“So she is dear to you....”

“It’s your luck, it’s fate!” said the huntsman, stretching.  “You must put up with it, poor thing.  But good-bye, I’ve been chattering long enough....  I must be at Boltovo by the evening.”

Yegor rose, stretched himself, and slung his gun over his shoulder; Pelagea got up.

“And when are you coming to the village?” she asked softly.

“I have no reason to, I shall never come sober, and you have little to gain from me drunk; I am spiteful when I am drunk.  Good-bye!”

“Good-bye, Yegor Vlassitch.”

Yegor put his cap on t he back of his head and, clicking to his dog, went on his way.  Pelagea stood still looking after him....  She saw his moving shoulder-blades, his jaunty cap, his lazy, careless step, and her eyes were full of sadness and tender affection....  Her gaze flitted over her husband’s tall, lean figure and caressed and fondled it....  He, as though he felt that gaze, stopped and looked round....  He did not speak, but from his face, from his shrugged shoulders, Pelagea could see that he wanted to say something to her.  She went up to him timidly and looked at him with imploring eyes.

“Take it,” he said, turning round.

He gave her a crumpled rouble note and walked quickly away.

“Good-bye, Yegor Vlassitch,” she said, mechanically taking the rouble.

He walked by a long road, straight as a taut strap.  She, pale and motionless as a statue, stood, her eyes seizing every step he took.  But the red of his shirt melted into the dark colour of his trousers, his step could not be seen, and the dog could not be distinguished from the boots.  Nothing could be seen but the cap, and... suddenly Yegor turned off sharply into the clearing and the cap vanished in the greenness.

“Good-bye, Yegor Vlassitch,” whispered Pelagea, and she stood on tiptoe to see the white cap once more.

HAPPINESS

A flock of sheep was spending the night on the broad steppe road that is called the great highway.  Two shepherds were guarding it.  One, a toothless old man of eighty, with a tremulous face, was lying on his stomach at the very edge of the road, leaning his elbows on the dusty leaves of a plantain; the other, a young fellow with thick black eyebrows and no moustache, dressed in the coarse canvas of which cheap sacks are made, was lying on his back, with his arms under his head, looking upwards at the sky, where the stars were slumbering and the Milky Way lay stretched exactly above his face.

The shepherds were not alone.  A couple of yards from them in the dusk that shrouded the road a horse made a patch of darkness, and, beside it, leaning against the saddle, stood a man in high boots and a short full-skirted jacket who looked like an overseer on some big estate.  Judging from his upright and motionless figure, from his manners, and his behaviour to the shepherds and to his horse, he was a serious, reasonable man who knew his own value; even in the darkness signs could be detected in him of military carriage and of the majestically condescending expression gained by frequent intercourse with the gentry and their stewards.