For a minute they stood in silence, without looking at each other.

“So it all came from a trifle, goodness knows how,…” said the waiter, trembling. “I was sitting counting to myself when all at once a noise.…I looked through the door, and just on account of Lenten oil you…Where is he now?”

“Lying there in the kitchen.”

“You ought to take him away somewhere.…Why put it off?”

Yakov accompanied him to the station without a word, then went home again and harnessed the horse to take Matvey to Limarovo. He had decided to take him to the forest of Limarovo, and to leave him there on the road, and then he would tell everyone that Matvey had gone off to Vedenyapino and had not come back, and then everybody would think that he had been killed by someone on the road. He knew there was no deceiving anyone by this, but to move, to do something, to be active was not so agonizing as to sit still and wait. He called Dashutka, and with her carried Matvey out. Aglaia stayed behind to clean up the kitchen.

When Yakov and Dashutka turned back they were detained at the railway crossing by the barrier being let down. A long goods train was passing, dragged by two engines, breathing heavily, and flinging puffs of crimson fire out of their funnels.

The foremost engine uttered a piercing whistle at the crossing in sight of the station.

“It’s whistling,…” said Dashutka.

The train had passed at last, and the signalman lifted the barrier without haste.

“Is that you, Yakov Ivanitch? I didn’t know you, so you’ll be rich.”

And then when they had reached home they had to go to bed.

Aglaia and Dashutka made themselves a bed in the tea-room and lay down side by side, while Yakov stretched himself on the counter. They neither said their prayers nor lighted the ikon lamp before lying down to sleep. All three lay awake till morning, but did not utter a single word, and it seemed to them that all night someone was walking about in the empty storey overhead.

Two days later a police inspector and the examining magistrate came from the town and made a search, first in Matvey’s room and then in the whole tavern. They questioned Yakov first of all, and he testified that on the Monday Matvey had gone to Vedenyapino to confess, and that he must have been killed by the sawyers who were working on the line.

And when the examining magistrate had asked him how it had happened that Matvey was found on the road, while his cap had turned up at home—surely he had not gone to Vedenyapino without his cap?—and why they had not found a single drop of blood beside him in the snow on the road though his head was smashed in and his face and chest were black with blood, Yakov was confused, lost his head and answered:

“I cannot tell.”

And just what Yakov had so feared happened: the policeman came, the district police officer smoked in the prayer-room, and Aglaia fell upon him with abuse and was rude to the police inspector; and afterwards when Yakov and Aglaia were led out of the yard, the peasants crowded at the gates and said, “They are taking the Godlies!” and it seemed that they were all glad.