“There is something baffling in it, of course . . .” he thought, looking at the crimson windows.  “Fifteen hundred or two thousand workpeople are working without rest in unhealthy surroundings, making bad cotton goods, living on the verge of starvation, and only waking from this nightmare at rare intervals in the tavern; a hundred people act as overseers, and the whole life of that hundred is spent in imposing fines, in abuse, in injustice, and only two or three so-called owners enjoy the profits, though they don’t work at all, and despise the wretched cotton.  But what are the profits, and how do they enjoy them?  Madame Lyalikov and her daughter are unhappy—­it makes one wretched to look at them; the only one who enjoys her life is Christina Dmitryevna, a stupid, middle-aged maiden lady in pince-nez.  And so it appears that all these five blocks of buildings are at work, and inferior cotton is sold in the Eastern markets, simply that Christina Dmitryevna may eat sterlet and drink Madeira.”

Suddenly there came a strange noise, the same sound Korolyov had heard before supper.  Some one was striking on a sheet of metal near one of the buildings; he struck a note, and then at once checked the vibrations, so that short, abrupt, discordant sounds were produced, rather like “Dair . . . dair . . . dair. . . .”  Then there was half a minute of stillness, and from another building there came sounds equally abrupt and unpleasant, lower bass notes:  “Drin . . . drin . . . drin. . .”  Eleven times.  Evidently it was the watchman striking the hour.  Near the third building he heard:  “Zhuk . . . zhuk . . . zhuk. . . .”  And so near all the buildings, and then behind the barracks and beyond the gates.  And in the stillness of the night it seemed as though these sounds were uttered by a monster with crimson eyes—­the devil himself, who controlled the owners and the work-people alike, and was deceiving both.

Korolyov went out of the yard into the open country.

“Who goes there?” some one called to him at the gates in an abrupt voice.

“It’s just like being in prison,” he thought, and made no answer.

Here the nightingales and the frogs could be heard more distinctly, and one could feel it was a night in May.  From the station came the noise of a train; somewhere in the distance drowsy cocks were crowing; but, all the same, the night was still, the world was sleeping tranquilly.  In a field not far from the factory there could be seen the framework of a house and heaps of building material: 

Korolyov sat down on the planks and went on thinking.

“The only person who feels happy here is the governess, and the factory hands are working for her gratification.  But that’s only apparent:  she is only the figurehead.  The real person, for whom everything is being done, is the devil.”