Saying this, Pelageya smiled like an idiot and looked up into Yegor’s face. Her own face was glowing with happiness.
“Sit down? Well, if you want me to …” Yegor said in a tone of indifference, and he chose a spot in the shade between two fully grown fir trees. “Why are you standing, eh? You sit down, too!”
Pelageya sat down a little way away in the full sunlight. Ashamed of her happiness, she hid her smiles with her hand. Two minutes passed in silence.
“You might come back to me just once,” Pelageya said softly.
“Why?” Yegor sighed, and he removed his cap and wiped his red forehead with his sleeve. “I don’t see any need for it. There’s no sense in coming for an hour or two—it will only upset you! And as for living all the time in your village, well, it’s beyond endurance! You know yourself how I have been spoiled.… I have to have a bed, and good tea, and fine conversations.… Me, I want all the fine things of life, and as for you—you enjoy the poverty and smoke of your village.… I couldn’t stand it for even a day. Imagine there came an order saying I must live permanently with you—well, I’d rather set fire to the cottage or lay hands on myself! Ever since I was a boy, I was always spoiled—there’s no getting away from it!”
“Where are you living now?”
“With Dmitry Ivanich, a fine gentleman, and I’m his huntsman. I furnish his table with game … and there it is … he keeps me more for his own pleasure than for anything else.”
“That’s not proper kind of work, Yegor Vlassich!… People call that fooling around—there’s only you who thinks of it as an occupation, a real job of work.…”
“You don’t understand, stupid,” Yegor said, gazing dreamily at the sky. “Ever since you were born, you’ve never understood what kind of man I am, and you never will.… According to you I’m just a crazy half-cocked sort of fellow, but anyone with an ounce of understanding knows that I’m the best shot in the whole district. The gentry know that, and they’ve even written me up in a magazine. There isn’t a man who can be compared with me as a huntsman.… And it isn’t because I am spoiled and proud that I despise the work of your village. From the time when I was a child, as you know, I never had to do with anything except guns and dogs. If they took my gun away, I’d go out with a fishing rod, and if they took my rod away, then I’d find some way to busy myself with my hands. I went in for horse trading and I’d go to fairs when I had money, and you know yourself that when a peasant goes in for hunting and horse trading, then it’s good-by to the plow. Once freedom catches hold of a man, you can never hammer it out of him! In the same way a gentleman who takes up acting or goes in for the arts will never be of any use as an official or a landowner. You’re a peasant girl, and you’ll never understand that, but it’s something you’ve got to know!”
“I do understand it, Yegor Vlassich.”
“You obviously don’t understand, seeing that you’re about to cry.”
“I … I’m not crying,” Pelageya said, turning her head away. “It’s a sin, Yegor Vlassich! You ought to come and spend a bit of time with me. I’m so miserable! We’ve been married for twelve years … never once was there any love between us.… I … I’m not crying.”
“Love,” Yegor muttered, scratching his arm. “There couldn’t be any love between us. It’s only on paper we’re husband and wife—the truth is we are really nothing at all, eh? You think of me as a wild sort of fellow, and I think of you as a simple peasant girl who doesn’t understand anything. We are not much of a pair! I’m a free man, and I’ve been spoiled, and I go where I please. And you’re a laboring woman wearing bast shoes, living in filth, and your back is bent low to the ground. I know all about myself—I know I’m the best huntsman around, and you look at me with pity.… There’s a fine pair for you!”
“We were married in church, Yegor Vlassich,” sobbed Pelageya.
“It wasn’t my fault we got married.… Have you forgotten? You have Count Sergey Pavlich to thank for it … and you had some responsibility, too. He was full of envy for me because I was a better shot than he was, and he kept me drinking for a whole month, and when a fellow is drunk, you can make him do anything—get married, change his religion, anything! Out of revenge he married me to you when I was drunk.… A huntsman marrying a cow girl! You saw I was drunk, so why did you marry me? You were not a serf—you could have refused! Sure, it is a lucky thing for a cow girl to marry a huntsman, but you have to use your brains. Now you are making yourself miserable, and crying. The count thought it was a joke, but you went right on crying … beating your head against a wall.…”
Silence followed. Three wild ducks flew over the clearing. Yegor watched them, following them until they became three barely perceptible dots, and then they vanished on the other side of the forest far away.
“How do you live?” he asked, no longer looking at the ducks, but at Pelageya.
“This time of year I go out and work, and in the winter I take a baby from the foundling hospital and bring it up on the bottle. For that they give me a ruble and a half a month.”
“So …”
Again there was silence. From a field which had been reaped there came the first soft notes of a song, which broke off abruptly. It was too hot for singing.
“They say you built a new hut for Akulina,” said Pelageya.
Yegor was silent.
“Are you fond of her?”
“It’s just your luck, it’s fate!” said the huntsman, stretching himself. “You have to suffer, poor orphan! Good-by! I’ve been chattering too much!… I have to reach Boltovo by evening.”
Yegor rose, stretched himself, and threw his gun over his shoulder. Pelageya got up.
“When are you coming to the village?” she asked softly.
“No reason for me to come. I won’t come sober, and I won’t be much use to you if I come drunk. I’m mean when I’m drunk. Good-by!”
“Good-by, Yegor Vlassich.”
Yegor put his cap on the back of his head, made a clicking noise with his tongue to summon the dog, and went on his way. Pelageya stood there and watched him going. She followed the movement of his shoulder blades, the
