only seen it in the distance. It consisted of three gloomy barns,
surrounded by a grey fence, and when the wind blew from that quarter
on hot days in summer, it brought a stifling stench from them. Now
going into the yard in the dark I did not see the barns; I kept
coming across horses and sledges, some empty, some loaded up with
meat. Men were walking about with lanterns, swearing in a disgusting
way. Prokofy and Nikolka swore just as revoltingly, and the air was
in a continual uproar with swearing, coughing, and the neighing of
horses.

There was a smell of dead bodies and of dung. It was thawing, the
snow was changing into mud; and in the darkness it seemed to me
that I was walking through pools of blood.

Having piled up the sledges full of meat we set off to the butcher's
shop in the market. It began to get light. Cooks with baskets and
elderly ladies in mantles came along one after another, Prokofy,
with a chopper in his hand, in a white apron spattered with blood,
swore fearful oaths, crossed himself at the church, shouted aloud
for the whole market to hear, that he was giving away the meat at
cost price and even at a loss to himself. He gave short weight and
short change, the cooks saw that, but, deafened by his shouts, did
not protest, and only called him a hangman. Brandishing and bringing
down his terrible chopper he threw himself into picturesque attitudes,
and each time uttered the sound "Geck" with a ferocious expression,
and I was afraid he really would chop off somebody's head or hand.

I spent all the morning in the butcher's shop, and when at last I
went to the Governor's, my overcoat smelt of meat and blood. My
state of mind was as though I were being sent spear in hand to meet