others lifting up their arms to heaven with wide sleeves like
priests, as though they were praying. . . . Probably they reminded
Dmitri Petrovitch of ghosts and of the dead, for he turned facing
me and asked with a mournful smile:

"Tell me, my dear fellow, why is it that when we want to tell some
terrible, mysterious, and fantastic story, we draw our material,
not from life, but invariably from the world of ghosts and of the
shadows beyond the grave."

"We are frightened of what we don't understand."

"And do you understand life? Tell me: do you understand life better
than the world beyond the grave?"

Dmitri Petrovitch was sitting quite close to me, so that I felt his
breath upon my cheek. In the evening twilight his pale, lean face
seemed paler than ever and his dark beard was black as soot. His
eyes were sad, truthful, and a little frightened, as though he were
about to tell me something horrible. He looked into my eyes and
went on in his habitual imploring voice:

"Our life and the life beyond the grave are equally incomprehensible
and horrible. If any one is afraid of ghosts he ought to be afraid,
too, of me, and of those lights and of the sky, seeing that, if you
come to reflect, all that is no less fantastic and beyond our grasp
than apparitions from the other world. Prince Hamlet did not kill
himself because he was afraid of the visions that might haunt his
dreams after death. I like that famous soliloquy of his, but, to
be candid, it never touched my soul. I will confess to you as a