When it was getting dark and pale stars began to twinkle here and there in the sky, Matvey
Savitch began to tell how he had come by Kuzka. Afanasyevna and Sofya stood a little way
off, listening. Kuzka had gone to the gate.
"It's a complicated story, old man," began Matvey Savitch, "and if I were to tell you all just
as it happened, it would take all night and more. Ten years ago in a little house in our street,
next door to me, where now there's a tallow and oil factory, there was living an old widow,
Marfa Semyonovna Kapluntsev, and she had two sons: one was a guard on the railway, but
the other, Vasya, who was just my own age, lived at home with his mother. Old Kapluntsev
had kept five pair of horses and sent carriers all over the town; his widow had not given up
the business, but managed the carriers as well as her husband had done, so that some days
they would bring in as much as five roubles from their rounds.
"The young fellow, too, made a trifle on his own account. He used to breed fancy pigeons
and sell them to fanciers; at times he would stand for hours on the roof, waving a broom in
the air and whistling; his pigeons were right up in the clouds, but it wasn't enough for him,
and he'd want them to go higher yet. Siskins and starlings, too, he used to catch, and he
made cages for sale. All trifles, but, mind you, he'd pick up some ten roubles a month over
such trifles. Well, as time went on, the old lady lost the use of her legs and took to her bed.
In consequence of which event the house was left without a woman to look after it, and
that's for all the world like a man without an eye. The old lady bestirred herself and made
up her mind to marry Vasya. They called in a matchmaker at once, the women got to talking
of one thing and another, and Vasya went off to have a look at the girls. He picked out
Mashenka, a widow's daughter. They made up their minds without loss of time and in a
week it was all settled. The girl was a little slip of a thing, seventeen, but fair-skinned and
pretty-looking, and like a lady in all her ways; and a decent dowry with her, five hundred
roubles, a cow, a bed. . . . Well, the old lady -- it seemed as though she had known it was
coming -- three days after the wedding, departed to the Heavenly Jerusalem where is neither
sickness nor sighing. The young people gave her a good funeral and began their life
together. For just six months they got on splendidly, and then all of a sudden another
misfortune. It never rains but it pours: Vasya was summoned to the recruiting office to draw
lots for the service. He was taken, poor chap, for a soldier, and not even granted exemption.
They shaved his head and packed him off to Poland. It was God's will; there was nothing to
be done. When he said good-bye to his wife in the yard, he bore it all right; but as he
glanced up at the hay-loft and his pigeons for the last time, he burst out crying. It was pitiful
to see him.
"At first Mashenka got her mother to stay with her, that she mightn't be dull all alone; she
stayed till the baby -- this very Kuzka here -- was born, and then she went off to Oboyan to
another married daughter's and left Mashenka alone with the baby. There were five peasants
-- the carriers -- a drunken saucy lot; horses, too, and dray-carts to see to, and then the fence
would be broken or the soot afire in the chimney -- jobs beyond a woman, and through our
being neighbours, she got into the way of turning to me for every little thing. . . . Well, I'd
go over, set things to rights, and give advice. . . . Naturally, not without going indoors,
drinking a cup of tea and having a little chat with her. I was a young fellow, intellectual,
and fond of talking on all sorts of subjects; she, too, was well-bred and educated. She was
always neatly dressed, and in summer she walked out with a sunshade. Sometimes I would
begin upon religion or politics with her, and she was flattered and would entertain me with
tea and jam. . . . In a word, not to make a long story of it, I must tell you, old man, a year