The shadows of the houses fell on the road in black squares, and the shadows of the trees--in wonderful patterns.

And some of them looked like thin hands, helplessly clutching the ground.
"What is she doing now ?" thought Foma, picturing to himself the woman, alone, in the corner of a narrow room, in the reddish half-light.
"It is best for me to forget her," he decided.

But he could not forget her; she stood before him, provoking in him now intense pity, now irritation and even anger.

And her image was so clear, and the thoughts of her were so painful, as though he was carrying this woman in his breast.

A cab was coming from the opposite side, filling the silence of the night with the jarring of the wheels on the cobble-stones and with their creaking on the ice.