The twilight deepened. The last purple resplendance had already faded from the sunset, when tired and tattered, I at last succeeded in pushing my way through the bushes of the 'demon's forest.' The sky was dark, and twinkling with myriads of stars. My expedition had failed in every respect. To complete the misfortune, the white mists hung like muslin over the valley, and entirely prevented me from satisfying my curiosity. I was therefore only able to take pleasure in the play of the moonlight. It was really a beautiful view, although rather wild and gloomy. Nearly the whole of the broad valley, to the very edge of the wood where the dark, bare tree-tops projected beyond the border of mist, was filled by white balls of vapour; the moon was moving slowly above them. Looking for a moment into the depths of the valley, she drew aside the floating veil, and touched the sleeping lake below with her silvery kiss. I stood a long while to gaze and to rest. The deep silence, the stillness which always reigns in these woods, the knowledge that no one but myself was to be found in that solitude for twenty versts round, filled me with a strange feeling of anxiety and longing. I roused myself in order to dispel this. It was unfortunately time to think of returning;--no easy matter, however, for in making my way through the wood, I had lost a clear conception of the right track. At last I hit on a small footpath, and decided to follow it in the hope that it would lead me to some inhabited spot. I had scarcely gone twenty steps before becoming persuaded that I was not walking on a path, but on one of the numerous tracks made in the wood by water or animals. It was therefore necessary to return to the place from which I had started, for only thence could I more or less trace the way leading in a bee-line through the wood. But the place had disappeared; the night had shrouded it in new and different shadows, and the mist had drawn its silver web across it. I walked for some time, searching in vain, and haunted by the thought of forest madness. I had seen people brought home from the 'taiga'[18] no longer in possession of their faculties, pale and miserable, and with the traces of terror and madness in their eyes. These unhappy men had often lost their way quite near houses, without seeing them or being able to recognize the points of the compass, although the sun was shining, and they had wandered about, crying and howling like wild animals. After recovering, they said that they had seen the demon. One of the causes of this illness is the fatigue brought on by the strain of the vain search. So I sat down on a felled trunk, resolving to wait for daybreak.