of reddish boots, patched and sadly worn. Beneath his coat, when unbuttoned, peeped a dirty shirt, as black as if it had been smeared with soot. With the cynicism of a militiaman, he called it "a flea nest."

His glance was stealthy and gloomy, the expression not of inner discontent, but rather of a vague anxiety which seemed to come from an ever-present fear of death by starvation. He talked ceaselessly and disconnectedly, passing without transition from one subject to another. He spoke whether Ivan Mikhailych listened or dozed off under the soporific of his garrulousness. He was dreadfully uncomfortable, because there were four people in the diligence and he had to sit with his legs bent, so that at the end of three or four versts he had an intolerable pain in his knee-joints. Nevertheless the pain did not prevent him from talking. Clouds of dust entered through the side windows of the vehicle, at times flooded by a flaming, scorching sheet of sunlight. But Stepan Golovliov kept on talking.

"Yes, brother," he held forth, "I have lived hard all my life. It is high time to rest. I shan't be eating her out of house and home, shall I? She has enough and to spare. What d'you think, Ivan Mikhailych?"

"Oh, your mother has plenty to eat."

"Yes, but not for me, you mean to say? Yes, friend, she has heaps of money, but not a copper for me. And to think the hag has always hated me. Why? But now I'll sing her a different song. I've made up my mind. I'm desperate. If she tries to drive me out, I won't go. If she doesn't give me food, I'll take it. I've served my country, brother. Now it's everyone's duty to help me. There's only one thing I'm afraid of, that she won't give me tobacco."

"Yes, you'll have to say good-by to tobacco."

"Then I'll put the screw on the bailiff. The devil can well afford to give his master a present now and then."

"Oh, yes, he may do that, but what if your mother forbids him to?"

"Well, in that case I'll be done for. Tobacco is the only luxury that has remained of my former style. When I had money I used to smoke not less than a quarter of a pound of Zhukov's tobacco every day."

"I guess you'll have to do without brandy, too."

"Another calamity. Brandy does me a lot of good. It breaks up my phlegm. When we were marching to Sebastopol, we had hardly reached Serpukhov, when each man had already been given three gallons of brandy."

"You must have lost your senses."

"I don't remember. We marched as far as Kharkov, but I'll be hanged if I remember anything else. The only thing I can recall is that we passed through villages and towns and that at Tula an otkupshchik made a speech. He shed tears, the scoundrel did. Yes, our holy mother Russia drank from the cup of sorrow in those days. Otkupshchiki, contractors, receivers—it's a wonder God succeeded in saving the country from them."

"Oh, your mother came in for some of the profits. In our village hardly half of the soldiers returned home. A recruit's receipt is now given for each man lost in the campaign, and the government rates such a quittance at more than four hundred rubles."

"Yes, my mater is a cunning blade. She ought to be a minister of state instead of housekeeper at Golovliovo. Let me tell you, she has been unjust to me and she has insulted me, but I respect her. The main thing is, she's clever as the devil. If not for her, where would we have been now? We would have had nothing but Golovliovo with its one hundred and one and a half souls. Just think what an enormous pile she has made."

"Well, your brothers will certainly be rich."

"Yes. But I'll have nothing, that's just as certain. Yes, friend, I've gone to rack and ruin. But my brothers, they'll be rich, especially the Bloodsucker. He can ensnare a person in no time, and it won't be long before he'll undo her, too. He'll pump the estate and the money out of her. I have an eye for these things. But Pavel, he's a fine chap. He will send my tobacco on the sly. You'll see if he doesn't. As soon as I reach Golovliovo, I'll send a note off to him: 'Dear brother, it's so and so with me. Ease my soul.' Ah, if I were rich!"

"What would you do?"

"In the first place, I'd make you roll in wealth."

"Why me? First think of yourself. I'm contented, living as I do under your mother's rule."

"Oh, no, brother, attendez! I would make you the chief marshal of all my estates. Yes, my dear friend, you have fed and warmed a soldier, accept my thanks. If not for your generosity, I should now be footing it all the way to the home of my fathers. And, of course, I would free you on the spot and open up all my treasury to you—drink, eat and be merry. What did you think I would do?"

"You'd better stop worrying about me, sir. What else would you do if you were rich?"

"In the second place, I'd get a mistress at once. At Kursk I went to mass once and saw one—a queen! She was very fidgety and restless."

"But maybe she would object to becoming your mistress."

"And how about hard cash? What's the filthy lucre for? If a hundred thousand is not enough for her, she'll take two hundred thousand. When I have money, no expense is too great for me, if it is a question of getting a bit of pleasure out of life. I must confess that at the time I let her know through our corporal that I would give her three rubles. But the wench asked five."

"That was too much for you, of course!"

"Well, I can't tell. As I said, I was in a dream the whole time. Maybe she came to me, but I forget. Those two months of marching have gone completely out of my mind. No such thing has happened to you, I suppose?"

Ivan Mikhailych was silent. Stepan Vladimirych looked at him attentively and discovered that his fellow-traveller was sound asleep.

"Umph," he said. "He has nodded off, the sleepy-head. You have grown fat, brother, on the tea and fare of your eating-house. I can't sleep, not a wink. A good chance for a lark."

Golovliov looked around and saw that everybody was asleep. The merchant at his side was constantly striking his head against a cross-beam, but kept on sleeping. His face shone as if veneered, and flies swarmed about his mouth. A splendid idea, Stepan thought, to cram all the flies down the merchant's throat. His hand began to move toward the merchant, but halfway he repented and gave up the idea. "No more pranks," he said, "enough. Sleep, friends, and rest." Meanwhile—where had he hidden the bottle? Here, the darling! "Let me see you. Lord, save Thy creatures," he hummed, taking out a bottle from a bag fastened to the side of the vehicle and applying it to his mouth. "Ah, that's better. It warms your insides, you know. Shall I have some more? Well, no. The station is about twenty versts from here. I'll have time to get as drunk as a lord. But shan't I have just one drop more? The deuce take it, the vodka. The bottle simply acts like a charm. It's wicked to drink, but how can you help it, if it is the only way of getting some sleep? I wish the vodka, the deuce take it, would do for me quick."

He gulped down some more vodka, returned the bottle to its place, and began to fill his pipe.

"We are all right," he said, talking to himself. "First, we had a sip, and here we are smoking. She won't let me have any tobacco, the old hag, sure as fate she won't, the man is right. Will she give me food? She may send me what is left over from her meals. Well, we, too, had money, but now we have none. Such is life. To-day you eat and drink your fill, you enjoy yourself and smoke a pipe,

"'And to-morrow—where art thou, man?'

Still it would not be a bad thing to have a bite now. I drink like a fish and I hardly ever have a square meal. Doctors say drinking does you good only when followed by a hearty meal, as the Most Reverend Smaragd said when we passed through Oboyan. Was it Oboyan? The deuce knows, it may have been Kromy. But that's immaterial now. The main question is, how to get something to eat. I recollect that my man