“Why did you leave them?” “Oh, for no reason.” That answer meant “Let me alone; I feel sick, sad.” We were silent. God knows why I did not go away. I felt myself more and more sick and dreary. The images of the previous day began of themselves, apart from my will, flitting through my memory in confusion. I suddenly recalled something I had seen that morning when, full of anxious thoughts, I was hurrying to the office. “I saw them carrying a coffin out yesterday and they nearly dropped it,” I suddenly said aloud, not that I desired to open the conversation, but as it were by accident. “A coffin?” “Yes, in the Haymarket; they were bringing it up out of a cellar.” “From a cellar?” “Not from a cellar, but a basement. Oh, you know ... down below ... from a house of ill-fame. It was filthy all round ... Egg-shells, litter ... a stench. It was loathsome.” Silence. “A nasty day to be buried,” I began, simply to avoid being silent. “Nasty, in what way?” “The snow, the wet.” (I yawned.) “It makes no difference,” she said suddenly, after a brief silence. “No, it’s horrid.” (I yawned again). “The gravediggers must have sworn at getting drenched by the snow. And there must have been water in the grave.” “Why water in the grave?” she asked, with a sort of curiosity, but speaking even more harshly and abruptly than before. I suddenly began to feel provoked. “Why, there must have been water at the bottom a foot deep. You can’t dig a dry grave in Volkovo Cemetery.” “Why?” “Why? Why, the place is waterlogged. It’s a regular marsh. So they bury them in water. I’ve seen it myself ... many times.” (I had never seen it once, indeed I had never been in Volkovo, and had only heard stories of it.) “Do you mean to say, you don’t mind how you die?” “But why should I die?” she answered, as though defending herself. “Why, some day you will die, and you will die just the same as that dead woman. She was ... a girl like you. She died of consumption.” “A wench would have died in hospital ...” (She knows all about it already: she said “wench,” not “girl.”) “She was in debt to her madam,” I retorted, more and more provoked by the discussion; “and went on earning money for her up to the end, though she was in consumption. Some sledge-drivers standing by were talking about her to some soldiers and telling them so. No doubt they knew her. They were laughing. They were going to meet in a pot-house to drink to her memory.” A great deal of this was my invention. Silence followed, profound silence. She did not stir. “And is it better to die in a hospital?” “Isn’t it just the same? Besides, why should I die?” she added irritably. “If not now, a little later.” “Why a little later?” “Why, indeed? Now you are young, pretty, fresh, you fetch a high price. But after another year of this life you will be very different—you will go off.” “In a year?”