"Thou wentest."—The peasant-wife was silent for a space.—"Well, good-bye, Fetíniushka,"—she said, and went her way.
This conversation had produced an unpleasant effect on Akím. His love for Avdótya had already grown cold, but, nevertheless, the maid-servant's words displeased him. And she had told the truth: as a matter of fact, Avdótya had gone out that evening to meet Naúm, who had waited for her in the dense shadow which fell upon the road from the tall and motionless hemp-patch. The dew had drenched its every stalk from top to bottom; the scent, powerful to the point of oppressiveness, lay all around. The moon had only just risen, huge and crimson, in the dim and the blackish mist. Naúm had heard Avdótya's hasty footsteps from afar, and had advanced to meet her. She reached him all pale with running; the moon shone directly in her face.
"Well, how now; hast thou brought it?"—he asked her.
"Yes, I have,"—she replied in an irresolute tone:—"but, Naúm Ivánovitch, what ...."
"Give it here, if thou hast brought it,"—he interrupted her, stretching out his hand.
She drew from beneath her kerchief on her neck some sort of packet. Naúm instantly grasped it and thrust it into his breast.
"Naúm Ivánitch,"—enunciated Avdótya, slowly, and without taking her eyes from him.... "Okh, Naúm Ivánitch, I am ruining my soul for thee...."
At that moment the maid-servant had come upon them.
So, then, Akím was sitting on the wall-bench and stroking his beard with his dissatisfaction. Avdótya kept entering the house and leaving it. He merely followed her with his eyes. At last she entered yet again, and taking a warm wadded jacket from the little room, she was already crossing the threshold; but he could endure it no longer, and began to talk, as though to himself:
"I wonder,"—he began,—"what makes these women-folks always so fidgety? That they should sit still in one spot is something that can't be demanded of them. That 's no affair of theirs. But what they do love is to be running off somewhere or other, morning or evening.—Yes."