ther, on which baby-clothes
and a pair of big black trousers are hanging. There is a big patch
of green on the ceiling from the ikon lamp, and the baby-clothes
and the trousers throw long shadows on the stove, on the cradle,
and on Varka. . . . When the lamp begins to flicker, the green patch
and the shadows come to life, and are set in motion, as though by
the wind. It is stuffy. There is a smell of cabbage soup, and of
the inside of a boot-shop.

The baby's crying. For a long while he has been hoarse and exhausted
with crying; but he still goes on screaming, and there is no knowing
when he will stop. And Varka is sleepy. Her eyes are glued together,
her head droops, her neck aches. She cannot move her eyelids or her
lips, and she feels as though her face is dried and wooden, as
though her head has become as small as the head of a pin.

"Hush-a-bye, my baby wee," she hums, "while I cook the groats for
thee. . . ."

A cricket is churring in the stove. Through the door in the next
room the master and the apprentice Afanasy are snoring. . . . The
cradle creaks plaintively, Varka murmurs--and it all blends into
that soothing music of the night to which it is so sweet to listen,
when one is lying in bed. Now that music is merely irritating and
oppressive, because it goads her to sleep, and she must not sleep;
if Varka--God forbid!--should fall asleep, her master and
mistress would beat her.

The lamp flickers. The patch of green and the shadows are set in
motion, forcing themselves on Varka's fixed, half-open eyes, and
in her half slumbering brain are fashioned into misty visions. She
sees dark clouds chasing one another over the sky, and screaming
like the baby. But then the wind blows, the clouds are gone, and
Varka sees a broad high road covered with liquid mud; along the
high road stretch files of wagons, while people with wallets on
their backs are trudging along and shadows flit backwards and
forwards; on both sides she can see forests through the cold harsh
mist. All at once the people with their wallets and their shadows
fall on the ground in the liquid mud. "What is that for?" Varka
asks. "To sleep, to sleep!" they answer her. And they fall sound
asleep, and sleep sweetly, while crows and magpies sit on the
telegraph wires, scream like the baby, and try to wake them.

"Hush-a-bye, my baby wee, and I will sing a song to thee," murmurs
Varka, and now she sees herself in a dark stuffy hut.

Her dead father, Y