ildren when
he saw them, and on the whole was rather indifferent to his family,
and made fun of them. He and his family existed on credit, borrowing
wherever they could at every opportunity, even from his superiors
in the office and porters in people's houses. His was a flabby
nature; he was so lazy that he did not care what became of himself,
and drifted along heedless where or why he was going. He went where
he was taken. If he was taken to some low haunt, he went; if wine
was set before him, he drank--if it were not put before him, he
abstained; if wives were abused in his presence, he abused his wife,
declaring she had ruined his life--when wives were praised, he
praised his and said quite sincerely: "I am very fond of her, poor
thing!" He had no fur coat and always wore a rug which smelt of the
nursery. When at supper he rolled balls of bread and drank a great
deal of red wine, absorbed in thought, strange to say, I used to
feel almost certain that there was something in him of which perhaps
he had a vague sense, though in the bustle and vulgarity of his
daily life he had not time to understand and appreciate it. He
played a little on the piano. Sometimes he would sit down at the
piano, play a chord or two, and begin singing softly:

"What does the coming day bring to me?"

But at once, as though afraid, he would get up and walk from the
piano.

The visitors usually arrived about ten o'clock. They played cards
in Orlov's study, and Polya and I handed them tea. It was only on
these occasions that I could gauge the full sweetness of a flunkey's
life. Standing for four or five hours at the door, watching that
no one's glass should be empty, changing the ash-trays, running to
the table to pick up the chalk or a card when it was dropped, and,
above all, standing, waiting, being attentive without venturing to
speak, to cough, to smile--is harder, I assure you, is harder
than the hardest of field labour. I have stood on watch at sea for
four hours at a stretch on stormy winter nights, and to my thinking
it is an infinitely easier duty.

They used to play cards till two, sometimes till three o'clock at
night, and then, stretching, they would go into the dining-room to
supper, or, as Orlov said, for a snack of something. At supper there
was conversation. It usually began by Orlov's speaking with laughing
eyes of some acquaintance, of some book he had lately been reading,
of a new appointment or Government sc