He foresaw an endless succession of joyless days losing themselves in a grey yawning abyss, and he involuntarily shut his eyes. Henceforth he would have to be alone with a wicked old woman, half dead in the stagnation of despotism. She would be the death of him before long, as sure as fate. Not a soul to speak to, not a place to visit. She would be everywhere, scornful, despotic, deadening. The thought of that inevitable future made his heart so heavy that he stopped under a tree in desperation, and struck his head against it several times. His entire life with all its farcical strutting, idleness, and buffoonery loomed up as if flooded with sudden light. Then he started on his way again. He felt there was nothing else left for him. The least of men can make some effort, can earn his bread. He alone was helpless. It was a new thought. He had been accustomed in thinking of his future to picture various prospects, but always prospects of wealth coupled with idleness, never prospects of work. And now the time had come when he had to pay for the wickedness and aimlessness of his existence. It was a bitter settlement, summed up in the terrible phrase: "She will be the end of me."
It was about nine o'clock in the morning when the white Golovliovo belfry showed above the forest. The traveller's face grew pale, and his hands began to tremble. He took off his cap and crossed himself. The parable of the prodigal son and his return occurred to him, but he at once rejected the idea as a bit of self-delusion.
Finally, he noticed the boundary-post standing by the wayside, and presently he was treading the Golovliovo soil, the hateful soil that had borne him, an unloved child, that had reared him, sent him, hated, into the wide world, and was now receiving him, the unloved one, back into its arms again. The sun was high in the heavens and was ruthlessly scorching the boundless fields of Golovliovo. But Stepan Vladimirych was growing paler and shivering with ague.
At length he reached the churchyard, and here his courage failed utterly. The manor-house looked out from behind the trees as if nothing unpleasant had ever happened there; yet the sight of it worked on him like the vision of a Medusa head. His paternal abode seemed to be a tomb. "A tomb, tomb, tomb," he repeated unconsciously. He had not the courage to go straight to the house, but first called on the priest and sent him to break the news of his arrival and inquire whether his mother would receive him.