It was a warm, dark, autumn night. It had been raining for four days. Having changed horses twice and galloped twenty miles in an hour and a half over a sticky, muddy road, Bolkhovítinov reached Litashëvka after one o’clock at night. Dismounting at a cottage on whose wattle fence hung a signboard, GENERAL STAFF, and throwing down his reins, he entered a dark passage.

“The general on duty, quick! It’s very important!” said he to someone who had risen and was sniffing in the dark passage.

“He has been very unwell since the evening and this is the third night he has