tinually bowing down,
uttering at each bow a gasping sound. But nothing was so terrible
to Yakov as the potato in the blood, on which he was afraid of
stepping, and there was something else terrible which weighed upon
him like a bad dream and seemed the worst danger, though he could
not take it in for the first minute. This was the waiter, Sergey
Nikanoritch, who was standing in the doorway with the reckoning
beads in his hands, very pale, looking with horror at what was
happening in the kitchen. Only when he turned and went quickly into
the passage and from there outside, Yakov grasped who it was and
followed him.

Wiping his hands on the snow as he went, he reflected. The idea
flashed through his mind that their labourer had gone away long
before and had asked leave to stay the night at home in the village;
the day before they had killed a pig, and there were huge bloodstains
in the snow and on the sledge, and even one side of the top of the
well was splattered with blood, so that it could not have seemed
suspicious even if the whole of Yakov's family had been stained
with blood. To conceal the murder would be agonizing, but for the
policeman, who would whistle and smile ironically, to come from the
station, for the peasants to arrive and bind Yakov's and Aglaia's
hands, and take them solemnly to the district courthouse and from
there to the town, while everyone on the way would point at them
and say mirthfully, "They are taking the Godlies!"--this seemed
to Yakov more agonizing than anything, and he longed to lengthen
out the time somehow, so as to endure this shame not now, but later,
in the future.

"I can lend you a thousand roubles, . . ." he said, overtaking
Sergey Nikanoritch. "If you tell anyone, it will do no good. . . .
There's no bringing the man back, anyway;" and with difficulty
keeping up with the waiter, who did not look round, but tried to
walk away faster than ever, he went on: "I can give you fifteen
hundred. . . ."

He stopped because he was out of breath, while Sergey Nikanoritch
walked on as quickly as ever, probably afraid that he would be
killed, too. Only after passing the railway crossing and going half
the way from the crossing to the station, he furtively looked round
and walked more slowly. Lights, red and green, were already gleaming
in the station and along the line; the wind had fallen, but flakes
of snow were still coming down and the road had turned white again.
But just at the s