day of the
trial, she carried into the hall of the session a heavy dark load that
bent her back and neck.

In the street, acquaintances from the suburbs had greeted her. She had
bowed in silence, rapidly making her way through the dense, crowd in
the corridor of the courthouse. In the hall she was met by relatives
of the defendants, who also spoke to her in undertones. All the words
seemed needless; she didn't understand them. Yet all the people were
sullen, filled with the same mournful feeling which infected the mother
and weighed her down.

"Let's sit next to each other," suggested Sizov, going to a bench.

She sat down obediently, settled her dress, and looked around. Green
and crimson specks, with thin yellow threads between, slowly swam
before her eyes.

"Your son has ruined our Vasya," a woman sitting beside her said
quietly.

"You keep still, Natalya!" Sizov chided her angrily.

Nilovna looked at the woman; it was the mother of Samoylov. Farther
along sat her husband--bald-headed, bony-faced, dapper, with a large,
bushy, reddish beard which trembled as he sat looking in front of
himself, his eyes screwed up.

A dull, immobile light entered through the high windows of the hall,
outside of which snow glided and fell lingeringly on the ground.
Between the windows hung a large portrait of the Czar in a massive
frame of glaring gilt. Straight, austere folds of the heavy crimson
window drapery dropped over either side of it. Before the portrait,
across almost the entire breadth of the hall, stretched the table
covered with green cloth. To the right of the wall, behind the grill,
stood two wooden benches; to the left two rows of crimson armchairs.
Attendants with green collars and yellow buttons on their abdomens ran
noiselessly about the hall. A soft whisper hummed in the turbid
atmosphere, and the odor was a composite of many odors as in a drug
shop. All this--the colors, the glitter, the sounds and odors--pressed
on the eyes and invaded the breast with each inhalation. It forced out
live sensations, and filled the desolate heart with motionless, dismal
awe.

Suddenly one of the people said something aloud. The mother trembled.
All arose; she, too, rose, seizing Sizov's hand.

In the left corner of the hall a high door opened and an old man
emerged, swinging to and fro. On his gray little face shook white,
sparse whiskers; he wore eyeglasses; the upper lip, which was shaven,
sank into his mou