meal-tub?’ I merely smiled condescendingly in reply, and thought, ‘If only they knew!’ It struck eleven; I went to my room, but did not undress; I waited for midnight; at last it struck. ‘The time has come!’ I muttered between my teeth; and buttoning myself up to the throat, and even pulling my sleeves up, I went into the garden.

I had already fixed on the spot from which to keep watch. At the end of the garden, at the point where the fence, separating our domain from the Zasyekins’, joined the common wall, grew a pine-tree, standing alone. Standing under its low thick branches, I could see well, as far as the darkness of the night permitted, what took place around. Close by, ran a winding path which had always seemed mysterious to me; it coiled like a snake under the fence, which at