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Updated: May 11, 2025
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. . . .
His little short-legged nag set off, and sank up to its stomach in the drift at once. Kalashnikov was white all over with the snow, and soon vanished from sight with his horse. When Yergunov went back into the room, Lyubka was creeping about the floor picking up her beads; Merik was not there. "A splendid girl!" thought Yergunov, as he lay down on the bench and put his coat under his head.
The first room into which he went was large and very hot, and smelt of freshly washed floors. A short, lean peasant of about forty, with a small, fair beard, wearing a dark blue shirt, was sitting at the table under the holy images. It was Kalashnikov, an arrant scoundrel and horse-stealer, whose father and uncle kept a tavern in Bogalyovka, and disposed of the stolen horses where they could.
Seeing the hospital assistant, Kalashnikov greeted him. "Yes, it is weather," said Yergunov, rubbing his chilled knees with his open hands. "The snow is up to one's neck; I am soaked to the skin, I can tell you. And I believe my revolver is, too. . . ." He took out his revolver, looked it all over, and put it back in his knapsack.
Yergunov was annoyed that Kalashnikov and the dark fellow Merik talked together and took no notice of him at all, behaving exactly as though he were not in the room.
Kalashnikov tuned the balalaika and began playing it, but Yergunov could not make out what sort of song he was singing, and whether it was gay or melancholy, because at one moment it was so mournful he wanted to cry, and at the next it would be merry.
"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.
Martin used to be here, and Filya, and Fyodor Stukotey. . . . It was all done in style, it was all in keeping. . . . And what fun we had! We did have fun, we did have fun!" Lyubka went out and soon afterwards came back wearing a green kerchief and beads. "Look, Merik, what Kalashnikov brought me to-day," she said.
"You are a fine set of fellows in Bogalyovka!" he said, and wagged his head. "In what way fine fellows?" enquired Kalashnikov. "Why, about horses, for instance. Fine fellows at stealing!" "H'm! fine fellows, you call them. Nothing but thieves and drunkards." "They have had their day, but it is over," said Merik, after a pause. "But now they have only Filya left, and he is blind."
The dark-skinned peasant had never been to the hospital, and Yergunov did not know who he was or where he came from; and now, looking at him, he made up his mind that the man must be a gypsy. The peasant got up and, stretching and yawning loudly, went up to Lyubka and Kalashnikov, and sat down beside them, and he, too, began looking at the book.
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