all.' 'Upon my word,' I said, 'the poison does not act so quickly.'
'Oh, how can you?' she said. 'Why, you have taken leave of your
senses!' 'Nimfotchka,' I said, 'calm yourself, be reasonable....' But
she suddenly cried, 'Go away at once with your horrid dog.' 'I will
go away,' said I. 'At once,' she said, 'this second! Get along with
you,' she said, 'you villain, and never dare to let me set eyes on you
again. You may go mad yourself!' 'Very good,' said I, 'only let me
have a carriage for I am afraid to go home on foot now.' 'Give him the
carriage, the coach, the chaise, what he likes, only let him be gone
quickly. Oh, what eyes! Oh, what eyes he has!' and with those words
she whisked out of the room and gave a maid who met her a slap in the
face--and I heard her in hysterics again.
"And you may not believe me, gentlemen, but that very day I broke off
all acquaintance with Nimfodora Semyonovna; on mature consideration of
everything, I am bound to add that for that circumstance, too, I shall
owe a debt of gratitude to my friend Trésor to the hour of my death.
"Well, I had the carriage brought round, put my Trésor in and drove
home. When I got home I looked him over and washed his wounds, and
thought I would take him next day as soon as it was light to the wise
man in the Yefremovsky district. And this wise man was an old peasant,
a wonderful man: he would whisper over some water--and some people
made out that he dropped some snake spittle into it--would give it as
a draught, and the trouble would be gone completely. I thought, by the
way, I would be bled myself at Yefremovo: it's a good thing as a
precaution against fright, only not from the arm, of course, but from
the falcon."
"What place is that, the falcon?" Mr. Finoplentov asked with demure
curiosity.
"Why, don't you know? It is here on the fist near the thumb, the spot
on which one shakes the snuff from one's horn, just here. It's the
best place for letting blood. For only consider, the blood from the
arm comes from the vein, but here it is of no consequence. The doctors
don't know that and don't understand it, how should they, the idle
drones, the wretched Germans? It's the blacksmiths who go in for it.
And aren't they skilful! They get a chisel, give it a tap with a
hammer and it's done! ... Well, while I was thinking it over, it got
quite dark, it was time for bed. I went to bed and Trésor, of course,
was close by me. But whether it was from the fight, from the
stuffiness, from the fleas or from my thoughts, I could not get to
sleep, do what I would! I can't describe the depression that came over
me; I sipped water, opened the window and played the 'Kamarinsky' with
Italian variations on the guitar.... No good! I felt I must get out of
the room--and that was all about it! I made up my mind at last: I took
my pillow, my quilt and my sheet and made my way across the garden to
the hayloft; and settled myself there. And how pleasant I felt in
there, gentlemen: it was a still, still night, only from time to time
a breath of air like a woman's hand caressed one's cheek; it was so
fresh; the hay smelt as sweet as tea; among the apple trees' the
grasshoppers were chirping; then all at once came the cry of the
quail--and one felt that he, too, the rogue, was happy, sitting in the
dew with his little lady.... And the sky was magnificent.... The stars
were glowing, or a cloud would float by, white as cotton wool,
scarcely moving...."
At this point in the story Skvorevitch sneezed; Kinarevitch sneezed,
too--he never failed in anything to follow his colleague's example.
Anton Stepanitch looked approvingly at both of them.
"Well," Porfiry Kapitonitch went on, "well, so I lay there and again
could not go to sleep. I fell to musing, and what I thought of most
was the strangeness of it alclass="underline" how correctly Prohoritch had explained
it as a warning and I wondered why it was to me such marvels had
happened.... I marvelled--particularly because I could make nothing of
it--and Trésor kept whining, as he twisted round in the hay; his
wounds hurt him. And I will tell you what else prevented me from
sleeping--you won't believe it--the moon. It was just facing me, so
big and round and yellow and flat, and it seemed to me that it was
staring at me, it really did. And so insolently, so persistently.... I
put out my tongue at it at last, I really did. What are you so
inquisitive about? I thought. I turned away from it and it seemed to
be creeping into my ear and shining on the back of my head, so that I
felt caught in it as in rain; I opened my eyes and every blade of
grass, every paltry being in the hay, the most flimsy spider's web--all
were standing out as though they were chiselled! As though asking
to be looked at! There was no help for it: I leaned my head on my hand
and began gazing. And I couldn't help it: would you believe it: my
eyes bulged out like a hare's; they opened so wide--as though they did
not know what sleep was! It seemed as though I would devour it all
with my eyes. The doors of the barn were wide open; I could see for
four miles into the open country, distinctly and yet not, as it always
is on a moonlight night. I gazed and gazed without blinking.... And
all at once it seemed as though something were moving, far, far
away ... like a faint glimmer in the distance. A little time passed:
again the shadow stirred--now a little nearer; then again nearer still.
'What can it be?' I wondered, 'a hare, no,' I thought, 'it is bigger
than a hare and its action is not the same.' I looked, and again the
shadow came in sight, and was moving across the grazing meadow (the
meadow looked whitish in the moonlight) like a big blur; it was clear
that it was a wild animal, a fox or a wolf. My heart seemed to stand
still ... though one might wonder why I was frightened. All sorts of
wild creatures run about the fields at night. But curiosity was even