e of twenty
he had risen to be an alderman, yet never to the end could get the
better of folk's stubbornness and stupidity, even though he made it his
custom to treat all and sundry to food and drink, and to reason with
them. No, not even at the last did he attain his due. People feared him
because he revolutionised everything, revolutionised it down to the
very roots; the truth being that he had grasped the one essential fact
that law and order must be driven, like nails, into the people's very
vitals."

Mice squeaked under the floor, and on the further side of the Oka an
owl screeched, while amid the pitch-black heavens I could see a number
of blotches intermittently lightening to an elusive red and blurring
the faint glitter of the stars.

"It was one o'clock in the morning when my father died," Gubin
continued. "And upon myself, who was seventeen and had just finished my
course at the municipal school of Riazan, there devolved, naturally
enough, all the enmity that my father had incurred during his lifetime.
'He is just like his sire,' folk said. Also, I was alone, absolutely
alone, in the world, since my mother had lost her reason two years
before my father's death, and passed away in a frenzy. However, I had
an uncle, a retired unter-officier who was both a sluggard, a tippler,
and a hero (a hero because he had had his eyes shot out at Plevna, and
his left arm injured in a manner which had induced paralysis, and his
breast adorned with the military cross and a set of medals). And
sometimes, this uncle of mine would rally me on my learning. For
instance, 'Scholar,' he would say, 'what does "tiversia" mean?' 'No
such word exists,' would be my reply, and thereupon he would seize me
by the hair, for he was rather an awkward person to deal with. Another
factor as concerned making me ashamed of my scholarship was the
ignorance of the townspeople in general, and in the end I became the
common butt, a sort of 'holy idiot.'"

So greatly did these recollections move Gubin that he rose and
transferred his position to the door of the hut, where, a dark blur
against the square of blue, he lit a gurgling pipe, and puffed thereat
until his long, conical nose glowed. Presently the surging stream of
words began again:

"At twenty I married an orphan, and when she fell ill and died
childless I found myself alone once more, and without an adviser or a
friend. However, still I continued both to live and to look about me.
And in