“Why?”
“He was urging me to hire with him.”
“Just so. You did not consent?”
“More stupid than he I have never been and never shall be, forever and a day. You don’t suppose I signed the contract with my own blood?”
And Syery sat there on the bench for a long time, without removing his cap. And the mere sight of his cottage in the twilight made one sad at heart. In the twilight, beyond the broad snow-covered ravine, Durnovka lay in melancholy blackness, with its grain-ricks and bushes in the back yards. But when darkness fully descended, and the little lights began to twinkle, it seemed as if all were peaceful and cosy in the cottages. Syery’s hut alone remained disagreeably black. It was dull, dead. Kuzma knew all about it: if you entered its half-open anteroom, you felt almost as if you were on the threshold of some wild beast’s lair. There was an odour of snow; through the holes in the roof the gloomy sky was visible; the wind rustled the manure and the dry