long been overgrown with
grass, the navvies were forgotten, and instead of the strains of the
"Dubinushka" that they used to sing, the peasants heard almost every
hour the sounds of a passing train.

The New Villa has long ago been sold; now it belongs to a government
clerk who comes here from the town for the holidays with his family,
drinks tea on the terrace, and then goes back to the town again. He
wears a cockade on his cap; he talks and clears his throat as though
he were a very important official, though he is only of the rank of a
collegiate secretary, and when the peasants bow he makes no response.

In Obrutchanovo everyone has grown older; Kozov is dead. In Rodion's hut
there are even more children. Volodka has grown a long red beard. They
are still as poor as ever.

In the early spring the Obrutchanovo peasants were sawing wood near the
station. And after work they were going home; they walked without haste
one after the other. Broad saws curved over their shoulders; the sun was
reflected in them. The nightingales were singing in the bushes on the
bank, larks were trilling in the heavens. It was quiet at the New Villa;
there was not a soul there, and only golden pigeons--golden because the
sunlight was streaming upon them--were flying over the house. All of
them--Rodion, the two Lytchkovs, and Volodka--thought of the white
horses, the little ponies, the fireworks, the boat with the lanterns;
they remembered how the engineer's wife, so beautiful and so grandly
dressed, had come into the village and talked to them in such a friendly
way. And it seemed as though all that had never been; it was like a
dream or a fairy-tale.

They trudged along, tired out, and mused as they went.... In their
village, they mused, the people were good, quiet, sensible, fearing God,
and Elena Ivanovna, too, was quiet, kind, and gentle; it made one sad to
look at her, but why had they not got on together? Why had they parted
like enemies? How was it that some mist had shrouded from their eyes
what mattered most, and had let them see nothing but damage done by
cattle, bridles, pincers, and all those trivial things which now, as
they remembered them, seemed so nonsensical? How was it that with the
new owner they lived in peace, and yet had been on bad terms with the
engineer?

And not knowing what answer to make to these questions they were all
silent except Volodka, who muttered something.

"What is it?" Rodion asked.

"We liv