ourse he had to give food
and drink to all that crew, and there had to be a piano and a
shaggy lapdog on the sofa--plague take it!... Luxury, in fact,
self-indulgence. The lady did not stay with him long. How could she? The
clay, the water, the cold, no vegetables for you, no fruit. All around
you ignorant and drunken people and no sort of manners, and she was
a spoilt lady from Petersburg or Moscow.... To be sure she moped.
Besides, her husband, say what you like, was not a gentleman now, but a
settler--not the same rank.

"Three years later, I remember, on the eve of the Assumption, there was
shouting from the further bank. I went over with the ferry, and what do
I see but the lady, all wrapped up, and with her a young gentleman, an
official. A sledge with three horses.... I ferried them across here,
they got in and away like the wind. They were soon lost to sight. And
towards morning Vassily Sergeyitch galloped down to the ferry. 'Didn't
my wife come this way with a gentleman in spectacles, Semyon?' 'She
did,' said I; 'you may look for the wind in the fields!' He galloped in
pursuit of them. For five days and nights he was riding after them. When
I ferried him over to the other side afterwards, he flung himself on
the ferry and beat his head on the boards of the ferry and howled. 'So
that's how it is,' says I. I laughed, and reminded him 'people can live
even in Siberia!' And he beat his head harder than ever....

"Then he began longing for freedom. His wife had slipped off to Russia,
and of course he was drawn there to see her and to get her away from her
lover. And he took, my lad, to galloping almost every day, either to
the post or the town to see the commanding officer; he kept sending in
petitions for them to have mercy on him and let him go back home; and
he used to say that he had spent some two hundred roubles on telegrams
alone. He sold his land and mortgaged his house to the Jews. He grew
gray and bent, and yellow in the face, as though he was in consumption.
If he talked to you he would go, khee--khee--khee,... and there were
tears in his eyes. He kept rushing about like this with petitions for
eight years, but now he has grown brighter and more cheerful again: he
has found another whim to give way to. You see, his daughter has grown
up. He looks at her, and she is the apple of his eye. And to tell the
truth she is all right, good-looking, with black eyebrows and a lively
disposition. Every Sunday he use