to fall for a whole day or a whole month, or go on falling and never reach the bottom. * Perhaps it was just the Cossack, Likhachëv, who was sitting under the wagon, but it might be the kindest, bravest, most wonderful, most splendid man in the world, whom no one knew of. * It might really have been that the hussar came for water and went back into the hollow, but perhaps he had simply vanished—disappeared
Nothing Pétya could have seen now would have surprised him. He was in a fairy kingdom where everything was possible.
He looked up at the sky. And the sky was a fairy realm like the earth. It was clearing, and over the tops of the trees clouds were swiftly sailing as if unveiling the stars.
Sometimes it looked as if the clouds were passing, and a clear black sky appeared. Sometimes it seemed as if the black spaces were clouds. Sometimes the sky seemed to be rising high, high overhead, and then it seemed to sink so low that one could touch it with one’s hand.
Pétya’s eyes began to close and he swayed a little.
The trees were dripping.
Quiet talking was heard.
The horses neighed and jostled one another.
Someone snored.
“ Ozheg-zheg, Ozheg-zheg … ” hissed the saber against the whetstone, and suddenly Pétya heard an harmonious orchestra playing some unknown, sweetly solemn hymn. Pétya was as musical as Natásha and more so than Nikoláy, but had never learned music or thought about it, and so the melody that unexpectedly came to his mind seemed to him particularly fresh and attractive. The music became more and more audible. The melody grew and passed from one