carrying in his arms
--it was a dead bustard--and greeted them once more.

They all went up to the bustard and began examining it.

"A fine big bird; what did you kill it with?" asked Dymov.

"Grape-shot. You can't get him with small shot, he won't let you
get near enough. Buy it, friends! I will let you have it for twenty
kopecks."

"What use would it be to us? It's good roast, but I bet it would
be tough boiled; you could not get your teeth into it. . . ."

"Oh, what a pity! I would take it to the gentry at the farm; they
would give me half a rouble for it. But it's a long way to go--
twelve miles!"

The stranger sat down, took off his gun and laid it beside him.

He seemed sleepy and languid; he sat smiling, and, screwing up his
eyes at the firelight, apparently thinking of something very
agreeable. They gave him a spoon; he began eating.

"Who are you?" Dymov asked him.

The stranger did not hear the question; he made no answer, and did
not even glance at Dymov. Most likely this smiling man did not taste
the flavour of the porridge either, for he seemed to eat it
mechanically, lifting the spoon to his lips sometimes very full and
sometimes quite empty. He was not drunk, but he seemed to have
something nonsensical in his head.

"I ask you who you are?" repeated Dymov.

"I?" said the unknown, starting. "Konstantin Zvonik from Rovno.
It's three miles from here."

And anxious to show straight off that he was not quite an ordinary
peasant, but something better, Konstantin hastened to add:

"We keep bees and fatten pigs."

"Do you live with your father or in a house of your own?"

"No; now I am living in a house of my own. I have parted. This
month, just after St. Peter's Day, I got married. I am a married
man now! . . . It's eighteen days since the wedding."

"That's a good thing," said Panteley. "Marriage is a good thing
. . . . God's blessing is on it."

"His young wife sits at home while he rambles about the steppe,"
laughed Kiruha. "Queer chap!"

As though he had been pinched on the tenderest spot, Konstantin
started, laughed and flushed crimson.

"But, Lord, she is not at home!" he said quickly, taking the spoon
out of his mouth and looking round at everyone with an expression
of delight and wonder. "She is not; she has gone to her mother's
for three days! Yes, indeed, she has gone away, and I feel as though
I were not married. . . ."

Konstantin waved his hand and turned his head; he wan