Knock, Knock, Knock and Other Stories | Page 4

cherished in
his young days for the daughter of a policeman. Now that he was older,
this Don Juan in a gay cotton shirt had no experience of unsuccessful
love affairs. Before the doors of our barn stretched a wide plain
gradually sloping away in the distance; a little river gleamed here and
there in the winding hollows; low growing woods could be seen further
on the horizon. Night was coming on and we were left alone. As night
fell a fine damp mist descended upon the earth, and, growing thicker
and thicker, passed into a dense fog. The moon rose up into the sky; the
fog was soaked through and through and, as it were, shimmering with
golden light. Everything was strangely shifting, veiled and confused;

the faraway looked near, the near looked far away, what was big looked
small and what was small looked big ... everything became dim and full
of light. We seemed to be in fairyland, in a world of whitish-golden
mist, deep stillness, delicate sleep.... And how mysteriously, like sparks
of silver, the stars filtered through the mist! We were both silent. The
fantastic beauty of the night worked upon us: it put us into the mood for
the fantastic.
VI
Tyeglev was the first to speak and talked with his usual hesitating
incompleted sentences and repetitions about presentiments ... about
ghosts. On exactly such a night, according to him, one of his friends, a
student who had just taken the place of tutor to two orphans and was
sleeping with them in a lodge in the garden, saw a woman's figure
bending over their beds and next day recognised the figure in a portrait
of the mother of the orphans which he had not previously noticed. Then
Tyeglev told me that his parents had heard for several days before their
death the sound of rushing water; that his grandfather had been saved
from death in the battle of Borodino through suddenly stooping down
to pick up a simple grey pebble at the very instant when a volley of
grape-shot flew over his head and broke his long black plume. Tyeglev
even promised to show me the very pebble which had saved his
grandfather and which he had mounted into a medallion. Then he
talked of the lofty destination of every man and of his own in particular
and added that he still believed in it and that if he ever had any doubts
on that subject he would know how to be rid of them and of his life, as
life would then lose all significance for him. "You imagine perhaps," he
brought out, glancing askance at me, "that I shouldn't have the spirit to
do it? You don't know me ... I have a will of iron."
"Well said," I thought to myself.
Tyeglev pondered, heaved a deep sigh and dropping his chibouk out of
his hand, informed me that that day was a very important one for him.
"This is the prophet Elijah's day--my name day.... It is ... it is always for
me a difficult time."
I made no answer and only looked at him as he sat facing me, bent,
round-shouldered, and clumsy, with his drowsy, lustreless eyes fixed
on the ground.
"An old beggar woman" (Tyeglev never let a single beggar pass

without giving alms) "told me to-day," he went on, "that she would
pray for my soul.... Isn't that strange?"
"Why does the man want to be always bothering about himself!" I
thought again. I must add, however, that of late I had begun noticing an
unusual expression of anxiety and uneasiness on Tyeglev's face, and it
was not a "fatal" melancholy: something really was fretting and
worrying him. On this occasion, too, I was struck by the dejected
expression of his face. Were not those very doubts of which he had
spoken to me beginning to assail him? Tyeglev's comrades had told me
that not long before he had sent to the authorities a project for some
reforms in the artillery department and that the project had been
returned to him "with a comment," that is, a reprimand. Knowing his
character, I had no doubt that such contemptuous treatment by his
superior officers had deeply mortified him. But the change that I
fancied I saw in Tyeglev was more like sadness and there was a more
personal note about it.
"It's getting damp, though," he brought out at last and he shrugged his
shoulders. "Let us go into the hut--and it's bed-time, too." He had the
habit of shrugging his shoulders and turning his head from side to side,
putting his right hand to his throat as he did so, as though his cravat
were constricting it. Tyeglev's character was expressed, so at least it
seemed to me,