The Torzhok pedlar woman in a whining voice proffered her
wares, especially some goatskin slippers. “I have hundreds of roubles I don’t
know what to do with, and she’s standing in her torn cloak looking timidly at
me,” thought Pierre. “And what does she want the money for? As though the money
could give her one hairsbreadth of happiness, of peace of soul. Is there
anything in the world that can make her and me less enslaved to evil and to
death? Death, which ends all, and must come to-day or to-morrow—which beside
eternity is the same as an instant’s time.”