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The waggons were standing exactly opposite the gateway. The drenched waggoners, with their muddy feet, were sauntering beside them or sitting on the shafts, as listless and drowsy as flies in autumn. Yegorushka looked at them and thought: "How dreary and comfortless to be a peasant!" He went up to Panteley and sat down beside him on the shaft.
But yet the stew seemed to Yegorushka very nice, and reminded him of the crayfish soup which his mother used to make at home on fast-days. Panteley was sitting apart munching bread. "Grandfather, why aren't you eating?" Emelyan asked him. "I don't eat crayfish. . . . Nasty things," the old man said, and turned away with disgust. While they were eating they all talked.
And in the triumph of beauty, in the exuberance of happiness you are conscious of yearning and grief, as though the steppe knew she was solitary, knew that her wealth and her inspiration were wasted for the world, not glorified in song, not wanted by anyone; and through the joyful clamour one hears her mournful, hopeless call for singers, singers! "Woa! Good-evening, Panteley!
Nature seemed as though languid and weighed down by some foreboding. There was not the same liveliness and talk round the camp fire as there had been the day before. All were dreary and spoke listlessly and without interest. Panteley did nothing but sigh and complain of his feet, and continually alluded to impenitent deathbeds.
One day he caught a pike, when folks were looking on, and it laughed aloud, 'Ho-ho-ho-ho!" "It does happen," said Panteley. The young shepherd turned on his side and, lifting his black eyebrows, stared intently at the old man. "Did you hear the melons whistling?" he asked. "Hear them I didn't, the Lord spared me," sighed the old man, "but folks told me so.
'And what am I to do now without Malek-Adel? Tchertop-hanov brooded. 'I've lost my last pleasure now; it's time to die. Buy another horse, seeing the money has come? But where find another horse like that? 'Panteley Eremyitch! Panteley Eremyitch! he heard a timid call at the door. Tchertop-hanov jumped on to his feet. 'Who is it? he shouted in a voice not his own.
'You are going to Yaff, wretched girl! repeated Tchertop-hanov, and he was on the point of seizing her by the shoulder, but, meeting her eyes, he was abashed, and stood uneasily where he was. 'I am not going to Mr. Yaff, Panteley Eremyitch, replied Masha in soft, even tones; 'it's only I can't live with you any longer. 'Can't live with me? Why not? Have I offended you in some way?
Panteley went on muttering, and apparently did not trouble whether Yegorushka heard him or not. He talked listlessly, mumbling to himself, without raising or dropping his voice, but succeeded in telling him a great deal in a short time. All he said was made up of fragments that had very little connection with one another, and quite uninteresting for Yegorushka.
I have parted. This month, just after St. Peter's Day, I got married. I am a married man now! . . . It's eighteen days since the wedding." "That's a good thing," said Panteley. "Marriage is a good thing . . . . God's blessing is on it." "His young wife sits at home while he rambles about the steppe," laughed Kiruha. "Queer chap!"
When the sound had died away the old man looked inquiringly at Panteley, who stood motionless and unconcerned. "It's a bucket broken away at the pits," said the young shepherd after a moment's thought. It was by now getting light.
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