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So thickly was the surface of the sea streaked with cloud-shadows that it bore the appearance of being in mourning, of being decked in the funeral colours of black and white. Afar off, Gudaout lay lashed with foam, while constantly objects like snowdrifts kept gliding towards it.

“Tell me more about those devils,” I said at length.

“Well, if you wish. But what exactly am I to tell you about them?”

“All that you may happen to know.”

“Oh, I know EVERYTHING about them.”

To this my companion added a wink. Then he continued:

“I say that I know everything about those devils for the reason that for my mother I had a most remarkable woman, a woman cognisant of each and every species of proverb, anathema, and item of hagiology. You must know that, after spreading my bed beside the kitchen stove each night, and her own bed on the top of the stove (for, after her wet-nursing of three of the General’s children, she lived a life of absolute ease, and did no work at all)–“

Here Kalinin halted, and, driving his stick into the ground, glanced back along the path before resuming his way with firm, lengthy strides.

“I may tell you that the General had a niece named Valentina Ignatievna. And she too was a most remarkable woman.”

“Remarkable for what?”

“Remarkable for EVERYTHING.”

At this moment there came floating over our heads through the damp-saturated air a cormorant–one of those voracious birds which so markedly lack intelligence. And somehow the whistling of its powerful pinions awoke in me an unpleasant reminiscent thought.

“Pray continue,” I said to my fellow traveller.

And each night, as I lay on the floor (I may mention that never did I climb on to the stove, and to this day I dislike the heat of one), it was her custom to sit with her legs dangling over the edge of the top, and tell me stories. And though the room would be too dark for me to see her face, I could yet see the things of which she would be speaking. And at times, as these tales came floating down to me, I would find them so horrible as to be forced to cry out, ‘Oh, Mamka, Mamka, DON’T! . . .’ To this hour I have no love for the bizarre, and am but a poor hand at remembering it. And as strange as her stories was my mother. Eventually she died of an attack of blood-poisoning and, though but forty, had become grey-headed. Yes, and so terribly did she smell after her death that everyone in the kitchen was constrained to exclaim at the odour.”

“Yes, but what of the devils?”

“You must wait a minute or two.”

Ever as we proceeded, clinging, fantastic branches kept closing in upon the path, so that we appeared to be walking through a sea of murmuring verdure. And from time to time a bough would flick us as though to say: “Speed, speed, or the rain will be upon you!”

If anything, however, my companion slackened his pace as in measured, sing-song accents he continued:

“When Jesus Christ, God’s Son, went forth into the wilderness to collect His thoughts, Satan sent devils to subject Him to temptation. Christ was then young; and as He sat on the burning sand in the middle of the desert, He pondered upon one thing and another, and played with a handful of pebbles which He had collected. Until presently from afar, there descried Him the devils Hymen, Demon, Igamon, and Zmiulan–devils of equal age with the Saviour.

“Drawing near unto Him, they said, ‘Pray suffer us to sport with Thee.’ Whereupon Christ answered with a smile: ‘Pray be seated.’ Then all of them did sit down in a circle, and proceed to business, which business was to see whether or not any member of the party could so throw a stone into the air as to prevent it from falling back upon the burning sand. ………………………… . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .