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Updated: May 12, 2025
Anton Stepanitch was the first to break the silence. "What, my dear sir," he began, "do you seriously maintain that something supernatural has happened to you? I mean to say, something inconsistent with the laws of nature?" "I do maintain it," replied the gentleman addressed as "My dear sir," whose name was Porfiry Kapitonitch. "Inconsistent with the laws of nature!"
We all simply stared at Anton Stepanitch. Every one of us expected a haughty reply, or at least a glance like a flash of lightning.... But the civil councillor turned his contemptuous smile into one of indifference, then yawned, swung his foot and that was all! "Well, I stayed at that old fellow's," Porfiry Kapitonitch went on.
"Well, I see you are not one of the chicken-hearted brigade," Anton Stepanitch interrupted in a half-contemptuous, half-condescending tone! "One can see the Hussar at once!" "I shouldn't be afraid of you in any case," Porfiry Kapitonitch observed, and for an instant he really did look like a Hussar. "But listen to the rest. A neighbour came to see me, the very one with whom I used to play cards.
Anton Stepanitch had the grade of a civil councillor, served in some incomprehensible department and, speaking emphatically and stiffly in a bass voice, enjoyed universal respect. He had not long before, in the words of those who envied him, "had the Stanislav stuck on to him." "That's perfectly true," observed Skvorevitch. "No one will dispute that," added Kinarevitch.
'And you won't hear it ever again, said I. 'Here's half a rouble for vodka! 'Let me kiss your hand, said the foolish fellow, and he stooped down to me in the darkness.... It was a great relief, I must tell you." "And was that how it all ended?" asked Anton Stepanitch, this time without irony.
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.
Between nine and ten o'clock he hurried to the town hall to see the secretary, who was the only educated man in the town council. "Vladimir Stepanitch, what's this new fashion?" he said, bending down to the secretary's ear. "People have been stealing, but how do I come in? What has it to do with me? My dear fellow," he whispered, "there has been a search at my house last night! Upon my word!
I put it to him, 'Won't you come home, Ilya Stepanitch; Alexandr Vassilitch is very much worried about you. And he said to me, 'What does he want to worry for! I want to be in the fresh air. My head aches. Go home, he said, 'and I will come later." "And you left him?" I cried, clasping my hands. "What else could I do? He told me to go ... how could I stay?"
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!!"
You wouldn't believe me, Franz Stepanitch, sometimes it makes me so cross that I could jump out of the window and give the low fellow a good horse-whipping. Come, why don't you work? What are you sitting there for?"
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