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
ponder.
'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.
