Andrey Ivanovich did not carry out his savage intentions and in a half
hour we were again walking silently along the road.... It was not yet
sunrise, but the white, milky streaks kept breaking through the clouds,
and beneath our feet we could see the whitish fog which covered the whole
plain. Suddenly the fog opened and showed us a horse’s head and a cart
loaded with sacks and a peasant sleeping on them and another empty cart
behind it.
“Uncle, hey, uncle,” said Andrey Ivanovich to the second peasant, “won’t
you take us along?”
The peasant rubbed his sleepy eyes and looked with amazement at the crowd
which had surrounded him.
“Where did God bring you from?”
“A pilgrimage.”
“So, so! Sit down, but I can’t take you far; we’re from around here.”
“You’re not from the mill?”
“They were at the mill, but I’m empty. Sit down; that’s right.”
We got into the cart and sat down, letting our feet hang.
“Let me ask you a question,” said our guide, clucking to his horse; “have
you been walking all night?”
“Yes.”
“You didn’t hear anything, did you?”
“Some dogs barking in the distance. Why?”
“Why? Some one opened the sluices in the mill and almost smashed the
wheels.”
“Who was it?”
“I don’t know! Some one got fooling around at night. In our little
village near by, they say, the fellow asked to be taken in. A peasant
looked out, but he said: ‘I’m the devil, let me in.’”
“He was,” said Avtonomov, who had discarded his decorations some time
before.
“He wasn’t.... I’ll never believe it.... And I won’t let you either.”
Andrey Ivanovich spoke ardently and decidedly to the peasant. “Some
rascals have been deceiving you country people.... Your simplicity....”
“There are people who do not believe in God and the Saints,” said
Avtonomov, with the greatest humility and composure.
Andrey Ivanovich gritted his teeth and showed Avtonomov his fist, when
the peasant was not looking.