Yakoff tells me that he is not ill, but his face is such that I am fairly frightened. It was dreadful, dark--not human, actually!--His cheeks were drawn, his cheek-bones projected, he was mere skin and bone; his voice sounded as though it proceeded from a barrel ... while his eyes.... O Lord and Master! what eyes!--menacing, wild, incessantly darting from side to side, and it was impossible to catch them; his brows were knit, his lips seemed to be twisted on one side.... What had happened to my Joseph Most Fair,[23] to my quiet lad? I cannot comprehend it. "Can he have gone crazy?" I say to myself. He roams about like a spectre by night, he does not sleep,--and then, all of a sudden, he will take to staring into a corner as though he were completely benumbed.... It was enough to scare one! Although he had threatened to leave the house if I did not leave him in peace, yet surely I was his father! My last hope was ruined--yet I was to hold my tongue! So one day, availing myself of an opportunity, I began to entreat Yakoff with tears, I began to adjure him by the memory of his dead mother: "Tell me," I said, "as thy father in the flesh and in the spirit, Yasha, what aileth thee? Do not kill me; explain thyself, lighten thy heart! Can it be that thou hast ruined some Christian soul? If so, repent!" "Well, dear father," he suddenly says to me (this took place toward nightfall), "thou hast moved me to compassion. I will tell thee the whole truth. I have not ruined any Christian soul--but my own soul is going to perdition." "How is that?" "In this way...." And thereupon Yakoff raised his eyes to mine for the first time.--"It is going on four months now," he began.... But suddenly he broke off and began to breathe heavily. "What about the fourth month? Tell me, do not make me suffer!" "This is the fourth month that I have been seeing him." "Him? Who is he?" "Why, the person ... whom it is awkward to mention at night." I fairly turned cold all over and fell to quaking. "What?!" I said, "dost thou see _him_?" "Yes." "And dost thou see him now?" "Yes." "Where?" And I did not dare to turn round, and we both spoke in a whisper. "Why, yonder ..." and he indicated the spot with his eyes ... "yonder, in the corner." I summoned up my courage and looked at the corner; there was nothing there. "Why, good gracious, there is nothing there, Yakoff!" "_Thou_ dost not see him, but I do." Again I glanced round ... again nothing. Suddenly there recurred to my mind the little old man in the forest who had given him the chestnut. "What does he look like?" I said.... "Is he green?" "No, he is not green, but black." "Has he horns?" "No, he is like a man,--only all black." As Yakoff speaks he displays his teeth in a grin and turns as pale as a corpse, and huddles up to me in terror; and his eyes seem on the point of popping out of his head, and he keeps staring at the corner.