“What about Merik?” asked Lyubka.

“Merik is not one of us,” said Kalashnikov.  “He is a Harkov man from Mizhiritch.  But that he is a bold fellow, that’s the truth; there’s no gainsaying that he is a fine fellow.”

Lyubka looked slily and gleefully at Merik, and said: 

“It wasn’t for nothing they dipped him in a hole in the ice.”

“How was that?” asked Yergunov.

“It was like this . . .” said Merik, and he laughed.  “Filya carried off three horses from the Samoylenka tenants, and they pitched upon me.  There were ten of the tenants at Samoylenka, and with their labourers there were thirty altogether, and all of them Molokans . . . .  So one of them says to me at the market:  ’Come and have a look, Merik; we have brought some new horses from the fair.’  I was interested, of course.  I went up to them, and the whole lot of them, thirty men, tied my hands behind me and led me to the river.  ’We’ll show you fine horses,’ they said.  One hole in the ice was there already; they cut another beside it seven feet away.  Then, to be sure, they took a cord and put a noose under my armpits, and tied a crooked stick to the other end, long enough to reach both holes.  They thrust the stick in and dragged it through.  I went plop into the ice-hole just as I was, in my fur coat and my high boots, while they stood and shoved me, one with his foot and one with his stick, then dragged me under the ice and pulled me out of the other hole.”

Lyubka shuddered and shrugged.

“At first I was in a fever from the cold,” Merik went on, “but when they pulled me out I was helpless, and lay in the snow, and the Molokans stood round and hit me with sticks on my knees and my elbows.  It hurt fearfully.  They beat me and they went away . . . and everything on me was frozen, my clothes were covered with ice.  I got up, but I couldn’t move.  Thank God, a woman drove by and gave me a lift.”

Meanwhile Yergunov had drunk five or six glasses of vodka; his heart felt lighter, and he longed to tell some extraordinary, wonderful story too, and to show that he, too, was a bold fellow and not afraid of anything.

“I’ll tell you what happened to us in Penza Province . . .” he began.

Either because he had drunk a great deal and was a little tipsy, or perhaps because he had twice been detected in a lie, the peasants took not the slightest notice of him, and even left off answering his questions.  What was worse, they permitted themselves a frankness in his presence that made him feel uncomfortable and cold all over, and that meant that they took no notice of him.

Kalashnikov had the dignified manners of a sedate and sensible man; he spoke weightily, and made the sign of the cross over his mouth every time he yawned, and no one could have supposed that this was a thief, a heartless thief who had stripped poor creatures, who had already been twice in prison, and who had been sentenced by the commune to exile in Siberia, and had been bought off by his father and uncle, who were as great thieves and rogues as he was.  Merik gave himself the airs of a bravo.  He saw that Lyubka and Kalashnikov were admiring him, and looked upon himself as a very fine fellow, and put his arms akimbo, squared his chest, or stretched so that the bench creaked under him. . . .