“Yes, they did hurt me to the core, all the same, they did. Ah, friend, how people have grown into the habit of hurting one another, it’s a shame! Conscience lives among us like a homeless pup, it does! It isn’t welcome anywhere. Well, never mind, I’ll go on with my story. I married and all was as it should be; the wife was called Natalia, a beautiful, soft creature. I got on with her all right; she was a bit of a philanderer, but I’m not all too virtuous myself, not exactly a stay at home, and when there is a nicer, kinder woman about, to her I go. That is all only too human, there’s no running away from it, and in one’s lusty years, what better can one do? At times when I returned home bringing some money or other goods with me, people would laugh! ‘Savel, you should tie your wife’s skirts before you leave your house!’ Jeering, they were. Well, for decency’s sake, I’d beat her a bit and then give her a present to make up for it and just scold her gently: ‘You fool,’ I’d say, ‘why do you make people laugh at me? Am I not your pal, instead of your enemy?’ She’d cry, of course, and say they were lying. I know, too, that people are fond of lies, but you can’t fool me, all the same: the night gives away the truth about a woman—you can feel it, at night, if she’s been in another man’s arms or not.”

Something rustled in the bushes behind him.

“Ps-sh!” the old man shook a branch of the elder. “A hedgehog lives right here, I pricked my foot on it the other day as I went to wash in the brook; I did not see it in the grass and the needle went straight into my toe.”

He smiled as he looked at the bush and then, straightening himself out, went on.

“Yes, friend. So I was saying how deeply they had hurt me, yes, how deeply. I had a daughter, Tasha, Tatyana. I may say in a word, without boasting, she was a joy to the whole world, that daughter. A star. I used to dress her up in fine clothes—a heavenly beauty she was when she came out on a holiday. Her gait, her bearing, her eyes… Our teacher Kuzmin—Trunk was his nickname, for he was a clumsy- looking chap—called her by some whimsical name, and when he got drunk he would weep and beg me to take care of her. So I did. But luck had always favored me—and that never makes one popular with other men, it just breeds envy. So the rumor was spread, that Tasha and I…”

He fidgeted uneasily on the grass, took his shirt from the bush, put it on and carefully buttoned up the collar. His face twitched nervously, he pressed his lips together and the sparse bristles of his gray brows descended on the naked eyes.

Twilight was setting in. There was a freshness in the air. A quail was crying shrilly close by: “Pit-pit… wet my lip…” The old man was peering down into the ravine.

“Well, so that set the ball rolling. Kuzmin, the priest, the clerk, some of the men and most of the women began wagging their tongues, hissing and hooting and hauling a man over the coals. It is always a treat for us to bait a man; we love it. Tasha sat weeping, unable to leave the house, for fear of the jeering of street urchins—everybody was having the time of their lives. So I said to Tasha: ‘Come, let us leave.’ ”

“And your wife?”

“The wife?” the old man repeated with astonishment. “But she was dead by then. She just gave a sigh and died one night. Yes—yes. That was long before all this happened. Tasha was only twelve.… She was my enemy, a bad woman, unfaithful.”

“But you were praising her a moment ago,” I reminded him. This did not embarrass him at all. He scratched his neck, lifted his beard with his palm and gazing at it, said calmly:

“Well, what if I did praise her? No one remains bad all his life, and even a bad person is often worthy of praise. A human being is not a stone and even a stone changes with time. Do not, however, get any wrong ideas into your head—she died a natural death, all right. It must have been her heart, her heart