Ivan was returning home from a long war, when he heard the agonized screaming of his wife Olga from inside the distant low hut. Repeatedly hitting the horse under him as hard as he could with the nagaika, he rode over there as fast as possible. After dismounting, he kicked the wooden door off its hinges, his flintlock pistol drawn.
Multiple people were inside the hut; Ivan's aged mother holding a small bundle in her arms, and two midwives standing by Olga, who was lying in bed with her knees apart, still hollering in pain. The midwives had broken her pelvic bone to save the infant and were now at a loss of what to do about her. Ivan waved his pistol at the two midwives and barked, "You! Begone!"
The midwives instantly left the hut, their front and forearms red with Olga's blood. Ivan turned the pistol to his still shrieking wife, but couldn't see her through the tears in his eyes. His grip tightened on the weapon, but after a pause, he slowly set it down onto a nearby table. A sigh of disbelief left him, before he sat in the chair next to the bed, and put his head into his hand. As much as he wished to, he could not comfort the dying Olga. Eventually, her screams quieted. She didn't look at Ivan. Her watery eyes turned to her mother-in-law.
"Please, let me hold my child...."
The newborn was brought over. Olga held it in her arms.
"It's a boy...." mumbled Ivan's mother, backing off. Olga looked upon her child with an unreadable expression, before turning her gaze upwards, staring blankly at the ceiling.
After a long silence, Ivan finally asked his wife in a wavering tone, "Well... who is the father?"
His mother's eyes widened in realization.
"Vanya, what...?" was all she could say.
Still gazing at the ceiling, Olga answered, "You will have to find out yourself. When we married, I didn't even love you, I just could not disobey my parents...."
A few more moments of silence passed, only the sound of Olga's oral breathing was heard. She spoke again.
"Curse you, Ivan... I was happier with my parents before you subjected me to this life in a mere shack! Then you leave for so long, having my hands calloused by the domestic labor which your absence has doubled, and still expect fidelity from me? Ivan...."
The two midwives had stuck around, hiding behind the wall and occasionally looking through the window, outside of the hut. Out of morbid curiosity, they continued to listen.
At last, without moving her head, Olga looked at her husband. She continued, in an even colder, and more accusatory tone,
"And do you really expect me to believe you have done nothing to those Circassian girls? You must have had a grand time down there, you filthy moshennik!"
Another long pause. Even after the accusation, Ivan found himself wanting to tell her, 'I did my best for you, I am sorry, forgive me'. He didn't look at her face, knowing his heart would irrationally soften for her further.
"You were a horrid wife, you were a horrid daughter, you were a horrid person. You will be forgotten."
Ivan rose from his chair and went to the bar, not caring to be present in his wife's final moments.
One day, on his way to the bar and passing the graveyard, he saw a man standing before Olga's tombstone, which was near the wall and isolated from the other graves. Ivan came over, looking at the man and asking, "Did you, Ruslan Ivanovich, fornicate with my wife?"
If Ruslan was taken aback by Ivan's sudden appearance and direct question, he didn't show it. Ruslan turned and looked Ivan in the eye.
"What if I did?"
"My brother in Christ, it is a yes or no question...." Ivan sighed.
After a brief pause, Ruslan answered, "Yes."
Ivan stood there for a moment in silence. Then he shrugged his shoulders and said, "I see. Good day to you then."
With that, Ivan left to go wash his face and do what he could to make himself more presentable, before entering the bar, where Ruslan's older sister worked. Her name was Derya. Ivan forwardly but masterfully courted Derya, and he got lucky. Ivan forgot Olga and remarried. He took Derya back to his neglected farm and finally fixed the place.
However, Ruslan could not stand being Ivan's brother-in-law. But, he would not propose a duel or even attempt to take Ivan unawares, that would risk his own precious life too much. For a week, Ruslan did nothing, until one day he left the bar in a drunken haze and saw his sister near the Kuban River, filling to buckets with water.
Ivan was repairing his wattle fence, when he faintly heard Derya's terrified shrieking coming from the river, "Vanya! Vanya!"
The blood left his face in an instant. Without discarding his hammer, Ivan jumped onto his horse and raced towards the river. There, he saw Ruslan in the process of drowning Derya, now muffling her shouting with his hands.
"You told him! You told him, did you not?!" Ruslan slurred, over and over, at his sister, somehow unaware of the approaching horse.
Ivan brought his hammer down on Ruslan's head, thus ending him. In a blind rage, he dismounted and continued hitting Ruslan in the head. Upon seeing the brain matter fall out of her brother's pulverized skull, Derya lost her lunch.
The headless body was buried next to Olga's grave, and Ivan was sent to Siberia, never to be heard from again.