"When they found out at von Taunitz's," said Star- chenko, "that you were spending the night in the village, they all attacked me for not having brought you along with me."
At the turning, as they left the village behind them, the coachman suddenly shouted at the top of his voice: "Get off the road!"
A man flashed by: he was standing in the snow up to his knees, having moved off the road, and was staring at the troika. The magistrate caught sight of a hooked staff, a beard, and a bag slung sideways, and it seemed to him that it was Loshadin, and he even fancied that the man was smiling. He flashed by and vanishP-d.
The road at first skirted the forest, then, broadening, cut through it; old pines and a young birch grove shot past, as well as tall, gnarled young oaks standing singly in the clearings where the wood had recently been cut; but soon everything was lost in clouds of snow; the coachman said that he could see the forest, but the mag- istrate could see nothing but the outrunner. The wind blew at their backs.
Suddenly the horses stopped.
"Well, what now?" asked Starchenko crossly.
Without a word the coachman climbed down from the box and began to run around the sleigh on his heels; he made larger and larger circles, getting further and further away from the sleigh, and it looked as though he were dancing; finally he returned and began turning off to the right.
"You've lost your way, eh?" asked Starchenko.
"No ma-a-atter—"
They came to a hamlet with not a light in it. Then again, forest and fields. And again they lost their way, and the coachman climbed down from the box and per- formed his dance. The troika flew along a dark road un- der overarching trees, flew swiftly, and the hooves of the fiery outrunner knocked against the dashboard.
Here the trees roared fearfully and resonantly, and it was pitch dark, so that those in the sleigh felt as though they were rushing into an abyss. Suddenly bright light from an entrance and windows flashed upon their eyes, and they heard the friendly, steady barking of dogs and the sound of voices. They had arrived.
While they were taking off their fur coats and felt boots downstairs in the entry, "Un petit verre de Citc- quot" was being played on the piano upstairs, and the stamping of children's feet was heard. Immediately they were enveloped in the genial warmth and the smell peculiar to an old mansion where, whatever the weather, it is warm and clean and comfortable.
"That's splendid!" said von Taunitz, a fat man with an incredibly broad neck and sidewhiskers, pressing the magistrate's hand. "That's splendid! Glad to see you here, delighted to make your acquaintance. We're by way of being colleagues, you know. At one time I served as assistant prosecutor, but not for long, only two years. I came here to see to the estate, and I have grownwn old here—in a word, I'm an old fogey. Glad to see you here," he continued, obviously controlling his voice so as not to speak loudly; he and his guests were on their way upstairs. "I have no wife. She died. But here are my daughters, let me introduce you," and turn- ing round, he shouted downstairs in a stentorian voice, "Tell Ignat to have the sleigh ready by eight o'clock to- morrow!"
In the drnwing room were his four daughters, young, pretty girl9, all in gray dresses and with their hair done in the same style, and their cousin, also young and at- tractive, with her children. Starchenko, who was al- ready acquainted with them, at once began begging them to sing something, and two of the young ladies kept on declaring that they could not sing and had no music; then the cousin sat down at the piano and with quavering voices they sang a duet from "The Queen of Spades." Again "Un petit verre de Clicquot" was played, and the children danced about, stamping their feet in time. And Starchenko pranced about, too. Every- body laughed.
Then the children said good night and went off to bed. The magistrate laughed, danced a quadrille, paid court to the ladies, and kept wondering whether it were not all a dream. The wretched room at the village head- quarters, the pile of hay in the corner, the rustle of the cockroaches, the disgusting, poverty-stricken setting, the voices of the inquest witnesses, the wind, the bliz- zard, the danger of getting lost; and suddenly these magnificent, bright rooms, the sound of the piano, the beautiful girls, the curly-headed children, the gay, happy laughter—such a transformation seemed to Ihim like what happens in a fairy tale, and it seemed incredible that such transformati.ons were possible within a distance of two miles in the course of a single hour. And dismal thoughts prevented him from enjoying himself, and he kept thinking that all about him was not life but scraps of life, fragments, that everything here was accidental, that one could draw no conclusion from it; and he even felt sorry for these girls, who were living and would die here in the wilds, in the provinces, far away from civili- zation where nothing is accidental, but everything is rational and governed by law, and where, for example, every suicide is intelligible, and it is possible to explain its why and wherefore and its significance in the general scheme of things. It occurred to him that since the life about him here in the wilds was unintelligible to him, and since he did not see it, it meant that it was non- existent.
At supper the talk was of Lesnitzky.
"He left a wife and child," said Starchenko. "I would forbid marriage to neurasthenics and people with a deranged nervous system, I would deprive them of the right and the capacity to have offspring. To bring neurasthenic children into the world is a crime."
"The unfortunate young man," said von Taunitz, sigh- ing gently and shaking his head. "How much thinking you must do, how much suffering you must go through before you decide to take your own life—a young life! A misfortune like that can happen in any family, and that's terrible. It's hard to bear it, intolerable."
All the girls listened silently, with grave faces, look- ing at their father. On his part, Lyzhin felt that he ought to say something, but he couldn't think of anything, and merely observed:
"Yes, suicide is an undesirable phenomenon." He slept in a warm room, in a soft bed, covered with a blanket, under which was a fine clean sheet, but for some reason did not feel comfortable; perhaps it was because the doctor and von Taunitz were talking for a long time in the next room, and overhead, in the attic and in the chimney, the wind was roaring just as it did at the village headquarters and howling as plaintively: Hoo-oo-oo-oo!
Von Taunitz's wife had died two years previously, and he had not yet reconciled himself to the fact, and no matter what he talked about, he always referred to his wife; and there was nothing about him to suggest the public prosecutor any more.
"Is it possible that I may get into such a state some day?" thought Lyzhin, as he was falling asleep and as he listened through the wall to his host's subdued and, as it were, orphaned voice.
The magistrates sleep was restless. He was hot and uncomfortable, and he dreamed that he was not at von
Taunitz's, not in the soft clean bed, but stiU at the vil- lage headquarters, lying on the hay, and hearing the low voices of the witnesses; he imagined that Lesnitzky was near by, fifteen paces away. In his dream he re- called how the insurance agent, black-haired, pale, wearing high, dusty boots, had approached the book- keeper's counter. "This is our insurance agent—" Then he dreamed that Lesnitzky and Loshadin the policeman were walking through the open country in the snow, side by side, supporting each other; the blizzard was eddying above them, and the wind was blowing at their backs, but they walked on, chanting, "We go on, go on, go on. . . .