One day--it was the month of June, and evening was coming on--a servant announced the arrival of Martin Petrovitch. My mother was surprised: we had not seen him for over a week, but he had never visited us so late before. ‘Something has happened!’ she exclaimed in an undertone. The face of Martin Petrovitch, when he rolled into the room and at once sank into a chair near the door, wore such an unusual expression, it was so preoccupied and positively pale, that my mother involuntarily repeated her exclamation aloud. Martin Petrovitch fixed his little eyes upon her, was silent for a space, sighed heavily, was silent again, and articulated at last that he had come about something … which … was of a kind, that on account of.… Muttering these disconnected words, he suddenly got up and went out. My mother rang, ordered the footman, who appeared, to overtake Martin Petrovitch at once and bring him back without fail, but the latter had already had time to get into his droshky and drive away. Next morning my mother, who was astonished and even alarmed, as much by Martin Petrovitch’s strange behaviour as by the extraordinary expression of his face, was on the point of sending a special messenger to him, when he made his appearance. This time he seemed more composed. ‘Tell me, my good friend, tell me,’ cried my mother, directly she saw him, ‘what ever has happened to you? I thought yesterday, upon my word I did.… “Mercy on us!” I thought, “Hasn’t our old friend gone right off his head?”’ ‘I’ve not gone off my head, madam,’ answered Martin Petrovitch; ‘I’m not that sort of man. But I want to consult with you.’ ‘What about?’ ‘I’m only in doubt, whether it will be agreeable to you in this same contingency----’ ‘Speak away, speak away, my good sir, but more simply. Don’t alarm me! What’s this same contingency? Speak more plainly. Or is it your melancholy come upon you again?’ Harlov scowled. ‘No, it’s not melancholy--that comes upon me in the new moon; but allow me to ask you, madam, what do you think about death?’ My mother was taken aback. ‘About what?’ ‘About death. Can death spare any one whatever in this world?’ ‘What have you got in your head, my good friend? Who of us is immortal? For all you’re born a giant, even to you there’ll be an end in time.’ ‘There will! oh, there will!’ Harlov assented and he looked downcast. ‘I’ve had a vision come to me in my dreams,’ he brought out at last. ‘What are you saying?’ my mother interrupted him. ‘A vision in my dreams,’ he repeated--‘I’m a seer of visions, you know!’ ‘You!’ ‘I. Didn’t you know it?’ Harlov sighed. ‘Well, so.… Over a week ago, madam, I lay down, on the very last day of eating meat before St. Peter’s fast-day; I lay down after dinner to rest a bit, well, and so I fell asleep, and dreamed a raven colt ran into the room to me. And this colt began sporting about and grinning. Black as a beetle was the raven colt.’ Harlov ceased. ‘Well?’ said my mother.