of late his wife had become rather difficult, but we all know that the
female sex is capricious and changeable. Even when it really did
strike him that things were not going well in his house, he merely
dismissed the thought with a wave of his hand; he did not like the
idea of a squabble; his good nature had not lessened with years and
indolence was asserting itself, too. But on that day he was very much
out of humour; the day before he had overheard quite by chance in the
street a conversation between their servant and a neighbouring peasant
woman.

The peasant woman asked the servant why she had not come to see her on
the holiday the day before. "I was expecting you," she said.

"I did set off," replied the servant, "but as ill-luck would have it,
I ran into the mistress ... botheration take her."

"Ran into her?" repeated the peasant woman in a sing-song voice and
she leaned her cheek on her hand. "And where did you run into her, my
good girl?"

"Beyond the priest's hemp-patch. She must have gone to the hemp-patch
to meet her Naum, but I could not see them in the dusk, owing to the
moon, maybe, I don't know; I simply dashed into them."

"Dashed into them?" the other woman repeated. "Well, and was she
standing with him, my good girl?"

"Yes, she was. He was standing there and so was she. She saw me and
said, 'Where are you running to? Go home.' So I went home."