Gusev pondered for a long time about fishes as big as a mountain and stout, rusty chains, then he began to feel dull and thought of his native place to which he was returning after five years’ service in the East.  He pictured an immense pond covered with snow....  On one side of the pond the red-brick building of the potteries with a tall chimney and clouds of black smoke; on the other side—­a village....  His brother Alexey comes out in a sledge from the fifth yard from the end; behind him sits his little son Vanka in big felt over-boots, and his little girl Akulka, also in big felt boots.  Alexey has been drinking, Vanka is laughing, Akulka’s face he could not see, she had muffled herself up.

“You never know, he’ll get the children frozen...” thought Gusev.  “Lord send them sense and judgment that they may honour their father and mother and not be wiser than their parents.”

“They want re-soleing,” a delirious sailor says in a bass voice.  “Yes, yes!”

Gusev’s thoughts break off, and instead of a pond there suddenly appears apropos of nothing a huge bull’s head without eyes, and the horse and sledge are not driving along, but are whirling round and round in a cloud of smoke.  But still he was glad he had seen his own folks.  He held his breath from delight, shudders ran all over him, and his fingers twitched.

“The Lord let us meet again,” he muttered feverishly, but he at once opened his eyes and sought in the darkness for water.

He drank and lay back, and again the sledge was moving, then again the bull’s head without eyes, smoke, clouds....  And so on till daybreak.

II

The first outline visible in the darkness was a blue circle—­the little round window; then little by little Gusev could distinguish his neighbour in the next hammock, Pavel Ivanitch.  The man slept sitting up, as he could not breathe lying down.  His face was grey, his nose was long and sharp, his eyes looked huge from the terrible thinness of his face, his temples were sunken, his beard was skimpy, his hair was long....  Looking at him you could not make out of what class he was, whether he were a gentleman, a merchant, or a peasant.  Judging from his expression and his long hair he might have been a hermit or a lay brother in a monastery—­but if one listened to what he said it seemed that he could not be a monk.  He was worn out by his cough and his illness and by the stifling heat, and breathed with difficulty, moving his parched lips.  Noticing that Gusev was looking at him he turned his face towards him and said: 

“I begin to guess....  Yes....  I understand it all perfectly now.”

“What do you understand, Pavel Ivanitch?”