"Not everyone in your situation would talk like that..." I doubted the sincerity of his words. "The situation ... is damp and cold, but then you see it will be quite different at dawn of day. The sun will come out, and then we shall creep out of this, have some tea, eat and drink, and warm ourselves. That won't be bad, eh?" "Very good!" I admitted. "So there, you see, every evil has its good side." "And every good thing its evil side." "Amen!" exclaimed Promtov with the voice of a deacon. God knows he was a merry comrade enough. I regretted that I could not see his face, which, judging from the rich intonation of his voice, must have shown a very expressive play of feature. We talked about trifles for a long time, concealing from each other our mutual desire to be more closely acquainted, and I was inwardly lost in admiration at the dexterity with which he inveigled me into blabbing about myself while he kept his own counsel. While we were quietly conversing the rain ceased, and the darkness began to melt away; already in the East a rosy strip of dawn was glowing with a vivid radiance. Simultaneously with the dawn the freshness of morning made itself felt--that freshness which is so stimulatingly pleasant when it meets a man dressed in warm and dry clothes. "I wonder if we could find anything here for a fire--dry twigs for instance?" inquired Promtov. Crawling on the floor we searched and searched, but could find nothing. Then we decided to drag out one of the boards not very firmly fixed in its place. We pulled it out and converted it into firewood. After that Promtov proposed that we should, if possible, bore a hole in the floor of the magazine in order to get some rye grain--for if rye grain is boiled it makes a very good dish. I protested, observing that it was not proper--for thereby we should waste some hundred-weights of grain for the sake of a pound or two. "And what business is that of yours?" asked Promtov. "I have heard that one must respect the property of others." "That, my dear boy, is only necessary when the property is your own ... and it is only necessary then because your property is not other people's property...." I was silent, but I reflected that this man must have extremely liberal views with regard to property, and that the pleasure of his acquaintance might, conceivably, have its drawbacks. Soon the sun appeared, bright and cheerful. Blue patches of sky looked out from the broken clouds which were sailing slowly and wearily towards the north. Drops of rain were sparkling everywhere. Promtov and I crept out of the magazine and entered the fields, amidst the bristles of the mown corn, towards the green crooked ribbon of a village far away from us. "There's a stream," said my acquaintance.