Yes; but where was I to go? The fog enveloped me on all sides. For five or six steps all round it was a little transparent — but further away it stood up like a wall, thick and white like cotton wool. I turned to the right along the village street; our house was the last but one in the village and beyond it came waste land overgrown here and there with bushes; beyond the waste land, a quarter of a mile from the village, there was a birch copse through which flowed the same little stream that lower down encircled our village. The moon stood, a pale blur in the sky — but its light was not, as on the evening before, strong enough to penetrate the smoky density of the fog and hung, a broad opaque canopy, overhead. I made my way out on to the open ground and listened. . . . Not a sound from any direction, except the calling of the marsh birds.

“Tyeglev!” I cried. “Ilya Stepanitch!! Tyeglev!!”

My voice died away near me without an answer; it seemed as though the fog would not let it go further. “Tyeglev!” I repeated.

No one answered.

I went forward at random. Twice I struck against a fence, once I nearly fell into a ditch, and almost stumbled against a peasant’s horse lying on the ground. “Tyeglev! Tyeglev!” I cried.

All at once, almost behind me, I heard a low voice, “Well, here I am. What do you want of me?”

I turned round quickly.

Before me stood Tyeglev with his hands hanging at his sides and with no cap on his head. His face was pale; but his eyes looked animated and bigger than usual. His breathing came in deep, prolonged gasps through his parted lips.

“Thank God!” I cried in an outburst of joy, and I gripped him by both hands. “Thank God! I was beginning to despair of finding you. Aren’t you ashamed of frightening me like this? Upon my word, Ilya Stepanitch!”

“What do you want of me?” repeated Tyeglev.

“I want . . . I want you, in the first place, to come back home with me. And secondly, I want, I insist, I insist as a friend, that you explain to me at once the meaning of your actions — and of this letter to the colonel. Can something unexpected have happened to you in Petersburg?”

“I found in Petersburg exactly what I expected,” answered Tyeglev, without moving from the spot.

“That is . . . you mean to say . . . your friend . . . this Masha. . . . ”............