“She would not marry me,” Konstantin went on, not heeding him. “I have been struggling with her for three years! I saw her at the Kalatchik fair; I fell madly in love with her, was ready to hang myself.⁠ ⁠… I live at Rovno, she at Demidovo, more than twenty miles apart, and there was nothing I could do. I sent matchmakers to her, and all she said was: ‘I won’t!’ Ah, the magpie! I sent her one thing and another, earrings and cakes, and twenty pounds of honey⁠—but still she said: ‘I won’t!’ And there it was. If you come to think of it, I was not a match for her! She was young and lovely, full of fire, while I am old: I shall soon be thirty, and a regular beauty, too; a fine beard like a goat’s, a clear complexion all covered with pimples⁠—how could I be compared with her! The only thing to be said is that we are well off, but then the Vahramenkys are well off, too. They’ve six oxen, and they keep a couple of labourers. I was in love, friends, as though I were plague-stricken. I couldn’t sleep or eat; my brain was full of thoughts, and in such a maze, Lord preserve us! I longed to see her, and she was in Demidovo. What do you think? God be my witness, I am not lying, three times a week I walked over there on foot just to have a look at her. I gave up my work!

I was so frantic that I even wanted to get taken on as a labourer in Demidovo, so as to be near her. I was in misery! My mother called in a witch a dozen times; my father tried thrashing me. For three years I was in this torment, and then I made up my mind. ‘Damn my soul!’ I said. ‘I will go to the town and be a cabman.⁠ ⁠… It seems it is fated not to be.’ At Easter I went to Demidovo to have a last look at her.⁠ ⁠…”

Konstantin threw back his head and went off into a mirthful tinkling laugh, as though he had just taken someone in very cleverly.

“I saw her by the river with the lads,” he went on. “I was overcome with anger.⁠ ⁠… I called her aside and maybe for a full hour I said all manner of things to her. She fell in love with me! For three years she did not like me! she fell in love with me for what I said to her.⁠ ⁠…”

“What did you say to her?” asked Dymov.