Chapter 3 Summary

The story continues again in Myshkino, with the old man Shurik thinking that until today, he was beyond caring about what happens to him. After all, he has survived the horrors of the gulag. What else could affect him? But with the arrival of the letter, he muses that fate has intervened in his life, and that its hand is powerful. He admits that he would rather face death, than five o'clock that afternoon. Visitors from outside the community will arrive and he will be forced to make a choice about his life that he has been unwilling to face heretofore.

Shurik steps out on the lane that leads from Frosya's house to the rest of the village. Komarov appears at the door of his shed and calls to him. He invites Shurik into his shed, where his apple mill is located, and...