Above on the cliff stood
huge sappy pines. All day the sky was grey and cloudy, and the smoke
from the chimneys spread like a low pall over the earth. The dynamite
exploded with a great detonation and expulsion of smoke.
The autumn darkness, with its sharp, acid, sweet tang, was already
falling as Agrenev proceeded homeward with the head-miner,
Eduardovich Bitska, a Lithuanian, and the lights from the engine-
house shone brightly in the distance.
The engineer's quarters lay in a forest-clearing on the further side
of the valley; the cement structures of its small buildings stood out
in monotonous uniformity; the blue light of its torches flared and
hissed, throwing back dark shadows from the trunks and branches of
the pine-trees, which laced, interlaced, and glided dusky and
intangible between the tall straight stems, finally melting amidst
the foliage.
His skin jacket was sticking to Agrenev's back, as, no doubt,
Bitska's was also.
"My missus will soon be home," Bitska said cheerfully--he had
recently been married. He spoke in broken Russian, with a foreign
accent.
In Agrenev's house it was dark. The warm glow from the torches
outside fell on the window-ledges and illuminated them, but inside
the only light was that visible through the crevices of his wife's
tightly closed door: his beloved wife--so aloof--so strange.
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