Текст книги "Demons"
Автор книги: Федор Достоевский
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Текущая страница: 48 (всего у книги 56 страниц)
For a long time he stood indecisively, candle in hand. In that second as he had opened the door, he had been able to make out very little, and yet there had been a flash of the face of Kirillov standing at the back of the room by the window, and of the beastly rage with which the man had suddenly flown at him. Pyotr Stepanovich gave a start, quickly placed the candle on the table, readied his revolver, and sprang on tiptoe to the opposite corner, so that if Kirillov were to open the door and rush at the table with his revolver, he would still have time to aim and pull the trigger ahead of him.
Pyotr Stepanovich had now lost all belief in the suicide! "He was standing in the middle of the room and thinking," went like a whirlwind through Pyotr Stepanovich's mind. "A dark, horrible room, besides... He bellowed and rushed—two possibilities here: either I hindered him the very second he was pulling the trigger, or ... or he was standing and thinking about how to kill me. Yes, right, he was thinking about it. . . He knows I won't leave without killing him, if he turns coward himself—so he must kill me first, to keep me from killing him ... And again, again the silence in there! It's even frightening: he may suddenly open the door... The swinishness is that he believes in God worse than any priest. . . He won't shoot himself for anything! ... These ones that 'reason it out for themselves' have been multiplying lately! Scum! Pah, devil take it, the candle, the candle! It'll certainly burn out in a quarter of an hour... This has got to be finished; finished at all costs ... Well, so I could kill him now ... With this paper, they'll never think I killed him. I could arrange him and adjust him on the floor with the discharged revolver in his hand so they'd certainly think he himself... Ahh, the devil, how am I going to kill him? I'll open the door, and he'll rush again and shoot first. Eh, the devil, he's bound to miss!"
So he agonized, trembling at the necessity of the plan and at his own indecision. Finally, he took the candle and again went up to the door, his revolver raised and ready; with his left hand, in which he was holding the candle, he pressed down on the handle of the latch. But the result was clumsy: the handle clicked, there was a noise and a creak. "He'll just go ahead and shoot!" flashed in Pyotr Stepanovich. He shoved the door as hard as he could with his foot, raised the candle, and thrust out the revolver; but there was no shot, no cry... No one was in the room.
He gave a start. It was an end room, there was no other door, no way of escape. He raised the candle higher and peered more attentively: exactly no one. He called Kirillov in a low voice, then once more, louder; no one answered.
"Can he have escaped through the window?"
Indeed, the vent pane was open in one window. "Absurd, he couldn't have escaped through the vent." Pyotr Stepanovich walked all the way across the room right to the window: "He simply couldn't have." All at once he turned quickly, and something extraordinary jolted him.
Against the wall opposite the windows, to the right of the door, stood a wardrobe. To the right of this wardrobe, in the corner formed by the wardrobe and the wall, Kirillov was standing, and standing very strangely—motionless, drawn up, his arms flat at his sides, his head raised, the back of his head pressed hard to the wall, in the very corner, as if he wished to conceal and efface all of himself. By all tokens, he was hiding, yet it was somehow not possible to believe it. Pyotr Stepanovich was standing slightly at an angle to the corner and could observe only the protruding parts of the figure. He did not yet dare move to the left so as to make out the whole of Kirillov and understand the riddle. His heart began to pound... And suddenly he was possessed by utter fury: he tore from his place, shouted, and, stamping his feet, rushed fiercely at the dreadful place.
But, coming close, he stopped again as if rooted, still more struck with horror. What struck him, above all, was that the figure, despite his shout and furious lunge, did not even move, did not even stir one of its members—as if it were made of stone or wax. The pallor of its face was unnatural, the black eyes were completely immobile, staring at some point in space. Pyotr Stepanovich moved the candle from up to down and up again, lighting it from all points and studying this face. He suddenly noticed that, although Kirillov was staring somewhere ahead, he could see him out of the corner of his eye, and was perhaps even watching him. Then it occurred to him to bring the flame right up to the face of "this blackguard," to burn it, and see what he would do. Suddenly he fancied that Kirillov's chin moved and a mocking smile seemed to flit over his lips—as though he had guessed his thought. He trembled and, beside himself, seized Kirillov hard by the shoulder.
Then there occurred something so hideous and quick that afterwards Pyotr Stepanovich could never bring his recollections into any kind of order. The moment he touched Kirillov, the man quickly bent his head down, and with his head knocked the candle from his hands; the candlestick fell to the floor with a clang, and the candle went out. At the same instant, he felt a terrible pain in the little finger of his left hand. He cried out, and all he could remember was that, beside himself, he had struck as hard as he could three times with the revolver on the head of Kirillov, who had leaned to him and bitten his finger. He finally tore the finger free and rushed headlong to get out of the house, feeling his way in the darkness. Terrible shouts came flying after him from the room:
"Now, now, now, now..."
Ten times or so. But he kept running and had already reached the front hall when there suddenly came a loud shot. At that he stopped, in the front hall, in the dark, and for about five minutes stood reflecting; finally, he went back to the rooms again. But he had to get himself a candle. It would be no trouble finding the candlestick that had been knocked out of his hands on the floor to the right of the wardrobe; but what would he light the candle end with? Suddenly a dim recollection flashed through his mind: he recalled that the day before, when he ran down to the kitchen to fall upon Fedka, he seemed to have glimpsed in passing, in the corner, on a shelf, a big red box of matches. He groped his way left towards the kitchen door, found it, crossed the landing, and went down the stairs. On the shelf, right in the very spot he had just recalled, his hand came in the darkness upon a full, as yet unopened box of matches. Without striking a light, he hastily went back upstairs, and only near the wardrobe, on the very spot where he had hit Kirillov with the revolver as he was biting him, did he suddenly remember his bitten finger and in that same instant felt an almost unbearable pain in it. Clenching his teeth, he managed somehow to light the candle end, put it back in the candlestick, and looked around: near the window with the open vent, feet towards the right-hand corner of the room, lay the corpse of Kirillov. The shot had gone into the right temple, and the bullet had come out higher up on the left side, piercing the skull. Spatters of blood and brains could be seen. The revolver had remained in the suicide's hand, which lay on the floor. Death must have occurred instantly. After examining everything carefully, Pyotr Stepanovich stood up and tiptoed out, closed the door, set the candle on the table in the front room, thought a minute, and decided not to put it out, judging that it would not cause a fire. Glancing once more at the document lying on the table, he grinned mechanically, and only then, still tiptoeing for some reason, left the house. He again got through Fedka's passage, and again carefully closed it up behind him.
III
Exactly at ten minutes to six, at the railway station, along the rather long, strung-out line of cars, Pyotr Stepanovich and Erkel were strolling. Pyotr Stepanovich was leaving, and Erkel was saying good-bye to him. His luggage had been checked, his bag taken to a second-class car, to the seat he had chosen. The first bell had already rung, they were waiting for the second. Pyotr Stepanovich looked openly all around him, observing the passengers entering the cars. But he did not meet any close acquaintances; only twice did he have to nod his head—to a merchant he knew distantly, and then to a young village priest, who was leaving for his parish two stations away. Erkel evidently would have liked to talk about something more serious during these last moments—though perhaps he himself did not know precisely what—but he did not dare begin. He kept fancying that Pyotr Stepanovich was as if burdened by him and was waiting impatiently for the remaining bells.
"You look so openly at everybody," he commented with a certain timidity, as though wishing to warn him.
"And why not? I shouldn't be hiding yet. It's too soon. Don't worry. I'm only afraid the devil may send Liputin; he'll get wind of things and come running."
"Pyotr Stepanovich, they're unreliable," Erkel spoke out resolutely.
"Liputin?"
"All of them, Pyotr Stepanovich."
"Nonsense, they're all bound by yesterday now. None of them will betray us. Who would face obvious ruin, unless he's lost his mind?"
"But, Pyotr Stepanovich, they will lose their minds."
This thought apparently had already entered Pyotr Stepanovich's head, and therefore Erkel's comment made him still more angry:
"You haven't turned coward, too, Erkel? I'm trusting in you more than all the rest of them. I see now what each of them is worth. Tell them everything today orally, I put them directly in your charge. Run around and see them in the morning. Read them my written instructions tomorrow or the day after, collectively, when they've become capable of listening again... but, believe me, they'll be capable by tomorrow, because they'll be terribly afraid and become obedient, like wax... Above all, don't you lose heart."
"Ah, Pyotr Stepanovich, it would be better if you weren't leaving!"
"But it's only for a few days; I'll be back in no time."
"Pyotr Stepanovich," Erkel uttered cautiously but firmly, "even if it's to Petersburg. Since I know you only do what's necessary for the common cause."
"I expected no less of you, Erkel. If you've guessed that I'm going to Petersburg, then you can understand that it was impossible for me to tell them yesterday, at that moment, that I was going so far, lest I frighten them. You saw for yourself how they were. But you understand that it's for the cause, for the main and important cause, for the common cause, and not to slip away, as some Liputin might think."
"But, Pyotr Stepanovich, even if it's abroad, I'd understand, sir; I'd understand that you must preserve your person, because you're– everything, and we're—nothing. I'd understand, Pyotr Stepanovich."
The poor boy's voice even trembled.
"Thank you, Erkel... Ow, you touched my bad finger" (Erkel had pressed his hand clumsily; the bad finger was attractively bandaged in black taffeta). "But I tell you once again positively that I'll just sniff things out in Petersburg, maybe even just overnight, and be back at once. On my return I'll stay at Gaganov's estate, for the sake of appearances. If they think there's danger anywhere, I'll be the first at their head to share it. And if I'm delayed in Petersburg, I'll let you know that same moment... in our usual way, and you can tell them."
The second bell rang.
"Ah, so it's five minutes to departure. You know, I wouldn't like the crew here to fall apart. I'm not afraid, don't worry about me; I have enough of these knots in the general net, and there's nothing to value especially; but an extra knot won't hurt anything. However, I'm at ease about you, though I'm leaving you almost alone with these freaks: don't worry, they won't inform, they won't dare ... Ahh, you're going today, too?" he cried suddenly in quite a different, cheerful voice to a very young man who cheerfully came up to greet him. "I didn't know you were also taking the express. Where to, your mama's?"
The young man's mama was a very wealthy landowner of the neighboring province, and the young man was a distant relation of Yulia Mikhailovna's and had spent about two weeks visiting our town.
"No, a bit farther, to R–. I'll be living on the train for a good eight hours. Off to Petersburg?" the young man laughed.
"What makes you think right away that I'm going to Petersburg?" Pyotr Stepanovich also laughed still more openly.
The young man shook a begloved finger at him.
"Well, so you've guessed it," Pyotr Stepanovich began whispering to him mysteriously. "I have Yulia Mikhailovna's letters, and must run around and see three or four persons, you know what sort—devil take them, frankly speaking. The devil of a job!"
"But, tell me, why has she turned such a coward?" the young man also began whispering. "She didn't even let me in yesterday; in my view, she needn't fear for her husband; on the contrary, he made quite an attractive fall there at the fire, even sacrificed his life, so to speak."
"Well, so it goes," Pyotr Stepanovich laughed. "You see, she's afraid they've already written from here ... I mean, certain gentlemen ... In short, there's mainly Stavrogin; Prince K., I mean... Eh, there's a whole story here; maybe I'll tell you a thing or two on the way—no more than chivalry allows, however... This is my relative, Ensign Erkel, from the district capital."
The young man, who had been glancing sideways at Erkel, touched his hat; Erkel made him a bow.
"You know, Verkhovensky, eight hours on a train—it's a terrible fate. There's this Berestov going with us in first class, a very funny man, a colonel, from the estate next to mine; he's married to a Garin (née de Garine), and, you know, he's a decent sort. Even has ideas. Only spent two days here. A desperate lover of bezique. How about it, eh? I've already got my eye on a fourth–Pripukhlov, our bearded T– merchant, a millionaire, a real one, that is, take my word for it. . . I'll introduce you, a very interesting bag of goods, we'll have a real laugh."
"Bezique, with the greatest pleasure, and I'm terribly fond of it on the train, but I'm going second-class."
"Eh, come, not a word of it! Get in with us. I'll tell them right now to shift you to first class. The head conductor does as I say. What have you got—a bag? a rug?"
"Wonderful! Let's go!"
Pyotr Stepanovich took his bag, rug, and book, and with the greatest readiness moved at once to first class. Erkel helped. The third bell sounded.
"Well, Erkel," Pyotr Stepanovich hastily, and with a busy look, held out his hand to him for the last time through the car window, "here I am sitting down to play cards with them."
"But why explain to me, Pyotr Stepanovich, I understand, I understand everything, Pyotr Stepanovich!"
"Well, so, it's been a pleasure," the latter suddenly turned away at the call of the young man, who invited him to meet his partners. And that was the last Erkel ever saw of his Pyotr Stepanovich!
He returned home quite sad. It was not that he was afraid at Pyotr Stepanovich's abandoning them so suddenly, but... but he had turned away from him so quickly when that young fop called him, and ... he might have found something else to say to him besides "it's been a pleasure," or ... or might at least have pressed his hand more firmly.
This last was the main thing. Something else was beginning to scratch at his poor little heart, something he himself did not yet understand, something connected with the previous evening.
7: The Last Peregrination of Stepan Trofimovich
I
I am convinced that Stepan Trofimovich was very much afraid as he felt the time of his insane undertaking draw near. I am convinced that he suffered very much from fear, especially the night before—that terrible night. Nastasya mentioned later that he had gone to bed late and slept. But that proves nothing; they say men sentenced to death sleep very soundly even the night before their execution. Though he started out with the light of day, when a nervous man always takes heart somewhat (the major, Virginsky's relative, even ceased believing in God as soon as the night was over), I am convinced that he could never before have imagined himself, without horror, alone on the high road and in such a situation. Of course, something desperate in his thoughts probably softened for him, in the beginning, the full force of that terrible feeling of sudden solitude in which he found himself all at once, the moment he left Stasieand the place he had been warming up for twenty years. But, anyhow: even with the clearest awareness of all the horrors awaiting him, he still would have gone out to the high road and gone down it! There was something proud here that he admired despite all. Oh, he could have accepted Varvara Petrovna's luxurious conditions and remained with her bounties "comme unmere sponger"! But he had not accepted her bounties and had not remained. And now he himself was leaving her and raising "the banner of a great idea" and going to die for it on the high road! That is precisely how he must have felt about it; that is precisely how his action must have presented itself to him.
The question also presented itself to me more than once: why did he precisely run away, that is, run with his feet, in the literal sense, and not simply drive off in a carriage? At first I explained it by fifty years of impracticality and a fantastical deviation of ideas under the effect of strong emotion. It seemed to me that the thought of traveling by post in a carriage (even with bells) must have appeared too simple and prosaic to him; pilgrimage, on the other hand, even with an umbrella, was much more beautiful and vengefully amorous. But now, when everything is over, I rather suppose that at the time it all happened in a much simpler way: first, he was afraid to hire a carriage because Varvara Petrovna might get wind of it and hold him back by force, which she would certainly have done, and he would certainly have submitted, and then—good-bye forever to the great idea. Second, in order to travel by post one must at least know where one is going. But to know this precisely constituted his chief suffering at the moment: he could not name or determine upon a place for the life of him. For if he were to decide upon some town, his undertaking would instantly become both absurd and impossible in his own eyes; he sensed that very well. What was he going to do precisely in this town and not in some other? To look for ce marchand? [clxii] But what marchand?Here again that second and now most dreadful question popped up. In fact, there was nothing more dreadful for him than ce marchandwhom he had so suddenly set off headlong in search of, and whom he was quite certainly afraid most of all to find in reality. No, better simply the high road, just simply to go out to it and go down it and not think of anything for as long as it was possible not to think. A high road is something very, very long, which one sees no end to—like human life, like the human dream. There is an idea in the high road; and what sort of idea is there in traveling by post? Traveling by post is the end of any idea. Vive la grande route, [clxiii] and then it's whatever God sends.
After the sudden and unexpected meeting with Liza, which I have already described, he went on in even greater self-abandon. The high road passed within a quarter mile of Skvoreshniki, and—strangely—he did not even notice at first how he had come upon it. Sound reasoning, or clear awareness at the least, was unbearable to him at that moment. A drizzling rain kept stopping and starting again; but he did not notice the rain, either. He also did not notice how he had shouldered his bag, and how this made it easier for him to walk. He must have gone a half or three quarters of a mile when he suddenly stopped and looked around. Ahead of him the old, black, and deeply rutted road stretched in an endless thread, planted out with its willows; to the right—a bare place, fields harvested long, long ago; to the left—bushes, and beyond them—woods. And far away—far away the faintly noticeable line of the railroad running obliquely, with the smoke of some train on it; but the sound could no longer be heard. Stepan Trofimovich grew a bit timid, but only for a moment. He sighed aimlessly, placed his bag against a willow, and sat down to rest. As he went to sit down, he felt a chill and wrapped himself in a plaid; then, noticing the rain, he opened the umbrella over him. For quite a long time he went on sitting like that, occasionally munching his lips, the handle of the umbrella grasped tightly in his hand. Various images swept before him in feverish succession, rapidly supplanting one another in his mind. "Lise, Lise," he thought, "and ce Mauricewith her... Strange people... But what was this strange fire there, and what were they talking about, and who was murdered? ... I suppose Stasiehasn't had time to find anything out yet and is still waiting for me with coffee... Cards? Did I ever lose people at cards? Hm ... in our Russia, during the time of so-called serfdom... Ah, my God, and Fedka?"
He started up in fright and looked around: "And what if this Fedka is sitting here somewhere behind a bush? They say he has a whole band of highway robbers someplace around here. Oh, God, then I... then I'll tell him the whole truth, that I am to blame... and that I suffered for ten yearsover him, longer than he was there as a soldier, and... and I'll give him my purse. Hm, j'ai en tout quarante roubles; il prendra les roubles et il me tuera tout de même." [clxiv]
In fear he closed his umbrella, who knows why, and laid it down beside him. Far away, on the road from town, some cart appeared; he began peering anxiously:
"Grace à Dieuit's a cart, and it's moving slowly; that can't be dangerous. These broken-down local nags ... I always talked about breeding ... It was Pyotr Ilych, however, who talked about breeding in the club, and then I finessed him, et puis,but what's that behind, and ... it seems there's a woman in the cart. A woman and a peasant– cela commence à être rassurant.The woman behind and the peasant in front—c 'est très rassurant.They have a cow tied behind by the horns, c'est rassurant au plus haut degré." [clxv]
The cart came abreast of him, a rather sturdy and roomy peasant cart. The woman was sitting on a tightly stuffed sack, the peasant on the driver's seat, his legs hanging over on Stepan Trofimovich's side. Behind there indeed plodded a red cow tied by the horns. The peasant and the woman stared wide-eyed at Stepan Trofimovich, and Stepan Trofimovich stared in the same way at them, but after letting them go on about twenty paces, he suddenly got up in haste and went after them. Naturally, it felt more trustworthy in the vicinity of the cart, but when he caught up with it he at once forgot about everything again and again became immersed in his scraps of thoughts and imaginings. He was striding along and certainly did not suspect that for the peasant and the woman he constituted at that moment the most mysterious and curious object one could meet on the high road.
"You, I mean, what sorts are you from, if it's not impolite my asking?" the wench finally could not help herself, when Stepan Trofimovich suddenly glanced at her distractedly. She was a wench of about twenty-seven, sturdy, black-browed, and ruddy, with kindly smiling red lips, behind which her even, white teeth flashed.
"You... you are addressing me?" Stepan Trofimovich muttered in doleful surprise.
"Must be from merchants," the peasant said self-confidently. He was a strapping man of about forty, with a broad, sensible face and a full, reddish beard.
"No, I'm not actually a merchant, I. . . I. . . moi c'est autre chose," [clxvi]Stepan Trofimovich parried anyhow, and, just in case, dropped behind a little to the rear of the cart, so that he was now walking next to the cow.
"Must be from gentlefolk," the peasant decided, hearing non-Russian words, and pulled up on the nag.
"So here, to look at you, it's as if you're out for a walk?" the wench began to pry again.
"Is it ... is it me you're asking?"
"There's visiting foreigners come by rail sometimes, you're not from these parts with boots like that..."
"Military-type," the peasant put in, complacently and significantly.
"No, I'm not actually from the military, I..."
"What a curious wench," Stepan Trofimovich thought vexedly, "and how they're studying me... mais, enfin...Strange, in a word, just as if I were guilty before them, yet I'm not guilty of anything before them."
The wench whispered with the peasant.
"No offense, but we could maybe give you a lift, if only it's agreeable."
Stepan Trofimovich suddenly recollected himself.
"Yes, yes, my friends, with great pleasure, because I'm very tired, only how am I to get in?"
"How amazing," he thought to himself, "I've been walking next to this cow for such a long time, and it never occurred to me to ask if I could ride with them ... This 'real life' has something rather characteristic about it..."
The peasant, however, still did not stop his horse.
"And where are you headed for?" he inquired, with some mistrust.
Stepan Trofimovich did not understand at once.
"Khatovo, must be?"
"Khatov? No, not actually to Khatov... And I'm not quite acquainted; I've heard of him, though."
"It's a village, Khatovo, a village, five miles from here."
"A village? C'est charmant,I do believe I've heard..."
Stepan Trofimovich was still walking, and they still did not let him get in. A brilliant surmise flashed in his head.
"You think, perhaps, that I ... I have a passport, and I am a professor, that is, a teacher, if you wish... but a head one. I am a head teacher. Oui, c'est comme ça qu'on peut traduire. [clxvii] I would very much like to get in, and I'll buy you... I'll buy you a pint for it."
"It'll be fifty kopecks, sir, it's a rough road."
"Or else we'd be getting the bad end," the wench put in.
"Fifty kopecks? Very well, then, fifty kopecks. C'est encore mieux, j'ai en tout quarante roubles, mais. . ." [clxviii]
The peasant stopped, and by general effort Stepan Trofimovich was pulled into the cart and seated next to the woman on the sack. The whirl of thoughts would not leave him. At times he sensed in himself that he was somehow terribly distracted and not thinking at all of what he ought to be thinking of, and he marveled at that. This awareness of a morbid weakness of mind at times became very burdensome and even offensive to him.
"How ... how is it there's a cow behind?" he himself suddenly asked the wench.
"What's with you, mister, never seen one before?" the woman laughed.
"Bought her in town," the peasant intervened. "See, our cattle all dropped dead last spring—the plague. They all died, all, not even half was left, cry as you might."
And again he whipped up his nag, who had gotten stuck in a rut.
"Yes, that happens here in Russia... and generally we Russians... well, yes, it happens," Stepan Trofimovich trailed off.
"If you're a teacher, what do you want in Khatovo? Or maybe you're going farther?"
"I... that is, not actually farther... C'est-à-dire, [clxix] to a merchant."
"To Spasov, must be?"
"Yes, yes, precisely, to Spasov. It makes no difference, however."
"If you're going to Spasov, and on foot, it'll take you a good week in those pretty boots," the wench laughed.
"Right, right, and it makes no difference, mes amis,no difference at all," Stepan Trofimovich impatiently cut her short.
"Terribly curious folk; the wench speaks better than he does, however, and I notice that since the nineteenth of February [198]their style has changed somewhat, and ... and what do they care if it's Spasov or not Spasov? Anyhow, I'm paying them, so why are they pestering me?"
"If it's Spasov, then it's by steamer-boat," the peasant would not leave off.
"That's right enough," the wench put in animatedly, "because with horses along the shore you make a twenty-mile detour."
"Thirty."
"You'll just catch the steamer-boat in Ustyevo tomorrow at two o'clock," the woman clinched. But Stepan Trofimovich remained stubbornly silent. The questioners also fell silent. The peasant kept pulling up on the nag; the woman exchanged brief remarks with him from time to time. Stepan Trofimovich dozed off. He was terribly surprised when the woman, laughing, shook him awake and he saw himself in a rather large village at the front door of a cottage with three windows.
"You dozed off, mister?"
"What's that? Where am I? Ah, well! Well ... it makes no difference," Stepan Trofimovich sighed and got out of the cart.
He looked around sadly; the village scene seemed strange to him and in some way terribly alien.
"Ah, the fifty kopecks, I forgot!" he turned to the peasant with a somehow exceedingly hasty gesture; by now he was evidently afraid to part with them.
"Come in, you can pay inside," the peasant invited.
"It's a nice place," the wench encouraged.
Stepan Trofimovich climbed the rickety porch.
"But how is this possible?" he whispered in deep and timorous perplexity, and yet he entered the cottage. "Elle l'a voulu," [clxx]something stabbed at his heart, and again he suddenly forgot about everything, even that he had entered the cottage.
It was a bright, rather clean peasant cottage with three windows and two rooms; not really an inn, but a sort of guesthouse, where passing acquaintances stopped out of old habit. Stepan Trofimovich, without embarrassment, walked to the front corner, forgot to give any greetings, sat down, and lapsed into thought. Meanwhile, an extremely pleasant sensation of warmth, after three hours of dampness on the road, suddenly spread through his body. Even the chill that kept running briefly and abruptly down his spine, as always happens with especially nervous people when they are feverish and pass suddenly from cold to warmth, all at once became somehow strangely pleasant to him. He raised his head and the sweet smell of hot pancakes, over which the mistress was busying herself at the stove, tickled his nostrils. Smiling a childlike smile, he leaned towards the mistress and suddenly started prattling:
