"I shouldn't sleep if I went to bed.
But I've got a headache that is not a headache, I smell a smell that isn't a smell, I'm going to be sick--and yet I'm not going to be sick." "Come outside," he said, "and get rid of this air." We went out and sat down on a wooden bench that bordered the yard.

Before us was the high-road that ran from the town of S---- into the very heart of the Carpathians.

As the cold grey faded we could catch the thin outline of those mountains, faint, like pencil-lines upon the sky now washed with pink, covered in their nearer reaches by thick forests, insubstantial, although they were close at hand, like water or long clouds.

We could see the road, white and clear at our feet, melting into shadow beyond us, and catching in the little misty pools the coloured reflection of the morning sky.
The air was very fresh; a cock behind me welcomed the sun; the cold band withdrew from my forehead.
Nikitin was silent and I, silent also, sat there, almost asleep, happy and tranquil.

It seemed to me very natural to him that he should neither move nor speak, but after a time he began to talk.