"It is quiet here, it is not cozy, and it is unsightly; but it is quiet, so quiet, as if everything around were dead. There is much air and much room."
She looked out over the endless fields and felt a desire to dash straight across them, without aim or purpose, just to breathe fast and feel a pain in her chest. And _there,_ in the half-nomadic life from which she had just escaped and to which she _must_ return--what awaited her there? What had she gained by it? Nothing but recollections of hotels permeated with stench, of an everlasting din coming from the dining and billiard rooms, of unkempt porters, of rehearsals on the stage in the twilight and among the scenes of painted linen, the feel of which was abominable, in the draught and in the dampness. And then, army officers, lawyers, obscene language, and the eternal uproar! What hadn't the men told her! With what obscenity hadn't they touched her! Especially the one with the mustache, with a voice hoarse from drink, inflamed eyes, and a perpetual smell of the stable about him. Lord, what he had told her! Anninka shivered at the very recollection and shut her eyes. Then she came to, sighed, and went into the ikon room. There were now only a few ikons in the image-case, only those which had unquestionably belonged to her mother. The rest of them, her grandmother's, Yudushka, as the legitimate heir, had removed to Golovliovo. The empty spaces where they had stood stared like the hollow eye-sockets in a deathshead. Nor were there any ikon lamps. Yudushka had taken all of them. Only one yellow bit of wax candle stood out, orphan-like, from a miniature tin candlestick that had been forgotten.
"His Excellency wanted to take the image case, too. He was trying to make sure if it really was a part of madam's dowry," reported Afimyushka.
"Well, he could have taken it. Tell me, Afimyushka, did grandma suffer much before she died?"
"No, not much, she was laid up for only a day or so. She just went out, of her own self. She wasn't really sick or anything. She didn't talk either, just mentioned you and your sister once or twice."
"So Porfiry Vladimirych carried off the ikons?"
"Yes, he did. He said they were his mother's personal property. He also took the coach and two cows. From the mistress's papers he gathered, I suppose, that they belonged to your grandmother, not to you. He also wanted to take away a horse, but Fedulych would not give it to him. 'It's our horse,' he said, 'an old-timer in Pogorelka.' So Porfiry Vladimirych left it here. He was afraid."