Trirodov opened the gate, and was followed by Kirsha and Grisha. The night hovered all around them, and the forgotten Navii footpath stretched in a black strip through the darkness. Kirsha shivered--he felt the cold, heavy earth under his bare feet; the cold air pressed against his bare knees, the cold moist freshness of the night blew against his half-bared breast. He heard his father ask in a low voice: “Kirsha, are you not afraid?” “No,” whispered Kirsha, as he breathed in the fresh aroma of the dew and the light mist. The light of the moon was seductive with mystery. She smiled with her lifeless, tranquil face, and appeared to be saying: “What was will be again. What was will happen more than once.” The night was peaceful and clear. They walked a long time--Trirodov and Kirsha, and some distance behind them the quiet Grisha followed. At last there appeared, quite near, peering through the mist, the low white cemetery wall. Another road cut across theirs. Quite narrow, its worn cobblestones gleamed dimly in the moonlight. The road of the living and the road of the dead crossed each other at the entrance of the cemetery. In the field near the crossing several mounds were visible--they were the unmarked graves of suicides and convicts. The whole neighbourhood, bewitched with mystery and fear, seemed oppressed. The flat field stretched far--all enveloped in a light mist. Far to the left, the town fires showed their vague glimmers through the mist--and marked off by the wall of mist, the town seemed to be very distant, and to be guarding jealously from the fields of night the tumultuous voices of life. An old witch, grey, and all bent, appeared from somewhere; she swung a crutch and stumbled on in haste. She was mumbling angrily: “It doesn’t smell of our spirit. Strangers have come! Why have they come? What can strangers want here? What are they seeking? They’ll find what they don’t want to find. Ours will see them, and will tear them to pieces, and will scatter the pieces before all the winds.” Suddenly there was a weird rustle, there rose all about them the squeak of piping little voices, and the sounds of a confused scampering. At the crosspaths there darted in all directions, as thick as dust, countless hordes of grey sprites and evil spirits. Their running was so impetuous that they could have borne along with them every living, weak-willed soul. And it could already be seen that running in their midst were the pitiful souls of little people. Kirsha whispered in a voice full of fear: “Quicker, quicker into the ring! They will bear us away if we don’t mark ourselves in.” Trirodov called quietly: “Come here, come here, quiet boy, draw a circle around us with your nocturnal little stick.”