The samovar whistles more gently but more shrilly. The fine sound pierces the ears unbearably; it is like the buzzing of a fly, and distracts and confuses thought. But Ilya does not put the lid on the chimney, for if the samovar ceases to whistle, the room becomes so still. In his new house, new feelings, hitherto unknown, come to visit him. Formerly he had lived constantly close to people, separated from them only by thin partitions; now he was shut off by stone walls and felt no man at his back. "Why must we die?" Lunev asks himself suddenly, looking at the man declining from the height of his fortune towards the grave. Then he remembers Jakov, who was always pondering on death, and Jakov's saying: "It is interesting to die." Angrily Ilya thrusts the memory away, and tries to think of something quite different. "How are Pavel and Vyera getting on?" he wonders suddenly. A droshky drives by; the window-panes shake with the noise of the wheels on the stony street, the lamp trembles on the wall. Then strange sounds arise in the shop--it is Gavrik talking in his sleep. The dense darkness in the corner of the room seems to move. Ilya sits propped up at the table, presses his temples with the palms of his hands, and looks at the picture. Next to the Almighty is a fine big lion, on the ground crawls a tortoise, and there is a badger and a frog jumping, and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil is adorned with great blood-red flowers. The old man with his feet in the coffin is like Poluektov, he is bald-headed and lean, and his neck is of just the same thin kind. A dull noise of footsteps sounds from the street. Some one goes slowly past the shop. The samovar has gone out, and now the room is so still that the air in it seems thickened and as solid as the walls.