"I did, master. This is the eighth month since … but I cannot forget. It is eating away my heart … so it is! And why must she die? She was young! Healthy!… In one day the cholera settled her."
"And was she of a good disposition?"
"Akh, master!" sighed the poor fellow, heavily.—"And on what friendly terms she and I lived together! She died in my absence. When I heard here that they had already buried her, I hurried immediately to the village, home. It was already after midnight when I arrived. I entered my cottage, stopped short in the middle of it, and said so softly: 'Masha! hey, Masha!' Only a cricket shrilled.—Then I fell to weeping, and sat down on the cottage floor, and how I did beat my palm against the ground!—'Thy bowels are insatiable!' I said…. 'Thou hast devoured her … devour me also!'—Akh, Masha!"
"Masha," he added in a suddenly lowered voice. And without letting his rope reins out of his hands, he squeezed a tear out of his eye with his mitten, shook it off, flung it to one side, shrugged his shoulders—and did not utter another word.
As I alighted from the sledge I gave him an extra fifteen kopéks. He made me a low obeisance, grasping his cap in both hands, and drove off at a foot-pace over the snowy expanse of empty street, flooded with the grey mist of the January frost.
April, 1878.
THE FOOL
Once upon a time a fool lived in the world.
For a long time he lived in clover; but gradually rumours began to reach him to the effect that he bore the reputation everywhere of a brainless ninny.
The fool was disconcerted and began to fret over the question how he was to put an end to those unpleasant rumours.