did he set off for town?» I asked sternly.

«At six o’clock in the morning.»

«And how was he—did he seem anxious, depressed?» Semyon looked down.

«Our master is a deep one,» he began. «Who can make him out? He told

me to get out his new uniform when he was going out to town—and then

he curled himself.»

«Curled himself?»

«Curled his hair. I got the curling tongs ready for him.»

That, I confess, I had not expected. «Do you know a young lady,» I

asked Semyon, «a friend of Ilya Stepanitch’s. Her name is Masha.»

«To be sure I know Marya Anempodistovna! A nice young lady.»

«Is your master in love with this Marya … et cetera?»

Semyon heaved a sigh. «That young lady is Ilya Stepanitch’s undoing.

For he is desperately in love with her—and can’t bring himself to

marry her—and sorry to give her up, too. It’s all his honour’s

faintheartedness. He is very fond of her.»

«What is she like then, pretty?» I inquired.

Semyon assumed a grave air. «She is the sort that the gentry like.»

«And you?»

«She is not the right sort for us at all.»

«How so?»

«Very thin in the body.»

«If she died,» I began, «do you think Ilya Stepanitch would not

survive her?»

Semyon heaved a sigh again. «I can’t venture to say that—there’s no

knowing with gentlemen … but our master is a deep one.»

I took up from the table the big, rather thick letter that Tyeglev had

given me and turned it over in my hands…. The address to «his honour

the Commanding Officer of the Battery, Colonel So and So» (the name,

patronymic, and surname) was clearly and distinctly written. The word

urgent, twice underlined, was written in the top left-hand

corner of the envelope.

«Listen, Semyon,» I began. «I feel uneasy about your master. I fancy

he has some mischief in his mind. We must find him.»

«Yes, sir,» answered Semyon.

«It is true there is such a fog that one cannot see a couple of yards

ahead; but all the same we must do our best. We will each take a

lantern and light a candle in each window—in case of need.»

«Yes, sir,» repeated Semyon. He lighted the lanterns and the candles

and we set off.

XV

I can’t describe how we wandered and lost our way! The lanterns were

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

«different» look.

«Good God!» Semyon said suddenly and showed me his hand stained

crimson with blood…. The blood was coming from under Tyeglev’s

great-coat, from the left side of his chest.

He had shot himself from a small, single-barreled pistol which was

lying beside him. The faint pop I had heard was the sound made by the

fatal shot.

XVII

Tyeglev’s suicide did not surprise his comrades very much. I have told

you already that, according to their ideas, as a «fatal» man he was

bound to do something extraordinary, though perhaps they had not

expected that from him. In the letter to the colonel he asked him, in

the first place, to have the name of Ilya Tyeglev removed from the

list of officers, as he had died by his own act, adding that in his

cash-box there would be found more than sufficient money to pay his

debts,—and, secondly, to forward to the important personage at that

time commanding the whole corps of guards, an unsealed letter which

was in the same envelope. This second letter, of course, we all read;

some of us took a copy of it. Tyeglev had evidently taken pains over

the composition of this letter.

«You know, Your Excellency» (so I remember the letter began), «you are

so stern and severe over the slightest negligence in uniform when a

pale, trembling officer presents himself before you; and here am I now

going to meet