"No, He doesn't seem to hear."
Ilya was weary of this mournful lamentation, and the monotonous assenting voice, which sounded even more melancholy than the other that complained. He turned on his bed, and knocked against the wall loudly. The two voices were silent.
He could no longer endure his couch; a torturing restlessness drove him to get up. He stood up, went out into the courtyard and stood on the steps full of a longing to fly somewhere away—where—he did not know.
It was late; Masha was asleep. It was no use to talk to an odd fellow like Jakov, and besides, he, too, was inside the house, in bed. Ilya never cared to go to Jakov's room, for every time Petrusha saw him there he seemed angered and his brows contracted. A cold autumn wind was blowing; a dense, almost black, darkness filled the court and the sky was invisible. All the sheds and outbuildings looked like great masses of darkness solidified by the wind. Strange sounds came through the damp air—a hurrying, a rustling, a low murmuring, like the lament of men over the misery of life. The wind whipped his breast, smote his face, blew a damp, cold breath down his back, a cold shudder ran through him, but he did not move. "I can't go on so," he thought. "I can't. Get out of all this dirt, and restlessness and confusion, live alone somewhere, clean and quiet."
"Who's there?" said a muffled voice suddenly.
"I—Ilya. Who's speaking?"
"I—Matiza."
"Where are you?"
"Here, on the wood pile."
"Why?"