smaller; alone in the sky they were racing after one another like
mother and child, in the direction where the sunset was glowing.

"What a glorious day!" said Dmitri Petrovitch.

"In the extreme . . ." Forty Martyrs assented, and he coughed
respectfully into his hand. "How was it, Dmitri Petrovitch, you
thought to visit these parts?" he asked in an ingratiating voice,
evidently anxious to get up a conversation.

Dmitri Petrovitch made no answer. Forty Martyrs heaved a deep sigh
and said softly, not looking at us:

"I suffer solely through a cause to which I must answer to Almighty
God. No doubt about it, I am a hopeless and incompetent man; but
believe me, on my conscience, I am without a crust of bread and
worse off than a dog. . . . Forgive me, Dmitri Petrovitch."

Silin was not listening, but sat musing with his head propped on
his fists. The church stood at the end of the street on the high
river-bank, and through the trellis gate of the enclosure we could
see the river, the water-meadows on the near side of it, and the
crimson glare of a camp fire about which black figures of men and
horses were moving. And beyond the fire, further away, there were
other lights, where there was a little village. They were singing
there. On the river, and here and there on the meadows, a mist was
rising. High narrow coils of mist, thick and white as milk, were
trailing over the river, hiding the reflection of the stars and
hovering over the willows. Every minute they changed their form,
and it seemed as though some were embracing, others were bowing,