It was autumn. For some hours I had been strolling across country with
my gun, and should probably not have returned till evening to the
tavern on the Kursk high-road where my three-horse trap was awaiting
me, had not an exceedingly fine and persistent rain, which had worried
me all day with the obstinacy and ruthlessness of some old maiden lady,
driven me at last to seek at least a temporary shelter somewhere in the
neighbourhood. While I was still deliberating in which direction to go,
my eye suddenly fell on a low shanty near a field sown with peas. I
went up to the shanty, glanced under the thatched roof, and saw an old
man so infirm that he reminded me at once of the dying goat Robinson
Crusoe found in some cave on his island. The old man was squatting on
his heels, his little dim eyes half-closed, while hurriedly, but
carefully, like a hare (the poor fellow had not a single tooth), he
munched a dry, hard pea, incessantly rolling it from side to side. He
was so absorbed in this occupation that he did not notice my entrance.
'Grandfather! hey, grandfather!' said I. He ceased munching, lifted his
eyebrows high, and with an effort opened his eyes.
'What?' he mumbled in a broken voice.
'Where is there a village near?' I asked.
The old man fell to munching again. He had not heard me. I repeated my
question louder than before.
'A village?... But what do you want?'
'Why, shelter from the rain.'
'What?'
'Shelter from the rain.'
'Ah!' (He scratched his sunburnt neck.) 'Well, now, you go,' he said
suddenly, waving his hands indefinitely, 'so ... as you go by the
copse--see, as you go--there'll be a road; you pass it by, and keep
right on to the right; keep right on, keep right on, keep right on....
Well, there will be Ananyevo. Or else you'd go to Sitovka.'
I followed the old man with difficulty. His moustaches muffled his
voice, and his tongue too did not obey him readily.
'Where are you from?' I asked him.
'What?'
'Where are you from?'
'Ananyevo.'
'What are you doing here?'
'I'm watchman.'
'Why, what are you watching?'
'The peas.'