is wet moustache has been dried, his level voice resumes its speech in
tones as measured as those of one reading aloud from the Psalter.

"Have you noticed a shop in Zhitnaia Street kept by an old man named
Asiev? Once that man had ten sons. Six of them, however, died in
infancy. Of the remainder the eldest, a fine singer, was at once
extravagant and a bookworm; wherefore, whilst an officer's servant at
Tashkend, he cut the throats of his master and mistress, and for doing
so was executed by shooting. As a matter of fact, the tale has it that
he had been making love to his mistress, and then been thrown over in
favour of his master once more. And another son, Grigori, after being
given a high school education at St. Petersburg, became a lunatic. And
another, Alexei, entered the army as a cavalryman, but is now acting as
a circus rider, and probably has also become a drunkard. And the
youngest son of all, Nikolai, ran away as a boy, and, eventually
arriving in Norway with a precious scheme for catching fish in the
Arctic Ocean, met with failure through the fact that he had overlooked
the circumstance that we Russians have fish of our own and to spare,
and had to have his interest assigned by his father to a local
monastery. So much for fish of the Arctic Seas! Yet if Nikolai had only
waited, if he had only been more patient, he--"

Here Vologonov lowers his voice, and continues with something of the
growl of an angry dog:

"I too have had sons, one of whom was killed at Kushka (a document has
certified to that effect), another was drowned whilst drunk, three more
died in infancy, and only two are still alive. Of these last, I know
that one is acting as a waiter in a hotel at Smolensk, while the other,
Melenti, was educated for the Church, sent to study in a seminary,
induced to abscond and get into trouble, and eventually dispatched to
Siberia. There now! Yes, the Russian is what might be called a
'lightweighted' individual, an individual who, unless he holds himself
down by the head, is soon carried off by the wind like a chicken's
feather--for we are too self-confident and restless. Before now, I
myself have been a gull, a man lacking balance: for never does youth
realise its own insignificance, or know how to wait."

Dissertations of the kind drop from the old man like water from a leaky
pipe on a cold, blustery day in autumn. Wagging his grey beard, he
talks and talks, until I begin to think that he must be an evi