he had stolen from Katerina Ivanovna was what he
had spent yesterday, or what he had squandered here a month ago, she
declared that he meant the money spent a month ago, and that that was how
she understood him.

Grushenka was at last released, and Nikolay Parfenovitch informed her
impulsively that she might at once return to the town and that if he could
be of any assistance to her, with horses for example, or if she would care
for an escort, he ... would be--

"I thank you sincerely," said Grushenka, bowing to him, "I'm going with
this old gentleman, I am driving him back to town with me, and meanwhile,
if you'll allow me, I'll wait below to hear what you decide about Dmitri
Fyodorovitch."

She went out. Mitya was calm, and even looked more cheerful, but only for
a moment. He felt more and more oppressed by a strange physical weakness.
His eyes were closing with fatigue. The examination of the witnesses was,
at last, over. They proceeded to a final revision of the protocol. Mitya
got up, moved from his chair to the corner by the curtain, lay down on a
large chest covered with a rug, and instantly fell asleep.

He had a strange dream, utterly out of keeping with the place and the
time.

He was driving somewhere in the steppes, where he had been stationed long
ago, and a peasant was driving him in a cart with a pair of horses,
through snow and sleet. He was cold, it was early in November, and the
snow was falling in big wet flakes, melting as soon as it touched the
earth. And the peasant drove him smartly, he had a fair, long beard. He
was not an old man, somewhere about fifty, and he had on a gray peasant's
smock. Not far off was a village, he could see the black huts, and half
the huts were burnt down, there were only the charred beams sticking up.
And as they drove in, there were peasant women drawn up along the road, a
lot of women, a whole row, all thin and wan, with their faces a sort of
brownish color, especially one at the edge, a tall, bony woman, who looked
forty, but might have been only twenty, with a long thin face. And in her
arms was a little baby crying. And her breasts seemed so dried up that
there was not a drop of milk in them. And the child cried and cried, and
held out its little bare arms, with its little fists blue from cold.

"Why are they crying? Why are they crying?" Mitya asked, as they dashed
gayly by.

"It's the babe," answered the driver, "the babe weeping."

And Mitya was struck b