And the Bride answered softly: “Well, perhaps Deniska is not much of a joy—”
Koshel brought from the post-office a newspaper nearly six weeks old. The days were dark and foggy, and Kuzma read from morning till night, seated at the window.
And when he had finished and had made himself dizzy with the number of fresh executions, he was benumbed. Heretofore he had been suffocated with rage when he read the newspapers—futile rage, because human receptivity was unequal to taking in what one read there. Now his fingers grew cold—nothing more. Yes, yes, there was nothing to get excited about. Everything went as if according to programme. Everything fitted together perfectly. He raised his head: the sleet was driving in white slanting lines, falling upon the black, miserable little village, on the muddy roads with their hillocks and hollows, on the horse-dung, the ice, and the pools of water. A twilight mist concealed the boundless plain—all that vast empty space with its snows, forests, settlements, towns—the kingdom of cold and of death.
“Avdotya!” shouted Kuzma, as he rose to his feet. “Tell Koshel to harness the horse to the sledge. I’m going to my brother’s. …”