the time passed, but
only trembled all over--not from dread, but intense curiosity. She saw
a cart full of peasants roll quickly by with a rattle. It was the
witnesses coming back from the station. When the cart passed the shop
the old workman jumped out and walked into the yard. She could hear him
being greeted in the yard and being asked some questions....

"Deprivation of rights and all his property," he said loudly, "and six
years' penal servitude in Siberia."

She could see Aksinya come out of the shop by the back way; she had just
been selling kerosene, and in one hand held a bottle and in the other a
can, and in her mouth she had some silver coins.

"Where is father?" she asked, lisping.

"At the station," answered the labourer. "'When it gets a little
darker,' he said, 'then I shall come.'"

And when it became known all through the household that Anisim was
sentenced to penal servitude, the cook in the kitchen suddenly broke
into a wail as though at a funeral, imagining that this was demanded by
the proprieties:

"There is no one to care for us now you have gone, Anisim Grigoritch,
our bright falcon...."

The dogs began barking in alarm. Varvara ran to the window, and rushing
about in distress, shouted to the cook with all her might, straining her
voice:

"Sto-op, Stepanida, sto-op! Don't harrow us, for Christ's sake!"

They forgot to set the samovar, they could think of nothing. Only Lipa
could not make out what it was all about and went on playing with her
baby.

When the old father arrived from the station they asked him no
questions. He greeted them and walked through all the rooms in silence;
he had no supper.

"There was no one to see about things..." Varvara began when they were
alone. "I said you should have asked some of the gentry, you would not
heed me at the time.... A petition would..."

"I saw to things," said her husband with a wave of his hand. "When
Anisim was condemned I went to the gentleman who was defending him.
'It's no use now,' he said, 'it's too late'; and Anisim said the same;
it's too late. But all the same as I came out of the court I made an
agreement with a lawyer, I paid him something in advance. I'll wait a
week and then I will go again. It is as God wills."

Again the old man walked through all the rooms, and when he went back to
Varvara he said:

"I must be ill. My head's in a sort of... fog. My thoughts are in a
maze."

He closed the door that Lipa might no