The troika passed the town gates once more, and drove briskly up to the wooden porch of Mrs. Záytsef’s house. The Count ran quickly up the steps, passed through the vestibule and the drawing-room, and having found the widow still asleep, took her in his arms, lifted her off the bed, kissed her sleepy eyes, and ran quickly back. Anna Fyódorovna, half awake, only licked her lips and asked, “What has happened?” The Count jumped into the sledge, shouted to the driver, and without further delay, and without even thinking about Loúhnof, or the widow, or Styóshka, but only of what awaited him in Moscow, he left the town of K⁠⸺ forever.

More than twenty years had gone by. Much water had flowed away; many people had died, many been born, many had grown up, many grown old; still more ideas had been born and had died; much that was old and beautiful, and much that was old and bad, had perished, much that was beautiful and new had grown up, and still more that was immature, monstrous, and new, had come into God’s world.