at him--that unknown force that had created the mutual
relation of the strong and the weak, that coarse blunder which one
could never correct. The strong must hinder the weak from living
--such was the law of Nature; but only in a newspaper article or
in a school book was that intelligible and easily accepted. In the
hotchpotch which was everyday life, in the tangle of trivialities
out of which human relations were woven, it was no longer a law,
but a logical absurdity, when the strong and the weak were both
equally victims of their mutual relations, unwillingly submitting
to some directing force, unknown, standing outside life, apart from
man.

So thought Korolyov, sitting on the planks, and little by little
he was possessed by a feeling that this unknown and mysterious force
was really close by and looking at him. Meanwhile the east was
growing paler, time passed rapidly; when there was not a soul
anywhere near, as though everything were dead, the five buildings
and their chimneys against the grey background of the dawn had a
peculiar look--not the same as by day; one forgot altogether that
inside there were steam motors, electricity, telephones, and kept
thinking of lake-dwellings, of the Stone Age, feeling the presence
of a crude, unconscious force. . . .

And again there came the sound: "Dair . . . dair . . . dair . . .
dair . . ." twelve times. Then there was stillness, stillness for
half a minute, and at the other end of the yard there rang out.

"Drin . . . drin . . . drin. . . ."

"Horribly disagreeable," thought Korolyov.

"Zhuk . . . zhuk . . ." there resounded from a third place, abruptly,
sharply, as though with annoyance--"Zhuk . . . zhuk. . . ."

And it took four minutes to strike twelve. Then there was a hush;
and again it seemed as though everything were dead.

Korolyov sat a little longer, then went to the house, but sat up
for a good while longer. In the adjoining rooms there was whispering,
there was a sound of shuffling slippers and bare feet.

"Is she having another attack?" thought Korolyov.

He went out to have a look at the patient. By now it was quite light
in the rooms, and a faint glimmer of sunlight, piercing through the
morning mist, quivered on the floor and on the wall of the drawing-room.
The door of Liza's room was open, and she was sitting in a low chair
beside her bed, with her hair down, wearing a dressing-gown and
wrapped in a shawl. The blinds were down on the windows.