during the whole of October. But suddenly it broke up and was followed by storms and torrents of rain; and in Durnovka something utterly unexpected came to pass.
During October Rodka had been working on the railway line, and the Bride had been sitting, without work, at home, enduring the reproaches of her mother and only occasionally earning fifteen or twenty kopeks in the garden of the manor. But her behaviour was peculiar: at home she said never a word, but only wept, and in the garden she was shrilly merry, shouted with laughter, sang songs with Donka the Goat, an extremely stupid and pretty little girl who resembled an Egyptian. The Goat was living with a petty burgher who had leased the garden, while the Bride, who for some reason or other had struck up a friendship with her, made bold eyes at her brother, an impudent youth, and as she ogled him hinted in song that she was wasting away with love for someone. Whether anything occurred between them was not known, but the whole affair ended in a great catastrophe. When the petty burghers were departing for the town just before the Feast of Our Lady of Kazan they arranged an “evening party” in