eyes went dim. A woman or a girl on a bicycle—it’s awful!’
“‘What exactly do you want?’
“‘I want just one thing—to warn you, Mikhail Savvich. You are a young man, you have a future ahead of you, you must behave very, very carefully, yet you are negligent, oh, so negligent! You go around in an embroidered shirt, you’re always outside with some sort of books, and now there’s also the bicycle. The director will find out that you and your sister ride bicycles, then it will reach the superintendent … What’s the good of it?’
“‘That my sister and I ride bicycles is nobody’s business!’ Kovalenko said and turned purple. ‘And if anybody meddles in my domestic and family affairs, I’ll send him to all the devils in hell.’
“Belikov paled and got up.
“‘If you talk with me in such a tone, I cannot go on,’ he said. ‘And I beg you never to speak like that in my presence about our superiors. You must treat the authorities with respect.’
“‘Did I say anything bad about the authorities?’ Kovalenko asked, looking at him spitefully. ‘Kindly leave me in peace. I’m an honest man and have no wish to talk with gentlemen like you. I don’t like snitchers.’
“Belikov fussed about nervously and quickly began to dress, with a look of horror on his face. It was the first time in his life that he’d heard such rude things.
“‘You may say whatever you like,’ he said, as he went out from the front hall to the landing. ‘Only I must warn you: someone may have heard us, and, since our conversation might be misunderstood and something might come of it, I will have to report the content of our conversation to the director … in its main features. It is my duty to do so.’
“‘Report? Go on, report!’
“Kovalenko seized him from behind by the collar and shoved, and Belikov went tumbling down the stairs, his galoshes clunking. The stairs were high and steep, but he reached the bottom safely, got up, and felt his nose: were his glasses broken? But just as he was tumbling down the stairs, Varenka came in and there were two ladies with her; they stood below and watched—and for Belikov this was the most terrible thing of all. It would have been better, he thought, to break his neck and both legs than to become a laughingstock: now the whole town would know, it would reach the director, the superintendent—ah, something might come of it!— there would be a new caricature, and the upshot of it all would be that he would be ordered to resign …
“When he got up, Varenka recognized him and, looking at his ridiculous face, his crumpled overcoat, his galoshes, not understanding what it was about, and supposing he had fallen accidentally, could not help herself and laughed for the whole house to hear:
“‘Ha, ha, ha!’
“And this rolling, pealing ‘ha, ha, ha!’ put an end to everything: both the engagement and the earthly existence of Belikov. He did not hear what Varenka said, nor did he see anything. Returning home, he first of all removed the portrait from the desk, and then he lay down and never got up again.
“Three days later Afanasy came to me and asked if he ought to send for the doctor, because, he said, something was wrong with his master. I went to see Belikov. He lay under the canopy, covered with a blanket, and said nothing; you ask him, and he just says yes or no—and not another sound. He lies there, and Afanasy walks around, gloomy, scowling, and sighs deeply; and he reeks of vodka like a tavern.
“A month later Belikov died. We all went to his burial, that is, both schools and the seminary. Now, lying in the coffin, his expression was meek, pleasant, even cheerful, as if he were glad that he had finally been put in a case he would never have to leave. Yes, he had attained his ideal! And, as if in his honor, the weather during the burial was gray, rainy, and we were all in galoshes and carrying umbrellas. Varenka was also at the burial, and she wept a little when the coffin was lowered into the grave. I’ve noticed that Ukrainian girls only weep or laugh, they have no in-between state.
“I confess, burying people like Belikov is a great pleasure. As we came back from the cemetery, we had modest, lenten physiognomies; nobody wanted to show this feeling of pleasure—a feeling like that experienced long, long ago, in childhood, when the grown-ups went away and we could spend an hour or two running around in the garden, relishing our full freedom. Ah, freedom, freedom! Even a hint, even a faint hope of it lends the soul wings, isn’t that so?
“We came back from the cemetery in good spirits. But no more than a week went by, and life flowed on as before, the same grim, wearisome, witless life, not forbidden by the circulars, yet not fully permitted. Things didn’t get any better. And, indeed, we had buried Belikov, but how many more men in cases there still are, and how many more there will be!”
“Right you are,” said Ivan Ivanych, and he lit his pipe.
“How many more there will be!” Burkin repeated.
The schoolteacher came out of the shed. He was a short man, fat, completely bald, with a black beard almost down to his waist. Two dogs came out with him.
“What a moon!” he said, looking up.
It was already midnight. To the right the whole village was visible, the long street stretching into the distance a good three miles. Everything was sunk in a hushed, deep sleep; not a movement, not a sound, it was hard to believe that nature could be so hushed. When you see a wide village street on a moonlit night, with its cottages, haystacks, sleeping willows, your own soul becomes hushed; in that peace, hiding from toil, care, and grief in the shadows of the night, it turns meek, mournful, beautiful, and it seems that the stars, too, look down on it tenderly and with feeling, and that there is no more evil on earth, and all is well. Fields spread out to the left from the edge of the village; they were visible as far as the horizon, and across the whole breadth of those fields, flooded with moonlight, there was also no movement or sound.
“Right you are,” Ivan Ivanych repeated. “And that we live in town, stifled, crowded, writing useless papers, playing cards—isn’t that a case? And that we spend our lives among do-nothings, pettifoggers, stupid, idle women, that we say and hear all kinds of nonsense—isn’t that a case? Here, if you like, I’ll tell you an instructive story.”
“No, it’s time to sleep,” said Burkin. “Good night.”
They both went into the shed and lay down in the hay. And they had both already covered themselves and dozed off when light footsteps were heard: tap, tap … Someone was walking near the shed; walked and then stopped, and after a moment again: tap, tap … The dogs growled.
