Read The village. [Translation from the original Russian text by Isabel Hapgood] for Free Online

suspicion, irritability. Everything that was done in the house began to seem abhorrent.
    Egorka, the assistant, brought flour-sacks out of the shop and began to shake them. And the man's head reminded him of the head of the town fool, "Duck-Headed Matty." The crown of his head ran up to a

    THE VILLAGE
    point, his hair was harsh and thick—"Now, why is it that fools have such thick hair?"—his forehead was sunken, his face resembled an oblique egg, he had protruding eyes, and his eyelids, with their calf-like lashes, seemed drawn tightly over them; it looked as if there were not enough skin—if he were to close his eyes, his mouth would fly open of necessity, and if he closed his mouth, he would be compelled to open his eyes very wide. And Tikhon Hitch shouted spitefully: "Babbler! Blockhead! What are you shaking your head at me for?"
    The cook brought out a smallish box, opened it, placed it upside down on the ground, and began to thump the bottom with her fist. And, understanding what that meant, Tikhon Hitch slowly shook his head: "Akh, you housewife, curse you! You're knocking out the cockroaches?"
    'There's a regular cloud of them in there!" replied the cook gaily. "When I peeped in—Lord, what a sight!"
    And, gritting his teeth, Tikhon Hitch walked out to the highway and gazed long at the rolling plain, in the direction of Durnovka.

    THE VILLAGE
    VIII
    HIS living-rooms, the kitchen, the shop, and the granary, where formerly his liquor-trade had been carried on, constituted a single mass under one iron roof. On three sides the straw-thatched sheds of the cattle-yard were closely connected with it, and a pleasing quadrangle was thus obtained. The porch and all the windows faced the south. But the view was cut off by the grain-sheds, which stood opposite the windows and across the road. To the right was the railway station, to the left the highway. Beyond the highway was a small grove of birches. And when Tikhon Hitch felt out of sorts, he went out on the highway. It ran southward in a white winding ribbon from hillock to hillock, ever following the fields in their declivities and rising again toward the horizon from the far-away watch-tower, where the railway, coming from the south-east, intersected it. And if any one of the Durnovka peasants chanced to be driving to Ulianovka—one of the more energetic and clever, that is, such as Yakoff, whom every one called Yakoff Mikititch 1 because he was greedy, and held
    1 When a man or woman begins to get on in the world his admiring neighbours signalize their appreciation by adding to the Christian name the patronymic, as if the clever one were of gentle (noble) birth. In this story, Tikhon soon receives the public acknowledgment of success, having begun as plain "Tikhon." Peasant-fashion, "Nikititch" was transmuted into "Mikititch."—TRANS.

    THE VILLAGE
    fast to his little store of grain a second year, and owned three excellent horses—Tikhon Hitch stopped him.
    "You might buy yourself a cheap little cap with a visor, at least!" he shouted to YakofF, with a grin.
    YakofT, in a peakless cap, hemp-crash shirt, and trousers of heavy striped linen, was sitting barefoot on the side-rail of his springless cart.
    " 'Morning, Tikhon Hitch," he said, staidly.
    " 'Morning! I tell you, 'tis time you sacrificed your round cap for a jackdaw's nest!"
    Yakoff, grinning shrewdly earthwards, shook his head.
    "That—how should it be expressed?—would not be a bad idea. But, you see, my capital, so to speak, will not permit."
    "Oh, stop your babbling. We know all about you Kazan orphans! 1 You've married off your girl, and got a wife for your lad, and you have plenty of money. What more is there left for you to want from the Lord God?"
    This flattered Yakoff, but he became more uncommunicative than ever. "O, Lord!" he muttered, with a sigh, in a sort of chuckling tone. "Money—I don't know the sight of it, so to speak. And my lad—well, what of him? The boy's no comfort to me. No