after our walk we should wish each other good-night and go to bed,
but my dream was not quickly realised. When we had returned to the
hut the engineer put away the empty bottles and took out of a large
wicker hamper two full ones, and uncorking them, sat down to his
work-table with the evident intention of going on drinking, talking,
and working. Sipping a little from his glass, he made pencil notes
on some plans and went on pointing out to the student that the
latter's way of thinking was not what it should be. The student sat
beside him checking accounts and saying nothing. He, like me, had
no inclination to speak or to listen. That I might not interfere
with their work, I sat away from the table on the engineer's
crooked-legged travelling bedstead, feeling bored and expecting
every moment that they would suggest I should go to bed. It was
going on for one o'clock.

Having nothing to do, I watched my new acquaintances. I had never
seen Ananyev or the student before. I had only made their acquaintance
on the night I have described. Late in the evening I was returning
on horseback from a fair to the house of a landowner with whom I
was staying, had got on the wrong road in the dark and lost my way.
Going round and round by the railway line and seeing how dark the
night was becoming, I thought of the "barefoot railway roughs," who
lie in wait for travellers on foot and on horseback, was frightened,
and knocked at the first hut I came to. There I was cordially
received by Ananyev and the student. As is usually the case with
strangers casually brought together, we quickly became acquainted,
grew friendly and at first over the tea and afterward over the wine,
began to feel as though we had known each other for years. At the
end of an hour or so, I knew who they were and how fate had brought
them from town to the far-away steppe; and they knew who I was,