*Stepan returned home after a long absence, tired but satisfied. The work in the fields seemed hard far away, but the thought of home, of his wife, gave him strength. He hardly thought about how they lived before he left – the life of the Cossacks was always like this: hard, rough, but necessary. Approaching the threshold, he noticed that the yard was unusually quiet. His heart sank with a bad feeling.

Pushing the door, Stepan stepped into the house. Empty. No smell of food, no clatter of pots. He called:*

– Aksinya!

*There was no answer. He walked through the rooms, checking every nook, every corner. Nothing. No sign of her presence. His pulse began to quicken. Thoughts began to spin in his head. Where is she? What does this mean? Leaving the house to inspect, he went out into the street and headed towards the neighbors, whose indirect smile immediately said everything.

“Where is she?” he growled, grabbing the first person he saw by the lapels.

“She left, Stepan, with Melekhov,” they answered reluctantly.

The blood rushed to his temples. The world around him darkened. The words “with Melekhov” sounded like a whip across his back. She, his wife, had run off to this young, impudent Cossack. He suddenly felt humiliated, devastated. Anger exploded in his chest, and he clenched his fists, ready to smash everything around him. The house he had built and everything in it now seemed empty, unnecessary. He had not just been robbed – he had been deprived of a part of himself*