The sledge swayed hardly at all. The shaft-horse, with his tightly bound
tail under his decorated breechband, galloped smoothly and briskly; the
smooth road seemed to run rapidly backwards, while the driver dashingly
shook the reins. One of the lawyers and the officer sitting opposite
talked nonsense to Makovkina's neighbour, but Makovkina herself sat
motionless and in thought, tightly wrapped in her fur. 'Always the same
and always nasty! The same red shiny faces smelling of wine and cigars!
The same talk, the same thoughts, and always about the same things! And
they are all satisfied and confident that it should be so, and will
go on living like that till they die. But I can't. It bores me. I want
something that would upset it all and turn it upside down. Suppose
it happened to us as to those people--at Saratov was it?--who kept on
driving and froze to death. . . . What would our people do? How would
they behave? Basely, for certain. Each for himself. And I too should act
badly. But I at any rate have beauty. They all know it. And how about
that monk? Is it possible that he has become indifferent to it? No! That
is the one thing they all care for--like that cadet last autumn. What a
fool he was!'

'Ivan Nikolaevich!' she said aloud.

'What are your commands?'

'How old is he?'

'Who?'

'Kasatsky.'

'Over forty, I should think.'