CHAPTER XX.
LIFE IN THE CITY.
Last year, in March, I was returning home late at night. As I turned from the Zubova into Khamovnitchesky Lane, I saw some black spots on the snow of the Dyevitchy Pole (field). Something was moving about in one place. I should not have paid any attention to this, if the policeman who was standing at the end of the street had not shouted in the direction of the black spots, "Vasily! why don't you bring her in?"
"She won't come!" answered a voice, and then the spot moved towards the policeman.
I halted and asked the police-officer, "What is it?"
He said,—"They are taking a girl from the Rzhanoff house to the station-house; and she is hanging back, she won't walk." A houseporter in a sheepskin coat was leading her. She was walking forward, and he was pushing her from behind. All of us, I and the porter and the policeman, were dressed in winter clothes, but she had nothing on over her dress. In the darkness I could make out only her brown dress, and the kerchiefs on her head and neck. She was short in stature, as is often the case with the prematurely born, with small feet, and a comparatively broad and awkward figure.
"We're waiting for you, you carrion. Get along,
