Midday
The Jew , terrified , ran away , filling the night air with his piteous wails . The children began to whimper . The hooligans marched off , laughing uproariously . Midday . It was quiet , innocent , and fresh in the depth of the wood , at the edge of the hollow -- and the outer heat penetrated hither only by an infinite coiling as of a scaly serpent impotent at last and deprived of its poison . Trirodov had found this place for himself and Elisaveta . More than once they came here together -- to read , to talk , and to sit a while at the moss-covered stone , out of which , like a strange corporeal ghost , grew up all awry a slender quaking ash .