In the middle of October, three weeks after my interview with Martin
Petrovitch, I was standing at the window of my own room in the
second storey of our house, and thinking of nothing at all, I looked
disconsolately into the yard and the road that lay beyond it. The
weather had been disgusting for the last five days. Shooting was not
even to be thought of. All things living had hidden themselves; even
the sparrows made no sound, and the rooks had long ago disappeared
from sight. The wind howled drearily, then whistled spasmodically.
The low-hanging sky, unbroken by one streak of light, had changed
from an unpleasant whitish to a leaden and still more sinister hue;
and the rain, which had been pouring and pouring, mercilessly and
unceasingly, had suddenly become still more violent and more driving,
and streamed with a rushing sound over the panes. The trees had been
stripped utterly bare, and turned a sort of grey. It seemed they had
nothing left to plunder; yet the wind would not be denied, but set to
harassing them once more. Puddles, clogged with dead leaves, stood
everywhere. Big bubbles, continually bursting and rising up again,
leaped and glided over them. Along the roads, the mud lay thick and
impassable. The cold pierced its way indoors through one’s clothes to
the very bones. An involuntary shiver passed over the body, and how
sick one felt at heart! Sick, precisely, not sad. It seemed there would
never again in the world be sunshine, nor brightness, nor colour, but
this rain and mire and grey damp, and raw fog would last for ever, and
for ever would the wind whine and moan! Well, I was standing moodily
at my window, and I remember a sudden darkness came on--a bluish
darkness--though the clock only pointed to twelve. Suddenly I fancied
I saw a bear dash across our yard from the gates to the steps! Not on
all-fours, certainly, but as he is depicted when he gets up on his
hind-paws. I could not believe my eyes. If it were not a bear I had
seen, it was, any way, something enormous, black shaggy.… I was still
lost in wonder as to what it could be, when suddenly I heard below a
furious knocking. It seemed something utterly unlooked for, something
terrible was stumbling headlong into our house. Then began a commotion,
a hurrying to and fro.…