the neighbouring
cotton and paper factories were walking towards the lights of the
town. There was the sound of talk and laughter in the frosty air.
Anna Akimovna looked at the women and young people, and she suddenly
felt a longing for a plain rough life among a crowd. She recalled
vividly that far-away time when she used to be called Anyutka, when
she was a little girl and used to lie under the same quilt with her
mother, while a washerwoman who lodged with them used to wash clothes
in the next room; while through the thin walls there came from the
neighbouring flats sounds of laughter, swearing, children's crying,
the accordion, and the whirr of carpenters' lathes and sewing-machines;
while her father, Akim Ivanovitch, who was clever at almost every
craft, would be soldering something near the stove, or drawing or
planing, taking no notice whatever of the noise and stuffiness. And
she longed to wash, to iron, to run to the shop and the tavern as
she used to do every day when she lived with her mother. She ought
to have been a work-girl and not the factory owner! Her big house
with its chandeliers and pictures; her footman Mishenka, with his
glossy moustache and swallowtail coat; the devout and dignified
Varvarushka, and smooth-tongued Agafyushka; and the young people
of both sexes who came almost every day to ask her for money, and
with whom she always for some reason felt guilty; and the clerks,
the doctors, and the ladies who were charitable at her expense, who
flattered her and secretly despised her for her humble origin--
how wearisome and alien it all was to her!

Here was the railway crossing and the city gate; then came houses
alternating with kitchen gardens; and at last the broad street where
stood the renowned Gushtchin's Buildings. The street, usually quiet,
was now on Christmas Eve full of life and movement. The eating-houses
and beer-shops were noisy. If some one who did not belong to that
quarter but lived in the centre of the town had driven through the
street now, he would have noticed nothing but dirty, drunken, and
abusive people; but Anna Akimovna, who had lived in those parts all
her life, was constantly recognizing in the crowd her own father
or mother or uncle. Her father was a soft fluid character, a little
fantastical, frivolous, and irresponsible. He did not care for
money, respectability, or power; he used to say that a working man
had no time to keep the holy-days and go to church; and if