Gravely he looked round him, then turned back into the forest....
Was my dream thus? Frankly I do not know--too neat an allegory to be
true, perhaps--and yet there was something of this in it. I know that I
saw Boris, and the Rat, and Vera, and Semyonov, and Markovitch,
appearing, vanishing, reappearing, and that I was strongly conscious
that the submerged and ruined world did not _touch_ them, and was only a
background to their own individual activities.... I know that Markovitch
seemed to come to me again and cry, "Be patient... be patient.... Have
faith... be faithful!"
I know that I woke struggling to keep him with me, crying out that he
was not to leave me, that that way was danger.... I woke to find my room
flooded with sunshine, and my old woman looking at me with disapproval.
"Wake up, Barin," she was saying, "it's three o'clock."
"Three o'clock?" I muttered, trying to pull myself together.
"Three in the afternoon... I have some tea for you."
When I realised the time I had the sensation of the wildest panic. I
jumped from my bed, pushing the old woman out of the room. I had
betrayed my trust! I had betrayed my trust! I felt assured 'that some
awful catastrophe had occurred, something that I might have prevented.
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