for a bright light from a window that gleamed
through the fence into the furthest part of the yard while three
windows of the upper storey of the hospital looked paler than the
surrounding air. Then the carriage drove into dense shadow; here
there was the smell of dampness and mushrooms, and the sound of
rustling trees; the crows, awakened by the noise of the wheels,
stirred among the foliage and uttered prolonged plaintive cries as
though they knew the doctor's son was dead and that Abogin's wife
was ill. Then came glimpses of separate trees, of bushes; a pond,
on which great black shadows were slumbering, gleamed with a sullen
light--and the carriage rolled over a smooth level ground. The
clamour of the crows sounded dimly far away and soon ceased altogether.

Kirilov and Abogin were silent almost all the way. Only once Abogin
heaved a deep sigh and muttered:

"It's an agonizing state! One never loves those who are near one
so much as when one is in danger of losing them."

And when the carriage slowly drove over the river, Kirilov started
all at once as though the splash of the water had frightened him,
and made a movement.

"Listen--let me go," he said miserably. "I'll come to you later.
I must just send my assistant to my wife. She is alone, you know!"

Abogin did not speak. The carriage swaying from side to side and
crunching over the stones drove up the sandy bank and rolled on its
way. Kirilov moved restlessly and looked about him in misery. Behind
them in the dim light of the stars the road could be seen and the
riverside willows vanishing into the darkness. On the right lay a
plain as uniform and as boundless as the sky; here and there in the
distance, probably on the peat marshes, dim lights were glimmering.
On the left, parallel with the road, ran a hill tufted with small
bushes, and above the hill stood motionless a big, red half-moon,
slightly veiled with mist and encircled by tiny clouds, which seemed
to be looking round at it from all sides and watching that it did
not go away.

In all nature there seemed to be a feeling of hopelessness and pain.
The earth, like a ruined woman sitting alone in a dark room and
trying not to think of the past, was brooding over memories of
spring and summer and apathetically waiting for the inevitable
winter. Wherever one looked, on all sides, nature seemed like a
dark, infinitely deep, cold pit from which neither Kirilov nor
Abogin nor the red half-moon could esc