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Updated: June 16, 2025
"All my own people are at home, and we didn't invite strangers," said the figure grimly. "And what are you knocking for? The gate is not locked." Yergunov drove into the yard and stopped at the steps. "Bid your labourer take my horse out, granny," said he. "I am not granny." And indeed she was not a granny.
With a hoarse bark a black dog rolled like a ball under the horse's feet, then another white one, then another black one there must have been a dozen of them. Yergunov looked to see which was the biggest, swung his whip and lashed at it with all his might. A small, long-legged puppy turned its sharp muzzle upwards and set up a shrill, piercing howl.
And Yergunov recalled what had happened to him eighteen months before in the winter, in that very inn, and how Merik had boasted; and he imagined the old woman and Lyubka, with their throats cut, burning, and he envied Merik.
Far away in the sky a beautiful crimson glow lay quivering, stretched wide over the horizon. Yergunov stopped, and for a long time he gazed at it, and kept wondering why was it that if he had carried off someone else's samovar the day before and sold it for drink in the taverns it would be a sin? Why was it?
The inn had a bad reputation, and to visit it late in the evening, and especially with someone else's horse, was not free from risk. But there was no help for it. Yergunov fumbled in his knapsack for his revolver, and, coughing sternly, tapped at the window-frame with his whip. "Hey! who is within?" he cried. "Hey, granny! let me come in and get warm!"
A HOSPITAL assistant, called Yergunov, an empty-headed fellow, known throughout the district as a great braggart and drunkard, was returning one evening in Christmas week from the hamlet of Ryepino, where he had been to make some purchases for the hospital. That he might get home in good time and not be late, the doctor had lent him his very best horse.
In spring, after Easter, Yergunov, who had long before been dismissed from the hospital and was hanging about without a job, came out of the tavern in Ryepino and sauntered aimlessly along the street. He went out into the open country. Here there was the scent of spring, and a warm caressing wind was blowing. The calm, starry night looked down from the sky on the earth.
"Tell me where my horse is, or I'll knock the life out of you," shouted Yergunov. "Get away, dirty brute!" she said in a hoarse voice. Yergunov seized her by the shift near the neck and tore it. And then he could not restrain himself, and with all his might embraced the girl.
Yergunov went out into the yard to see that Kalashnikov did not go off with his horse. The snowstorm still persisted.
Two carts drove by on the road; in one of them there was a woman asleep, in the other sat an old man without a cap on. "Grandfather, where is that fire?" asked Yergunov. "Andrey Tchirikov's inn," answered the old man.
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