ch, "and find a fisski, or
drug-store, and get something for your face."

"Stay where you are," said Yump. And Itch stayed.

Meantime Serge had gone upstairs with the fish and the
duck and the cheese and the pudding. As he went up he
thought. "It is selfish to eat alone. I will give part
of the fish to the others." And when he got a little
further up the steps he thought, "I will give them all
of the fish." And when he got higher still he thought,
"They shall have everything."

Then he opened the door and came into the big room where
the students were playing with matches at the big table
and drinking golgol out of cups. "Here is food, brothers,"
he said. "Take it. I need none."

The students took the food and they cried, "Rah, Rah,"
and beat the fish against the table. But the pudding they
would not take. "We have no axe," they said. "Keep it."

Then they poured out golgol for Serge and said, "Drink it."

But Serge would not.

"I must work," he said, and all the students laughed.
"He wants to work!" they cried. "Rah, Rah."

But Serge went up to his room and lighted his taper, made
of string dipped in fat, and set himself to study. "I
must work," he repeated.

So Serge sat at his books. It got later and the house
grew still. The noise of the students below ceased and
then everything was quiet.

Serge sat working through the night. Then presently it
grew morning and the dark changed to twilight and Serge
could see from his window the great building with the
barred windows across the street standing out in the grey
mist of the morning.

Serge had often studied thus through the night and when
it was morning he would say, "It is morning," and would
go down and help Madame Vasselitch unbar the iron shutters
and unchain the door, and remove the bolts from the window
casement.

But on this morning as Serge looked from his window his
eyes saw a figure behind the barred window opposite to
him. It was the figure of a girl, and she was kneeling
on the floor and she was in prayer, for Serge could see
that her hands were before her face. And as he looked
all his blood ran warm to his head, and his limbs trembled
even though he could not see the girl's face. Then the
girl rose from her knees and turned her face towards the
bars, and Serge knew that it was Olga Ileyitch and that
she had seen and known him.

Then he came down the stairs and Madame Vasselitch was
there undoing the shutters and removing the nails