...of a night's walk

The night was warm and somehow exceptionally silent; it was as if everything around was listening and watching, and Bersyenev, gripped by the still darkness, stopped involuntarily and likewise listened and watched. A faint sound like the rustle of a woman's dress started up intermittently in the tops of the near-by trees, and aroused in Bersyenev a sensation of sweetness, of mystery, almost of fear; his skin tingled, his eyes were chilled with momentary tears; he felt he wanted to tread quite silently, to walk on tip-toe, to conceal himself; a keen wind blew from the side and made him shudder slightly and stop dead; a sleepy beetle fell from a branch and bumped on the road - he cried 'Oh' softly, and stopped again. But he began to think of Elena and all those fleeting impressions vanished at once: there remained only the invigorating sense of the night's freshness, of the night's walk; his whole being was filled with the young girl's image. Bersyenev was walking with his head bowed, recalling her words, her questions... He thought he heard the tramp of hurried steps behind him. He listened...someone was running, someone was overtaking him - he heard gasps of breath - and suddenly, out of the black circle of shadow cast by a large tree, hatless, his hair dishevelled, all pale in the light of the moon, Shubin emerged before him.

[On The Eve, Turgenev, I. S.]