Birds of Heaven by Vladimir Korolenko

We walked for more than an hour through the dark fields. Weariness claimed its own and we neither wished to speak nor listen. At first I kept on thinking and tried in the darkness to imagine the appearance of my companions. This worked with Andrey Ivanovich, whom I knew well, and also with the little wanderer, but I had forgotten the features of Avtonomov, and as I looked at his dark form I could not recall his face. Avtonomov at the clerk's house and yesterday's preacher seemed two distinct people.

My thoughts became still more confused; several days of tramping -- the dull night, the silence, the heavy, muddy road or the absence of one -- this was all that I could learn from my great weariness, and I began to lose myself as I walked along. It was a sort of semi-consciousness which permitted fantastic dreams strangely intertwined with reality. But reality for me was merely the dark road and three misty shapes, now behind me, now driving me onward. I went with them almost unconsciously.