Chapter VI draws a sharp emotional divide between two women sharing the same bleak home—Marya and Fyokla. Marya, worn down by years of hardship, speaks openly of her longing for death, as if only the end could offer relief. She carries her sadness like a weight, rarely raising her voice, but her presence is heavy with quiet despair. In stark contrast, Fyokla embraces the filth and disarray, clinging to her routine with pride, almost as if disorder is a form of control. Her scorn toward others, especially Olga, becomes cruel, marked by harsh words and slaps, not just for disobedience but for daring to be different. This tension between characters mirrors the changing values within the peasant class—a clash of survival instincts and fading hopes.

As the women work together winding silk for pennies, the atmosphere is one of forced cooperation, not harmony. Their hands are busy, but their minds drift backward. Fyokla grumbles about the past, painting the old gentry as firm but fair, when people supposedly knew their place and had full pantries. Marya listens but doesn’t respond, her silence less agreement than resignation. The workroom transforms into a space of living memory, where old voices mix with the sounds of thread being spun and coiled. A guest, the cook from General Zhukov’s estate, adds flair to their talk, recounting lavish meals and hunts long past. His stories give the others something to imagine, if only for a moment—a life with purpose, structure, and even beauty. The room warms not from fire but from a shared need to remember something better than now.

The temporary closeness formed by storytelling offers an emotional balm, fragile and fleeting. Laughter even bubbles up now and then, especially when the tales grow wild with exaggeration. But the joy never lasts long. Outside, the world remains unchanged—cold, indifferent, and full of reminders of their poverty. As the gathering winds down, the reality of their condition slowly reasserts itself. They are not guests at a nobleman’s table but peasants huddled in a small hut, the silk they spin too little to live on. In this way, memory becomes a kind of rebellion, not against authority but against hopelessness.

Fyokla, never one for warmth, leaves the hut quietly and walks to the river under the silver glow of the moon. When she returns, soaked and disheveled, her vulnerability is more unsettling than her usual bluster. The moonlight on her damp form reveals more than her body—it reveals the cost of pride worn too long, of refusing comfort even when it’s near. No words are spoken as she enters, and none are needed. Her silence is not peace but emptiness. Inside, the others pretend not to see, unsure if kindness would be welcomed or rejected. In this moment, Fyokla is no longer the hardened voice of the past, but a figure shaped by loss and left with little to hold.

The chapter closes with this stark divide between the warmth of the group and the chill carried in by Fyokla. The scene captures more than class struggle or generational friction—it reveals the emotional toll of a life defined by endurance. The others have their shared stories and their quiet companionship, however strained, while Fyokla returns from the darkness with nothing but herself. Her earlier cruelty doesn’t excuse her suffering, but it contextualizes it, revealing how bitterness often grows in soil long starved of hope. The contrast between her and Marya, between memory and present pain, shows how survival sometimes leaves people harder, not wiser. Yet even here, where kindness is scarce and beauty rare, there remains a fragile thread of humanity that binds them all.