“What is it?” a woman s voice asked languidly.

“Mademoiselle Ilovaisky has come, . . .” answered a bass voice.

Again there was the squeak of the swing door.  Then came the roar of the wind rushing in.  Someone, probably the lame boy, ran to the door leading to the “travellers’ room,” coughed deferentially, and lifted the latch.

“This way, lady, please,” said a woman’s voice in dulcet tones.  “It’s clean in here, my beauty. . . .”

The door was opened wide and a peasant with a beard appeared in the doorway, in the long coat of a coachman, plastered all over with snow from head to foot, and carrying a big trunk on his shoulder.  He was followed into the room by a feminine figure, scarcely half his height, with no face and no arms, muffled and wrapped up like a bundle and also covered with snow.  A damp chill, as from a cellar, seemed to come to the child from the coachman and the bundle, and the fire and the candles flickered.

“What nonsense!” said the bundle angrily, “We could go perfectly well.  We have only nine more miles to go, mostly by the forest, and we should not get lost. . . .”

“As for getting lost, we shouldn’t, but the horses can’t go on, lady!” answered the coachman.  “And it is Thy Will, O Lord!  As though I had done it on purpose!”

“God knows where you have brought me. . . .  Well, be quiet. . . .  There are people asleep here, it seems.  You can go. . . .”

The coachman put the portmanteau on the floor, and as he did so, a great lump of snow fell off his shoulders.  He gave a sniff and went out.

Then the little girl saw two little hands come out from the middle of the bundle, stretch upwards and begin angrily disentangling the network of shawls, kerchiefs, and scarves.  First a big shawl fell on the ground, then a hood, then a white knitted kerchief.  After freeing her head, the traveller took off her pelisse and at once shrank to half the size.  Now she was in a long, grey coat with big buttons and bulging pockets.  From one pocket she pulled out a paper parcel, from the other a bunch of big, heavy keys, which she put down so carelessly that the sleeping man started and opened his eyes.  For some time he looked blankly round him as though he didn’t know where he was, then he shook his head, went to the corner and sat down. . . .  The newcomer took off her great coat, which made her shrink to half her size again, she took off her big felt boots, and sat down, too.

By now she no longer resembled a bundle:  she was a thin little brunette of twenty, as slim as a snake, with a long white face and curly hair.  Her nose was long and sharp, her chin, too, was long and sharp, her eyelashes were long, the corners of her mouth were sharp, and, thanks to this general sharpness, the expression of her face was biting.  Swathed in a closely fitting black dress with a mass of lace at her neck and sleeves, with sharp elbows and long pink fingers, she recalled the portraits of mediaeval English ladies.  The grave concentration of her face increased this likeness.