*On the opposite hillside, a villager was driving down a yoke of oxen. The oxen slowly plowed the small, stony plot of land. The villager was listening. "Sevan, Sevan... Sevan come!... Let me break your shoulder if you are Sevan!" "The well is running away, put a stone under it, put a stone under it." "Sevan, Sevan!... pull, Sevan!" "Hold on, hold on... hold on, look, it's falling into the valley." But the villager was on his own. those calls, those desperate efforts, those sounds of whining and whining did not concern him. His was the creaking of the stony ground, his screeching and the slow tread of his oxen. And there was even hostility or unkindness in his fleeting look, looking and not seeing, when they chirped in the distance: "Put a stone under it." —. "Come on," said the peasant in a low voice to his oxen and straightened the plow. Once again, turning aside, the peasant saw a bullock cart on the other side of the gully, with a millstone on it, someone putting a stone behind the wheel, and a horseman who seemed to be looking at the peasant from this direction.
- That you can't see that itching like that, aren't you an Armenian Christian?
The peasant stopped, looked, said and pointed to himself.
- Is that us?
"No, we," said the Horseman. Well, bring your oxen, come and help.
"Come and get it," said the villager and pulled the scraper out of the field.
- You are taking out a scraper, - the Horseman stimulated and whipped the horse, - what are you going to scrape?
"You have nothing to do with the dog," said Sailor, who had put a stone behind the wheel, and was now getting out from under the cart.
The horseman went down to the ravine, crossed the rocky ravine, drove past the deer, and the peasant was waiting with the scraper in his hands. The horseman reached and whipped the peasant, circled around him and whipped him again.
"You don't understand without saying, understand by saying," the Horseman whipped again.
The peasant went and entered among his oxen, as if he was releasing the oxen from the plow, but bent down, passed under the yoke and ran away through his oxen.
- Son of a dog! - The horseman got off his horse, separated the yoked oxen from the plow and whipped the road down to the ravine. - Son of a dog - and he went to the horse, and the oxen were running down the road shaking heavily.
Then that Horseman sat at the head of the cart and was beating and encouraging all four oxen, and the Horseman, clinging to the bars, had his shoulder under the wheel and was straining and bursting.
They took the cart to the head of the oxen, and the Horseman could not speak for a long time, and the Horseman got off the oxen's shoulder and said, releasing the oxen he had stolen from the peasant:
- Oh, let Amin pull the tent with kindness... Say: he has a couple of years of life left, let him pick the old one and get on with it, let's build a house again.
Having released the oxen, which he now liked for a moment, the Horseman turned back down the slope to the ravine and said to the invisible peasant:
- Come on. - And he added: - or did you pretend to come?
Browsing for a moment against the little bull on the rutted hillside, the Horseman turned back to his horse, whose bridle was over the bar of the cart, and then Sailor said,
- Ohan Amin will wear this again, Gandzasara will bring quartz, he will wear the quartz and arrange it at the door of the mill, and he will wear me and you too.- The horseman climbed into the cart, sat on the top of the cart, and at that time the Horseman said from the horse, pointing back towards the rocky hillside with the butt of his whip.
- Push, push, push... Let him come plowing with oxen in barren lands and wear himself out. I'll wear out anyone at the expense of the water." And he added, laughing from the feeling of discomfort.
"He won't stay under, don't be afraid," said Sailor, "he'll get off the horse one day."
"Where was he?" said the Horseman. Necks crooked, a tribe of sheep. He put his hope on Sasna Davt, or rather on the Russian king Nikolay. Come on! Come on Seva, it's yours to pull, you will pull, what are you doing upside down? He is afraid of blood and hopes that the beast is good. Is there a god? There is a Russian king. so far away from him, far away, that he is not his savior. Like a child, "it's a cherry, isn't it?" If you are such a coward, of course there is a god, of course there is a Russian king, of course the beast does not like blood and will not do blood.
The charioteer did not quite agree with the horseman and laughingly objected from the top of his cart.
- Strong is strong!
"The strong is indeed strong on the unmanly stoop," said the Horseman.
"Strength belongs to the strong!" said Sailor from the top of the cart.
- Strength belongs to the strong, you are also the strong, you are in the hand of the strong, so be a man and bite your fist so that every time you look at your hand, you remember the size of your penis...
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* Av. On the themes of IsaHakyan's story "The Chibukh of Patience".
Partially posted. You can download the full version (pdf)