he deacon's ear. If
human life was so artlessly constructed that every one respected
this cruel and dishonest inspector who stole the Government flour,
and his health and salvation were prayed for in the schools, was
it just to shun such men as Von Koren and Laevsky, simply because
they were unbelievers? The deacon was weighing this question, but
he recalled how absurd Samoylenko had looked yesterday, and that
broke the thread of his ideas. What fun they would have next day!
The deacon imagined how he would sit under a bush and look on, and
when Von Koren began boasting next day at dinner, he, the deacon,
would begin laughing and telling him all the details of the duel.

"How do you know all about it?" the zoologist would ask.

"Well, there you are! I stayed at home, but I know all about it."

It would be nice to write a comic description of the duel. His
father-in-law would read it and laugh. A good story, told or written,
was more than meat and drink to his father-in-law.

The valley of the Yellow River opened before him. The stream was
broader and fiercer for the rain, and instead of murmuring as before,
it was raging. It began to get light. The grey, dingy morning, and
the clouds racing towards the west to overtake the storm-clouds,
the mountains girt with mist, and the wet trees, all struck the
deacon as ugly and sinister. He washed at the brook, repeated his
morning prayer, and felt a longing for tea and hot rolls, with sour
cream, which were served every morning at his father-in-law's. He
remembered his wife and the "Days past Recall," which she played
on the piano. What sort of woman was she? His wife had been introduced,
betrothed, and married to him all in one week: he had lived with
her less than a month when he was ordered here, so that he had not
had time to find out what she was like. All the same, he rather
missed her.

"I must write her a nice letter . . ." he thought. The flag on the
_duhan_ hung limp, soaked by the rain, and the _duhan_ itself with
its wet roof seemed darker and lower than it had been before. Near
the door was standing a cart; Kerbalay, with two mountaineers and
a young Tatar woman in trousers--no doubt Kerbalay's wife or
daughter--were bringing sacks of something out of the _duhan_,
and putting them on maize straw in the cart.

Near the cart stood a pair of asses hanging their heads. When they
had put in all the sacks, the mountaineers and the Tatar woman began
covering them o