Chap­ter II opens as the evening qui­et set­tles over the hum­ble home, where each mem­ber of the fam­i­ly finds a place to rest. Niko­lay, frail and bound by ill­ness, lies atop the warm stove with his aging father beside him, seek­ing com­fort in the heat radi­at­ing from the bricks. Sasha, younger and still filled with ener­gy despite the day’s fatigue, stretch­es out on the floor with­out com­plaint. In a sep­a­rate space, Olga and the women retreat to the barn, the soft rus­tle of hay beneath them offer­ing a cush­ion against the hard real­i­ty of vil­lage life. There, Olga gen­tly con­soles Marya, urg­ing her to endure with grace. Her voice takes on the rhythm of prayer as she repeats the scrip­tur­al call to turn the oth­er cheek. This moment of sis­ter­ly ten­der­ness ris­es above hard­ship, echo­ing a spir­i­tu­al resilience that holds the women togeth­er.

Olga, always reflec­tive, shares mem­o­ries of Moscow, paint­ing vivid images of its grandeur and order. Her tales float between descrip­tions of gold-domed church­es and the pol­ished man­ners of the gen­try, a world removed from their own. Marya lis­tens in awe but remains ground­ed in her reality—she can­not read, write, or pray beyond what she has mem­o­rized. Her world is lim­it­ed by the walls of her home and the expec­ta­tions of mar­riage. Fear defines her rela­tion­ship with Kiryak, whose breath of alco­hol and tobac­co fills her with dread each evening. Fyok­la, bit­ter yet out­spo­ken, voic­es her dis­dain for both her hus­band and the life she feels trapped in. Togeth­er, these women reveal a qui­et des­per­a­tion masked by the rou­tines of sur­vival and the roles they have been hand­ed.

The still­ness of night is bro­ken by the sud­den crow of a roost­er, a sig­nal too ear­ly to mean morn­ing but too late to be ignored. Silence returns, dense and uncom­fort­able, until Fyok­la ris­es and slips away, her bare feet mov­ing with­out sound into the shad­ows. Her exit is both lit­er­al and symbolic—a ges­ture of defi­ance or per­haps a search for some­thing less suf­fo­cat­ing than the barn’s close air. Olga stirs but does not fol­low, sens­ing that some actions require soli­tude. Out­side, the dark still clings to the sky, even as a hint of dawn begins to tint the hori­zon. With­in these moments lies a ten­sion between con­tain­ment and escape, between duty and long­ing.

Morn­ing brings with it a soft­ened tone. Olga and Marya walk togeth­er toward the church, their steps cush­ioned by damp grass and their hearts lighter for hav­ing shared the night’s weight. The mead­ow around them glis­tens with dew, and for a while, the suf­fer­ing of their lives is replaced by the beau­ty of sim­ple com­pan­ion­ship. Sun­light fil­ters through the clouds, cast­ing a glow over their path, and the open field seems to expand their spir­its. Marya, often bur­dened by silence, allows her­self to feel the warmth of being under­stood. Olga, whose sto­ries had seemed dis­tant the night before, now becomes a source of com­fort rather than con­trast. This walk, qui­et and unhur­ried, becomes a rare reprieve.

The women reach the church, its mod­est struc­ture a famil­iar sanc­tu­ary. Inside, the scent of incense min­gles with the qui­et mur­mur of prayers. They find a moment of peace in the rit­u­al, even if their minds are still teth­ered to the chores and trou­bles that await. Faith, for them, is not so much about doc­trine as it is about endurance. The words may blur, but the act of show­ing up offers some­thing ground­ing. In these sacred walls, Marya feels less alone. And Olga, despite her expe­ri­ences in the city, shares in the col­lec­tive rhythm of belief that binds even the weary to hope.

The chap­ter cap­tures the nuanced tex­tures of rur­al womanhood—grief, endurance, and the occa­sion­al breath of relief. It is in these sub­tle shifts, from sor­row to sol­i­dar­i­ty, that the sto­ry breathes its fullest. Noth­ing changes dra­mat­i­cal­ly, yet every­thing moves for­ward, shaped by small acts of kind­ness and the qui­et pow­er of shared expe­ri­ence.