“Well, doctor, what do you think? Can a man get sunstroke, eh, in our climate? Eh, doctor?”
There was no response.
“You haven’t had to treat any cases, eh? We’re discussing sunstroke. Doctor! Where’s the doctor?”
“Where the devil is the doctor?”
The hunters looked all round: the doctor had gone.
“Where’s the doctor? Faded away? Like wax in the presence of flame! Ha-ha-ha!”
“He’s gone to see Yegor’s wife,” Mikhey Yegorich said maliciously.
Yegor Yegorich turned pale and let the bottle fall to the ground.
“Yes, gone to see his wife,” Mikhey Yegorich went on, nibbling on some sturgeon.
“Why do you have to tell lies?” Mange asked. “Did you see him go?”
“Of course I saw him! A peasant went by in a cart, and he jumped on and drove away. I swear to God! Shall we have an eleventh round now, gentlemen?”
Yegor Yegorich jumped up and shook his fists.
“That’s right,” Mikhey Yegorich went on. “I asked him where he was going. ‘I’m going after strawberries,’ he said, ‘and to sweeten the horns of a cuckold. I planted ’em, and now I’m going to sweeten ’em.’ And then he said: Good-by, Mikhey Yegorich, dear boy. Give my love to Yegor Yegorich!’ and then he winked at me. Well, here’s to your health, hee-hee-hee!”
“Horses!” shouted Yegor Yegorich, and he ran staggering in the direction of the carriage.
“Hurry, or you’ll be too late!” Mikhey Yegorich shouted after him.
Yegor Yegorich dragged Avvakum onto the box, jumped in the carriage, and drove home, shaking his fists at the other hunters.
“What’s the meaning of this, gentlemen?” the general asked when Yegor Yegorich’s white cap had vanished out of sight. “He’s gone, devil take it, but how am I to get home? He went off in my carriage. Not in mine, of course, but in the one I’m supposed to go home in. Strange behavior! III-mannered of him!”
Vanya felt ill. Vodka and beer conspired to act as an emetic. They had to take him home. After the fifteenth round, they decided to let the general have the troika, but only on condition that as soon as he reached his home he would send fresh horses immediately to take them back.
The general began his good-bys.
“You can tell him from me, gentlemen,” the general said, “that only swine behave like that!”
“You should protest his bill of exchange, Your Excellency,” Mikhey Yegorich suggested.
“What’s that? Bill of exchange? Why, yes, he shouldn’t take advantage of my kindness, should he? I’ve waited and waited, and now I’m tired of waiting. Tell him I’m going to pro—Good-by, gentlemen! Come and visit me. Yes, he’s a swine all right!”
The hunters bade farewell to the general and put him in the carriage alongside the sick Vanya.
“Let’s go!”
And the general and Vanya drove away.
After the eighteenth round of drinks the hunters went into the forest and spent some time shooting at a target before lying down and going to sleep. Towards evening the general’s horses came. Firs handed Mikhey Yegorich a letter addressed to “that brother of mine.” The letter contained a demand which would result in legal proceedings if not promptly carried out. After the third round of drinks (when they woke up, they started a new count), the general’s coachmen put them into the carriages and took them home.
When Yegor Yegorich at last reached his own house, he was met by Idler and Music Maker, whose rabbit hunt had only been a pretext for going home. Yegor Yegorich threw a threatening look at his wife, and started to search the house. He searched every storeroom, cupboard, closet, and wardrobe: he never found the doctor. But he did find the choirmaster Fortunov hiding under his wife’s bed.
It was already dark when the doctor awoke. For a while he wandered about the forest, and then, remembering that he had been out hunting, he cursed and began shouting for help. Of course, his cries remained unanswered, and he decided to make the journey back on foot. It was a good road, safe, and quite visible. He covered the sixteen miles in under four hours, and by morning he reached the district hospital. He gave a tongue-lashing to the orderlies, the patients, and the midwife, and then he began to compose an immensely long letter to Yegor Yegorich. In this letter he demanded “explanations for your unseemly conduct,” said some injurious things about jealous husbands, and swore on oath that he would never go hunting again—not even on the twenty-ninth of June.
1 The name means “not-screaming-tail.”
G
CHAPTER 1
ON the shores of the Black Sea, in a small village which my diary and the diaries of my heroes and heroines call Green Scythe, there is a most charming villa. Architects and those who have a fondness for fashionable and rigorous styles would perhaps derive little pleasure from it, but your poet or artist would find it delightful. For myself, I particularly admire its unobtrusive beauty, which never overwhelms the pleasant surroundings, and I like, too, the absence of cold, intimidating marble and pretentious columns. It has warmth, intimacy, a romantic charm. With its towers, spires, battlements, and flagpoles, it can be seen looming behind a curtain of graceful silver poplars, and somehow it suggests the Middle Ages. When I gaze upon it, I am reminded of sentimental German novels full of knights and castles and doctors of philosophy and mysterious countesses. This villa is on a mountain; around the villa are rich gardens, pathways, little fountains, greenhouses. At the foot of the mountain lies the austere blue sea. Moist coquettish winds hover in the air, every conceivable bird utters its songs, the sky is eternally clear, and the
