The Horse-Stealers and Other Stories | Page 7

at his pipe, and for an instant lighted up a dark cheek with a
patch on it. Yergunov's throat was irritated by the horrible fumes of the
tobacco smoke.
"What filthy tobacco you have got--damnation take it!" said Yergunov.

"It makes me positively sick."
"I mix my tobacco with the flowers of the oats," answered Merik after a
pause. "It is better for the chest."
He smoked, spat, and went out again. Half an hour passed, and all at
once there was the gleam of a light in the passage. Merik appeared in a
coat and cap, then Lyubka with a candle in her hand.
"Do stay, Merik," said Lyubka in an imploring voice.
"No, Lyuba, don't keep me."
"Listen, Merik," said Lyubka, and her voice grew soft and tender. "I
know you will find mother's money, and will do for her and for me, and
will go to Kuban and love other girls; but God be with you. I only ask
you one thing, sweetheart: do stay!"
"No, I want some fun . . ." said Merik, fastening his belt.
"But you have nothing to go on. . . . You came on foot; what are you
going on?"
Merik bent down to Lyubka and whispered something in her ear; she
looked towards the door and laughed through her tears.
"He is asleep, the puffed-up devil . . ." she said.
Merik embraced her, kissed her vigorously, and went out. Yergunov
thrust his revolver into his pocket, jumped up, and ran after him.
"Get out of the way!" he said to Lyubka, who hurriedly bolted the door
of the entry and stood across the threshold. "Let me pass! Why are you
standing here?"
"What do you want to go out for?"
"To have a look at my horse."
Lyubka gazed up at him with a sly and caressing look.
"Why look at it? You had better look at me . . . ." she said, then she
bent down and touched with her finger the gilt watch-key that hung on
his chain.
"Let me pass, or he will go off on my horse," said Yergunov. "Let me
go, you devil!" he shouted, and giving her an angry blow on the
shoulder, he pressed his chest against her with all his might to push her
away from the door, but she kept tight hold of the bolt, and was like
iron.
"Let me go!" he shouted, exhausted; "he will go off with it, I tell you."
"Why should he? He won't." Breathing hard and rubbing her shoulder,
which hurt, she looked up at him again, flushed a little and laughed.

"Don't go away, dear heart," she said; "I am dull alone."
Yergunov looked into her eyes, hesitated, and put his arms round her;
she did not resist.
"Come, no nonsense; let me go," he begged her. She did not speak.
"I heard you just now," he said, "telling Merik that you love him.
"I dare say. . . . My heart knows who it is I love."
She put her finger on the key again, and said softly: "Give me that."
Yergunov unfastened the key and gave it to her. She suddenly craned
her neck and listened with a grave face, and her expression struck
Yergunov as cold and cunning; he thought of his horse, and now easily
pushed her aside and ran out into the yard. In the shed a sleepy pig was
grunting with lazy regularity and a cow was knocking her horn.
Yergunov lighted a match and saw the pig, and the cow, and the dogs,
which rushed at him on all sides at seeing the light, but there was no
trace of the horse. Shouting and waving his arms at the dogs, stumbling
over the drifts and sticking in the snow, he ran out at the gate and fell to
gazing into the darkness. He strained his eyes to the utmost, and saw
only the snow flying and the snowflakes distinctly forming into all
sorts of shapes; at one moment the white, laughing face of a corpse
would peep out of the darkness, at the next a white horse would gallop
by with an Amazon in a muslin dress upon it, at the next a string of
white swans would fly overhead. . . . Shaking with anger and cold, and
not knowing what to do, Yergunov fired his revolver at the dogs, and
did not hit one of them; then he rushed back to the house.
When he went into the entry he distinctly heard someone scurry out of
the room and bang the door. It was dark in the room. Yergunov pushed
against the door; it was locked. Then, lighting match after match, he
rushed back into the entry, from there into the kitchen, and from