Knock, Knock, Knock and Other Stories | Page 6

face.
"You were called? Who called you?"
"Someone...." Tyeglev still looked away. "A woman whom I had
hitherto only believed to be dead ... but now I know it for certain."
"I swear, Ilya Stepanitch," I cried, "this is all your imagination!"
"Imagination?" he repeated. "Would you like to hear it for yourself?"
"Yes."
"Then come outside."
VIII
I hurriedly dressed and went out of the hut with Tyeglev. On the side
opposite to it there were no houses, nothing but a low hurdle fence
broken down in places, beyond which there was a rather sharp slope
down to the plain. Everything was still shrouded in mist and one could
scarcely see anything twenty paces away. Tyeglev and I went up to the
hurdle and stood still.
"Here," he said and bowed his head. "Stand still, keep quiet and listen!"
Like him I strained my ears, and I heard nothing except the ordinary,
extremely faint but universal murmur, the breathing of the night.
Looking at each other in silence from time to time we stood motionless
for several minutes and were just on the point of going on.
"Ilyusha ..." I fancied I heard a whisper from behind the hurdle.
I glanced at Tyeglev but he seemed to have heard nothing--and still
held his head bowed.
"Ilyusha ... ah, Ilyusha," sounded more distinctly than before--so
distinctly that one could tell that the words were uttered by a woman.
We both started and stared at each other.
"Well?" Tyeglev asked me in a whisper. "You won't doubt it now, will
you?"
"Wait a minute," I answered as quietly. "It proves nothing. We must
look whether there isn't anyone. Some practical joker...."
I jumped over the fence--and went in the direction from which, as far as
I could judge, the voice came.
I felt the earth soft and crumbling under my feet; long ridges stretched
before me vanishing into the mist. I was in the kitchen garden. But

nothing was stirring around me or before me. Everything seemed
spellbound in the numbness of sleep. I went a few steps further.
"Who is there?" I cried as wildly as Tyeglev had.
"Prrr-r-r!" a startled corn-crake flew up almost under my feet and flew
away as straight as a bullet. Involuntarily I started.... What foolishness!
I looked back. Tyeglev was in sight at the spot where I left him. I went
towards him.
"You will call in vain," he said. "That voice has come to us--to
me--from far away."
He passed his hand over his face and with slow steps crossed the road
towards the hut. But I did not want to give in so quickly and went back
into the kitchen garden. That someone really had three times called
"Ilyusha" I could not doubt; that there was something plaintive and
mysterious in the call, I was forced to own to myself.... But who knows,
perhaps all this only appeared to be unaccountable and in reality could
be explained as simply as the knocking which had agitated Tyeglev so
much.
I walked along beside the fence, stopping from time to time and
looking about me. Close to the fence, at no great distance from our hut,
there stood an old leafy willow tree; it stood out, a big dark patch,
against the whiteness of the mist all round, that dim whiteness which
perplexes and deadens the sight more than darkness itself. All at once it
seemed to me that something alive, fairly big, stirred on the ground
near the willow. Exclaiming "Stop! Who is there?" I rushed forward. I
heard scurrying footsteps, like a hare's; a crouching figure whisked by
me, whether man or woman I could not tell.... I tried to clutch at it but
did not succeed; I stumbled, fell down and stung my face against a
nettle. As I was getting up, leaning on the ground, I felt something
rough under my hand: it was a chased brass comb on a cord, such as
peasants wear on their belt.
Further search led to nothing--and I went back to the hut with the comb
in my hand, and my cheeks tingling.
IX
I found Tyeglev sitting on the bench. A candle was burning on the table
before him and he was writing something in a little album which he
always had with him. Seeing me, he quickly put the album in his
pocket and began filling his pipe.

"Look here, my friend," I began, "what a trophy I have brought back
from my expedition!" I showed him the comb and told him what had
happened to me near the willow. "I must have startled a thief," I added.
"You heard a horse was stolen from our neighbour yesterday?"
Tyeglev smiled frigidly and lighted his pipe. I sat down beside him.
"And do you still