was Luke), and a tall woman with a white kerchief on her head went
past Olenin. 'You and I have nothing to do with one another' was
what Maryanka's firm step gave him to understand. He followed her
with his eyes to the porch of the hut, and he even saw her through
the window take off her kerchief and sit down. And suddenly a
feeling of lonely depression and some vague longings and hopes,
and envy of someone or other, overcame the young man's soul.

The last lights had been put out in the huts. The last sounds had
died away in the village. The wattle fences and the cattle
gleaming white in the yards, the roofs of the houses and the
stately poplars, all seemed to be sleeping the labourers' healthy
peaceful sleep. Only the incessant ringing voices of frogs from
the damp distance reached the young man. In the east the stars
were growing fewer and fewer and seemed to be melting in the
increasing light, but overhead they were denser and deeper than
before. The old man was dozing with his head on his hand. A cock
crowed in the yard opposite, but Olenin still paced up and down
thinking of something. The sound of a song sung by several voices
reached him and he stepped up to the fence and listened. The
voices of several young Cossacks carolled a merry song, and one
voice was distinguishable among them all by its firm strength.

'Do you know who is singing there?' said the old man, rousing
himself. 'It is the Brave, Lukashka. He has killed a Chechen and
now he rejoices. And what is there to rejoice at? ... The fool,
the fool!'

'And have you ever killed people?' asked Olenin.