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"They've the cattle-plague again at Zheltukhina," the miller's wife was saying; "father Ivan's two cows are dead—Lord have mercy on them!"

"And how are your pigs doing?" asked Yermolai, after a brief pause.

"They're alive. "

"You ought to make me a present of a sucking pig. "

The miller's wife was silent for a while, then she sighed.

"Who is it you're with?" she asked.

"A gentleman from Kostomarovo. "

Yermolai threw a few pine twigs on the fire; they all caught fire at once, and a thick white smoke came puffing into his face.

"Why didn't your husband let us into the cottage?"

"He's afraid. "

"Afraid! the fat old tub! Arina Timofeyevna, my darling, bring me a little glass of spirits. "

The miller's wife rose and vanished into the darkness. Yermolai began to sing in an undertone:

When I went to see my sweetheart,
I wore out all my boots…

Arina returned with a small flask and a glass. Yermolai got up, crossed himself, and drank it off at a draught. "Good!" was his comment.

The miller's wife sat down again on the tub.

"Well, Arina Timofeyevna, are you still ill?"

"Yes. "

"What is it?"

"My cough troubles me at night. "

"The gentleman's asleep, it seems," observed Yermolai after a short silence. "Don't go to a doctor, Arina; it will be worse if you do. "

"Well, I am not going. "

"But come and pay me a visi
t. "

Arina hung down her head dejectedly.

"I will drive my wife out for the occasion," continued Yermolai. "Upon my word, I will. "

"You had better wake the gentleman, Yermolai Petrovich; you see, the potatoes are done. "

"Oh, let him snore," observed my faithful servant indifferently; "he's tired with walking, so he sleeps sound. "

I turned over in the hay. Yermolai got up and came to me. "The potatoes are ready; will you come and eat them?"

I came out of the out-building; the miller's wife got up from the tub and was going away. I addressed her:

"Have you kept this mill long?"

"It's two years since I came on Trinity Day. "

"And where does your husband come from?"

Arina had not caught my question.

"Where's your husband from?" repeated Yermolai, raising his voice.

"From Belev. He's a Belev townsman. "

"And are you too from Belev?"

"No, I'm a serf; I was a serf. "

"Whose?"

"Zvyerkov was my master. Now I am free. "

"What Zvyerkov?"

"Alexander Silitch. "

"Weren't you his wife's lady's maid?"

"How did you know? Yes. "

I looked at Arina with redoubled curiosity and sympathy.

"I know your master," I continued.

"Do you?" she replied in a low voice, and her head drooped.

I must tell the reader why I looked with such sympathy at Arina. During my stay at Petersburg I had become by chance acquainted with Mr. Zvyerkov. He had a rather influential position, and was reputed a man of sense and education. He had a wife, fat, sentimental, lachrymose and spiteful—an ordinary and disagreeable creature; he had, too, a son, the very type of the young swell of today, pampered and stupid. The exterior of Mr. Zvyerkov himself did not prepossess one in his favour; his little mouse-like eyes peeped slyly out of a broad, almost square face; he had a large, sharp nose, with distended nostrils; his close-cropped grey hair stood up like a brush above his furrowed brow; his thin lips were forever twitching and smiling mawkishly. Mr. Zvyerkov's favourite position was standing with his short legs wide apart and his podgy hands in his trouser pockets. Once I happened somehow to be driving alone with Mr. Zvyerkov in a coach out of town. We fell into conversation. As a man of experience and of judgement, Mr. Zvyerkov began to try to set me in "the path of truth. "