The Escape of Liza Basova

“The petty-bourgeois Timofey Kurlankov of Khrapovitsky was kneeling deep inside the ‘cauldron’—weathered out in a slate outcrop above the Yenisei—and repairing a fishing net. He was in a very bad mood. This morning, unexpectedly and without warning, his wife Ulyana arrived from the city to an isolated farmstead. She was still fairly young, but drunk and given to wandering. Timofey—steady and hard-working—couldn’t stand her…”