The holiday was not a merry one at Pokróvsk. Though the day was beautiful, the people did not go out to amuse themselves, no girls sang in the street, the factory hands who had come home from town for the day did not play on their concertinas and balalaikas, and had no games with the girls. Everybody sat about in corners, and if they spoke, did so in a low voice, as if something evil were there and could hear them.
It was not quite so bad in the daytime, but when the twilight fell and the dogs began to howl, and when, to make matters worse, a wind arose and whistled down the chimneys, such fear seized all the inhabitants of the place that those who had tapers lit them in front of their icons. He who happened to be alone in his cubicle went to ask the neighbours’ permission to stay the night with them, to be less lonely; and he whose business should have taken him into one of the outhouses did not go, but pitilessly left the cattle without fodder that night. And the holy water, of which everyone kept some in a little bottle to charm away anything evil, was all used up during the evening.