o help me clean out a well at the Birkins' place. Will
the job suit you? Very well, then. Always I like to settle things
overnight, as it is at night that I can best see through people."

The "house" turned out to be nothing more than an old one-eyed,
hunchbacked washhouse or shanty which, bulging of wall, stood wedged
against the clayey slope of a ravine as though it would fain bury
itself amid the boughs of the neighbouring arbutus trees and elders.

Without striking a light, Gubin flung himself upon some mouldy hay that
littered a threshold as narrow as the threshold of a dog-kennel, and
said to me with an air of authority as he did so:

"I will sleep with my head towards the door, for the atmosphere here is
a trifle confined."

And, true enough, the place reeked of elderberries, soap, burnt stuff,
and decayed leaves. I could not conceive why I had come to such a spot.

The twisted branches of the neighbouring trees hung motionless athwart
the sky, and concealed from view the golden dust of the Milky Way,
while across the Oka an owl kept screeching, and the strange, arresting
remarks of my companion pelted me like showers of peas.

"Do not be surprised that I should live in a remote ravine," he said.
"I, whose hand is against every man, can at least feel lord of what I
survey here."

Too dark was it for me to see my host's face, but my memory recalled
his bald cranium, and the yellow light of the lamps falling upon a nose
as long as a woodpecker's beak, a pair of grey and stubbly cheeks, a
pair of thin lips covered by a bristling moustache, a mouth sharp-cut
as with a knife, and full of black, evil-looking stumps, a pair of
pointed, sensitive, mouse-like ears, and a clean-shaven chin. The last
feature in no way consorted with his visage, or with his whole
appearance; but at least it rendered him worthy of remark, and enabled
one to realise that one had to deal with neither a peasant nor a
soldier nor a tradesman, but with a man peculiar to himself. Also, his
frame was lanky, with long arms and legs, and pointed knees and elbows.
In fact, so like a piece of string was his body that to twist it round
and round, or even to tie it into a knot, would, seemingly, have been
easy enough.

For awhile I found his speech difficult to follow; wherefore, silently
I gazed at the sky, where the stars appeared to be playing at
follow-my-leader.

"Are you asleep?" at length he inquired.

"No, I am not. Why do you shave yo