the bass
voice still more gruffly. "Yesterday we were the whole day looking
for him down the line, and were told at his hut that he had gone
to the Dymkovsky section. Please take them, your honour! How much
longer are we to go carting them about? We go carting them on and
on along the line, and see no end to it."

"What is it?" Ananyev asked huskily, waking up and lifting his head
quickly.

"They have brought some cauldrons from Nikitin's," said the student,
"and he is begging us to take them. And what business is it of ours
to take them?"

"Do be so kind, your honour, and set things right! The horses have
been two days without food and the master, for sure, will be angry.
Are we to take them back, or what? The railway ordered the cauldrons,
so it ought to take them. . . ."

"Can't you understand, you blockhead, that it has nothing to do
with us? Go on to Tchalisov!"

"What is it? Who's there?" Ananyev asked huskily again. "Damnation
take them all," he said, getting up and going to the door. "What
is it?"

I dressed, and two minutes later went out of the hut. Ananyev and
the student, both in their underclothes and barefooted, were angrily
and impatiently explaining to a peasant who was standing before
them bare-headed, with his whip in his hand, apparently not
understanding them. Both faces looked preoccupied with workaday
cares.

"What use are your cauldrons to me," shouted Ananyev. "Am I to put
them on my head, or what? If you can't find Tchalisov, find his
assistant, and leave us in peace!"

Seeing me, the student probably recalled the conversation of the
previous night. The workaday expression vanished from his sleepy
face and a look of mental inertia came into it. He waved the peasant
off and walked away absorbed in thought.

It was a cloudy morning. On the line where the lights had been
gleaming the night before, the workmen, just roused from sleep,
were swarming. There was a sound of voices and the squeaking of
wheelbarrows. The working day was beginning. One poor little nag
harnessed with cord was already plodding towards the embankment,
tugging with its neck, and dragging along a cartful of sand.

I began saying good-bye. . . . A great deal had been said in the
night, but I carried away with me no answer to any question, and
in the morning, of the whole conversation there remained in my
memory, as in a filter, only the lights and the image of Kisotchka.
As I got on the horse, I looked at the stu