I was awakened not, as often happens, by my own intention of waking in exactly an hour, but by a sort of strange, though faint, lapping, gurgling sound at my very ear. I raised my head....
Wonderful to relate! I was lying in the coach as before, but all round the coach, half a foot, not more, from its edge, a sheet of water lay shining in the moonlight, broken up into tiny, distinct, quivering eddies. I looked in front. On the box, with back bowed and head bent, Filofey was sitting like a statue, and a little further on, above the rippling water, I saw the curved arch of the yoke, and the horses' heads and backs. And everything as motionless, as noiseless, as though in some enchanted realm, in a dream--a dream of fairyland.... 'What does it mean?' I looked back from under the hood of the coach.... 'Why, we are in the middle of the river!'... the bank was thirty paces from us.
'Filofey!' I cried.
'What?' he answered.
'What, indeed! Upon my word! Where are we?'
'In the river.'
'I see we're in the river. But, like this, we shall be drowned directly. Is this how you cross the ford? Eh? Why, you're asleep, Filofey! Answer, do!'
'I've made a little mistake,' observed my guide;
'I've gone to one side, a bit wrong, but now we've got to wait a bit.'
'Got to wait a bit? What ever are we going to wait for?'