I advance briskly…. But the light footsteps, as before, rustle behind me, close, close behind me…. And in front of me again the pit yawns.
Again I turn in another direction…. And again there is the same rustling behind me, the same menacing spot in front of me.
And no matter in what direction I dart, like a hare pursued … it is always the same, the same!
"Stay!" I think.—"I will cheat her! I will not go anywhere at all!"—and I instantaneously sit down on the ground.
The old woman stands behind me, two paces distant.—I do not hear her, but I feel that she is there.
And suddenly I behold that spot which had loomed black in the distance, gliding on, creeping up to me itself!
O God! I glance behind me…. The old woman is looking straight at me, and her toothless mouth is distorted in a grin….
"Thou canst not escape!"
February, 1878.