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She was twenty, and had grown up free and solitary with the hunters, the woods, and the steep and the river from her birth. Demid lived on his own plot of ground, which, like the village, stood on a hill above the river. But here the hill was higher and steeper, sweeping the edge of the horizon.
Demid Popovitch also went with that party, because he could not sit long in one place: he had tried his hand on the Lyakhs and wanted to try it on the Tatars also. The hetmans of kurens were Nostiugan, Pokruischka, Nevnimsky, and numerous brave and renowned Cossacks who wished to test their swords and muscles in an encounter with the Tatars.
An overwhelming joy possessed Marina when she thought of her approaching motherhood. Her heart beat faster and her happiness increased. Her own possible sufferings held no place in her thoughts. In the lilac glow of dawn, when a round moon, solemn and immense, glowed in the south-western sky, Demid took his rifle and Finnish knife, and went on his sleigh into the forest.
Demid Popovitch speared three soldiers, and struck two of the highest nobles from their saddles, saying, "Good horses! I have long wanted just such horses." And he drove the horses far afield, shouting to the Cossacks standing about to catch them.
Demid lay motionless for a long time on his bear-skin bed, listening to the vibrations of his great body how it lived and throbbed, how the rich blood coursed through its veins. Makar, the bear, approached, laid his heavy paws on his chest, and amicably sniffed at his body. Demid stroked the beast on its ear, and it seemed as if the man and animal understood each other.
Makar was young, and, like all young things, he was foolish. He liked to roll about, and was often destructive he would gnaw the nets and skins, break the traps, and lick up the gunpowder. Then Demid punished him, whereupon Makar would turn on his heel, make foolish grimaces, and whine plaintively. Demid went to the maidens on the slope and took Marina to his plot of land. She became his wife.
At length the jeers made her take to her room and him to liquor, and for two years past he has been drinking, and soon is going to be deprived of his office. One who scarcely drank at all, my poor husband, used to say: 'Ah, Demid, yield not to these folk, but live your own life, and let theirs be theirs, and yours, yours."
Then it waved a gigantic hand, crossed itself in the direction of the candle, and, bending forward until its forehead almost touched the feet of the corpse, queried under its breath: "How now, Vasil?" Thereafter, the figure vented a sob whilst a strong smell of vodka arose in the room, and from the doorway the old woman said in an appealing voice: "Pray give HIM the book, Father Demid."
"You see," she went on "his lady committed a certain sin with a certain man; and folk remarked this, and, after setting the husband on to the couple, derided him yes, him, our Demid! for the reason that he persisted in forgiving the woman her fault.
The elk ceased his bellowing The room filled with glancing morning shadows. Makar approached, sniffed, and laid his paws on the bed. Demid seized his collar with his free hand and patting him fondly said: "That is right, Makar Ivanych you know, don't you?" Then turning to Marina, he added: "What do you think, Marinka? Doesn't he know? Doesn't the old bear know, Marinka?"
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