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Updated: May 19, 2025
At present, however, she is tramping with none but this female companion, for, after that the 'uncle' had drunk away his very belly-band and reins, he was clapped in gaol. The Cossack, you know, is an awkward person to deal with." Although Konev speaks without constraint, his eyes are fixed upon the ground in a manner suggestive of some disturbing thought.
Then Konev, myself, the two women, and the fat-faced young fellow are led away towards the outskirts of the village, and allotted an empty hut with broken-down walls and a cracked window. "No going out will be permitted," says the Cossack who has conducted us thither. "Else you will be arrested." "Then give us a morsel of bread," Konev says with a stammer.
"Have you done any work here?" the Cossack inquires. "Yes a little." "For me?" "No. It did not so happen." "When it does so happen I will give you some bread." And like a water-butt the fat kindly-looking man goes rolling out of the yard. "What else was to be expected?" grumbles Konev with his eyebrows elevated to the middle of his forehead. "The folk hereabouts are knaves. Ah, well!"
Everything is executed quietly enough, and without the least fuss, purely as a matter of routine; yet Konev mutters, as dejectedly he contemplates the darkening sky: "What a surprising thing, to be sure!" "What is?" "A passport. Surely a decent, peaceable man ought to be able to travel WITHOUT a passport? So long as he be harmless, let him "
"No, you can hit yourself. Hit yourself over the head. Then, perhaps, you'll grow wiser." Stolidly the young fellow looks at Konev, and inquires: "How do you know me to be a fool?" "Because your personality tells me so." "Eh?" cries the young fellow truculently as he raises himself to a kneeling posture. "How know you what I am?" "I have been told what you are by the Governor of your province."
Most of these persons I have met for the first time today; but Konev is an old acquaintance of mine, for he and I have more than once encountered one another on the road between Kursk and the province of Ter.
There ensues a prolonged altercation amid which I can hear epithets of increasing acerbity and opprobrium being applied; until the woman from Riazan exclaims hoarsely: "Oh, you coward of a man, take that!" Whereupon follows a scrimmage amid which I can distinguish slappings, gross chuckles from Konev, and a muffled cry from the younger woman of: "Oh, do not so behave, you wretch!"
The young fellow opens his mouth, and stares at Konev. Then he asks: "To what province do I belong?" "If you yourself have forgotten to what province you belong, you had better try and loosen your wits." "Look here. If I were to hit you, I "
"Aye," Konev drawled thoughtfully as he felt in his wallet. "Nowadays folk need think little of deserting a woman, since in this year of grace women are no good at all." Upon this the woman frowned then blinked her eyes timidly, and would have opened her lips to reply, but that her companion interrupted her by saying in a brisk, incisive tone: "Do not listen to those rascals!"
Her cheeks are livid, and as she wipes the flushed face of the beaten youth with the hem of her gown, her dark eyes are flashing with dry wrath, and her lips quivering so painfully as to disclose a set of fine, level teeth. Konev, pecking up to her, says with an air of advice: "You had better take him away, and give him some water."
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