"Ours, of course. The bird itself is hatched here, and it hatches out its little ones here in its native country, and they only fly off there to escape being frozen.""It's interesting," said Savka. "Whatever one talks about it is always interesting. Take a bird now, or a man . . . or take this little stone; there's something to learn about all of them. . . . Ah, sir, if I had known you were coming I wouldn't have told a woman to come here this evening. . . . She asked to come to-day.""Oh, please don't let me be in your way," I said. "I can lie down in the wood. . . .""What next! She wouldn't have died if she hadn't come till to- morrow. . . . If only she would sit quiet and listen, but she always wants tobe slobbering. . . . You can't have a good talk when she's here." "Are you expecting Darya?" I asked, after a pause.
"No . . . a new one has asked to come this evening . . . Agafya, the signalman's wife."Savka said this in his usual passionless, somewhat hollow voice, as though he were talking of tobacco or porridge, while I started with surprise. I knew Agafya. . . . She was quite a young peasant woman of nineteen or twenty, who had been married not more than a year before to a railway signalman, a fine young fellow. She lived in the village, and her husband came home there from the line every night.
"Your goings on with the women will lead to trouble, my boy," said I. "Well, may be . . . ."And after a moment's thought Savka added:
"I've said so to the women; they won't heed me. . . .They don't trouble about it, the silly things!"Silence followed. . . . Meanwhile the darkness was growing thicker and thicker, and objects began to lose their contours. The streak behind the hill had completely died away, and the stars were growing brighter and more luminous. . . . The mournfully monotonous chirping of the grasshoppers, the call of the landrail, and the cry of the quail did not destroy the stillness of the night, but, on the contrary, gave it an added monotony. It seemed as though the soft sounds that enchanted the ear came, not from birds or insects, but from the stars looking down upon us from the sky. . . .
Savka was the first to break the silence. He slowly turned his eyes from black Kutka and said:
"I see you are dull, sir. Let's have supper."And without waiting for my consent he crept on his stomach into the shanty, rummaged about there, making the whole edifice tremble like a leaf; then he crawled back and set before me my vodka and an earthenware bowl; in the bowl there were baked eggs, lard scones made of rye, pieces of black bread, and something else. . . . We had a drink from a little crooked glass that wouldn't stand, and then we fell upon the food. . . . Coarse grey salt, dirty, greasy cakes, eggs tough as india-rubber, but hownice it all was!
"You live all alone, but what lots of good things you have," I said, pointing to the bowl. "Where do you get them from?""The women bring them," mumbled Savka. "What do they bring them to you for?""Oh . . . from pity."
Not only Savka's menu, but his clothing, too, bore traces of feminine "pity." Thus I noticed that he had on, that evening, a new woven belt and a crimson ribbon on which a copper cross hung round his dirty neck. I knew of the weakness of the fair sex for Savka, and I knew that he did not like talking about it, and so I did not carry my inquiries any further. Besides there was not time to talk. . . . Kutka, who had been fidgeting about near us and patiently waiting for scraps, suddenly pricked up his ears and growled. We heard in the distance repeated splashing of water.
"Someone is coming by the ford," said Savka.
Three minutes later Kutka growled again and made a sound like a cough.
"Shsh!" his master shouted at him.
In the darkness there was a muffled thud of timid footsteps, and the silhouette of a woman appeared out of the copse. I recognized her, although it was dark -- it was Agafya. She came up to us diffidently and stopped, breathing hard. She was breathless, probably not so much from walking as from fear and the unpleasant sensation everyone experiences in wading across a river at night. Seeing near the shanty not one but two persons, she uttered a faint cry and fell back a step.
"Ah . . . that is you!" said Savka, stuffing a scone into his mouth.
"Ye-es . . . I," she mutte red, dropping on the ground a bundle of some sort and looking sideways at me. "Yakov sent his greetings to you and told me to give you . . . something here. . . .""Come, why tell stories? Yakov!" laughed Savka. "There is no need for lying; the gentleman knows why you have come! Sit down; you shall have supper with us."Agafya looked sideways at me and sat down irresolutely.
"I thought you weren't coming this evening," Savka said, after aprolonged silence. "Why sit like that? Eat! Or shall I give you a drop of vodka?""What an idea!" laughed Agafya; "do you think you have got hold of a drunkard? . . .""Oh, drink it up. . . . Your heart will feel warmer. . . . There!"Savka gave Agafya the crooked glass. She slowly drank the vodka, ate nothing with it, but drew a deep breath when she had finished.
"You've brought something," said Savka, untying the bundle and throwing a condescending, jesting shade into his voice. "Women can never come without bringing something. Ah, pie and potatoes. . . . They live well," he sighed, turning to me. "They are the only ones in the whole village who have got potatoes left from the winter!"In the darkness I did not see Agafya's face, but from the movement of her shoulders and head it seemed to me that she could not take her eyes off Savka's face. To avoid being the third person at this tryst, I decided to go for a walk and got up. But at that moment a nightingale in the wood suddenly uttered two low contralto notes. Half a minute later it gave a tiny high trill and then, having thus tried its voice, began singing. Savka jumped up and listened.
"It's the same one as yesterday," he said. "Wait a minute." And, getting up, he went noiselessly to the wood.
