So passed the day ... but the night!
XI
It began well; he soon fell asleep, and when his aunt went into him on tip-toe to make the sign of the cross three times over him in his sleep—she did so every night—he lay breathing as quietly as a child. But before dawn he had a dream.
He dreamed he was on a bare steppe, strewn with big stones, under a lowering sky. Among the stones curved a little path; he walked along it.
Suddenly there rose up in front of him something of the nature of a thin cloud. He looked steadily at it; the cloud turned into a woman in a white gown with a bright sash round her waist. She was hurrying away from him. He saw neither her face nor her hair ... they were covered by a long veil. But he had an intense desire to overtake her, and to look into her face. Only, however much he hastened, she went more quickly than he.
On the path lay a broad flat stone, like a tombstone. It blocked up the way. The woman stopped. Aratov ran up to her; but yet he could not see her eyes ... they were shut. Her face was white, white as snow; her hands hung lifeless. She was like a statue.
Slowly, without bending a single limb, she fell backwards, and sank down upon the tombstone.... And then Aratov lay down beside her, stretched out straight like a figure on a monument, his hands folded like a dead man’s.
But now the woman suddenly rose, and went away. Aratov tried to get up too ... but he could neither stir nor unclasp his hands, and could only gaze after her in despair.
Then the woman suddenly turned round, and he saw bright living eyes, in a living but unknown face. She laughed, she waved her hand to him ... and still he could not move.
She laughed once more, and quickly retreated, merrily nodding her head, on which there was a crimson wreath of tiny roses.