A SULTRY, stifling midday. Not a cloudlet in the sky. . . . The sun-baked grass had a
disconsolate, hopeless look: even if there were rain it could never be green again. . . . The
forest stood silent, motionless, as though it were looking at something with its tree-tops
or expecting something.
At the edge of the clearing a tall, narrow-shouldered man of forty in a red shirt, in
patched trousers that had been a gentleman's, and in high boots, was slouching along with
a lazy, shambling step. He was sauntering along the road. On the right was the green of
the clearing, on the left a golden sea of ripe rye stretched to the very horizon. He was red
and perspiring, a white cap with a straight jockey peak, evidently a gift from some open-
handed young gentleman, perched jauntily on his handsome flaxen head. Across his
shoulder hung a game-bag with a blackcock lying in it. The man held a double-barrelled
gun cocked in his hand, and screwed up his eyes in the direction of his lean old dog who
was running on ahead sniffing the bushes. There was stillness all round, not a sound . . .
everything living was hiding away from the heat.
"Yegor Vlassitch!" the huntsman suddenly heard a soft voice.
He started and, looking round, scowled. Beside him, as though she had sprung out of the
earth, stood a pale-faced woman of thirty with a sickle in her hand. She was trying to
look into his face, and was smiling diffidently.
"Oh, it is you, Pelagea!" said the huntsman, stopping and deliberately uncocking the gun.
"H'm! . . . How have you come here?"
"The women from our village are working here, so I have come with them. . . . As a
labourer, Yegor Vlassitch."
"Oh . . ." growled Yegor Vlassitch, and slowly walked on.
Pelagea followed him. They walked in silence for twenty paces.
"I have not seen you for a long time, Yegor Vlassitch . . ." said Pelagea looking tenderly
at the huntsman's moving shoulders. "I have not seen you since you came into our hut at
Easter for a drink of water . . . you came in at Easter for a minute and then God knows
how . . . drunk . . . you scolded and beat me and went away . . . I have been waiting and
waiting . . . I've tired my eyes out looking for you. Ah, Yegor Vlassitch, Yegor Vlassitch!
you might look in just once!"
"What is there for me to do there?"
