eason she prays
is because, you know, every woman imagines there is no one in the
world as unhappy as she is. I am a plain-spoken man, and I don't
want to conceal anything from you. She comes of a poor family, a
village priest's daughter. I married her when she was seventeen,
and they accepted my offer chiefly because they hadn't enough to
eat; it was nothing but poverty and misery, while I have anyway
land, you see--a farm--and after all I am an officer; it was a
step up for her to marry me, you know. On the very first day when
she was married she cried, and she has been crying ever since, all
these twenty years; she has got a watery eye. And she's always
sitting and thinking, and what do you suppose she is thinking about?
What can a woman think about? Why, nothing. I must own I don't
consider a woman a human being."

The visitor got up abruptly and sat on the bed.

"Excuse me, I feel stifled," he said; "I will go outside."

Zhmuhin, still talking about women, drew the bolt in the entry and
they both went out. A full moon was floating in the sky just over
the yard, and in the moonlight the house and barn looked whiter
than by day; and on the grass brilliant streaks of moonlight, white
too, stretched between the black shadows. Far away on the right
could be seen the steppe, above it the stars were softly glowing
--and it was all mysterious, infinitely far away, as though one
were gazing into a deep abyss; while on the left heavy storm-clouds,
black as soot, were piling up one upon another above the steppe;
their edges were lighted up by the moon, and it looked as though
there were mountains there with white snow on their peaks, dark
forests, the sea. There was a flash of lightning, a faint rumble
of thunder, and it seemed as though a battle were being fought in
the mountains.

Quite close to the house a little night-owl screeched monotonously:

"Asleep! asleep!"

"What time is it now?" asked the visitor.

"Just after one."

"How long it is still to dawn!"

They went back to the house and lay down again. It was time to
sleep, and one can usually sleep so splendidly before rain; but the
old man had a hankering after serious, weighty thoughts; he wanted
not simply to think but to meditate, and he meditated how good it
would be, as death was near at hand, for the sake of his soul to
give up the idleness which so imperceptibly swallowed up day after
day, year after year, leaving no trace; to think out for himsel