«Varka, prepare the samovar!» cries her mistress.
It is a small samovar, and before the guests are tired of drinking tea, it has to be filled and heated five times. After tea Varka stands a whole hour on one spot, looks at the guests, and waits for orders.
«Varka, run and buy three bottles of beer!»
Varka jumps from her place, and tries to run as quickly as possible so as to drive away sleep.
«Varka, go for vodka! Varka, where is the corkscrew? Varka, clean the herrings!»
At last the guests are gone; the fires are extinguished; master and mistress go to bed.
«Varka, rock the cradle!» echoes the last order. In the stove chirrups a cricket; the green spot on the ceiling, and the shadows from the trousers and baby-clothes again twinkle before Varka’s half-opened eyes, they wink at her, and obscure her brain.
«Bayu, bayushki, bayu,» she murmurs, «Nurse will sing a song to you….»
But the child cries and wearies itself with crying. Varka sees again the muddy road, the men with satchels, Pelageya, and father Yefim. She remembers, she recognises them all, but in her semi-slumber she cannot understand the force which binds her, hand and foot, and crushes her, and ruins her life. She looks around her, and seeks that force that she may rid herself of it. But she cannot find it. And at last, tortured, she strains all her strength and sight; she looks upward at the winking green spot, and as she hears the cry of the baby, she finds the enemy who is crushing her heart.
The enemy is the child.
Varka laughs. She is astonished. How was it that never before could she understand such a simple thing? The green spot, the shadows, and the cricket, it seems, all smile and are surprised at it.
An idea takes possession of Varka. She rises from the stool, and, smiling broadly with unwinking eyes, walks up and down the room. She is delighted and touched by the thought that she will soon be delivered from the child who has bound her, hand and foot. To kill the child, and then to sleep, sleep, sleep….
And smiling and blinking and threatening the green spot with her fingers, Varka steals to the cradle and bends over the child…. And having smothered the child she drops on the floor, and, laughing with joy at the thought that she can sleep, in a moment sleeps as soundly as the dead child.
