Konstantin rubbed his eyes, looked at the fire, and laughed. ‘‘You love her, that is . . .’’ said Pantelei.
‘‘She’s so good, so nice,’’ Konstantin repeated, not listening. ‘‘Such a housewife, clever and sensible, you won’t find another like her from simple folk in the whole province. She went away ... But she misses me, I kno-o-ow it! I know it, the magpie! She said she’d come back tomorrow by dinnertime... But what a story it was!’’ Konstantin nearly shouted, suddenly taking a higher pitch and changing his position. ‘‘Now she loves me and misses me, but she didn’t want to marry me!’’
‘‘Eat, why don’t you!’’ said Kiriukha.
‘‘She didn’t want to marry me,’’ Konstantin went on, not listening. ‘‘Three years I struggled with her! I saw her at the fair in Kalachik, fell mortally in love, could have hanged myself... I’m in Rovnoe, she’s in Demidovo, twenty-five miles between us, and I just can’t take it. I send matchmakers to her, but she says, ‘I don’t want to!’ Ah, you magpie! I try this with her and that with her, earrings, and gingerbreads, and a big pot of honey—‘I don’t want to!’ There you go. Sure, if you reason it out, what kind of match am I for her? She’s young, beautiful, gunpowder, and I’m old, I’ll soon turn thirty, and so very handsome: a broad beard—like a nail, a clean face—bumps all over. I can’t compare with her! The only thing is that we have a rich life, but they, the Vakhramenkos, also live well. They keep three pair of oxen and two hired hands. I fell in love, brothers, and went clean off my head... I don’t sleep, don’t eat, there’s all sorts of thoughts in my head, and such a fuddle, God help me! I want to see her, but she’s in Demidovo... And what do you think? God punish me if I’m lying, I went there on foot three times a week just to look at her. I stopped working! Such a darkening came over me, I even wanted to get hired as a farmhand in Demidovo, so as to be closer to her. I wore myself out! My mother called in a wise woman, my father set about beating me some ten times. Well, three years I languished, and then I decided like this: three times anathema on you, I’ll go to the city and become a cabby... It means it’s not my lot! During Holy Week I went to Demidovo to look at her for the last time...’
Konstantin threw his head back and dissolved into such rapid, merry laughter as if he had just very cleverly hoodwinked someone.
‘‘I saw her with the boys by the river,’’ he went on. ‘‘I got angry... I called her aside and spent maybe a whole hour saying various words to her... She fell in love with me! For three years she didn’t love me, but for my words she fell in love with me!...’
‘‘But what words?’’ asked Dymov.
‘What words? I don’t remember... How should I remember? It poured out then like water from a gutter, without stop: rat-a-tat-tat! But now I can’t get out a single word... Well, so she married me... She’s gone to her mother now, my magpie, and I wander about the steppe without her. I can’t sit at home. It’s beyond me!’’
Konstantin clumsily freed his legs from under him, stretched out on the ground, and propped his head with his fists, then raised himself and sat up again. They all understood perfectly well now that this was a man in love and happy, happy to the point of anguish; his smile, his eyes, and each of his movements expressed a languorous happiness. He could not stay put and did not know what position to assume or what to do so as not to be exhausted by the abundance of pleasant thoughts. Having poured out his soul in front of strangers, he finally sat down quietly, looked at the fire, and fell to pondering.
At the sight of a happy man, they all felt bored and also craved happiness. They all fell to pondering. Dymov stood up, slowly walked about near the fire, and by his gait, by the movement of his shoulder blades, you could see that he felt languid and bored. He stood for a while, looked at Konstantin, and sat down.
But the campfire was dying out. The light no longer danced, and the red patch shrank, grew dim... And the more quickly the fire burned out, the more visible the moonlit night became. Now the road could be seen in all its width, the bales, the shafts, the munching horses; on the opposite side the other cross was faintly outlined...
Dymov propped his cheek in his hand and began softly singing some plaintive song. Konstantin smiled sleepily and sang along in a thin little voice. They sang for half a minute and fell silent... Emelyan roused himself, moved his elbows, and flexed his fingers.
‘‘Brothers!’’ he said pleadingly. ‘‘Let’s sing something godly!’’
Tears welled up in his eyes.
‘‘Brothers!’’ he repeated, pressing his hand to his heart. ‘‘Let’s sing something godly!’’
‘‘I can’t,’’ said Konstantin.
They all refused; then Emelyan began to sing by himself. He waved both hands, nodded his head, opened his mouth, but nothing except wheezing, soundless breath burst from his throat. He sang with his hands, his head, his eyes, and even his bump, he sang passionately and with pain, and the harder he strained his chest to tear at least one note from it, the more soundless his breath became...
Egorushka, like everyone else, was overcome by boredom. He went to his wagon, climbed up on a bale, and lay down. He looked at the sky and thought about the happy Konstantin and his wife. Why do people get married? What are women for in this world? Egorushka asked himself vague questions and thought it is probably nice for a man if a gentle, cheerful, and beautiful woman constantly lives at his side. For some reason he recalled the Countess Dranitsky and thought that it was probably very agreeable to live with such a woman; he might well have married her with great pleasure, if it were not so embarrassing. He remembered her eyebrows, her pupils, her carriage, the clock with the horseman... The quiet, warm night was descending on him and whispering something in his ear, and it seemed to him that it was that beautiful woman bending over him, looking at him with a smile, and wanting to kiss him...
Only two little red eyes remained from the campfire, and they were growing smaller and smaller. The wagoners and Konstantin sat by them, dark, motionless, and it seemed there were now many more of them than before. Both crosses were equally visible, and far, far away, somewhere on the high road, a red fire glowed—someone else was probably also cooking kasha.
‘‘Our beloved Mother Russia is the head of all the wo-o-orld!’’ Kiriukha suddenly sang in a wild voice, choked, and fell silent. The steppe echo picked up his voice, carried it, and it seemed stupidity itself was rolling over the steppe on heavy wheels.
‘‘Time to go!’’ said Pantelei. ‘‘Up you get, boys!’’
While they were harnessing, Konstantin walked among the wagons and sang his wife’s praises.
‘‘Farewell, brothers!’’ he cried as the wagons started off. ‘‘Thanks for your hospitality! And I’ll make for that fire. It’s beyond me!’’
And he quickly vanished into the darkness, and for a long time could be heard striding towards where the little light glowed, in order to tell other strangers of his happiness.
When Egorushka woke up the next day, it was early morning; the sun had not risen yet. The wagon train stood still. Some man in a white peaked cap and a suit of cheap gray cloth, mounted on a Cossack colt, was talking about something with Dymov and Kiriukha by the very first wagon. Two miles or so ahead of the wagon train, long, low barns and little houses with tiled roofs showed white; there were no yards or trees to be seen near the houses.
‘‘What’s that village, grandpa?’’ asked Egorushka.
‘‘Those are Armenian farmsteads, my lad,’’ answered Pantelei. ‘‘Armenians live there. They’re all right folk... Armenians, that is.’’
The man in gray finished talking with Dymov and Kiriukha, tightened the reins on his colt, and looked towards the farmsteads.