“From the village of Izmáylov, From the master’s favourite garden, Once escaped a keen-eyed falcon. Soon after him a huntsman came a-riding, And he beckoned to the falcon that had strayed, But the bright-eyed bird thus answered: ‘In gold cage you could not keep me, On your hand you could not hold me, So now I fly to blue seas far away. There a white swan I will kill, Of sweet swan-flesh have my fill.’” Chapter XXVIII The betrothal was taking place in the cornet’s hut. Lukáshka had returned to the village, but had not been to see Olénin, and Olénin had not gone to the betrothal though he had been invited. He was sad as he had never been since he settled in this Cossack village. He had seen Lukáshka earlier in the evening and was worried by the question why Lukáshka was so cold towards him. Olénin shut himself up in his hut and began writing in his diary as follows: “Many things have I pondered over lately and much have I changed,” wrote he, “and I have come back to the copybook maxim: The one way to be happy is to love, to love self-denyingly, to love everybody and everything; to spread a web of love on all sides and to take all who come into it. In this way I caught Vanyúsha, Daddy Eróshka, Lukáshka, and Maryánka.” As Olénin was finishing this sentence Daddy Eróshka entered the room. Eróshka was in the happiest frame of mind. A few evenings before this, Olénin had gone to see him and had found him with a proud and happy face deftly skinning the carcass of a boar with a small knife in the yard. The dogs (Lyam his pet among them) were lying close by watching what he was doing and gently wagging their tails. The little boys were respectfully looking at him through the fence and not even teasing him as was their wont. His women neighbours, who were as a rule not too gracious towards him, greeted him and brought him, one a jug of _chikhir_, another some clotted cream, and a third a little flour. The next day Eróshka sat in his store-room all covered with blood, and distributed pounds of boar-flesh, taking in payment money from some and wine from others. His face clearly expressed, “God has sent me luck. I have killed a boar, so now I am wanted.” Consequently, he naturally began to drink, and had gone on for four days never leaving the village. Besides which he had had something to drink at the betrothal. He came to Olénin quite drunk: his face red, his beard tangled, but wearing a new _beshmet_ trimmed with gold braid; and he brought with him a _balaláyka_ which he had obtained beyond the river. He had long promised Olénin this treat, and felt in the mood for it, so that he was sorry to find Olénin writing.