I was returning from hunting in a little trap, and overcome by the heat of a cloudy summer day (it is well known that the heat is often more insupportable on such days than in bright days, especially when there is no wind), I and was shaken about, resigning myself with to being by the fine white dust which was raised from the beaten road by the and creaking wheels, when suddenly my attention was aroused by the extraordinary uneasiness and movements of my coachman, who had till that instant been more soundly than I. He began at the , moved uneasily on the box, and started shouting to the horses, staring all the while in one direction. I looked round. We were driving through a wide ploughed plain; low hills, also ploughed over, ran in gently sloping, waves over it; the eye took in some five miles of country; in the distance the round-scolloped tree-tops of some small birch-copses were the only objects to break the almost straight line of the horizon. Narrow paths ran over the fields, disappeared into the hollows, and wound round the hillocks. On one of these paths, which happened to run into our road five hundred paces ahead of us, I made out a kind of procession. At this my coachman was looking.  
It was a funeral. In front, in a little cart harnessed with one horse, and advancing at a walking pace, came the priest; beside him sat the deacon driving; behind the cart four peasants, bareheaded, carried the , covered with a white cloth; two women followed the coffin. The voice of one of them suddenly reached my ears; I listened; she was intoning a . Very sounded this chanted, , hopelessly-sorrowful among the empty fields. The coachman whipped up the horses; he wanted to get in front of this procession. To meet a on the road is a bad . And he did succeed in ahead beyond this path before the funeral had had time to turn out of it into the high-road; but we had hardly got a hundred paces beyond this point, when suddenly our trap violently, heeled on one side, and all but overturned. The coachman pulled up the galloping horses, and with a gesture of his hand.
 
'What is it?' I asked.
 
My coachman got down without speaking or hurrying himself.
 
'But what is it?'
 
'The axle is broken … it caught fire,' he replied gloomily, and he suddenly arranged the collar on the off-side horse with such indignation that it was almost pushed over, but it stood its ground, snorted, shook itself, and began to scratch its foreleg below the knee with its teeth.
 
I got out and stood for some time on the road, a to a vague and unpleasant feeling of helplessness. The right wheel was almost completely in under the trap, and it seemed to turn its centre-piece in dumb despair.
 
'What are we to do now?' I said at last.
 
'That's what's the cause of it!' said my coachman, pointing with his whip to the funeral procession, which had just turned into the highroad and was approaching us. 'I have always noticed that,' he went on; 'it's a true saying—"Meet a corpse"—yes, indeed.'
 
And again he began worrying the off-side horse, who, seeing his ill-humour, resolved to remain quiet, and itself with switching its tail now and then. I walked up and down a little while, and then stopped again before the wheel.
 
Meanwhile the funeral had come up to us. Quietly turning off the road on to the grass, the mournful procession moved slowly past us. My coachman and I took off our caps, the priest, and exchanged glances with the bearers. They moved with difficulty under their burden, their broad chests out under the strain. Of the two women who followed the coffin, one was very old and pale; her set face, terribly distorted as it was by grief, still kept an expression of grave and severe dignity. She walked in silence, from time to time lifting her wasted hand to her thin lips. The other, a young woman of five-and-twenty, had her eyes red and moist and her whole face with weeping; as she passed us she ceased wailing, and hid her face in her sleeve…. But when the funeral had got round us and turned again into the road, her piteous, heart-piercing lament began again. My coachman followed the measured swaying of the coffin with his eyes in silence. Then he turned to me.
 
'It's Martin, the carpenter, they're burying,' he said; 'Martin of
Ryaby.'
'How do you know?'
 
'I know by the women. The old one is his mother, and the young one's his wife.'
 
'Has he been ill, then?'
 
'Yes … fever. The day before yesterday the overseer sent for the doctor, but they did not find the doctor at home. He was a good carpenter; he drank a bit, but he was a good carpenter. See how upset his good woman is…. But, there; women's tears don't cost much, we know. Women's tears are only water … yes, indeed.'
 
And he bent down, crept under the side-horse's trace, and seized the wooden that passes over the horses' heads with both hands.
 
'Any way,' I observed, 'what are we going to do?'
 
My coachman just supported himself with his knees on the shaft-horse's shoulder, twice gave the back- a shake, and straightened the pad; then he crept out of the side-horse's trace again, and giving it a blow on the nose as he passed, went up to the wheel. He went up to it, and, never taking his eyes off it, slowly took out of the skirts of his coat a box, slowly pulled open its lid by a strap, slowly thrust into it his two fat fingers (which pretty well filled it up), rolled and rolled up some snuff, and up his nose in , helped himself to it several times in succession, accompanying the snuff-taking every time by a prolonged sneezing. Then, his streaming eyes blinking faintly, he relapsed into profound .
 
'Well?' I said at last.
 
My coachman thrust his box carefully into his pocket, brought his hat forward on to his brows without the aid of his hand by a movement of his head, and gloomily got up on the box.
 
'What are you doing?' I asked him, somewhat bewildered.
 
'Pray be seated,' he replied calmly, picking up the reins.
 
'But how can we go on?'
 
'We will go on now.'
 
'But the axle.'
 
'Pray be seated.'
 
'But the axle is broken.'
 
'It is broken; but we will get to the settlement … at a walking pace, of course. Over here, beyond the copse, on the right, is a settlement; they call it Yudino.'
 
'And do you think we can get there?'
 
My coachman did not me a reply.
 
'I had better walk,' I said.
 
'As you like….' And he nourished his whip. The horses started.
 
We did succeed in getting to the settlement, though the right front wheel was almost off, and turned in a very strange way. On one hillock it almost flew off, but my coachman shouted in a voice of , and we it in safety.
 
Yudino settlement consisted of six little low-pitched huts, the walls of which had already begun to out of the , though they had certainly not been long built; the back-yards of some of the huts were not even fenced in with a hedge. As we drove into this settlement we did not meet a single living soul; there were no hens even to be seen in the street, and no dogs, but one black crop-tailed cur, which at our approach leaped hurriedly out of a perfectly dry and empty trough, to which it must have been driven by thirst, and at once, without barking, rushed headlong under a gate. I went up to the first hut, opened the door into the outer room, and called for the master of the house. No one answered me. I called once more; the hungry mewing of a cat sounded behind the other door. I pushed it open with my foot; a thin cat ran up and down near me, her green eyes glittering in the dark. I put my head into the room and looked round; it was empty, dark, and smoky. I returned to the yard, and there was no one there either…. A lowed behind the paling; a grey goose a little away. I passed on to the second hut. Not a soul in the second hut either. I went into the yard….
 
In the very middle of the yard, in the glaring sunlight, there lay, with his face on the ground and a cloak thrown over his head, a boy, as it seemed to me. In a thatched shed a few paces from him a thin little with broken harness was standing near a wretched little cart. The sunshine falling in through the narrow cracks in the dilapidated roof, striped his shaggy, reddish-brown coat in small bands of light. Above, in the high bird-house, starlings were and looking down from their airy home. I went up to the sleeping figure and began to him.
 
He lifted his head, saw me, and at once jumped up on to his feet….
'What? what do you want? what is it?' he muttered, half asleep.
I did not answer him at once; I was so much impressed by his appearance.
 
Picture to yourself a little creature of fifty years old, with a little round wrinkled face, a sharp nose, little, scarcely visible, brown eyes, and thick curly black hair, which stood out on his tiny head like the cap on the top of a mushroom. His whole person was excessively thin and weakly, and it is absolutely impossible to translate into words the extraordinary strangeness of his expression.
 
'What do you want?' he asked me again. I explained to him what was the matter; he listened, slowly blinking, without taking his eyes off me.
 
'So cannot we get a new axle?' I said finally; 'I will gladly pay for it.'
 
'But who are you? Hunters, eh?' he asked, scanning me from head to foot.
 
'Hunters.'
 
'You shoot the of heaven, I suppose?… the wild things of the woods?… And is it not a sin to kill God's birds, to shed the innocent blood?'
 
The strange old man in a very drawling tone. The sound of his voice also astonished me. There was none of the weakness of age to be heard in it; it was marvellously sweet, young and almost feminine in its softness.
 
'I have no axle,' he added after a brief silence. 'That thing will not suit you.' He to his cart. 'You have, I expect, a large trap.'
 
'But can I get one in the village?'
 
'Not much of a village here!… No one has an axle here…. And there is no one at home either; they are all at work. You must go on,' he announced suddenly; and he lay down again on the ground.
 
I had not at all expected this conclusion.
 
'Listen, old man,' I said, him on the shoulder; 'do me a kindness, help me.'
 
'Go on, in God's name! I am tired; I have driven into the town,' he said, and drew his cloak over his head.
 
'But pray do me a kindness,' I said. 'I … I will pay for it.' 'I don't want your money.'
 
'But please, old man.'
 
He half raised himself and sat up, crossing his little legs.
 
'I could take you perhaps to the clearing. Some merchants have bought the forest here—God be their judge! They are cutting down the forest, and they have built a counting-house there—God be their judge! You might order an axle of them there, or buy one ready made.'
 
'Splendid!' I cried delighted; 'splendid! let us go.'
 
'An oak axle, a good one,' he continued, not getting up from his place.
 
'And is it far to this clearing?'
 
'Three miles.'
 
'Come, then! we can drive there in your trap.'
 
'Oh, no….'
 
'Come, let us go,' I said; 'let us go, old man! The coachman is waiting for us in the road.'
 
The old man rose and followed me into the street. We found my coachman in an frame of mind; he had tried to water his horses, but the water in the well, it appeared, was in quantity and bad in taste, and water is the first consideration with coachmen…. However, he grinned at the sight of the old man, nodded his head and cried: 'Hallo! Kassyanushka! good health to you!'
 
'Good health to you, Erofay, upright man!' replied Kassyan in a dejected voice.
 
I at once made known his suggestion to the coachman; Erofay expressed his approval of it and drove into the yard. While he was busy unharnessing the horses, the old man stood leaning with his shoulders against the gate, and looking first at him and then at me. He seemed in some of mind; he was not very pleased, as it seemed to me, at our sudden visit.
 
'So they have transported you too?' Erofay asked him suddenly, lifting the wooden arch of the harness.
 
'Yes.'
 
'Ugh!' said my coachman between his teeth. 'You know Martin the carpenter…. Of course, you know Martin of Ryaby?'
 
'Yes.'
 
'Well, he is dead. We have just met his coffin.'
 
Kassyan .
 
'Dead?' he said, and his head sank dejectedly.
 
'Yes, he is dead. Why didn't you cure him, eh? You know they say you cure folks; you're a doctor.'
 
My coachman was laughing and at the old man.
 
'And is this your trap, pray?' he added, with a of his shoulders in its direction.
 
'Yes.'
 
'Well, a trap … a fine trap!' he repeated, and taking it by the almost turned it completely upside down. 'A trap!… But what will you drive in it to the clearing?… You can't harness our horses in these shafts; our horses are all too big.'
 
'I don't know,' replied Kassyan, 'what you are going to drive; that beast perhaps,' he added with a sigh.
 
'That?' broke in Erofay, and going up to Kassyan's nag, he tapped it on the back with the third finger of his right hand. 'See,' he added contemptuously, 'it's asleep, the scare-crow!'
 
I asked Erofay to harness it as quickly as he could. I wanted to drive myself with Kassyan to the clearing; are fond of such places. When the little cart was quite ready, and I, together with my dog, had been installed in the warped wicker body of it, and Kassyan up into a little ball, with still the same dejected expression on his face, had taken his seat in front, Erofay came up to me and whispered with an air of mystery:
 
'You did well, your honour, to drive with him. He is such a queer fellow; he's cracked, you know, and his nickname is the . I don't know how you managed to make him out….'
 
I tried to say to Erofay that so far Kassyan had seemed to me a very sensible man; but my coachman continued at once in the same voice:
 
'But you keep a look-out where he is driving you to. And, your honour, be pleased to choose the axle yourself; be pleased to choose a sound one…. Well, Flea,' he added aloud, 'could I get a bit of bread in your house?'
 
'Look about; you may find some,' answered Kassyan. He pulled the reins and we rolled away.
 
His little horse, to my genuine , did not go badly. Kassyan preserved an silence the whole way, and made and answers to my questions. We quickly reached the clearing, and then made our way to the counting-house, a lofty cottage, standing by itself over a small gully, which had been dammed up and converted into a pool. In this counting-house I found two young merchants' clerks, with snow-white teeth, sweet and soft eyes, sweet and subtle words, and sweet and wily smiles. I bought an axle of them and returned to the clearing. I thought that Kassyan would stay with the horse and await my return; but he suddenly came up to me.
 
'Are you going to shoot birds, eh?' he said.
 
'Yes, if I come across any.'
 
'I will come with you…. Can I?'
 
'Certainly, certainly.'
 
So we went together. The land cleared was about a mile in length. I must confess I watched Kassyan more than my dogs. He had been aptly called 'Flea.' His little black uncovered head (though his hair, indeed, was as good a covering as any cap) seemed to flash hither and among the bushes. He walked swiftly, and seemed always up and down as he moved; he was for ever stooping down to pick herbs of some kind, thrusting them into his , muttering to himself, and constantly looking at me and my dog with such a strange searching gaze. Among low bushes and in clearings there are often little grey birds which constantly flit from tree to tree, and which whistle as they away. Kassyan them, answered their calls; a young flew from between his feet, chirruping, and he chirruped in imitation of him; a began to fly down above him, moving his wings and singing : Kassyan joined in his song. He did not speak to me at all….
 
The weather was glorious, even more so than before; but the heat was no less. Over the clear sky the high thin clouds were hardly stirred, yellowish-white, like snow lying late in spring, flat and drawn out like rolled-up sails. Slowly but perceptibly their fringed edges, soft and as cotton-wool, changed at every moment; they were melting away, even these clouds, and no shadow fell from them. I strolled about the clearing for a long while with Kassyan. Young shoots, which had not yet had time to grow more than a yard high, surrounded the low blackened with their smooth slender stems; and spongy funguses with grey edges—the same of which they make tinder—clung to these; strawberry plants flung their tendrils over them; mushrooms close in groups. The feet were constantly caught and in the long grass, that was in the sun; the eyes were dazzled on all sides by the glaring glitter on the young reddish leaves of the trees; on all sides were the blue clusters of vetch, the golden cups of bloodwort, and the half-lilac, half-yellow blossoms of the heart's-ease. In some places near the disused paths, on which the tracks of wheels were marked by streaks on the fine bright grass, rose piles of wood, blackened by wind and rain, laid in yard-lengths; there was a faint shadow cast from them in oblongs; there was no other shade anywhere. A light breeze rose, then sank again; suddenly it would blow straight in the face and seem to be rising; everything would begin to merrily, to nod, to shake around one; the tops of the ferns bow down , and one rejoices in it, but at once it dies away again, and all is at rest once more. Only the chirrup in chorus with energy, and wearisome is this unceasing, sharp dry sound. It is in keeping with the heat of mid-day; it seems to it, as though by it out of the glowing earth.
 
Without having started one single covey we at last reached another clearing. There the aspen-trees had only lately been felled, and lay stretched mournfully on the ground, crushing the grass and small undergrowth below them: on some the leaves were still green, though they were already dead, and hung limply from the motionless branches; on others they were and dried up. Fresh golden-white chips lay in heaps round the stumps that were covered with bright drops; a , very pleasant, odour rose from them. Farther away, nearer the wood, sounded the dull blows of the , and from time to time, bowing and spreading wide its arms, a bushy tree fell slowly and to the ground.
 
For a long time I did not come upon a single bird; at last a corncrake flew out of a thick of young oak across the wormwood springing up round it. I fired; it turned over in the air and fell. At the sound of the shot, Kassyan quickly covered his eyes with his hand, and he did not stir till I had reloaded the gun and picked up the bird. When I had moved farther on, he went up to the place wher............