Peter was near to her, because her whole being was interested in what
was passing in Peter's soul.

And joy suddenly stirred in his soul, and he even stopped for a minute
to take breath. "The past," he thought, "is linked with the present by
an unbroken chain of events flowing one out of another." And it seemed
to him that he had just seen both ends of that chain; that when he
touched one end the other quivered.

When he crossed the river by the ferry boat and afterwards, mounting the
hill, looked at his village and towards the west where the cold crimson
sunset lay a narrow streak of light, he thought that truth and beauty
which had guided human life there in the garden and in the yard of the
high priest had continued without interruption to this day, and had
evidently always been the chief thing in human life and in all earthly
life, indeed; and the feeling of youth, health, vigour--he was only
twenty-two--and the inexpressible sweet expectation of happiness, of
unknown mysterious happiness, took possession of him little by little,
and life seemed to him enchanting, marvellous, and full of lofty
meaning.

IN THE RAVINE

I

THE village of Ukleevo lay in a ravine so that only the belfry and the
chimneys of the printed cottons factories could be seen from the high
road and the railway-station. When visitors asked what village this was,
they were told:

"That's the village where the deacon ate all the caviare at the
funeral."

It had happened at the dinner at the funeral of Kostukov that the old
deacon saw among the savouries some large-grained caviare and began
eating it greedily; people nudged him, tugged at his arm, but he seemed
petrified with enjoyment: felt nothing, and only went on eating. He ate
up all the caviare, and there were four pounds in the jar. And years had
passed since then, the deacon had long been dead, but the caviare was
still remembered. Whether life was so poor here or people had not been
clever enough to notice anything but that unimportant incident that had
occurred ten years before, anyway the people had nothing else to tell
about the village Ukleevo.

The village was never free from fever, and there was boggy mud there
even in the summer, especially under the fences over which hung old
willow-trees that gave deep shade. Here there was always a smell from
the factory refuse and the acetic acid which was used in the finishing
of the cotton print.

The three cotton factories an