it 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,
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, a