When the cab was passing across a moonlit strip, the noise was louder and more brisk, and in the shadows it was heavier and duller.

The driver and the passenger in it were shaking and hopping about; for some reason or other they both bent forward and together with the horse formed one big, black mass.

The street was speckled with spots of light and shade, but in the distance the darkness seemed thick as though the street were fenced off by a wall, rising from earth to the skies.

Somehow it occurred to Foma that these people did not know whither they were going.

And he, too, did not know whither he was going.