a went on playing and playing. The patches of
sunshine had been on the floor, then they passed to the counter, to the
wall, and disappeared altogether; so by the sun it was past midday. The
peasants at the next table were getting ready to go. The little man,
somewhat unsteadily, went up to Marya Vassilyevna and held out his hand
to her; following his example, the others shook hands, too, at parting,
and went out one after another, and the swing-door squeaked and slammed
nine times.

"Vassilyevna, get ready," Semyon called to her.

They set off. And again they went at a walking pace.

"A little while back they were building a school here in their Nizhneye
Gorodistche," said Semyon, turning round. "It was a wicked thing that
was done!"

"Why, what?"

"They say the president put a thousand in his pocket, and the school
guardian another thousand in his, and the teacher five hundred."

"The whole school only cost a thousand. It's wrong to slander people,
grandfather. That's all nonsense."

"I don't know,... I only tell you what folks say."

But it was clear that Semyon did not believe the schoolmistress. The
peasants did not believe her. They always thought she received too large
a salary, twenty-one roubles a month (five would have been enough), and
that of the money that she collected from the children for the firewood
and the watchman the greater part she kept for herself. The guardian
thought the same as the peasants, and he himself made a profit off
the firewood and received payments from the peasants for being a
guardian--without the knowledge of the authorities.

The forest, thank God! was behind them, and now it would be flat, open
ground all the way to Vyazovye, and there was not far to go now. They
had to cross the river and then the railway line, and then Vyazovye was
in sight.

"Where are you driving?" Marya Vassilyevna asked Semyon. "Take the road
to the right to the bridge."

"Why, we can go this way as well. It's not deep enough to matter."

"Mind you don't drown the horse."

"What?"

"Look, Hanov is driving to the bridge," said Marya Vassilyevna, seeing
the four horses far away to the right. "It is he, I think."

"It is. So he didn't find Bakvist at home. What a pig-headed fellow he
is. Lord have mercy upon us! He's driven over there, and what for? It's
fully two miles nearer this way."

They reached the river. In the summer it was a little stream easily
crossed by wading. It usually drie