'd put that Manya
in a sack and drop her in the water. It's dull with one's wife,
it's mere foolishness. And it's no better with one's children, I
make bold to assure you. I have two of them, the rascals. There's
nowhere for them to be taught out here in the steppe; I haven't the
money to send them to school in Novo Tcherkask, and they live here
like young wolves. Next thing they will be murdering someone on the
highroad."

The fair-haired gentleman listened attentively, answered questions
briefly in a low voice, and was apparently a gentleman of gentle
and modest disposition. He mentioned that he was a lawyer, and that
he was going to the village Dyuevka on business.

"Why, merciful heavens, that is six miles from me!" said Zhmuhin
in a tone of voice as though someone were disputing with him. "But
excuse me, you won't find horses at the station now. To my mind,
the very best thing you can do, you know, is to come straight to
me, stay the night, you know, and in the morning drive over with
my horses."

The lawyer thought a moment and accepted the invitation.

When they reached the station the sun was already low over the
steppe. They said nothing all the way from the station to the farm:
the jolting prevented conversation. The trap bounded up and down,
squeaked, and seemed to be sobbing, and the lawyer, who was sitting
very uncomfortably, stared before him, miserably hoping to see the
farm. After they had driven five or six miles there came into view
in the distance a low-pitched house and a yard enclosed by a fence
made of dark, flat stones standing on end; the roof was green, the
stucco was peeling off, and the windows were little narrow slits
like screwed-up eyes. The farm stood in the full sunshine, and there
was no sign either of water or trees anywhere round. Among the
neighbouring landowners and the peasants it was known as the
Petchenyegs' farm. Many years before, a land surveyor, who was
passing through the neighbourhood and put up at the farm, spent the
whole night talking to Ivan Abramitch, was not favourably impressed,
and as he was driving away in the morning said to him grimly:

"You are a Petchenyeg,* my good sir!"

* The Petchenyegs were a tribe of wild Mongolian nomads who made
frequent inroads upon the Russians in the tenth and eleventh
centuries.--_Translator's Note._

From this came the nickname, the Petchenyegs' farm, which stuck to
the place even more when Zhmuhin's boys grew up and began