Then he took a step towards the fire, smiled still more radiantly and said:

“Bread and salt, friends!”

“You are very welcome!” Panteley answered for them all.

The stranger put down by the fire what he was carrying in his arms—it was a dead bustard—and greeted them once more.

They all went up to the bustard and began examining it.

“A fine big bird; what did you kill it with?” asked Dymov.

“Grape-shot. You can’t get him with small shot, he won’t let you get near enough. Buy it, friends! I will let you have it for twenty kopecks.”

“What use would it be to us? It’s good roast, but I bet it would be tough boiled; you could not get your teeth into it.…”

“Oh, what a pity! I would take it to the gentry at the farm; they would give me half a rouble for it. But it’s a long way to go—twelve miles!”

The stranger sat down, took off his gun and laid it beside him.

He seemed sleepy and languid; he sat smiling, and, screwing up his eyes at the firelight, apparently thinking of something very agreeable. They gave him a spoon; he began eating.

“Who are you?” Dymov asked him.

The stranger did not hear the question; he made no answer, and did not even glance at Dymov. Most likely this smiling man did not taste the flavour of the porridge either, for he seemed to eat it mechanically, lifting the spoon to his lips sometimes very full and sometimes quite empty. He was not drunk, but he seemed to have something nonsensical in his head.

“I ask you who you are?” repeated Dymov.

“I?” said the unknown, starting. “Konstantin Zvonik from Rovno. It’s three miles from here.”

And anxious to show straight off that he was not quite an ordinary peasant, but something better, Konstantin hastened to add:

“We keep bees and fatten pigs.”

“Do you live with your father or in a house of your own?”

“No; now I am living in a house of my own. I have parted. This month, just after St. Peter’s Day, I got married. I am a married man now!…It’s eighteen days since the wedding.”

“That’s a good thing,” said Panteley. “Marriage is a good thing.… God’s blessing is on it.”

“His young wife sits at home while he rambles about the steppe,” laughed Kiruha. “Queer chap!”

As though he had been pinched on the tenderest spot, Konstantin started, laughed and flushed crimson.

“But, Lord, she is not at home!” he said quickly, taking the spoon out of his mouth and looking round at everyone with an expression of delight and wonder. “She is not; she has gone to her mother’s for three days! Yes, indeed, she has gone away, and I feel as though I were not married.…”