Page:The Complete Works of Lyof N. Tolstoi - 08 (Crowell, 1899).djvu/66

54 were sparkling. I gazed up, and saw white arabesques, and beyond the arabesques an inky black vault, and variegated fires flashing.

As I gazed around I remembered that we were in the forest and that what had seemed to me a palace was the trees covered with snow and frost, and the fires were the stars beyond the branches, twinkling in the sky.

During the night the hoar-frost had fallen; there was frost on the branches, and frost on my shuba, and Demyan was all covered by frost, and the air was full of falling hoar-frost.

I awakened Demyan. We got up on our snow-shoes and started on our way. It was silent in the forest. The only sound was what we made gliding over the soft snow, and the occasional cracking of a tree under the frost, and the echo of it dying away through the aisles.

Once only some living creature rustled out from under our feet, and scurried away. I immediately thought it might be the bear. We went to the spot which the animal had left, and found the trail of a hare. The aspens were girdled. Hares had been nibbling there.

When we reached the road, we took off our snow-shoes and fastened them behind, and marched along the road. It was easy going. The snow-shoes behind us slipped along, clattering over the smooth road; the snow creaked under our boots, and the cold hoar-frost clung to our faces like down. And the stars above the tree-tops ran along apparently racing with us, flashing and disappearing, just as if the whole heaven were in motion.

My comrade was asleep; I awakened him.

We told him how we had surrounded the bear, and we told the landlord to collect the peasant whippers-in early in the morning. We got something to eat and turned in.

I was so weary that I should have been glad to sleep till dinner-time, but my comrade roused me. I leaped