"Nothing!"
"Oh, very well, then—nothing!"
"For God's sake, let me alone!" said Ilya impatiently.
Gratschev threw on his cap and walked quickly out without another word. Ilya followed him slowly with his eyes, but did not move his head.
"Am I ill, I wonder?" he thought.
A big, fox-coloured dog looked in at the door, wagged his tail, and made off again. Then an old beggar-woman, quite grey, with a big nose, she begged in a half-whisper:
"Please, give me something, kind gentleman."
Lunev shook his head. The noise of the busy day swept by outside. It was as though a huge stove were kindled, where wood crackled in the flames, and glowing heat poured out. A cart, loaded with long iron bars, goes by; the ends of the elastic bars reached the ground and struck, clanking, on the pavement. A knife-grinder sharpens a knife; an evil, hissing sound cuts the air.
"Cherries from Vladimir!" shouts a fruit-seller in a sing-song voice. Every moment brings forth something new and unexpected; life amazes our ears with the multiplicity of its noises, the unwearied persistence of its movement, the strength of its restless creative might. But in Lunev's soul everything there was calm and dead. Everything there was still together. There was there no thought, no wish, only a dull weariness. He spent the whole day in this state, and was tortured all night by nightmare and wild dreams—and many days and nights thereafter passed in the same way. People came, bought what they needed, and went again; his only thought was:
"I don't need them, and they don't need me. That's only strange at first; I shall get used to it! I will just live alone. I will live!"