Ippolyte Ippolytovich lay upon his sofa. He felt nothing. The space occupied by his body resembled only a great, dark, hollow bin in which there was--nothing! Close by, a rat flopped across the floor, but the old man did not hear. A teasing autumnal fly settled on his eyebrow, he did not wink. From the withered toes to the withered legs, to the hips, stomach, chest, and heart, passed a faint, agreeable, scarcely noticeable numbness. It was evening now and the room was dark; the mist gathered thick and threatening through the windows. Outside in the crisp, frosty moonlight, it was bright. The old man's face--all over-grown with white hair--and his bald skull, had a death-like look. Vasena entered in her calm yet vigorous manner. Her broad hips and deep bosom were only loosely covered by a red jacket. "Ippolyte Ippolytovich, it is time for your meal," she called in a matter of fact tone. But he did not reply, nor utter his usual "Eh?" They sent at once for the doctor, who felt his pulse, pressed a glass to his lips, then said in a low, solemn tone: "He is dead." Vasena, standing by the door, and somewhat resembling a wild animal, answered calmly: "Well he wasn't so young as to.... Haven't we all got to die! What is it to him now? He and his had everything in their day! Dear Lord, they had everything!" IX Low, downy cloudlets drifted over the sky in the early hours of the morning. Dark, lowering masses followed in their wake. The snow fell in large, cold, soft, feather-like flakes. St. Martin's Summer was past, to be succeeded by the advent of another earthly joy--the first white covering of snow, when it is so delicious to follow the fresh footprints of the beasts, a rifle in hand. THE HEIRS I Legend says that from the Sokolovaya Mountain--called the Mountain of Falcons, came Stenka Razin. It is written in books that from thence came also Emelian Pugachev. The Sokolovaya Mountain towers high above the Volga and the plains, making a dark, precipitous descent to the pirate river below. Across the Volga lies an ancient town. By the Glebychev Ravine, close to the old Cathedral guarded by one of Pugachev's guns, stands a mansion with a facade of ochre-coloured-columns. In olden days, when it was the residence of the princely Rastorovs' balls were held there, but decay had set in during the last twenty years, and Kseniya Davydovna--the mistress--old, ill, a spinster, was drawing to the end of her days. She died in October, 1917, and now the tumbling, plundered house was occupied by--the heirs. They had been scattered over the face of Russia, had spent their lives in Petersburg, Moscow and Paris; for twenty years the house had stood vacant and moribund. Then the Revolution came! The instinctive fury of the masses burst forth--and the remnants of the Rastorov family gathered in their old nest--to be hidden from the Revolution and famine.