In the ravine when Olya--after yielding all--wept and clung to his knees, Agrenev's heart had been pierced with pangs of remorse. In the pitchblack darkness overhead the wild-geese could be heard rustling their wings as they flew southward, scared by his cigarette--the tenth in succession. "Southward, geese, southward!... But you shall go nowhere, slave, useless among the useless!" Then he remembered that slap in the face Nina Kallistratovna had given for her husband--nobody would give Olya Golovkina one for him! "Olya is a useless accidental burden," he thought. Then Agrenev dismissed her from his mind; and, as he bicycled from Golovkinskaya Street through the whole length of the town, past the factory to the engineers' quarters--there was no need to hide now it was dark--he thought only of Olya's aunt: of how she was an old maid with nothing else in her life but her niece, and that Olya was hiding her tragedy from her; of how she spent the entire evenings sitting alone by the window in the dark--assuredly not on Olya's account, but because she was dying; all her life she had been dying, as the town was dying where Kozlov was read; as he, Agrenev, was dying; as the maidenhood of Olya had died. How powerful is the onward rush of life! What tragedy lay in those evenings by the window in the darkness! Every morning the housemaid used to bring Alexander Alexandrovitch in his study a cup of lukewarm coffee on a tray. Then he went out to the factory--the rest of the household was still asleep. There he came into contact with the workmen, and saw their hopeless, wretched, impoverished lives; listened to Bitska's jests, and to the rumbling of the wagonettes--identified himself with the life of the factory, which dominated all like some fabulous brooding monster. During the luncheon interval he went home, washed himself, and listened to his wife rattling spoons on the other side of the wall. And this made up the entire substance of his life! Yes, it was certainly interesting how Nina Kallistratovna had entered that flat, swung back her hand--which hand had it been?--was it the one in which she held the attaché-case or was that transferred to the other hand first?--and delivered the smack to Madame Chasovnikova. Then there was Olya, darling Olya Golovkina, from whom--as from them all--he desired nothing. That night, when he reached home at last, his daughter came in and made him a curtsey, saying: "Goodnight, daddy." Alexander Alexandrovitch caught her in his arms, placed her on his knees--his beloved, his only little daughter. "Well, little Asya, what have you been doing?" he asked. "When you went out to Olya Golovkina Mummy and I played tig." The next morning, when Olya came into the office for business as usual, she exclaimed joyfully: