The former came in the shape of fleeting patches and fragments, pausing in her mind for no more than a moment; the latter were more persistent. It was but a brief while ago that she had longed to flee from Pogorelka and it had seemed a hateful place. Now her heart suddenly filled with a morbid desire to live there again.
"It is quiet here, it is not cozy, and it is unsightly; but it is quiet, so quiet, as if everything around were dead.
There is much air and much room." She looked out over the endless fields and felt a desire to dash straight across them, without aim or purpose, just to breathe fast and feel a pain in her chest.
And there, in the half-nomadic life from which she had just escaped and to which she must return—what awaited her there? What had she gained by it?
Nothing but recollections of hotels permeated with stench, of an everlasting din coming from the dining and billiard rooms, of unkempt porters, of rehearsals on the stage in the twilight and among the scenes of painted linen, the feel of which was abominable, in the draught and in the dampness.
And then, army officers, lawyers, obscene language, and the eternal uproar!
What hadn't the men told her! With what obscenity hadn't they touched her!
Especially the one with the mustache, with a voice hoarse from drink, inflamed eyes, and a perpetual smell of the stable about him. Lord, what he had told her!
Anninka shivered at the very recollection and shut her eyes.
Then she came to, sighed, and went into the ikon room.
There were now only a few ikons in the image-case, only those which had unquestionably belonged to her mother. The rest of them, her grandmother's, Yudushka, as the legitimate heir, had removed to Golovliovo.
The empty spaces where they had stood stared like the hollow eye-sockets in a deathshead.
Nor were there any ikon lamps. Yudushka had taken all of them. Only one yellow bit of wax candle stood out, orphan-like, from a miniature tin candlestick that had been forgotten.
"His Excellency wanted to take the image case, too. He was trying to make sure if it really was a part of madam's dowry," reported Afimyushka.
"Well, he could have taken it.
Tell me, Afimyushka, did grandma suffer much before she died?"
"No, not much, she was laid up for only a day or so.
She just went out, of her own self.
She wasn't really sick or anything.
She didn't talk either, just mentioned you and your sister once or twice."
"So Porfiry Vladimirych carried off the ikons?"
"Yes, he did.
He said they were his mother's personal property.
He also took the coach and two cows.
From the mistress's papers he gathered, I suppose, that they belonged to your grandmother, not to you.
He also wanted to take away a horse, but Fedulych would not give it to him. 'It's our horse,' he said, 'an old-timer in Pogorelka.' So Porfiry Vladimirych left it here. He was afraid."
Anninka walked through the yard, peeped into the servants' quarters, the barn, and the cattle yard.
In a swamp of manure stood about twenty lean cows and three horses.
She ordered some bread to be brought, saying, "I'll pay for it," and gave every cow a piece of bread.
Then the cattle-house woman invited the young lady into the house. There was a jug of milk on the table, and in the corner near the oven, behind a low wainscot screening, a new-born calf was sheltered.
Anninka tasted some milk, ran to the little calf, kissed his snout, but quickly wiped her lips, saying the calf had a horrid snout, all slabbery.
At the end, she produced three yellow bills from her pocketbook, distributed them to the old domestics, and prepared to go.
"What are you going to do?" she asked, while she made herself comfortable in the pony cart, of old Fedulych, who, as the starosta, followed the young owner, with his hands crossed on his breast.
"Well, what can we do? We'll live," answered Fedulych simply.
Anninka became sad again for a moment. There seemed to be irony in Fedulych's words.
She waited a while, sighed, and said:
"Well, good-by."
"We thought that you would come back and live with us," said Fedulych.
"No, what's the use?
Anyway—you live on!"
Tears flowed from her eyes again and the others cried, too.
It seemed peculiar to her; there was nothing to regret in leaving the place, nothing sentimental to remember it by, and yet she was crying.
And those people, too. She had not said anything out of the ordinary to them—just the usual questions and answers—and yet their hearts were heavy, they were sorry to see her go.
She was seated in the cart, wrapped up and well covered. Everybody heaved a sigh.
"Good luck!" came running after her when the cart started.
Passing the churchyard she stopped again and went to the grave alone without the ecclesiastics, following the path that had been cleared.
It was quite dark, and lights began to appear in the houses of the church officials.
She stood there with one hand holding on to the cross rising from the grave. She did not cry, but only swayed slightly, thinking of nothing in particular, unable to formulate any definite thought. But she was unhappy, in every way unhappy.
Not because of grandmother, but on her own account.
So she stood for a quarter of an hour, and suddenly before her eyes rose the image of Lubinka, who perhaps at that very moment was singing merrily in a rollicking company, somewhere in Kremenchug: