e was he to get away from the heat? A hard
problem. . . . Mechanically Yegorushka put his lips to the trickle
that ran from the waterpipe; there was a chilliness in his mouth
and there was the smell of hemlock. He drank at first eagerly, then
went on with effort till the sharp cold had run from his mouth all
over his body and the water was spilt on his shirt. Then he went
up to the chaise and began looking at the sleeping figures. His
uncle's face wore, as before, an expression of business-like reserve.
Fanatically devoted to his work, Kuzmitchov always, even in his
sleep and at church when they were singing, "Like the cherubim,"
thought about his business and could never forget it for a moment;
and now he was probably dreaming about bales of wool, waggons,
prices, Varlamov. . . . Father Christopher, now, a soft, frivolous
and absurd person, had never all his life been conscious of anything
which could, like a boa-constrictor, coil about his soul and hold
it tight. In all the numerous enterprises he had undertaken in his
day what attracted him was not so much the business itself, but the
bustle and the contact with other people involved in every undertaking.
Thus, in the present expedition, he was not so much interested in
wool, in Varlamov, and in prices, as in the long journey, the
conversations on the way, the sleeping under a chaise, and the meals
at odd times. . . . And now, judging from his face, he must have
been dreaming of Bishop Christopher, of the Latin discussion, of
his wife, of puffs and cream and all sorts of things that Kuzmitchov
could not possibly dream of.

While Yegorushka was watching their sleeping faces he suddenly heard
a soft singing; somewhere at a distance a woman was singing, and
it was difficult to tell where and in what direction. The song was
subdued, dreary and melancholy, like a dirge, and hardly audible,
and seemed to come first from the right, then from the left, then
from above, and then from underground, as though an unseen spirit
were hovering over the steppe and singing. Yegorushka looked about
him, and could not make out where the strange song came from. Then
as he listened he began to fancy that the grass was singing; in its
song, withered and half-dead, it was without words, but plaintively
and passionately, urging that it was not to blame, that the sun was
burning it for no fault of its own; it urged that it ardently longed
to live, that it was young and might have been beauti