“Here’s a stake to the right, and another, and here’s a third,” Vasíli Andréevich counted, “and here in front is the forest,” thought he, as he looked at something dark in front of him. But what had seemed to him a forest was only a bush. They passed the bush and drove on for another hundred yards but there was no fourth way-mark nor any forest.

“We must reach the forest soon,” thought Vasíli Andréevich, and animated by the vodka and the tea he did not stop but shook the reins, and the good obedient horse responded, now ambling, now slowly trotting in the direction in which he was sent, though he knew that he was not going the right way. Ten minutes went by, but there was still no forest.

“There now, we must be astray again,” said Vasíli Andréevich, pulling up.