VII

They proceeded to a final revision of the protocol. Mitya got up, moved from his chair to the corner by the curtain, lay down on a large chest covered by a rug, and instantly fell asleep. He had a strange dream, utterly out of keeping with the place and the time. He was driving somewhere in the steppes, where he had been stationed long ago, and a peasant was driving him in a cart with a pair of horses, through snow and sleet. Not far off was a village; he could see the black huts, and half the huts were burned down, there were only the charred beams sticking up. And as they drove in, there were peasant women drawn up along the road, a lot of women, a whole row, all thin and wan, with their faces a sort of brownish colour, especially one at the edge, a tall bony woman, who looked forty, but might have been only twenty, with a long thin face. And in her arms was a little baby crying. And her breasts seemed so dried up that there was not a drop of milk in them. And the child cried and cried, and held out its little bare arms, with its little fists blue from cold. “Why are they crying? Why are they crying?” Mitya asked as they dashed gaily by. “It’s the babe,” answered the driver. “The babe weeping.” And Mitya was struck by his saying, in his peasant way, “the babe,” and he liked the peasant calling it “the babe.” There seemed more pity in it. “But why is it weeping?” Mitya persisted stupidly. “Why are its little arms bare? Why don’t they wrap it up?”