He pressed close to Olga, as though seeking protection, and said to her softly in a quavering voice: 

“Olya darling, I can’t stay here longer.  It’s more than I can bear.  For God’s sake, for Christ’s sake, write to your sister Klavdia Abramovna.  Let her sell and pawn everything she has; let her send us the money.  We will go away from here.  Oh, Lord,” he went on miserably, “to have one peep at Moscow!  If I could see it in my dreams, the dear place!”

And when the evening came on, and it was dark in the hut, it was so dismal that it was hard to utter a word.  Granny, very ill-tempered, soaked some crusts of rye bread in a cup, and was a long time, a whole hour, sucking at them.  Marya, after milking the cow, brought in a pail of milk and set it on a bench; then Granny poured it from the pail into a jug just as slowly and deliberately, evidently pleased that it was now the Fast of the Assumption, so that no one would drink milk and it would be left untouched.  And she only poured out a very little in a saucer for Fyokla’s baby.  When Marya and she carried the jug down to the cellar Motka suddenly stirred, clambered down from the stove, and going to the bench where stood the wooden cup full of crusts, sprinkled into it some milk from the saucer.

Granny, coming back into the hut, sat down to her soaked crusts again, while Sasha and Motka, sitting on the stove, gazed at her, and they were glad that she had broken her fast and now would go to hell.  They were comforted and lay down to sleep, and Sasha as she dozed off to sleep imagined the Day of Judgment:  a huge fire was burning, somewhat like a potter’s kiln, and the Evil One, with horns like a cow’s, and black all over, was driving Granny into the fire with a long stick, just as Granny herself had been driving the geese.

V

On the day of the Feast of the Assumption, between ten and eleven in the evening, the girls and lads who were merrymaking in the meadow suddenly raised a clamour and outcry, and ran in the direction of the village; and those who were above on the edge of the ravine could not for the first moment make out what was the matter.

“Fire!  Fire!” they heard desperate shouts from below.  “The village is on fire!”

Those who were sitting above looked round, and a terrible and extraordinary spectacle met their eyes.  On the thatched roof of one of the end cottages stood a column of flame, seven feet high, which curled round and scattered sparks in all directions as though it were a fountain.  And all at once the whole roof burst into bright flame, and the crackling of the fire was audible.

The light of the moon was dimmed, and the whole village was by now bathed in a red quivering glow:  black shadows moved over the ground, there was a smell of burning, and those who ran up from below were all gasping and could not speak for trembling; they jostled against each other, fell down, and they could hardly see in the unaccustomed light, and did not recognize each other.  It was terrible.  What seemed particularly dreadful was that doves were flying over the fire in the smoke; and in the tavern, where they did not yet know of the fire, they were still singing and playing the concertina as though there were nothing the matter.