disappointment
that he is but a sluggard, but a braggart, but one who is petty and
weak and blinded with conceit and distorted with envy, but one between
whose word and whose deed there gapes a disparity even wider and deeper
than the disparity which divides the word from the deed of the man of
winter, of the man who, though he be as tardy as a snail, at least is
making some way in the world, in contradistinction from the failure who
revolves ever in a single spot, like some barren old maid before the
reflection in her looking-glass.

Hence, as I listened to Gubin, there recurred to me more than one
instance of his type.

"Yes, I have succeeded in observing life throughout," he muttered
drowsily as his head sank slowly upon his breast.

And sleep overtook myself with similar suddenness. Apparently that
slumber was of a few minutes' duration only, yet what aroused me was
Gubin pulling at my leg.

"Get up now," he said. "It is time that we were off."

And as his bluish-grey eyes peered into my face, somehow I derived from
their mournful expression a sense of intellectuality. Beneath the hair
on his hollow cheeks were reddish veins, while similar veins, bluish in
tint, covered with a network his temples, and his bare arms had the
appearance of being made of tanned leather.

Dawn had not yet broken when we rose and proceeded through the
slumbering streets beneath a sky that was of a dull yellow, and amid an
atmosphere that was full of the smell of burning.

"Five days now has the forest been on fire," observed Gubin. "Yet the
fools cannot succeed in putting it out."

Presently the establishment of the merchants Birkin lay before us, an
establishment of curious aspect, since it constituted, rather, a
conglomeration of appendages to a main building of ground floor and
attics, with four windows facing on to the street, and a series of
underpropping annexes. That series extended to the wing, and was solid
and permanent, and bade fair to overflow into the courtyard, and
through the entrance-gates, and across the street, and to the very
kitchen-garden and flower-garden themselves. Also, it seemed to have
been stolen piecemeal from somewhere, and at different periods, and
from different localities, and tacked at haphazard on to the walls of
the parent erection. Moreover, all the windows of the latter were
small, and in their green panes, as they confronted the world, there
was a timid and suspicious air, while, in partic