"Oh, yes--they sing,", said Lunev smiling, grimly. "Though the skin is torn off one, the others can shout." "It will not trust again," sang the tenor voice, the clear, round tones ringing through the quiet night lightly and freely up into the sky. Lunev got up and shut the window crossly; the song was unendurable, it tormented him. The noise of the window-frame made Masha start. She opened her eyes, raised her head in terror and asked: "Who's there?" "I. I was shutting the window." "For Heaven's sake--are you going?" "No, no--don't be afraid." She turned on her pillow and went to sleep again. Ilya's least movement, or the noise of footsteps in the street, disturbed her. She opened her eyes at once and cried in her sleep. "Coming--oh--I'm coming." Or she stretched out her hand to Ilya and asked: "Is that a knock at the door?" While he tried to sit still, and looked out of the window which he had opened again, Ilya pondered how he could help Masha, and determined grimly not to let her go till the matter was in the hands of the police. "I must work it through Kirik." "Please, please--go on!" through the windows came the sound of lively appeals and applause from Gromov's house. Masha groaned in her sleep, but the music began again. "A pair of bay horses, and early away." Lunev shook his head despairingly. The singing and outcry and laughter disturbed him. He propped his elbows on the window-ledge and stared at the lighted windows opposite, with wrath and fierce resentment, and thought how good it would be to cross the street and hurl a paving stone through into the room; or to have a gun and send a charge of shot among these cheerful people. The shot would come whizzing in--he imagined the terrified bleeding faces, the confusion and outcry, and smiled with an evil joy in his heart. But the words of the song crept involuntarily into his ears, he repeated them to himself, and suddenly grasped with amazement, that these happy people were singing of the burial of a mistress. This surprised him; he began to listen more attentively and thought: "Why do they sing that? What sort of pleasure can there be in such a song? See, what a thing to think of--the fools! A funeral--such a funeral! And here--ten steps away lies a living, suffering human being." "Bravo! Bravo!" came from over the street. Lunev smiled, looked first at Masha, and then at the street; it seemed to him ridiculous that men should find amusement in singing of the burial of a light-o'-love. "Vassily--Vassilitch," murmured Masha. "I won't. O God!"