"I don't share your socialistic views." Constantine informed Sergius with a cold smile; "I think they should be divided according to the number of heirs." A heated argument followed, above which rang the Cathedral bells. At last, with great difficulty, they came to an agreement. Then Katerina brought in the samovar. All fetched their own bread and sweet roots and drank the tea, thankful not to have to prepare it for themselves. Suddenly--with unexpected sadness and, therefore, unusually well--the general began to speak: "When I--a lieutenant-bridegroom--met our Aunt Kseniya for the first time, she was wearing that bustle that you sold just now. Ah, will things ever be the same again? If I were told the Bolshevik tyranny would endure for another year, I should shoot myself! For, good Lord, what I suffer! How my heart is wrung! And I am an old man.... Life is simply not worth living." All burst into tears; the general wept as old men weep, the moustached Katerina cried in a sobbing bass. Neither could Anna Andreevna, nor the two girls who stood clasping each other in the corner, refrain from shedding tears, the girls for their youth and the sparkling joys of their maidenhood of which they had been deprived. "I would shoot them all if I could!" Katerina declared. Then Sergius' children, Kira and Lira, came in and Lina told them they might take some albumen. Kira put butter on his. The moon rose.... The stars shone brilliantly. The snow was dead- white. The river Volga was deserted. It was dark and still by the old Cathedral. The frost was hard and crisp, crackling underfoot. The two young girls, Kseniya and Lena, with Sergius and the general, were returning to the mansion to fetch their handsleighs and toboggan down the slope to the river. Constantine had gone into town, to a club of cocaine-eaters, to drug himself, utter vulgar platitudes, and kiss the hands of loose women. Leontyevna, the Cyclop maid from the Exchange, lay down on a bench in the kitchen to rest from the day's work, said her prayers, and fell into a sound sleep. The general stood on the door-steps. Sergius drew up the sleighs, and they took their seats--three abreast--Kseniya, Elena and himself, and whirled along over the crackling snow, down to the ice-covered Volga. The sleighs flew wildly down the slope, and in this impetuous flight, in the sprinkling and crackling snow, and bitter, numbing frost, Kseniya dreamed of a wondrous bliss: she felt a desire to embrace the world! Life suddenly seemed so joyous. The frost was harsh, cruel and penetrating. On regaining the house the general bristled up like a sparrow--he was frozen--and called out from the door-step: "Sergius! There is a frost to-day that will certainly burst the water-pipes. We will have to place a guard for the night." Perhaps Sergius, and even the old man, had had a glimpse of wonderful happiness in the sleigh's swift flight over the snow. The former called back: