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.