“Why, what do you want with it?” I shouted out after him, “Stop!”
Savka shook his hand as much as to say, “Don’t shout,” and vanished into the darkness. Savka was an excellent sportsman and fisherman when he liked, but his talents in this direction were as completely thrown away as his strength. He was too slothful to do things in the routine way, and vented his passion for sport in useless tricks. For instance, he would catch nightingales only with his hands, would shoot pike with a fowling piece, he would spend whole hours by the river trying to catch little fish with a big hook.
Left alone with me, Agafya coughed and passed her hand several times over her forehead.... She began to feel a little drunk from the vodka.
“How are you getting on, Agasha?” I asked her, after a long silence, when it began to be awkward to remain mute any longer.
“Very well, thank God.... Don’t tell anyone, sir, will you?” she added suddenly in a whisper.
“That’s all right,” I reassured her. “But how reckless you are, Agasha!... What if Yakov finds out?”
“He won’t find out.”
“But what if he does?”
“No... I shall be at home before he is. He is on the line now, and he will come back when the mail train brings him, and from here I can hear when the train’s coming....”
Agafya once more passed her hand over her forehead and looked away in the direction in which Savka had vanished. The nightingale was singing. Some night bird flew low down close to the ground and, noticing us, was startled, fluttered its wings and flew across to the other side of the river.