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The yard was silent, but once or twice Aganka's voice could be heard from the cattle-shed calling to the cows, and the sound of milk falling into her pail was faintly audible. Ivanov listened to the church chimes and the subdued sounds of night round the manor, then noiselessly, well accustomed to the obscurity, he descended the steps; only Gek was at his side, the other dogs did not hear him.
Ivanov lighted a cigarette, and as the match flared between his fingers, illuminating his black beard, his trembling hands were distinctly visible. His pointer Gek came out of the darkness and fawned round his legs. Through the darkness of the windless night rang the church bell tolling for the last Gospel Service; it seemed to peal just outside the manor.
One side of the paper was blank; in the left-hand corner of the other side was written "beloved," and a little below it seemed as if there had been a signature, but now there was nothing left excepting the letters "geb." "'Geb, what does that mean?" asked Fritz Bagger, with dark humor. "If it had been gek, I could have understood it, although it were incorrectly written.
Close to the manor Gek darted aside and disappeared down the ravine, from whence arose the rustling of wings, and the perturbed cries of cranes. Gek barked, some dogs on a neighbouring farm answered him; to these, others responded from a distant village, and then again, from far away there was borne over the earth the clear springtime baying of other dogs.
The little pigs which Ligi hung in the tree grunted, "Gek, gek, gek," and the old woman, Alokotán of Nagbotobotán, went to take a walk. While she was walking she stopped under the tree where the pigs hung. She heard them grunting and she looked up at them and saw that the basket contained three pigs. "What man hung those little pigs in the basket in the tree? Perhaps he does not like them.
Their rugged forms their chest, knees and chins were clearly discernible in the lights they carried. They all strolled up a narrow pathway, but one light withdrew from the rest and moved along a short cut that led to the watch-house it was Arina's. Ivanov held Gek in tightly, the dog was straining to rush down the embankment.
It stood in a bare open space, exposed to the swift rushing Dance of the Winds, and close to the naked trunks of three ancient pines that still reared their grim, shaggy heads to the sky and spilled their pungent balsam perfumes into the air. Behind it loomed the faint grey shadow of an embankment. A dog at the watch-house began to bark. Gek growled in return and suddenly disappeared.
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