Not long ago the first class were reading Gogol's "Vii"; [8] the last scene had a powerful effect on them, and excited their imaginations; some of them acted the witch, and kept reminding one another of the last night.

Out-of-doors it was not cold; a moonless winter's night, with clouds floating across the sky. We stopped at the cross-roads; the older scholars, who had been with me three years, stood near me, begging me to accompany them a little farther; the younger ones cast sheep's-eyes at me, and then started down the hill.

The younger ones had begun their studies with a new teacher, and between me and them there was not as yet that confidence which existed between the older ones and me.

"Well," said one of them, "then we will go into the zakas"

The zakas, or "prohibition," was a small grove about two hundred paces from the house.

More eager in his pleadings than all the rest was Fedka,[9] a lad of ten years old, an affectionate, impressible, poetic, and spirited nature. Danger constituted for him apparently the chief condition of pleasure. In summer it was always terrible to see how he and two other boys would swim out into the very middle of the pond, which was three hundred and fifty feet[10] wide, and occasionally disappear in the hot reflection of the summer sun, and then dove into the depths, and float on their backs, and squirt up streams of water, and shout in clear, shrill voices to their comrades on the shore to see how courageous they were.

Now he knew that there were wolves in the forest, and so he wanted to go into the zakas. All took up with the idea, and we went, four of us, into the woods.

Another lad, I will call him Semka, healthy both in body and soul, and another small lad of twelve, named Vavilo, went on ahead, and kept shouting and howling in their abundant voices.

Pronka, a sickly, sweet-tempered, and very gifted lad, the son of a poor family, sickly he was apparently more for want of food than any other cause, walked by my side. Fedka was between me and Semka, and kept talking all the time in his peculiarly soft voice, now telling how when summer came he should bring the horses here to watch them, then declaring that he was not afraid of anything, then asking, "Suppose some one should spring out at us," and all the time urging me to tell them some story.

We did not go quite to the middle of the forest, for that would have been too terrifying, but even at the edge of the woods it kept growing darker and darker the path was scarcely visible; the lights in the village were hidden from view.

Semka stopped, and began to listen.

"Hold on, boys! what is that?" he cried suddenly.

We held our breath, but there was nothing to be heard; nevertheless a sort of terror seized us.

"Now what shall we do," asked Fedka, "supposing he leaps out at us?"

We had been talking about brigands in the Caucasus. They remembered a story of the Caucasus which I had told them some time before, and I began to relate again about the Abreks, about the Cossacks, about the Hajji-Murat.

Semka still went in advance of us, taking long strides in his big boots, and rhythmically swinging his strong back. Pronka was trying to keep up with me, but Fedka pushed him from the path, and Pronka, who, probably owing to his weakness, was always giving in to every one else, managed only in the most interesting places to keep alongside of us, although he was wading through snow which reached to his knees.

Every one who knows peasant children at all must have observed that they are not accustomed to any sort of caresses, and cannot endure them affectionate words, kisses, touching of hands, and other such things. I happened once to see how a lady in a peasant school wanted to caress a lad, and saying, Now I am going to kiss you, darling," I kissed him; and how the lad who received the kiss was covered with shame, felt insulted, and was perfectly at a loss to know why he was so treated. A lad of five years feels himself above such things as caresses; he is already grown up!

Therefore I was astonished beyond measure when Fedka, who was walking at my side, suddenly, in the most moving part of my story, touched me gently by the sleeve, and then grasped with his whole hand two of my fingers, and did not let go of them.

As soon as I stopped talking, Fedka began to urge me to tell some more, and in such a beseeching and excited voice that it was impossible not to yield to his request.

"Now keep out from under my feet, you," said he, sternly, to Pronka, who was trying to run ahead. He was carried even to cruelty it was so unusual and so pleasant to hold my finger, and no one should presume to dare to disturb his content!

"Now, more, more!" he said; "here is a good place!"

We had passed through the woods, and had entered the village at the other end.

"Let us go back," said they all as soon as the lights began to appear. "Let us go back once more!"

We walked without speaking, occasionally slumping through the soft, ill-trodden path; the white darkness was so dense as to seem to shake before the eyes; the clouds hung low as if something dragged them down upon us; there was no end to that peculiar whiteness in which we alone crunched over the snow; the wind soughed in the bare tops of the poplars, and silence reigned in the woods. I finished telling how the Abrek, when he had been surrounded, sang his songs, and then threw himself on his dagger.

All were silent.

"Why did he sing his song when he was surrounded?" asked Semka.

"Haven't you just been told?" exclaimed Fedka, scornfully." So as to get courage to die!"

"I should think that he would sing a prayer, then," added Pronka.

The rest agreed with him.

Fedka suddenly stopped.

"But how did you say that your aunt was killed?" he asked, he still felt a little afraid. "Tell us! tell us!"

And I told them again that terrible story of the murder of the Countess Tolstoy'; and they silently stood around me looking into my face.

"And so the galliard was captured," exclaimed Fedka.

"It must have been terrible to go by night when she lay there murdered! I should have run away!"

And he took a firmer grip of my two fingers. We had halted in the thicket, back of the threshing-floors, at the very end of the village. Semka picked up a dry branch from out of the snow, and began to strike the frost-covered bole of a linden. The hoar-frost fell from the branches, on his cap, and the echo rang through the forest.

"Lyof Nikolayevitch," said Fedka (I supposed that he was going to speak of the countess again), "what is the good of learning to sing? I often wonder, I really do, why we sing."