had to wait for the next one. A feeling such as she had known when about to take the first plunge in bathing came upon her, and she crossed herself. That familiar gesture of crossing brought back into her soul a whole series of girlish and childish memories, and suddenly the darkness that had covered everything for her was torn apart, and life rose up before her for an instant with all its bright past joys. But she did not take her eyes from the wheels of the second car. And exactly at the moment when the space between the wheels came opposite her, she dropped the red bag, and drawing her head back into her shoulders, fell on her hands under the car, and lightly, as though she would rise again at once, dropped onto her knees. And at the same instant she was terror-stricken at what she was doing. `Where am I? What am I doing? What for?' She tried to get up, to drop backward; but something huge and merciless struck her on the head and drew along on her back. `Lord, forgive me all!' she said, feeling it impossible to struggle. A peasant, muttering something, was working at the iron. And the candle by which she had been reading the book filled with troubles, falsehoods, sorrow, and evil, flared up more brightly than ever before, lighted up for her all that had been in darkness, sputtered, began to grow dim, and was quenched forever.