"What is the matter Lida? What do you want?" he asked drowsily, and he lighted a cigarette. The light shone on them as they sat half- dressed on the sofa. Ivanov had a rugged, lumbering look. "What do I want?" Lydia Constantinovna murmured. "Age creeps on me, Sergius, and a lonely old age is terrible ... I feel so weary.... I came here happy enough, now I am miserable. I can think of nothing but the time you and I spent here together ... I am always playing" A Summer's Night in Berezovka "--do you remember? I used to play it to you in those days.... Well, so there you see.... Age creeps on and I am longing for a home.... To-day they had the Twelfth Gospel Service.... Surely we still have a word for each other?" Her face clouded in sudden doubt. "You have been with Arina then?" she questioned sharply. Ivanov did not answer immediately. "I have grieved and worried greatly, Lida," he said at last, "but that does not matter. These four years I have lived alone, and have placed the past behind me. It is gone for ever. These four years I have struggled against death, and struggled for my daily bread. You know nothing of all this, we are as strangers.... Yes, I have been with Arina. Soon I shall have a son. I do not know if I am broken or merely tired, but for the moment I feel all right. I am going to bring Arina here, she will be my wife and keep house for me. And I shall live.... I am keeping step with some elemental Force . . . I shall have a son.... It will be a totally different life for me, Lida." "And for me Moscow--as ever--wine, theatres, cafes, Mintz, an eternal hurly-burly ... I am sick of it!" "I cannot help you, Lida. I too am sick of all that, but now I am at peace. We must all work out our own salvation." Ivanov spoke very quietly and simply. Lydia Constantinovna sat bowed and motionless, as if fearing to move, clasping her knees with both hands. When Ivanov ceased speaking she rose noiselessly and went towards the door. She stood on the threshold a brief moment then, went out. The candle still burnt fitfully in the drawing-room. The house was wrapt in silence. THE BIELOKONSKY ESTATE Ivan Koloturov, President of the Bielokonsky Committee of the Poor, had ploughed his tiny holding for twenty years. He always rose before dawn and worked--dug, harrowed, threshed, planed, repaired--with his huge, strong, pock-marked hands; he could only use his muscular strength. On rising in the morning, he prepared his hash of potatoes and bread, and went out of the hut to work--on the land, with cattle, with wood, stone and iron. He was honest, careful, and laborious. While still a lad of five he had, while driving from the station, helped a stranger in a mechanic's overalls to a seat; the man had told him all were equal in the sight of God, that the land belonged to the peasants, that the proprieters had stolen it from them, and that a time would come when he would have to "do things."