at the same time for some reason the reflection that she loved her
husband, that he was my friend, and that she herself looked upon
me as his friend, obtruded themselves upon me, my spirits flagged,
and I became listless, awkward, and dull. She noticed this change
and would usually say:

"You are dull without your friend. We must send out to the fields
for him."

And when Dmitri Petrovitch came in, she would say:

"Well, here is your friend now. Rejoice."

So passed a year and a half.

It somehow happened one July Sunday that Dmitri Petrovitch and I,
having nothing to do, drove to the big village of Klushino to buy
things for supper. While we were going from one shop to another the
sun set and the evening came on--the evening which I shall probably
never forget in my life. After buying cheese that smelt like soap,
and petrified sausages that smelt of tar, we went to the tavern to
ask whether they had any beer. Our coachman went off to the blacksmith
to get our horses shod, and we told him we would wait for him near
the church. We walked, talked, laughed over our purchases, while a
man who was known in the district by a very strange nickname, "Forty
Martyrs," followed us all the while in silence with a mysterious
air like a detective. This Forty Martyrs was no other than Gavril
Syeverov, or more simply Gavryushka, who had been for a short time
in my service as a footman and had been dismissed by me for
drunkenness. He had been in Dmitri Petrovitch's service, too, and