Lubinka was the first to wake up, or if not to wake up, at least to feel instinctively that she had lived long enough. There was no work in sight. Her youth, her beauty, and her embryonic talent, all had somehow vanished. That they had a shelter in Pogorelka, she never remembered. It was something distant, vague, long-forgotten. They never did have much of a liking for Pogorelka, and now their hatred toward the place was only intensified. Even when they were almost starving the place attracted her less than ever. And what sort of a figure would she cut there? A figure which all sorts of drunken, lustful breaths had branded as a "creature." Those accursed breaths saturated her entire body. She felt them everywhere, in every place. And what is more horrible, she grew so accustomed to those disgusting breaths that they became a part of her very being. So with Anninka, too. Neither the stench of eating-houses, nor the din of the inns, nor the obscene language of the drunkards seemed abominable to them, so that had they gone to Pogorelka, they would surely have missed the "life." Besides, even in Pogorelka they must have something to live on. All these many years that they had wandered about the world they had heard nothing of the revenue that Pogorelka brought. Perhaps the estate was a myth. Perhaps the folks had all died, all those witnesses of the distant and yet ever-present years, when they had been brought up by their grandmother, Arina Petrovna, on sour milk and stale cured meat. It was clear that it was best for Lubinka to die. Once this thought dawns on one's consciousness, it becomes an obsession. The sisters not infrequently had moments of awakening, but in the case of Anninka they were accompanied by hysterics, sobs, tears, and so passed away faster. Lubinka was colder by nature. She did not cry or curse, but the thought that she was a "hussy" constantly preyed on her mind. And Lubinka was more reasonable and saw quite clearly that there was not even any profit in their mode of living. For the future she expected nothing but shame, poverty and the street. Shame is a matter of habit, it can be tolerated, but poverty--never! It is better to end it all at once. "We must die," she once said to Anninka in that same cool and deliberate tone in which two years ago she had asked her for whom she was saving her "treasure." "Why?" Anninka objected, somewhat frightened. "I mean it seriously. We must die," Lubinka repeated. "Understand, wake up, think!" "Well--let us die," Anninka assented, hardly realizing the dismal meaning of her decision. That same day Lubinka cut off the tips of some matches and prepared two glasses of the mixture. One of these she drank herself, the other she offered her sister. But Anninka immediately lost courage and refused to drink. "Drink, you slut," Lubinka cried out. "Sister, dearest, darling, drink!"