“I’m ready. But perhaps you’d like to rest?”
They declined, and the three of them started off. The painful silence of the bright streets hovered about them stealthily and expectantly. They seemed strangers among these wooden huts, depressing fences, and the tottering little bridges. They wanted to ask:
“Why are we going?”
But this only seemed to bring them closer, and to make the quick beats of their hearts more friendly. The whole picture of the life of the poor was here in all its sordidness; dirty, malicious children played here, and abused each other, and wrangled; a drunkard reeled; grey buckets swung on a grey wooden yoke across the shoulders of a grey woman in a worn grey dress.
There was everyday commonplaceness in the poverty of the house, where lay the hastily prepared yellow corpse. A pale-faced woman stood at its head, and wailed quietly and ceaselessly. Three pale, sandy-haired children came in and looked at the visitors; their gaze was at once strange and stupid, neither joyous nor sad, but dulled for ever.
Elisaveta went up to the woman. The blooming, rosy, graceful girl stood at the side of the pale, tear-eyed woman, and was quietly saying something to her; the latter was nodding her head and crooning unnecessary, belated words. Trirodov turned quietly to Voronok:
“Is any money needed?”
Voronok whispered back:
“No, his comrades will bury him. We’ll make a collection among ourselves. Afterwards the family will need some money.”
The day of the funeral arrived. The factories stopped work. There was a clear sky, and under it the turbulent crowd; the light currents of incense streamed in the air, and its sumptuous aroma mingled with the light odour of the smoke that came from the forest cinders. The schoolboys struck and went to the funeral. Some of the schoolgirls came also. The more timid ones remained in school.