“What wonderful weather we are having!” The student made a deep sigh in the living room.
“They finally caught him at the railroad station,” Pavel continued, “under the freight train, and it took a huge effort to pull him out. It seemed that this poor man still wanted to live. The poor man grinned at the guard who brought him back to prison, and cried bitterly.”
“Yes, it is nice to be out of town on a day like this, “ said Sofia Vasilievna. “Hey, Pavel, stop writing, for God’s sake!”
Pavel nervously rubbed his forehead with his hand and continued:
“The efforts of the general’s widow were in vain. Her appeal was denied, and her nephew had to serve out his sentence in the city square. He could not bear this humiliation, and just before he was to begin his sentence, Mr. Winkle poisoned himself. He was buried behind the cemetery, in the place where they bury those who commit suicide.”
Pavel looked out at the weather through his window, cleared his throat, and went out into the living room.
“Yes, it could be nice to go out of town,” he said a few minutes later, sitting in his favorite chair. “The weather is beautiful.”
“So, let us go out together! Where shall we go?” The women were talking excitedly.
“I have to finish my short story first. I have hardly written half of it. It would be nice to order a couple of cabs, and get out of town for a nice walk, but I would need to start with a couple of drinks.”
“Excellent! Let us go, now!”
“No-no, I cannot go before I finish my short story. Do not even ask me about this!”
“Then go back into your study and finish it faster! In the meantime, Michael will order the wine delivery and by the time the cabs come to pick us up, you will have finished it five times over!”
The ladies surrounded Pavel, asking him questions about the place they should go. He waved at them with his hand in the air, and then finally agreed. The student was sent to fetch the cabs and the wine, and the ladies were kept busy getting ready.
When he ran back to his study, Pavel Sergeevich hastily grabbed his pen, hit his manuscript with his fist, and quickly wrote:
“Every day the old woman, Mrs. Ushakov, went to the cemetery to visit her son’s grave. No matter the weather, rain or snow, every morning around ten o’clock, her cab would be in front of the cemetery gate. She could be found sitting in front of the grave, crying, eagerly looking at the inscription, as if she were admiring it: ‘He died at the hand of a murderer.’”
When the student returned, Pavel quickly downed a glass of wine in a single gulp, and continued:
“For five years in a row, she went to the cemetery, not missing a single day. The gravesite became a second home to her. The sixth year, she fell ill with a severe lung infection, and she was not able to make it to her son’s grave for a month.”
“Stop writing! Stop! Let’s go! Come over here and have another drink!” He heard the voices calling to him.
“I cannot go yet. Wait a few more minutes, my dear, do not interfere,” he replied, and went on writing:
“When she returned to the cemetery after her illness, the old woman, to her horror, found she completely forgot where her son’s grave was located. Her illness had removed her memory. She was running across the cemetery, deep in snow up to her waist, imploring the guards to show her the grave. ‘Where is the place where my son was buried?’ she cried.
“But during her absence, the cross marking the grave had been stolen by lowlife thieves who specialize in stealing and reselling cemetery items.
“‘Where is he? Where is my son?’ the old woman cried. ‘You took him away from me for a second time.’”
“Are you going, or what?” Sofia Vasilievna cried at the study door. “It is not nice of you to make five people wait for you! Quit keeping us waiting!”
“Wait, just one more second,” mumbled Pavel as he gulped his second glass of wine. “Just a moment, hold on.”
Pavel rubbed his forehead intensely, cast a meaningless glance at everyone waiting and, nervously tapping his shoe against the floor, wrote the following:
“She could not find her son’s grave, and pale, bare-headed, tired, with her eyes half closed, she walked unsteadily back to the cemetery entrance, to go home. Before getting into her cab, she had to experience one more problem. She encountered Mrs. Winkle.”
One of the lady guests ran through the study, snatching the manuscript from his desk, as she yelled, “Let us go!”
Pavel weakly attempted to protest, threw his hands helplessly into the air, tore his manuscript into small pieces, for no reason swore at the editor, then happily whistled as he ran out into the hall to help the ladies finish getting ready and depart.
FIRE IN THE STEPPE: AN EVIL NIGHT
You can hear the dogs barking and howling in an alarming way, as dogs usually do when they sense an enemy but cannot understand who it is or where it is coming from. There are unclear, muffled sounds flying though the dark autumn air, disturbing the silence of the night: muttering of human voices from far off, the busy rush of footsteps, front gates squeaking, the clomping of horseshoes, and noises made by their riders.
Three dark figures stand motionless in the Dadkins’ estate garden, right in the middle of its main allée, in an empty flower bed. The first recognizable as the night guard on watch, Sam. A distinct figure in his bell-shaped sheepskin coat, tied with a rope instead of a belt, with pieces of fur hanging from it. A tall, thin-legged man in a jacket, with enormous ears, stands next to him. This is Gabriel the butler. The third is dressed in a vest over a loosely hanging shirt, a strongly built, but rather clumsy man, whose angular form brings to mind a wooden doll. He is also known as Gabriel the groom.
All three men grip the top of a short picket fence tightly and look off in the distance.
“Holy mother, save and protect us from this evil!” mumbles Sam in an excited voice. “Just look at that! God is furious at us. Oh, Holy Mother!”
“This is not far from us,” says Gabriel the butler in a bass voice. “Six miles, not more. I believe it is happening at the German farms.”
“No, the German farms are further to the left,” Gabriel the groom interrupts him. “The German farms should be behind this birch tree. No, it must be the Kreshensky village.”
“Yes, it is,” agrees Sam.
They hear someone with bare feet running across the terrace, stomping his feet on the floor and closing the door with a crash. The big house is immersed in sleep. The windows are as black as tar and look eerily gloomy, with only one window barely lit from the inside by a pink night lamp. The young landlady, Maria Sergeevna, sleeps in that room. Her husband, Nikolai Alexeevich, went out to play cards, and has not yet returned.
“Anastasia!” they hear someone crying.
“The landlady is awake,” says Gabriel the butler.
“Wait, brothers, I want to ask her to give me a few horses, and all the farmhands available on the estate, and we will head to the fire as fast as we can. People in that village are stupid, and they will need someone to tell them what to do.”
“Really? Just look at you! You’re going to tell them what to do. Look at yourself—your teeth are chattering from fear! There are enough people there without you. Policemen, chiefs, other landlords—they should all be there already.”
A glass door leading to the terrace opens with a clinking sound, and the landlady herself comes out.
“What is this? What is the meaning of all this noise?” she asks, as she comes closer to the three figures. “Sam, is it you?”
Before Sam has a chance to answer her, she jumps back, horrified, and clasps her hands. “Oh my God, what a terrible misfortune,” she cries. “How long it has been going on? And where is it? Why didn’t you wake me up?”