Ilya was weary of this mournful lamentation, and the monotonous assenting voice, which sounded even more melancholy than the other that complained. He turned on his bed, and knocked against the wall loudly. The two voices were silent. He could no longer endure his couch; a torturing restlessness drove him to get up. He stood up, went out into the courtyard and stood on the steps full of a longing to fly somewhere away--where--he did not know. It was late; Masha was asleep. It was no use to talk to an odd fellow like Jakov, and besides, he, too, was inside the house, in bed. Ilya never cared to go to Jakov's room, for every time Petrusha saw him there he seemed angered and his brows contracted. A cold autumn wind was blowing; a dense, almost black, darkness filled the court and the sky was invisible. All the sheds and outbuildings looked like great masses of darkness solidified by the wind. Strange sounds came through the damp air--a hurrying, a rustling, a low murmuring, like the lament of men over the misery of life. The wind whipped his breast, smote his face, blew a damp, cold breath down his back, a cold shudder ran through him, but he did not move. "I can't go on so," he thought. "I can't. Get out of all this dirt, and restlessness and confusion, live alone somewhere, clean and quiet." "Who's there?" said a muffled voice suddenly. "I--Ilya. Who's speaking?" "I--Matiza." "Where are you?" "Here, on the wood pile." "Why?" "Only because----" Both were silent. "To-day's the day my mother died," after a moment, said Matiza's voice out of the darkness. "Is it long ago?" asked Ilya, just to say something. "Oh! ever so long--fifteen years--more. And your mother, is she alive?" "No. She's dead too. How old are you then?" "Close on thirty," said Matiza, after a pause. "I'm old already, my foot hurts so, it's swollen as big as a melon and it hurts. I've rubbed it and rubbed it with all sorts of things, but it's no better." "Why don't you go to the hospital?" "Too far. I can't go so far." "Take a cab." "No money." Some one opened the bar room door; a torrent of loud sounds poured into the court. The wind caught them up and strewed them hither and thither in the darkness. "And you, why are you here?" asked Matiza. "Oh! I was dull." "Same as I. Up in my room it's like a coffin." Ilya heard a deep sigh. Then Matiza said, "Shall we go to my room?" Ilya looked in the direction of the voice and answered indifferently: "All right." Matiza went first up the stair to her garret. She set always the right foot on each step and dragged the left slowly after with a low moaning. Ilya followed, unthinking, equally slowly, as though his depression of soul hindered his ascent as much as Matiza's foot delayed her.