“What’s your name?” I asked her, not knowing why.

“Natasha,” she answered, chewing noisily.

I looked at her, and pain wrenched my heart. I looked into the dark in front of me, and it seemed to me as though the ironic phiz of my destiny were smiling at me enigmatically and coldly.…

…The rain drummed tirelessly on the boat, and its soft patter brought on sad thoughts. The wind whistled as it drove through a hole in the broken bottom, where a loose splinter was vibrating with a disquieting, mournful sound. The waves splashed against the shore, and their roar was monotonous and hopeless, as though they were relating something intolerably tedious and depressing, something of which they had grown utterly weary and which they were trying to escape, but about which they must nevertheless keep on talking. The noise of the rain blended with the splashing of the waves, and above the turned- over boat there floated the long-drawn-out, heavy sigh of the earth, wearied and outraged by the eternal succession of warm bright summer and cold, damp, misty autumn. The wind moved over the deserted shore and the foaming river, moved and sang mournful songs.…

Our shelter under the boat was without any creature comforts: it was cramped, damp, and through the hole in the bottom came fine, cold drops of rain and gusts of wind. We sat silently and shivered with cold. I remember I wanted to sleep. Natasha leaned her back against the side of the boat, curled up into a little ball. Hugging her knees, and resting her chin on them, she stared at the river with wide-open eyes. On the pale patch of her face they seemed enormous, because of the bruises below them. She did not stir, and her immobility and silence gradually roused in me a kind of fear. I wanted to talk to her, but I did not know how to start.

She was the first to speak.

“What a cursed life!” she declared, speaking distinctly, deliberately, and with profound conviction.

It was not a complaint. There was too much indifference in her tone. It was simply that she had thought it over and had arrived at a certain conclusion, which she expressed aloud. As I could not deny it without contradicting myself, I held my peace, and she continued to sit there, motionless, as though not noticing me.

“If I could croak…” Natasha began again, this time in a quiet, reflective tone, and again there was no trace of complaint in her voice. It was clear that, having thought about life, and having considered her own case, she had calmly arrived at the conclusion that to protect herself from life’s mockery, she could do nothing better than to “croak,” as she put it.

The clarity of her thinking sickened me inexpressibly, and I felt that if I continued to be silent I was sure to cry.…And it would have been all the more shameful to do it before this woman, especially since she wasn’t crying. I decided to engage her in conversation.

“Who beat you up?” I asked her, not having thought of anything better to say.

“It’s all Pashka.” she answered in an even, resonant voice.

“Who is he?”

“My lover.…A baker.…”

“Does he beat you often?”

“Every time he gets drunk he beats me up.…”