Page:Leskov - The Sentry and other Stories.djvu/190

 174 I don't know what I wanted to do. I fell down on the floor the sounds were still more distinct  there was neither a knife nor a nail at hand  there was nothing with which to end it I took my own plait, wound it round my neck—wound it round  tighter and tighter, till I only heard ringing in my ears and saw circles before my eyes, then everything ceased. When I came to myself again I felt I was in a strange place in a large light hut. There were many calves round me—more than ten—such caressing little calves; they came up and licked me with their cool tongues—they thought they were sucking their mother—I awoke because they tickled. I looked round and thought, "Where am I?" Then I saw a woman come into the room, a tall, elderly woman dressed in striped blue linen with a striped linen kerchief on her head. She had a kind face.

The woman noticed I had come to my senses and began caressing me and told me I was still on the Count's estate, but in the calves' house.

"It was there," explained Lyubov Onisimovna, pointing with her hand to the very furthest corner of the grey half-ruined fence.