‘‘We keep bees and raise pigs.’’
‘‘Do you live with your father or on your own?’’
‘‘No, now I live on my own. Separately. Got married this month after Saint Peter’s.22 A married man now! ... It’s eighteen days I’ve been under the law.’’
‘‘That’s a good thing!’’ said Pantelei. ‘‘A wife’s all right ... God’s blessing . . .’’
‘‘A young wife asleep at home, and he goes traipsing about the steppe,’’ Kiriukha laughed. ‘‘An odd fellow!’’
Konstantin, as if pinched on his tenderest spot, roused himself, laughed, turned red ...
‘‘But, Lord, she’s not at home!’’ he said, quickly taking the spoon out of his mouth and looking around at them all with joy and surprise. ‘‘She’s not! She went to her mother for two days! By God, she did, and it’s as if I’m not married . . .’’
Konstantin waved his hand and wagged his head; he wanted to go on thinking, but the joy that radiated from his face prevented him. He assumed a different posture, as if he had been sitting uncomfortably, laughed, and again waved his hand. It was embarrassing to give his pleasant thoughts away to strangers, but at the same time he had an irrepressible wish to share his joy.
‘‘She went to her mother in Demidovo!’’ he said, blushing and putting his gun in a different place. ‘‘She’ll come back tomorrow ... She said she’d be there by dinnertime.’’
‘‘Do you miss her?’’ asked Dymov.
‘‘Oh, Lord, as if I don’t! It’s no time at all since we got married, and she went away ... Eh? And she’s a spirited one, God punish me! She’s so good, so nice, such a laugher and singer—sheer gunpowder! With her my head goes spinning round, and without her it’s as if I’ve lost something, I go about the steppe like a fool. I’ve been walking since dinnertime, it’s either that or start shouting for help.’’
Konstantin rubbed his eyes, looked at the fire, and laughed. ‘‘You love her, that is . . .’’ said Pantelei.
‘‘She’s so good, so nice,’’ Konstantin repeated, not listening. ‘‘Such a housewife, clever and sensible, you won’t find another like her from simple folk in the whole province. She went away ... But she misses me, I kno-o-ow it! I know it, the magpie! She said she’d come back tomorrow by dinnertime... But what a story it was!’’ Konstantin nearly shouted, suddenly taking a higher pitch and changing his position. ‘‘Now she loves me and misses me, but she didn’t want to marry me!’’
‘‘Eat, why don’t you!’’ said Kiriukha.
‘‘She didn’t want to marry me,’’ Konstantin went on, not listening. ‘‘Three years I struggled with her! I saw her at the fair in Kalachik, fell mortally in love, could have hanged myself... I’m in Rovnoe, she’s in Demidovo, twenty- five miles between us, and I just can’t take it. I send matchmakers to her, but she says, ‘I don’t want to!’ Ah, you magpie! I try this with her and that with her, earrings, and gingerbreads, and a big pot of honey—‘I don’t want to!’ There you go. Sure, if you reason it out, what kind of match am I for her? She’s young, beautiful, gunpowder, and I’m old, I’ll soon turn thirty, and so very handsome: a broad beard—like a nail, a clean face—bumps all over. I can’t compare with her! The only thing is that we have a rich life, but they, the Vakhramenkos, also live well. They keep three pair of oxen and two hired hands. I fell in love, brothers, and went clean off my head... I don’t sleep, don’t eat, there’s all sorts of thoughts in my head, and such a fuddle, God help me! I want to see her, but she’s in Demidovo... And what do you think? God punish me if I’m lying, I went there on foot three times a week just to look at her. I stopped working! Such a darkening came over me, I even wanted to get hired as a farmhand in Demidovo, so as to be closer to her. I wore myself out! My mother called in a wise woman, my father set about beating me some ten times. Well, three years I languished, and then I decided like this: three times anathema on you, I’ll go to the city and become a cabby... It means it’s not my lot! During Holy Week I went to Demidovo to look at her for the last time...’
Konstantin threw his head back and dissolved into such rapid, merry laughter as if he had just very cleverly hoodwinked someone.
‘‘I saw her with the boys by the river,’’ he went on. ‘‘I got angry... I called her aside and spent maybe a whole hour saying various words to her... She fell in love with me! For three years she didn’t love me, but for my words she fell in love with me!...’
‘‘But what words?’’ asked Dymov.
‘What words? I don’t remember... How should I remember? It poured out then like water from a gutter, without stop: rat-a-tat-tat! But now I can’t get out a single word... Well, so she married me... She’s gone to her mother now, my magpie, and I wander about the steppe without her. I can’t sit at home. It’s beyond me!’’
Konstantin clumsily freed his legs from under him, stretched out on the ground, and propped his head with his fists, then raised himself and sat up again. They all understood perfectly well now that this was a man in love and happy, happy to the point of anguish; his smile, his eyes, and each of his movements expressed a languorous happiness. He could not stay put and did not know what position to assume or what to do so as not to be exhausted by the abundance of pleasant thoughts. Having poured out his soul in front of strangers, he finally sat down quietly, looked at the fire, and fell to pondering.
At the sight of a happy man, they all felt bored and also craved happiness. They all fell to pondering. Dymov stood up, slowly walked about near the fire, and by his gait, by the movement of his shoulder blades, you could see that he felt languid and bored. He stood for a while, looked at Konstantin, and sat down.
But the campfire was dying out. The light no longer danced, and the red patch shrank, grew dim... And the more quickly the fire burned out, the more visible the moonlit night became. Now the road could be seen in all its width, the bales, the shafts, the munching horses; on the opposite side the other cross was faintly outlined...
Dymov propped his cheek in his hand and began softly singing some plaintive song. Konstantin smiled sleepily and sang along in a thin little voice. They sang for half a minute and fell silent... Emelyan roused himself, moved his elbows, and flexed his fingers.
‘‘Brothers!’’ he said pleadingly. ‘‘Let’s sing something godly!’’
Tears welled up in his eyes.
‘‘Brothers!’’ he repeated, pressing his hand to his heart. ‘‘Let’s sing something godly!’’
‘‘I can’t,’’ said Konstantin.
