that, he pointed his gun carelessly at a poplar branch in the distance, on which a tiny hopping shadow was just visible. When he pulled the trigger a blue-jay tumbled to the ground.
Velitcho was a good shot. He had plenty of practise. The cemetery was swarming with wild rabbits, with great opalescent pigeons, and even with pheasants in the densest thickets.
Ossip, the other keeper, was the only one of us who ever left the cemetery. He looked after the commissary department, and he was extremely good at cooking savory dishes of game. I shall never forget a galantine of fowl he used to concoct, caked in a golden jelly. Ah, it would melt in your mouth! . . .
I had nothing particular to do but eat and stroll about the melancholy place.
Velitcho had lent me a gun, but I was a poor marksman, and my marksmanship usually accomplished nothing but awaken an echo which would wander for a few seconds like a melancholy lament among the forgotten tombs.
In the evening we came together in a little lodge, where we sat and watched the malicious twinkling of our stove's one mica eye. Outside, there was only wind and darkness.
Ossip and Velitcho rarely spoke. They would sit with their eyes fixed on the one tall black window. They seemed to be constantly listening, and their great canine faces always showed a trace of uneasiness.
I wondered at them. I was inclined to smile at the superstitious turn of their childish minds, and I looked at them with a touch of condescension. What was there to be afraid of? There was nothing outside but the darkness of a winter night and the dreary complaining of the wind. Sometimes, away up in the sky, we could hear the cry of some nocturnal bird of prey, and when the moon was visible, small and bright, in the corner of the highest window-pane, I could catch the cracking of the stones in the bitter cold.
Along toward midnight, Ossip always brewed for us a hot drink which he called "chur" or "skur". It was a blackish liquor with an aroma of strange plants, and I drank it with the keenest pleasure. By the time I had swallowed the last drop, an exquisite feeling of warmth ran all over my body. I was perfectly happy. I wanted to laugh and prattle, to call for a second cup, but I was never able to get that far; for all at once a wheel of many colors would begin to turn before my eyes, and I would have just time to tumble over on my cot and fall sound asleep.
There was nothing to be afraid of at night in the cemetery. The one thing that bothered me was the monotony of the days, and that is why I began keeping a diary, or more strictly a book of impressions. I kept no record of day or date.
If you will allow me, Your Honor, I will read some pages from this note-book of mine.
*****
Ossip and Velitcho are spoiling me. I never had such meals in my life. A day or two ago, for some reason or other, I didn't seem to have much appetite, and the two poor fellows were so anxious about me that it was almost ridiculous.
Velitcho accused Ossip of not having cooked the food properly, and he abused the poor giant till I felt ashamed of myself. Since then Ossip is constantly consulting me about what I like best. Poor, big-hearted fellows!
With all this fine eating, I ought to be getting as fat as a quail. But I certainly am not. Now and then it strikes me that I am strangely thin and weak.
