t too incoherently for us to make out his meaning. At last, with the
cry, 'Now I will go; now I will go home!' he fell back and died."

Here Petrovitsch paused in his story. "The whole thing made a deeper
impression on me than I knew at the time. Striegler, after a while,
returned to Spain and, I hear, married a daughter of Caballero. I
continued my travels through France. At Marseilles I met your father,
who saw I was not such a good-for-nothing fellow as the world supposed,
and gave me the means of starting business on my own account. The
saving and starving I had long practised for others I now tried for
myself. I met with considerable success, paid back your father's money,
and received from him more wares. My business led me over half the
world. I could speak five languages; but a word of German, especially
of Black Forest German, always made my heart leap in my bosom. One
great weakness of mine was that I could never conquer my homesickness.
It haunted my steps like a ghost, and spoiled the relish of many a
jolly drinking-bout."

Petrovitsch paused again, poked the fire till it crackled merrily, and
then, rubbing his hand over his old, wrinkled face, resumed: "I pass
over ten years. I am in Odessa, and a made man. A fine city Odessa is,
where all nations are at home. One friend I have there whom I never
shall forget. There are villages in the neighborhood, Lustdorf,
Kleinliebenthal, and others, occupied wholly by Germans; not from our
part of the country, however, but chiefly from Wurtemberg. Many
commissions were intrusted to me by persons at home; but I kept
faithfully by your father until his death. Although my property was
handsome, quite sufficient to enable me to drive, I travelled over all
Russia on foot, not knowing what fatigue meant. Look at the muscles of
that arm; they are of steel. What must they have been thirty years ago?
They were something to be proud of then, I can tell you. I settled in
Moscow, and remained there four years. Yet I can hardly call it
settling, for I never rested an hour; never made myself at home, as the
phrase is. In that way I could better earn and save. I never, in all my
life, was called in the morning, nor turned over for another nap when I
once waked.

"Many of our country-people came to me, and always found me ready to
help. Not a few out in the world owe their fortune to me. I asked about
home, and was told my father was dead, my mother was dead, and my
brother was mar