re singing in the outer room. The
band was playing, and at the same time the peasant women in the yard
were singing their songs all in chorus--and there was an awful, wild
medley of sounds which made one giddy.

Crutch turned round in his chair and prodded his neighbours with
his elbows, prevented people from talking, and laughed and cried
alternately.

"Little children, little children, little children," he muttered
rapidly. "Aksinya my dear, Varvara darling, we will live all in peace
and harmony, my dear little axes...."

He drank little and was now only drunk from one glass of English
bitters. The revolting bitters, made from nobody knows what, intoxicated
everyone who drank it as though it had stunned them. Their tongues began
to falter.

The local clergy, the clerks from the factories with their wives, the
tradesmen and tavern-keepers from the other villages were present. The
clerk and the elder of the rural district who had served together for
fourteen years, and who had during all that time never signed a single
document for anybody nor let a single person out of the local court
without deceiving or insulting him, were sitting now side by side, both
fat and well-fed, and it seemed as though they were so saturated in
injustice and falsehood that even the skin of their faces was somehow
peculiar, fraudulent. The clerk's wife, a thin woman with a squint, had
brought all her children with her, and like a bird of prey looked aslant
at the plates and snatched anything she could get hold of to put in her
own or her children's pockets.

Lipa sat as though turned to stone, still with the same expression as in
church. Anisim had not said a single word to her since he had made her
acquaintance, so that he did not yet know the sound of her voice; and
now, sitting beside her, he remained mute and went on drinking bitters,
and when he got drunk he began talking to the aunt who was sitting
opposite:

"I have a friend called Samorodov. A peculiar man. He is by rank an
honorary citizen, and he can talk. But I know him through and through,
auntie, and he feels it. Pray join me in drinking to the health of
Samorodov, auntie!"

Varvara, worn out and distracted, walked round the table pressing the
guests to eat, and was evidently pleased that there were so many dishes
and that everything was so lavish--no one could disparage them now. The
sun set, but the dinner went on: the guests were beyond knowing what
they were eating