The evening twilight had fallen on the fields, the forest rose in the distance like a thick dark wall, like a mountain range. A little bat flitted noiselessly through the air like a dark speck, seeming to sow the darkness. Far off on the river was heard the beating noise of a steamboat's paddles; it was as though somewhere in the distance a monstrous bird were wheeling, making the air tremble with mighty strokes of its wings. Lunev remembered all the people who had opposed him on his way through life, and haled them all without mercy before his judgment seat. A pleasant sense of relief came to him, and as he strode alone through the fields, wrapped now in darkness, he began to sing softly. Suddenly the odour of rubbish and decay filled the air. He stopped singing; but the odour had only pleasant associations for him. He had reached the town rubbish-heap, in the narrow valley where he had so often searched with Jeremy. The stench seemed to him more penetrating and suffocating than in his childhood. The vision of the old rag-picker rose in his memory, and he glanced round to find in the twilight the spot where the old man used to rest with him. But he could not find it; evidently it was buried under new mountains of refuse and rubbish. He sighed, and felt that there was a part of his soul smothered beneath the refuse of life. "If only I hadn't killed that man; then I should want nothing." The thought flashed through his brain; but immediately from his heart came another, answering: "What has that man to do with my life? He is only my misfortune, not my sin." Suddenly there was a slight rustling, a little dog slipped past Ilya's feet, and fled, whimpering softly. Ilya shuddered; he felt as though a part of this darkness of night had taken life and then vanished again, groaning. "It's all the same," he thought. "Even without that, there'd be no peace in my heart. How many injuries I have endured; how many more I have seen others bear! Once the heart is wounded, it never ceases to feel pain."