did not take much notice of him and only thought of him as a sharp
young fellow who was rapidly making his way in the world. He did not
suspect Avdotya's real feelings and went on believing in her as
before.
Two years passed like this.
One summer day it happened that Lizaveta Prohorovna--who had somehow
suddenly grown yellow and wrinkled during those two years in spite of
all sorts of unguents, rouge and powder--about two o'clock in the
afternoon went out with her lap dog and her folding parasol for a
stroll before dinner in her neat little German garden. With a faint
rustle of her starched petticoats, she walked with tiny steps along
the sandy path between two rows of erect, stiffly tied-up dahlias,
when she was suddenly overtaken by our old acquaintance Kirillovna,
who announced respectfully that a merchant desired to speak to her on
important business. Kirillovna was still high in her mistress's favour
(in reality it was she who managed Madame Kuntse's estate) and she had
some time before obtained permission to wear a white cap, which gave
still more acerbity to the sharp features of her swarthy face.
"A merchant?" said her mistress; "what does he want?"
"I don't know what he wants," answered Kirillovna in an insinuating
voice, "only I think he wants to buy something from you."
Lizaveta Prohorovna went back into the drawing-room, sat down in her
usual seat--an armchair with a canopy over it, upon which a climbing
plant twined gracefully--and gave orders that the merchant should be
summoned.
Naum appeared, bowed, and stood still by the door.
"I hear that you want to buy something of me," said Lizaveta
Prohorovna, and thought to herself, "What a handsome man this merchant
is."
"Just so, madam."
"What is it?"
"Would you be willing to sell your inn?"
"What inn?"
"Why, the one on the high road not far from here."
"But that inn is not mine, it is Akim's."
"Not yours? Why, it stands on your land."
"Yes, the land is mine ... bought in my name; but the inn is his."
"To be sure. But wouldn't you be willing to sell it to me?"
"How could I sell it to you?"
"Well, I would give you a good price for it."
Lizaveta Prohorovna was silent for a space.
"It is really very queer what you are saying," she said. "And what
would you give?" she added. "I don't ask that for myself but for
Akim."
"For all the buildings and the appurtenances, together with the land
that goes with it, of course, I would give two thousand roubles."
"Two thousand roubles! That is not enough," replied Lizaveta
Prohorovna.
"It's a good price."
"But have you spoken to Akim?"
"What should I speak to him for? The inn is yours, so here I am
talking to you about it."
"But I have told you.... It really is astonishing that you don't
understand me."
"Not understand, madam? But I do understand."
Lizaveta Prohorovna looked at Naum and Naum looked at Lizaveta
Prohorovna.
"Well, then," he began, "what do you propose?"
"I propose..." Lizaveta Prohorovna moved in her chair. "In the first
place I tell you that two thousand is too little and in the second..."
"I'll add another hundred, then."
Lizaveta Prohorovna got up.
"I see that you are talking quite off the point. I have told you
already that I cannot sell that inn--am not going to sell it. I
cannot ... that is, I will not."
Naum smiled and said nothing for a space.
"Well, as you please, madam," he said, shrugging his shoulders. "I beg
to take leave." He bowed and took hold of the door handle.
Lizaveta Prohorovna turned round to him.
"You need not go away yet, however," she said, with hardly perceptible
agitation. She rang the bell and Kirillovna came in from the study.
"Kirillovna, tell them to give this gentleman some tea. I will see you
again," she added, with a slight inclination of her head.
Naum bowed again and went out with Kirillovna. Lizaveta Prohorovna
walked up and down the room once or twice and rang the bell again.
This time a page appeared. She told him to fetch Kirillovna. A few
moments later Kirillovna came in with a faint creak of her new
goatskin shoes.
"Have you heard," Lizaveta Prohorovna began with a forced laugh, "what
this merchant has been proposing to me? He is a queer fellow, really!"
"No, I haven't heard. What is it, madam?" and Kirillovna faintly
screwed up her black Kalmuck eyes.
"He wants to buy Akim's inn."
"Well, why not?"
"But how could he? What about Akim? I gave it to Akim."
"Upon my word, madam, what are you saying? Isn't the inn yours? Don't
we all belong to you? And isn't all our property yours, our
mistress's?"
"Good gracious, Kirillovna, what are you saying?" Lizaveta Prohorovna
pulled out a batiste handkerchief and nervously blew her nose. "Akim
bought the inn with his own money."
"His own money? But where did he get the money? Wasn't it through your
kindness? He has had the use of the land all this time as it is. It
was all through your gracious permission. And do you suppose, madam,
that he would have no money left? Why, he is richer than you are, upon
my word, he is!"
"That's all true, of course, but still I can't do it.... How could I
sell the inn?"
"And why not sell it," Kirillovna went on, "since a purchaser has
luckily turned up? May I ask, madam, how much he offers you?"
"More than two thousand roubles," said Lizaveta Prohorovna softly.
"He will give more, madam, if he offers two thousand straight off. And
you will arrange things with Akim afterwards; take a little off his
yearly duty or something. He will be thankful, too."
"Of course, I must remit part of his duty. But no, Kirillovna, how can
I sell it?" and Lizaveta Prohorovna walked up and down the room. "No,
that's out of the question, that won't do ... no, please don't speak
of it again ... or I shall be angry."
But in spite of her agitated mistress's warning, Kirillovna did
continue speaking of it and half an hour later she went back to Naum,
whom she had left in the butler's pantry at the samovar.
"What have you to tell me, good madam?" said Naum, jauntily turning
his tea-cup wrong side upwards in the saucer.
"What I have to tell you is that you are to go in to the mistress; she
wants you."
"Certainly," said Naum, and he got up and followed Kirillovna into the
drawing-room.
The door closed behind them.... When the door opened again and Naum
walked out backwards, bowing, the matter was settled: Akim's inn
belonged to him. He had bought it for 2800 paper roubles. It was
arranged that the legal formalities should take place as quickly as
possible and that till then the matter should not be made public.
Lizaveta Prohorovna received a deposit of a hundred roubles and two
hundred went to Kirillovna for her assistance. "It has
not cost me
much," thought Naum as he got into his coat, "it was a lucky chance."
While the transaction we have described was going forward in the
mistress's house, Akim was sitting at home alone on the bench by the
window, stroking his beard with a discontented expression. We have
said already that he did not suspect his wife's feeling for Naum,
although kind friends had more than once hinted to him that it was
time he opened his eyes; it is true that he had noticed himself that
of late his wife had become rather difficult, but we all know that the
female sex is capricious and changeable. Even when it really did
strike him that things were not going well in his house, he merely
dismissed the thought with a wave of his hand; he did not like the
idea of a squabble; his good nature had not lessened with years and
indolence was asserting itself, too. But on that day he was very much
out of humour; the day before he had overheard quite by chance in the
street a conversation between their servant and a neighbouring peasant
woman.
The peasant woman asked the servant why she had not come to see her on
the holiday the day before. "I was expecting you," she said.
"I did set off," replied the servant, "but as ill-luck would have it,
I ran into the mistress ... botheration take her."
"Ran into her?" repeated the peasant woman in a sing-song voice and
she leaned her cheek on her hand. "And where did you run into her, my
good girl?"
"Beyond the priest's hemp-patch. She must have gone to the hemp-patch
to meet her Naum, but I could not see them in the dusk, owing to the
moon, maybe, I don't know; I simply dashed into them."
"Dashed into them?" the other woman repeated. "Well, and was she
standing with him, my good girl?"
"Yes, she was. He was standing there and so was she. She saw me and
said, 'Where are you running to? Go home.' So I went home."
"You went home?" The peasant woman was silent. "Well, good-bye,
Fetinyushka," she brought out at last, and trudged off.
This conversation had an unpleasant effect on Akim. His love for
Avdotya had cooled, but still he did not like what the servant had
said. And she had told the truth: Avdotya really had gone out that
evening to meet Naum, who had been waiting for her in the patch of
dense shade thrown on the road by the high motionless hemp. The dew
bathed every stalk of it from top to bottom; the strong, almost
overpowering fragrance hung all about it. A huge crimson moon had just
risen in the dingy, blackish mist. Naum heard the hurried footsteps of
Avdotya a long way off and went to meet her. She came up to him, pale
with running; the moon lighted up her face.
"Well, have you brought it?" he asked.
"Brought it--yes, I have," she answered in an uncertain voice. "But,
Naum Ivanitch----"
"Give it me, since you have brought it," he interrupted her, and held
out his hand.
She took a parcel from under her shawl. Naum took it at once and
thrust it in his bosom.
"Naum Ivanitch," Avdotya said slowly, keeping her eyes fixed on him,
"oh, Naum Ivanitch, you will bring my soul to ruin."
It was at that instant that the servant came up to them.
And so Akim was sitting on the bench discontentedly stroking his
beard. Avdotya kept coming into the room and going out again. He
simply followed her with his eyes. At last she came into the room and
after taking a jerkin from the lobby was just crossing the threshold,
when he could not restrain himself and said, as though speaking to
himself:
"I wonder," he began, "why it is women are always in a fuss? It's no
good expecting them to sit still. That's not in their line. But
running out morning or evening, that's what they like. Yes."
Avdotya listened to her husband's words without changing her position;
only at the word "evening," she moved her head slightly and seemed to
"Once you begin talking, Semyonitch," she commented at last with
vexation, "there is no stopping you."
And with a wave of her hand she went away and slammed the door.
Avdotya certainly did not appreciate Akim's eloquence and often in the
evenings when he indulged in conversation with travellers or fell to
telling stories she stealthily yawned or went out of the room. Akim
looked at the closed door. "Once you begin talking," he repeated in an
undertone.... "The fact is, I have not talked enough to you. And who
is it? A peasant like any one of us, and what's more...." And he got
up, thought a little and tapped the back of his head with his fist.
Several days passed in a rather strange way. Akim kept looking at his
wife as though he were preparing to say something to her, and she, for
her part, looked at him suspiciously; meanwhile, they both preserved a
strained silence. This silence, however, was broken from time to time
by some peevish remark from Akim in regard to some oversight in the
housekeeping or in regard to women in general. For the most part
Avdotya did not answer one word. But in spite of Akim's good-natured
weakness, it certainly would have come to a decisive explanation
between him and Avdotya, if it had not been for an event which
rendered any explanation useless.
One morning Akim and wife were just beginning lunch (owing to the
summer work in the fields there were no travellers at the inn) when
suddenly a cart rattled briskly along the road and pulled up sharply
at the front door. Akim peeped out of window, frowned and looked down:
Naum got deliberately out of the cart. Avdotya had not seen him, but
when she heard his voice in the entry the spoon trembled in her hand.
He told the labourers to put up the horse in the yard. At last the
door opened and he walked into the room.
"Good-day," he said, and took off his cap.
"Good-day," Akim repeated through his teeth. "Where has God brought
you from?"
"I was in the neighbourhood," replied Naum, and he sat down on the
bench. "I have come from your lady."
"From the lady," said Akim, not getting up from his seat. "On
business, eh?"
"Yes, on business. My respects to you, Avdotya Arefyevona."
"Good morning, Naum Ivanitch," she answered. All were silent.
"What have you got, broth, is it?" began Naum.
"Yes, broth," replied Akim and all at once he turned pale, "but not
for you."
Naum glanced at Akim with surprise.
"Not for me?"
"Not for you, and that's all about it." Akim's eyes glittered and he
brought his fist on the table. "There is nothing in my house for you,
do you hear?"
"What's this, Semyonitch, what is the matter with you?"
"There's nothing the matter with me, but I am sick of you, Naum
Ivanitch, that's what it is." The old man got up, trembling all over.
"You poke yourself in here too often, I tell you."
Naum, too, got up.
"You've gone clean off your head, old man," he said with a jeer.
"Avdotya Arefyevna, what's wrong with him?"
"I tell you," shouted Akim in
a cracked voice, "go away, do you
hear? ... You have nothing to do with Avdotya Arefyevna ... I tell
you, do you hear, get out!"
"What's that you are saying to me?" Naum asked significantly.
"Go out of the house, that's what I am telling to you. Here's God and
here's the door ... do you understand? Or there will be trouble."
Naum took a step forward.
"Good gracious, don't fight, my dears," faltered Avdotya, who till