“Is it a talku?” Someone asks in a low voice.

(Talkus are mountain spirits one is especially liable to encounter when lost, and in confusing winter weather. They often take on the appearance of persons familiar to their victims, by a kind of imagination mirror effect.

“What are you doing up here?”

“Oh, just poking around. You know how it is.”

“But—you’re barefoot?!”

“We don’t feel the cold,” he says equably.

“Don’t feel the—why it must be 40 below!”

“Is that very cold?”

“... Stay away from me ... You stay away!”

“Why is that any way to pa-la-la-la-la-laver ooooooollld fffrrriieennnddd?”)

Makemin, without stopping the column, turns his head this way and that. He dons his goggles and looks some more.

“He’ll have to cross the path up ahead, unless he has already crossed the path.”

He wavingly indicates the slope, which is on our right, where this white errancy has been up until now.

“The slope ahead is too sheer on that side.”

At his order a few sergeants trot up, and he sends them fanned out ahead. There’s commotion in almost no time. One of the sergeants has collared someone.

“Who are you?”

“Spih-ch duwa!”

The sergeant gives him a shake. His defiance collapses.

I am to translate.

“Your name?”

“Megrodowite,” he says sullenly (Me-GRAW-do-weet-eh; the r is soft, last syllable very short). He’s a young man with dark curly hair, wearing a long white shirt and nothing else. His feet and lower legs are well shaped and mucky, and in his right fist he holds two limp chickens by their snapped necks.

“Where are you from?”

“I live here.”

“In the woods? Not with nice soft legs like those.”

“I live here I tell you.”

Another shake.

“You’re a thief, that’s one thing.”

“So what are you?”

“Don’t bother,” he holds up his hand to the sergeant who’s priming another shake. “I don’t care what you take—where are you from? Is there a village here?”

“All right, but I’m not from there.”

“Where are you from then?”

“It’s empty now anyway.”

“The village?”

“Yeah the village. They’ve all gone and left everything.”

“Was there an attack?”

“No, but they thought there would be or something.”

“But you’re not from there. Where are you from?”

Megrodowite is brooding.

“Let him go.”

The sergeant releases him but does not move away. Megrodowite stands there shuffling his feet and swaying a little, making up his mind. Makemin gives him time to do it in. In which to do it. He rubs the back of his neck and adjusts his thready collar.

“’M from the asylum,” he says uncertainly.

“What asylum? ... Show me.”

Megrodowite just looks at him, his head half ducked as if he expects to be cuffed.

“Is there anyone else there?”