Theturnerletsgoofthe reins and ponders. Toglance round at the old woman is too terrible: he can't do it! To ask her some question and get no answer is also terrible. At last, to put an end to his uncerainty, without looking round he feels for her cold hand and lifts it up. Her arm falls back like a cudgel.
'She's dead then . . . Wh.it a business!'
And the turner cries; not so much from pity as from frustrauon. He thinks to himself, how quickly everything in this world is over! His misfortune had scarcely begun before it had reached its conclu- sion. He had had no time to live with the old woman again, to talk to her properly, feel sorry for her, before she was de"!d. He had lived with her for forty years-yet these forty years had passed by in a kind of fog. Through all his drinking, brawling and poverty he had lost sight of life itself. And, as ill luck would have it, the old woman had died at the very time when he felt pity for her, when he felt that he could not live without her, that he had wronged her grievously.
'She used to go begging round the village, too!' he remembers. 'I used to send her out myself to beg bread from people. What a business ... She should have lived another ten years, the fool, or she'll think I was really like that. Holy mother, where the devil do I think I'm going? It's not a doctor she needs now, it's a burial. Whoaa! Back!'
Theturnerbrings the sled round and clouts the little horse with all his might. The road is getting worse from hour to hour. Now the yoke is completely invisible. Occasionally, thesled runsovera young fir-tree, for a second the turner glimpses some dark object which scratches him across the hands, then his vision is filled once more with swirling white.
'To live life over again . . .' thinks the turner.
He remembers that some forty years ago Matryona was young, beautiful, light-hearted, and came from a rich household. They had married her to him because they were so taken with his craftsman- ship. Everything pointed to a happy life together, but the trouble was, he seemed never to have woken up again after getting drunk at the wedding and collapsing onto the stove. He can remember the wedding, but what came after he can't for the life of him remember, except drinking, lying about on the stove, and brawling. So forty years had gone to waste.
The white clouds of snow gradually begin to go grey. Dusk is closing in.
'Where do I think I'm going?' he rouses himself with a start. 'I've got to bury her, and I'm still taking her to the hospital . .. I'm going barmy!'
The turner brings the sled round once more and once more starts whipping the horse. The little nag summons up all her strength and with a snon breaks into a very slow trot. Again and again the turner lashes her across the back . .. Behind him he can hear something clumping, and although he won't look round he knows it is the corpse's head knocking against the sled. The air gets darker and darker, the wind colder and more biting ...
'To live life over again .. .' thinks the turner. 'I'd get myself a new lathe, take in orders . . . and then give the money to the old girl. I would!'
And suddenly the reins drop from his grasp. He tries to find them again, to pick them up; but his hands won't move . ..
'That's all right . . .' he thinks. 'The horse'll get there on her own, she knows the way. I need a nap now . . . Before we get round to the burial, the funeral service, I could do with a kip.'
The turner shuts hiseyes and dozes. A linle while later he hears the horse stop. He opens his eyes and sees in front of him something dark, like a hut or a hayrick ...
He wants to get offthe sled and find out what it is, but there is such a weariness in all his limbs that he'd rather freeze than move from where he is . .. So he sinks back peacefully in sleep.
He wakes up in a large room with painted walls. Bright sunlight is streaming in through the windows. The turner sees people in front of him and immediately wants to show them he's a respectable man who knows what's what.
'A funeral, brothers, a funeral for my old woman!' he says. 'Go and fetch the priest -'
'Yes yes, all right!' someone's voice interrupts him. 'Just lie there and keep still!'
'Saviour! Pavel lvanych !' exclaims the turner in amazement, seeing the doctor in front of him. 'Your honour! My benefactor!'
He wants to leap up and throw himself down at the feet of Medicine, but can feel that his arms and legs won't obey him.
'Your honour! My legs -where are my legs? Where are my arms?'
'You can say goodbye to your arms and legs . .. You got them frostbitten! Now, now ... what are you crying for? You've had your life and be thankful! You've had your three score, haven't you? That'll do you, then!'
'Butthe pity of it! . .. Your honour, the pity ofit all! I'm sorry, sir, I'm sorry, but just give me another five or six years .. .'
'What for?'
'The horse isn't mine, I've got to give it back ... And to bury my old woman . .. Ah, how soon everything in this world is over! Your honour, Pavel lvanych! I'll make you a cigarette-case from Karelian birch, sir, my very best! I'll turn some croquet balls for you . . .'
The doctor shrugs impatiently and walks out of the ward. That's it, then, turner!
Pitsikatoff was making his way on foot from town to Prince Bibuloff's country villa where 'a musical evening with dancing' was to take place in celebration of the engagement of the Prince's daugh- ter. A gigantic double-bass in a leather case reposed on Pitsikatoff's back. He was walking along the bank ofa river whose coolingwaters rolled on if not majestically, then at least most poetically.
'How about a dip?' he thought.
In the twinkling of an eye he had taken off his clothes and immersed his body in the cooling stream. It was a glorious evening, and Pitsikatoff's poetic soul began to attune itself to the harmony of its surroundings. And imagine what sweet emotions filled his spirit when, swimming a few yards upstream, he beheld a beautiful young woman sitting on the steep bank fishing! A mixture offeelings welled up and made him stop and catch his breath: memories ofchildhood, regret for the past, awakening love . . . Love? But was he not con- vinced that for him love was no longer possible? Once he had lost his faith in humanity (his beloved wife having run off with his best friend, Sobarkin the bassoon), a sense of emptiness had filled his breast and he had become a misanthrope. More than once he had asked himself: 'What is life? What is it all for?Life is a myth, a dream . . . mere ventriloquy . ..'
But now, standing before this sleeping beauty (there could be no doubt she was asleep), suddenly, against his will, he felt stirring in his breast something akin to love. He stood a long time before her, devouring her with his gaze . . .
Then, sighing deeply, he said to himself: 'Enough! Farewell, sweet vision! It's time I was on my way to his Excellency's ball . ..'
He took one more look atthe fair one and was just about to swim back when an idea flashed into his mind.
'I'll leave her a token!' he thought. Tll tie somethingto her line ... It'll be a surprise - "from an unknown admirer".'
Pitsikatoff quietly swam to the bank, culled a large bouquet of wild flowers and waterlilies, bound them together with goosefoot and attached them to the end of the line.
The bouquet sank to the bottom, pulling the gaily painted float after it.
Good sense, the laws of Nature and the social station of my hero would seem to demand that the romance should come to an end at this point, but (alas!) the author's destiny is inexorable: because of circumstances beyond the author's control the romance did not end with the bouquet. In defiance of common sense and the entire natural order, our poor and plebeian Pitsikatoff was fated to play an impor- tant role in the life of a rich and beautiful young gentlewoman.