He returned home
thoroughly annoyed and thoroughly sober. "Well?" his wife inquired, "found?" "Found what?" answered Yefrem, "to be sure I've found it: here is your
pot." "Akim?" asked his wife with especial emphasis. Yefrem nodded his head. "Yes. But he is a nice one! I pledged my word for him; if it had not
been for me he'd be lying in prison, and he never offered me a drop! Ulyana Fyodorovna, you at least might show me consideration and give
me a glass!" But Ulyana Fyodorovna did not show him consideration and drove him out
of her sight. Meanwhile, Akim was walking with slow steps along the road to Lizaveta
Prohorovna's house. He could not yet fully grasp his position; he was
trembling all over like a man who had just escaped from a certain
death. He seemed unable to believe in his freedom. In dull
bewilderment he gazed at the fields, at the sky, at the larks
quivering in the warm air. From the time he had woken up on the
previous morning at Yefrem's he had not slept, though he had lain on
the stove without moving; at first he had wanted to drown in vodka the
insufferable pain of humiliation, the misery of frenzied and impotent
anger ... but the vodka had not been able to stupefy him completely;
his anger became overpowering and he began to think how to punish the
man who had wronged him.... He thought of no one but Naum; the idea of
Lizaveta Prohorovna never entered his head and on Avdotya he mentally
turned his back. By the evening his thirst for revenge had grown to a
frenzy, and the good-natured and weak man waited with feverish
impatience for the approach of night and ran, like a wolf to its prey,
to destroy his old home.... But then he had been caught ... locked
up.... The night had followed. What had he not thought over during
that cruel night! It is difficult to put into words all that a man
passes through at such moments, all the tortures that he endures; more
difficult because those tortures are dumb and inarticulate in the man
himself.... Towards morning, before Naum and Yefrem had come to the
door, Akim had begun to feel as it were more at ease. Everything is
lost, he thought, everything is scattered and gone ... and he
dismissed it all. If he had been naturally bad-hearted he might at
that moment have become a criminal; but evil was not natural to Akim. Under the shock of undeserved and unexpected misfortune, in the
delirium of despair he had brought himself to crime; it had shaken him
to the depths of his being and, failing, had left in him nothing but
intense weariness.... Feeling his guilt in his mind he mentally tore
himself from all things earthly and began praying, bitterly but
fervently. At first he prayed in a whisper, then perhaps by accident
he uttered a loud "Oh, God!" and tears gushed from his eyes.... For a
long time he wept and at last grew quieter.... His thoughts would
probably have changed if he had had to pay the penalty of his
attempted crime ... but now he had suddenly been set free ... and he
was walking to see his wife, feeling only half alive, utterly crushed
but calm. Lizaveta Prohorovna's house stood about a mile from her village to the
left of the cross road along which Akim was walking. He was about to
stop at the turning that led to his mistress's house ... but he walked
on instead. He decided first to go to what had been his hut, where his
uncle lived. Akim's small and somewhat dilapidated hut was almost at the end of the
village; Akin walked through the whole street without meeting a soul. All the people were at church. Only one sick old woman raised a little
window to look after him and a little girl who had run out with an
empty pail to the well gaped at him, and she too looked after him. The
first person he met was the uncle he was looking for. The old man had
been sitting all the morning on the ledge under his window taking
pinches of snuff and warming himself in the sun; he was not very well,
so he had not gone to church; he was just setting off to visit another
old man, a neighbour who was also ailing, when he suddenly saw
Akim.... He stopped, let him come up to him and glancing into his
face, said:

"Good-day, Akimushka!" "Good-day," answered Akim, and passing the old man went in at the
gate. In the yard were standing his horses, his cow, his cart; his
poultry, too, were there.... He went into the hut without a word. The
old man followed him. Akim sat down on the bench and leaned his fists
on it. The old man standing at the door looked at him compassionately. "And where is my wife?" asked Akim. "At the mistress's house," the old man answered quickly. "She is
there. They put your cattle here and what boxes there were, and she
has gone there. Shall I go for her?" Akim was silent for a time. "Yes, do," he said at last. "Oh, uncle, uncle," he brought out with a sigh while the old man was
taking his hat from a nail, "do you remember what you said to me the
day before my wedding?" "It's all God's will, Akimushka." "Do you remember you said to me that I was above you peasants, and now
you see what times have come.... I'm stripped bare myself." "There's no guarding oneself from evil folk," answered the old man,
"if only someone such as a master, for instance, or someone in
authority, could give him a good lesson, the shameless fellow--but as
it is, he has nothing to be afraid of. He is a wolf and he behaves
like one." And the old man put on his cap and went off. Avdotya had just come back from church when she was told that her
husband's uncle was asking for her. Till then she had rarely seen him;
he did not come to see them at the inn and had the reputation of being
queer altogether: he was passionately fond of snuff and was usually
silent. She went out to him. "What do you want, Petrovitch? Has anything happened?" "Nothing has happened, Avdotya Arefyevna; your husband is asking for
you." "Has he come back?" "Yes." "Where is he, then?" "He is in the village, sitting in his hut." Avdotya was frightened. "Well, Petrovitch," she inquired, looking straight into his face, "is
he angry?" "He does not seem so." Avdotya looked down. "Well, let us go," she said. She put on a shawl and they set off
together. They walked in silence to the village. When they began to
get close to the hut, Avdotya was so overcome with terror that her
knees began to tremble. "Good Petrovitch," she said, "go in first.... Tell him that I have
come." The old man went into the hut and found Akim lost in thought, sitting
just as he had left him. "Well?" said Akim raising his head, "hasn't she come?" "Yes," answered the old man, "she is at the gate...."

"Well, send her in here." The old man went out, beckoned to Avdotya, said to her, "go in," and
sat down again on the ledge. Avdotya in trepidation opened the door,
crossed the threshold and stood still. Akim looked at her. "Well, Arefyevna," he began, "what are we going to do now?" "I am guilty," she faltered. "Ech Arefyevna, we are all sinners. What's the good of talking about
it!"