of no help to us; they did not in the least dissipate the white,
almost luminous mist which surrounded us. Several times Semyon and I
lost each other, in spite of the fact that we kept calling to each
other and hallooing and at frequent intervals shouted--I: "Tyeglev!
Ilya Stepanitch!" and Semyon: "Mr. Tyeglev! Your honour!" The fog so
bewildered us that we wandered about as though in a dream; soon we
were both hoarse; the fog penetrated right into one's chest. We
succeeded somehow by help of the candles in the windows in reaching
the hut again. Our combined action had been of no use--we merely
handicapped each other--and so we made up our minds not to trouble
ourselves about getting separated but to go each our own way. He went
to the left, I to the right and I soon ceased to hear his voice. The
fog seemed to have found its way into my brain and I wandered like one
dazed, simply shouting from time to time, "Tyeglev! Tyeglev!"
"Here!" I heard suddenly in answer.
Holy saints, how relieved I was! How I rushed in the direction from
which the voice came.... A human figure loomed dark before me.... I
made for it. At last!
But instead of Tyeglev I saw another officer of the same battery,
whose name was Tyelepnev.
"Was it you answered me?" I asked him.
"Was it you calling me?" he asked in his turn.
"No; I was calling Tyeglev."
"Tyeglev? Why, I met him a minute ago. What a fool of a night! One
can't find the way home."
"You saw Tyeglev? Which way did he go?"
"That way, I fancy," said the officer, waving his hand in the air.
"But one can't be sure of anything now. Do you know, for instance,
where the village is? The only hope is the dogs barking. It is a fool
of a night! Let me light a cigarette ... it will seem like a light on
the way."
The officer was, so I fancied, a little exhilarated.
"Did Tyeglev say anything to you?" I asked.
"To be sure he did! I said to him, 'good evening, brother,' and he
said, 'good-bye.' 'How good-bye? Why good-bye.' 'I mean to shoot
myself directly with a pistol.' He is a queer fish!"
My heart stood still. "You say he told you ..."
"He is a queer fish!" repeated the officer, and sauntered off.
I hardly had time to recover from what the officer had told me, when
my own name, shouted several times as it seemed with effort, caught my
ear. I recognised Semyon's voice.
I called back ... he came to me.
XVI
"Well?" I asked him. "Have you found Ilya Stepanitch?"
"Yes, sir."
"Where?"
"Here, not far away."
"How ... have you found him? Is he alive?"
"To be sure. I have been talking to him." (A load was lifted from
my heart.) "His honour was sitting in his great-coat under a birch
tree ... and he was all right. I put it to him, 'Won't you come home,
Ilya Stepanitch; Alexandr Vassilitch is very much worried about you.'
And he said to me, 'What does he want to worry for! I want to be in the
fresh air. My head aches. Go home,' he said, 'and I will come later.'"
"And you left him?" I cried, clasping my hands.
"What else could I do? He told me to go ... how could I stay?"
All my fears came back to me at once.
"Take me to him this minute--do you hear? This minute! O Semyon,
Semyon, I did not expect this of you! You say he is not far off?"
"He is quite close, here, where the copse begins--he is sitting there.
It is not more than five yards from the river bank. I found him as I
came alongside the river."
"Well, take me to him, take me to him."
Semyon set off ahead of me. "This way, sir.... We have only to get
down to the river and it is close there."
But instead of getting down to the river we got into a hollow and
found ourselves before an empty shed.
"Hey, stop!" Semyon cried suddenly. "I must have come too far to the
right.... We must go that way, more to the left...."
We turned to the left--and found ourselves among such high, rank weeds
that we could scarcely get out.... I could not remember such a tangled
growth of weeds anywhere near our village. And then all at once a marsh
was squelching under our feet, and we saw little round moss-covered
hillocks which I had never noticed before either.... We turned
back--a small hill was sharply before us and on the top of it stood a
shanty--and in it someone was snoring. Semyon and I shouted several
times into the shanty; something stirred at the further end of it, the
straw rustled--and a hoarse voice shouted, "I am on guard."
We turned back again ... fields and fields, endless fields.... I felt
ready to cry.... I remembered the words of the fool in King
Lear: "This night will turn us all to fools or madmen."
"Where are we to go?" I said in despair to Semyon.
"The devil must have led us astray, sir," answered the distracted
servant. "It's not natural ... there's mischief at the bottom of it!"
I would have checked him but at that instant my ear caught a sound,
distinct but not loud, that engrossed my whole attention. There was a
faint "pop" as though someone had drawn a stiff cork from a narrow
bottle-neck. The sound came from somewhere not far off. Why the sound
seemed to me strange and peculiar I could not say, but at once I went
towards it.
Semyon followed me. Within a few minutes something tall and broad
loomed in the fog.
"The copse! here is the copse!" Semyon cried, delighted. "Yes,
here ... and there is the master sitting under the birch-tree....
There he is, sitting where I left him. That's he, surely enough!"
I looked intently. A man really was sitting with his back towards us,
awkwardly huddled up under the birch-tree. I hurriedly approached and
recognised Tyeglev's great-coat, recognised his figure, his head bowed
on his breast. "Tyeglev!" I cried ... but he did not answer.
"Tyeglev!" I repeated, and laid my hand on his shoulder. Then he
suddenly lurched forward, quickly and obediently, as though he were
waiting for my touch, and fell onto the grass. Semyon and I raised him
at once and turned him face upwards. It was not pale, but was lifeless
and motionless; his clenched teeth gleamed white--and his eyes,
motionless, too, and wide open, kept their habitual, drowsy and