ll the houses the windows are brightly lit, while hanging lanterns
are burning before the entrances. To both girls the interior in the
establishment of Sophia Vasilievna, which is directly opposite, is
distinctly visible--the shining yellow parquet, draperies of a dark
cherry colour on the doors, caught up with cords, the end of a black
grand-piano, a pier glass in a gilt frame, and the figures of women in
gorgeous dresses, now flashing at the windows, now disappearing, and
their reflections in the mirrors. The carved stoop of Treppel, to the
right, is brightly illuminated by a bluish electric light in a big
frosted globe.

The evening is calm and warm. Somewhere far, far away, beyond the line
of the railroads, beyond some black roofs and the thin black trunks of
trees, down low over the dark earth in which the eye does not see but
rather senses the mighty green tone of spring, reddens with a scarlet
gold the narrow, long streak of the sunset glow, which has pierced the
dove-coloured mist. And in this indistinct, distant light, in the
caressing air, in the scents of the oncoming night, was some secret,
sweet, conscious mournfulness, which usually is so gentle in the
evenings between spring and summer. The indistinct noise of the city
floated in, the dolorous, snuffling air of an accordeon, the mooing of
cows could be heard; somebody's soles were scraping dryly and a
ferruled cane rapped resoundingly on the flags of the pavement; lazily
and irregularly the wheels of a cabman's victoria, rolling at a pace
through Yama, would rumble by, and all these sounds mingled with a
beauty and softness in the pensive drowsiness of the evening. And the
whistles of the locomotives on the line of the railroad, which was
marked out in the darkness with green and red lights, sounded with a
quiet, singing caution.

"Now the nurse is co-oming in,
Bringing sugar and a roll,
Bringing sugar and a roll,
Deals them equally to all."

"Prokhor Ivanich!" Niura suddenly calls after the curly waiter from the
dram-shop, who, a light black silhouette, is running across the road.
"Oh, Prokhor Ivanich!"

"Oh, bother you!" the other snarls hoarsely. "What now?"

"A friend of yours sent you his regards. I saw him today."

"What sort of friend?"

"Such a little good-looker! An attractive little brunet ...No, but
you'd better ask--where did I see him?"

"Well, where?" Prokhor Ivanovich comes to a stop for a minute.

"And here's w