ge of time. At first impressions
of the snow-storm, the sledge-shafts, and the horse with the shaft-bow
shaking before his eyes, kept passing through his mind, then he
remembered Nikita lying under him, then recollections of the festival,
his wife, the police-officer, and the box of candles, began to mingle
with these; then again Nikita, this time lying under that box, then the
peasants, customers and traders, and the white walls of his house with
its iron roof with Nikita lying underneath, presented themselves to
his imagination. Afterwards all these impressions blended into one
nothingness. As the colours of the rainbow unite into one white light,
so all these different impressions mingled into one, and he fell asleep.

For a long time he slept without dreaming, but just before dawn the
visions recommenced. It seemed to him that he was standing by the box of
tapers and that Tikhon's wife was asking for a five kopek taper for the
Church fete. He wished to take one out and give it to her, but his hands
would not life, being held tight in his pockets. He wanted to walk round
the box but his feet would not move and his new clean goloshes had grown
to the stone floor, and he could neither lift them nor get his feet out
of the goloshes. Then the taper-box was no longer a box but a bed, and
suddenly Vasili Andreevich saw himself lying in his bed at home. He was
lying in his bed and could not get up. Yet it was necessary for him to
get up because Ivan Matveich, the police-officer, would soon call for
him and he had to go with him--either to bargain for the forest or to
put Mukhorty's breeching straight.

He asked his wife: 'Nikolaevna, hasn't he come yet?' 'No, he hasn't,'
she replied. He heard someone drive up to the front steps. 'It must be
him.' 'No, he's gone past.' 'Nikolaevna! I say, Nikolaevna, isn't he
here yet?' 'No.' He was still lying on his bed and could not get up, but
was always waiting. And this waiting was uncanny and yet joyful. Then
suddenly his joy was completed. He whom he was expecting came; not Ivan
Matveich the police-officer, but someone else--yet it was he whom he had
been waiting for. He came and called him; and it was he who had called
him and told him to lie down on Nikita. And Vasili Andreevich was glad
that that one had come for him.

'I'm coming!' he cried joyfully, and that cry awoke him, but woke him up
not at all the same person he had been when he fell asleep. He tried to
get up but could