nto one thick mass of shade, the bailiff Fyodor
would come in from shooting or from the field. This Fyodor gave me the
impression of being a fierce and even a terrible man. The son of a
Russianized gipsy from Izyumskoe, swarthy-faced and curly-headed,
with big black eyes and a matted beard, he was never called among our
Kotchuevko peasants by any name but "The Devil." And, indeed, there was
a great deal of the gipsy about him apart from his appearance. He could
not, for instance, stay at home, and went off for days together into
the country or into the woods to shoot. He was gloomy, ill-humoured,
taciturn, was afraid of nobody, and refused to recognize any authority.
He was rude to mother, addressed me familiarly, and was contemptuous of
Pobyedimsky's learning. All this we forgave him, looking upon him as a
hot-tempered and nervous man; mother liked him because, in spite of
his gipsy nature, he was ideally honest and industrious. He loved his
Tatyana Ivanovna passionately, like a gipsy, but this love took in him a
gloomy form, as though it cost him suffering. He was never affectionate
to his wife in our presence, but simply rolled his eyes angrily at her
and twisted his mouth.

When he came in from the fields he would noisily and angrily put down
his gun, would come out to us on the steps, and sit down beside his
wife. After resting a little, he would ask his wife a few questions
about household matters, and then sink into silence.

"Let us sing," I would suggest.

My tutor would tune his guitar, and in a deep deacon's bass strike up
"In the midst of the valley." We would begin singing. My tutor took the
bass, Fyodor sang in a hardly audible tenor, while I sang soprano in
unison with Tatyana Ivanovna.

When the whole sky was covered with stars and the frogs had left off
croaking, they would bring in our supper from the kitchen. We went into
the lodge and sat down to the meal. My tutor and the gipsy ate greedily,
with such a sound that it was hard to tell whether it was the bones
crunching or their jaws, and Tatyana Ivanovna and I scarcely succeeded
in getting our share. After supper the lodge was plunged in deep sleep.

One evening, it was at the end of May, we were sitting on the steps,
waiting for supper. A shadow suddenly fell across us, and Gundasov stood
before us as though he had sprung out of the earth. He looked at us for
a long time, then clasped his hands and laughed gaily.

"An idyll!" he said. "They si