"Why—so far?"
"I must."
Maklakov again stopped opposite the illuminated window, and looked up to it silently. Like a huge, solitary eye on the black face of the house, it cast a peaceful beam of light into the darkness—a small island amid black and heavy waters.
"That's his window, Mironov's," said Maklakov quietly. "That's the way he sits at night all by himself and writes. Come."
Some people advanced toward them singing softly:
"It comes, it comes, the last decisive fight!"
"We ought to cross to the other side," Yevsey proposed in a whisper.
"Are you afraid?" asked Maklakov, though he was the first to step from the pavement to cross the frozen dirt of the middle of the street. "No reason to be afraid. These fellows with their songs of war and all such things are peaceful people. The wild beasts are not among them, no. It would be good to sit down now in some warm place, in a café, but everything is closed, everything is suspended, brother."
"Come home," Klimkov suggested.
"Home? No thank you. You can go if you want to."