.

I am ready to take my oath that I only lent him the money. Lizaveta

Prohorovna could sell our inn if she liked, but why should he rob

us…. Get your money back.»

«There’s no claiming the money back from him,» Akim replied grimly,

«we have settled our accounts.»

Avdotya was amazed. «How is that?»

«Why, like this. Do you know,» Akim went on and his eyes gleamed, «do

you know where I spent the night? You don’t know? In Naum’s cellar,

with my arms and legs tied like a sheep—that’s where I spent the

night. I tried to set fire to the place, but he caught me—Naum did;

he is too sharp! And to-day he meant to take me to the town but he let

me off; so I can’t claim the money from him…. ‘When did I borrow

money from you?’ he would say. Am I to say to him, ‘My wife took it

from under the floor and brought it to you’? ‘Your wife is telling

lies,’ he will say. Hasn’t there been scandal enough for you,

Arefyevna? You’d better say nothing, I tell you, say nothing.»

«I am guilty, Semyonitch, I am guilty,» Avdotya, terrified, whispered

again.

«That’s not what matters,» said Akim, after a pause. «What are we

going to do? We have no home or no money.»

«We shall manage somehow, Akim Semyonitch. We’ll ask Lizaveta

Prohorovna, she will help us, Kiriliovna has promised me.»

«No, Arefyenva, you and your Kirillovna had better ask her together;

you are berries off the same bush. I tell you what: