have it, I ran into the mistress ... botheration take her."

"Ran into her?" repeated the peasant woman in a sing-song voice and she leaned her cheek on her hand. "And where did you run into her, my good girl?"

"Beyond the priest's hemp-patch. She must have gone to the hemp-patch to meet her Naum, but I could not see them in the dusk, owing to the moon, maybe, I don't know; I simply dashed into them."

"Dashed into them?" the other woman repeated. "Well, and was she standing with him, my good girl?"

"Yes, she was. He was standing there and so was she. She saw me and said, 'Where are you running to? Go home.' So I went home."

"You went home?" The peasant woman was silent. "Well, good-bye, Fetinyushka," she brought out at last, and trudged off.

This conversation had an unpleasant effect on Akim. His love for Avdotya had cooled, but still he did not like what the servant had said. And she had told the truth: Avdotya really had gone out that evening to meet Naum, who had been waiting for her in the patch of dense shade thrown on the road by the high motionless hemp. The dew bathed every stalk of it from top to bottom; the strong, almost overpowering fragrance hung all about it. A huge crimson moon had just risen in the dingy, blackish mist. Naum heard the hurried footsteps of Avdotya a long way off and went to meet her. She came up to him, pale with running; the moon lighted up her face.

"Well, have you brought it?" he asked.

"Brought it--yes, I have," she answered in an uncertain voice. "But, Naum Ivanitch----"

"Give it me, since you have brought it," he interrupted her, and held out his hand.

She took a parcel from under her shawl. Naum took it at once and thrust it in his bosom.

"Naum Ivanitch," Avdotya said slowly, keeping her eyes fixed on him, "oh, Naum Ivanitch, you will bring my soul to ruin."

It was at that instant that the servant came up to them.

And so Akim was sitting on the bench discontentedly stroking his beard. Avdotya kept coming into the room and going out again. He simply followed her with his eyes. At last she came into the room and after taking a jerkin from the lobby was just crossing the threshold, when he could not 

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