“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.
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!”
