ng in thundering tones. And then he disappears, sinking somewhere
in the depth, beneath the feet of the people. There, wriggling like
a snake, now jumping on people's shoulders, now gliding between their
feet, his godfather is working with his lean, but supple and sinewy
body. Here Lubov is crying and struggling, following her father, with
abrupt but faint movements, now remaining behind him, now nearing him
again. Striding softly with a kind smile on her face, stepping aside
from everybody, and making way for everyone, Aunt Anfisa is slowly
moving along. Her image quivers in the darkness before Foma, like the
modest flame of a wax candle. And it dies out and disappears in the
darkness. Pelagaya is quickly going somewhere along a straight road.
There Sophya Pavlovna Medinskaya is standing, her hands hanging
impotently, just as she stood in her drawing-room when he saw her last.
Her eyes were large, but some great fright gleams in them. Sasha,
too, is here. Indifferent, paying no attention to the jostling, she is
stoutly going straight into the very dregs of life, singing her songs
at the top of her voice, her dark eyes fixed in the distance before her.
Foma hears tumult, howls, laughter, drunken shouts, irritable disputes
about copecks--songs and sobs hover over this enormous restless heap of
living human bodies crowded into a pit. They jump, fall, crawl, crush
one another, leap on one another's shoulders, grope everywhere like
blind people, stumbling everywhere over others like themselves,
struggle, and, falling, disappear from sight. Money rustles, soaring
like bats over the heads of the people, and the people greedily stretch
out their hands toward it, the gold and silver jingles, bottles rattle,
corks pop, someone sobs, and a melancholy female voice sings:

"And so let us live while we can, And then--e'en grass may cease to
grow!"

This wild picture fastened itself firmly in Foma's mind, and growing
clearer, larger and more vivid with each time it arose before him,
rousing in his breast something chaotic, one great indefinite feeling
into which fell, like streams into a river, fear and revolt and
compassion and wrath and many another thing. All this boiled up within
his breast into strained desire, which was thrusting it asunder into a
desire whose power was choking him, and his eyes were filled with tears;
he longed to shout, to howl like a beast, to frighten all the people,
to check their senseless bustle, to pou