away sleep.

"Varka, fetch some vodka! Varka, where's the corkscrew? Varka, clean
a herring!"

But now, at last, the visitors have gone; the lights are put out,
the master and mistress go to bed.

"Varka, rock the baby!" she hears the last order.

The cricket churrs in the stove; the green patch on the ceiling and
the shadows from the trousers and the baby-clothes force themselves
on Varka's half-opened eyes again, wink at her and cloud her mind.

"Hush-a-bye, my baby wee," she murmurs, "and I will sing a song to
thee."

And the baby screams, and is worn out with screaming. Again Varka
sees the muddy high road, the people with wallets, her mother
Pelageya, her father Yefim. She understands everything, she recognises
everyone, but through her half sleep she cannot understand the force
which binds her, hand and foot, weighs upon her, and prevents her
from living. She looks round, searches for that force that she may
escape from it, but she cannot find it. At last, tired to death,
she does her very utmost, strains her eyes, looks up at the flickering
green patch, and listening to the screaming, finds the foe who will
not let her live.

That foe is the baby.