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‘Here is water for you,’ I heard Yegor’s musical voice behind me: ‘drink, with God’s blessing.’

I could not help starting; this living speech shook me, sent a delightful tremor all through me. It was as though I had fallen into unknown, dark depths, where all was hushed about me, and nothing could be heard but the soft, persistent moan of some unending grief…. I was faint and could not struggle, and all at once there floated down to me a friendly voice, and some mighty hand with one pull drew me up into the light of day. I looked round, and with unutterable consolation saw the serene and honest face of my guide. He stood easily and gracefully before me, and with his habitual smile held out a wet flask full of clear liquid…. I got up.

‘Let’s go on; lead the way,’ I said eagerly. We set off and wandered a long while, till evening. Directly the noonday heat was over, it became cold and dark so rapidly in the forest that one felt no desire to remain in it.

‘Away, restless mortals,’ it seemed whispering sullenly from each pine. We came out, but it was some time before we could find Kondrat. We shouted, called to him, but he did not answer. All of a sudden, in the profound stillness of the air, we heard his ‘wo, wo,’ sound distinctly in a ravine close to us…. The wind, which had suddenly sprung up, and as suddenly dropped again, had prevented him from hearing our calls. Only on the trees which stood some distance apart were traces of its onslaught to be seen; many of the leaves were blown inside out, and remained so, giving a variegated look to the motionless foliage. We got into the cart, and drove home. I sat, swaying to and fro, and slowly breathing in the damp, rather keen air; and all my recent reveries and regrets were drowned in the one sensation of drowsiness and fatigue, in the one desire to get back as soon as possible to the shelter of a warm house, to have a good drink of tea with cream, to nestle into the soft, yielding hay, and to sleep, to sleep, to sleep….

SECOND DAY

The next morning the three of us set off to the ‘Charred Wood.’ Ten years before, several thousand acres in the ‘Forest’ had been burnt down, and had not up to that time grown again; here and there, young firs and pines were shooting up, but for the most part there was nothing but moss and ashes. In this ‘Charred Wood,’ which is reckoned to be about nine miles from Svyatoe, there are all sorts of berries growing in great profusion, and it is a favourite haunt of grouse, who are very fond of strawberries and bilberries.

We were driving along in silence, when suddenly Kondrat raised his head.

‘Ah!’ he exclaimed: ‘why, that’s never Efrem standing yonder! ‘Morning to you, Alexandritch,’ he added, raising his voice, and lifting his cap.

A short peasant in a short, black smock, with a cord round the waist, came out from behind a tree, and approached the cart.

‘Why, have they let you off?’ inquired Kondrat.

‘I should think so!’ replied the peasant, and he grinned. ‘You don’t catch them keeping the likes of me.’

‘And what did Piotr Filippitch say to it?’

‘Filippov, is it? Oh, he’s all right.’

‘You don’t say so! Why, I thought, Alexandritch–well, brother, thought I, now you ‘re the goose that must lie down in the frying-pan!’

‘On account of Piotr Filippov, hey? Get along! We’ve seen plenty like him. He tries to pass for a wolf, and then slinks off like a dog.–Going shooting your honour, hey?’ the peasant suddenly inquired, turning his little, screwed-up eyes rapidly upon me, and at once dropping them again.

‘Yes.’

‘And whereabouts, now?’

‘To the Charred Wood,’ said Kondrat.

‘You ‘re going to the Charred Wood? mind you don’t get into the fire.’