wasted; we could not work while Radish was obliged
to pay the fellows by the day. The hungry painters almost came to
beating him, called him a cheat, a blood-sucker, a Judas, while he,
poor fellow, sighed, lifted up his hand to Heaven in despair, and
was continually going to Madame Tcheprakov for money.

VII

Autumn came on, rainy, dark, and muddy. The season of unemployment
set in, and I used to sit at home out of work for three days at a
stretch, or did various little jobs, not in the painting line. For
instance, I wheeled earth, earning about fourpence a day by it. Dr.
Blagovo had gone away to Petersburg. My sister had given up coming
to see me. Radish was laid up at home ill, expecting death from day
to day.

And my mood was autumnal too. Perhaps because, having become a
workman, I saw our town life only from the seamy side, it was my
lot almost every day to make discoveries which reduced me almost
to despair. Those of my fellow-citizens, about whom I had no opinion
before, or who had externally appeared perfectly decent, turned out
now to be base, cruel people, capable of any dirty action. We common
people were deceived, cheated, and kept waiting for hours together
in the cold entry or the kitchen; we were insulted and treated with
the utmost rudeness. In the autumn I papered the reading-room and
two other rooms at the club; I was paid a penny three-farthings the
piece, but had to sign a receipt at the rate of twopence halfpenny,
and when I refused to do so, a gentleman of benevolent appearance
in gold-rimmed spectacles, who must have been one of the club
committee, said to me:

"If you say much more, you blackguard, I'll pound your face into a
jelly!"

And when the flunkey whispered to him what I was, the son of Poloznev
the architect, he became embarrassed, turned crimson, but immediately
recovered himself and said: "Devil take him."

In the shops they palmed off on us workmen putrid meat, musty flour,
and tea that had been used and dried again; the police hustled us
in church, the assistants and nurses in the hospital plundered us,
and if we were too poor to give them a bribe they revenged themselves
by bringing us food in dirty vessels. In the post-office the pettiest
official considered he had a right to treat us like animals, and
to shout with coarse insolence: "You wait!" "Where are you shoving
to?" Even the housedogs were unfriendly to us, and fell upon us
with peculiar viciousness. But the thing