... Life is
simply not worth living."
All burst into tears; the general wept as old men weep, the
moustached Katerina cried in a sobbing bass. Neither could Anna
Andreevna, nor the two girls who stood clasping each other in the
corner, refrain from shedding tears, the girls for their youth and
the sparkling joys of their maidenhood of which they had been
deprived.
"I would shoot them all if I could!" Katerina declared.
Then Sergius' children, Kira and Lira, came in and Lina told them
they might take some albumen. Kira put butter on his.
The moon rose.... The stars shone brilliantly. The snow was dead-
white. The river Volga was deserted. It was dark and still by the old
Cathedral. The frost was hard and crisp, crackling underfoot. The two
young girls, Kseniya and Lena, with Sergius and the general, were
returning to the mansion to fetch their handsleighs and toboggan down
the slope to the river.
Constantine had gone into town, to a club of cocaine-eaters, to drug
himself, utter vulgar platitudes, and kiss the hands of loose women.
Leontyevna, the Cyclop maid from the Exchange, lay down on a bench in
the kitchen to rest from the day's work, said her prayers, and fell
into a sound sleep.
The general stood on the door-steps. Sergius drew up the sleighs, and
they took their seats--three abreast--Kseniya, Elena and himself, and
whirled along over the crackling snow, down to the ice-covered Volga.
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