yes. Why not? What can we do now anyhow? Where shall we go? He's
ruined us, ruined us."

The old woman burst out sobbing.

Gerasim heard all that, and it stabbed him like a dagger. He realised
what misfortune he would be bringing the old people, and it made him
sick at heart. He stood there a long while, saddened, lost in thought,
then he turned and went back into the coachman's room.

"Ah, you forgot something?"

"No, Yegor Danilych." Gerasim stammered out, "I've come--listen--I
want to thank you ever and ever so much--for the way you received
me--and--and all the trouble you took for me--but--I can't take the
place."

"What! What does that mean?"

"Nothing. I don't want the place. I will look for another one for
myself."

Yegor flew into a rage.

"Did you mean to make a fool of me, did you, you idiot? You come here
so meek--'Try for me, do try for me'--and then you refuse to take the
place. You rascal, you have disgraced me!"

Gerasim found nothing to say in reply. He reddened, and lowered his
eyes. Yegor turned his back scornfully and said nothing more.

Then Gerasim quietly picked up his cap and left the coachman's room.
He crossed the yard rapidly, went out by the gate, and hurried off
down the street. He felt happy and lighthearted.

ONE AUTUMN NIGHT

BY MAXIM GORKY

Once in the autumn I happened to be in a very unpleasant and
inconvenient position. In the town where I had just arrived and where
I knew not a soul, I found myself without a farthing in my pocket and
without a night's lodging.

Having sold during the first few days every part of my costume without
which it was still possible to go about, I passed from the town into
the quarter called "Yste," where were the steamship wharves--a quarter
which during the navigation season fermented with boisterous,
laborious life, but now was silent and deserted, for we were in the
last days of October.

Dragging my feet along the moist sand, and obstinately scrutinising it
with the desire to discover in it any sort of fragment of food, I
wandered alone among the deserted buildings and warehouses, and
thought how good it would be to get a full meal.

In our present state of culture hunger of the mind is more quickly
satisfied than hunger of the body. You wander about the streets, you
are surrounded by buildings not bad-looking from the outside and--you
may safely say it--not so badly furnished inside, and the sight of
them may excite w