Love for Three

Trokhym decided that ordinary married happiness was no longer enough for him. He'd heard from a passing merchant about the luxuries of the gentry: supposedly, in a lord's chambers there's always a third someone - sitting, watching, envying, and that makes the night "more refined". Trokhym didn't understand a single word of it correctly, but he took it very much to heart. He oiled his moustache, put on a clean shirt, sat on the edge of the bed and proclaimed: "Wife.

I want a third. I want it like the gentry." Marfa gave him a long look - the kind you give a child asking for an axe to play with. "Fine," she said. "You'll have your third." And she smiled in a way that made the candle on the table sag a little all by itself. And it was all because of the merchant, who had spent the whole previous evening drinking slyvianka and lying so inspiredly that even the cockroach behind the stove stopped to listen.

He said: the gentry, you see, know no simple happiness. The candle must stand just so, the pillow must be plump, and in the corner - another pair of eyes, for atmosphere. Trokhym memorized it word for word, though he understood none of it. For two more days he dropped hints. On the third day he said it straight out, proudly puffing up his chest: "That's it! I want a third in the house. The most watchful one there is." Marfa asked again, to be sure: "The most watchful?"

"The most watchful," Trokhym confirmed, and rather liked himself for the word. Marfa nodded as if she already had a candidate ready. Trokhym prepared as if for an audience with the hetman. Rubbed himself with mint. Smoothed his moustache twice. Moved the candle so the shadow fell not on his belly but somehow more nobly - on the wall, which for once in its life had the shape of a man.

He sat sideways on the bed and even sucked in his stomach, having decided somewhere along the way that this was how counts sat. Marfa went out into the entry hall. From there came a quiet: "Hnat. Come along. You've been called to duty." Into the house walked a goose. White, big, with the gaze of a judge who has already decided everything and is only waiting on the formalities.

Trokhym looked at him and thought: "So this is the third?" It turned out - the very one. "Marfa... that's a bird," Trokhym managed. "That's the most watchful one," Marfa answered calmly. "You said it yourself: a third, to sit in the corner, watch and envy. Hnat sits better than any lord. He watches so hard you feel ashamed already. As for envy... well, envy he won't, because he has no use for your underwear. But judge you - that he certainly will."

Trokhym tried to object, but at that very moment Hnat stretched out his neck and gave him such a look that the objection got stuck somewhere between his throat and his conscience. "So, it's settled," Marfa concluded. Marfa set down a little bowl of grain for Hnat. "Sit, third. Guard the lordly luxury." At first Hnat sat in the corner. But he sat in such a way that within a second the whole house turned not into a bedroom but into a stage.

Trokhym undressed, coughed, and tried a lordly tone: "Well then, Marfa... shall we begin?" From the corner came a quiet, ominous: "Hss-s-s." Trokhym sat up straighter than he had even at his own wedding. Marfa smiled: "See? The third is already keeping watch." Trokhym got up to put out the candle - a simple, peaceful movement, without a trace of gentry about it. Hnat got up too. Trokhym took a step.

Hnat took half a step - but one so resolute that Trokhym instantly remembered all his sins, including the ones he hadn't managed to commit yet. "I will not be afraid of a goose in my own house," he said in the voice of a man who is already afraid. Hnat spread his wings. The candle flickered in fright. From under the blanket Marfa said, without a shred of sympathy: "Don't argue with the third. You wanted gentry customs - now have gentry discipline to go with them."

Trokhym sat down. Round closed. The score: Hnat - one, the countship - nil. Trokhym apparently decided that honour demanded a second attempt. He tried going around on the left - Hnat hissed as if he knew French. He tried the right - the hiss came out even more educated, as if he had switched to Latin. Then Trokhym ventured a diversion: quietly sliding the bowl of grain farther from the bed, in the hope that Hnat would follow it. Instead, Hnat grabbed him by the finger.

Trokhym jerked, caught his foot on a stool and sat down hard on the bench - loudly, conclusively, without a shred of dignity. A feather hung from his hair, like the trophy of the defeated. Marfa, without opening her eyes, asked: "Well, Count? Had enough luxury, or shall we call in a hen for the music?" It was a long night.

Trokhym slept on the bench, with his own pride tucked under his head. The moment Trokhym stirred, a warning came from the corner: "Hss-s-s." Marfa slept the calmest sleep she'd had all month - for the first time in her life, her husband didn't bother her at all. In the morning he came out of the house rumpled, with a feather in his hair, with the face of a man whom the gentry had bitten personally.

Hnat followed him all the way to the threshold, shouting to the whole village, reporting. Loudly. Solemnly. With details. By afternoon, when the whole village was already buzzing with the news, Trokhym came into the inn, sat down and said heavily: "Ivan. If that's lordly luxury - I'd rather be a simple man. No thirds. No watchful ones. No feathers." From her corner, Baba Palazhka pronounced the final verdict: "That's how it's done.

A husband asks for a foolishness - give him a foolishness with a beak. He'll wise up faster." Marfa dropped in later for some salt and only smiled without a word. And the moral is this: don't invite a third into the house unless you know exactly who will come - pleasure or Hnat the goose. Gentry fashion passes by morning, but the mark of a goose's stare sits in a man's soul for a week yet. And on his shirt, by the way, too.