e pictures and looking-glasses, and did it all apparently
without the slightest enjoyment, scowling and shouting irritably,
with contempt for the people, with an expression of hatred in his
eyes and his manners. He made the engineer sing a solo, made the
bass singers drink a mixture of wine, vodka, and oil.

At six o'clock they handed him the bill.

"Nine hundred and twenty-five roubles, forty kopecks," said Almer,
and shrugged his shoulders. "What's it for? No, wait, we must go
into it!"

"Stop!" muttered Frolov, pulling out his pocket-book. "Well! . . .
let them rob me. That's what I'm rich for, to be robbed! . . . You
can't get on without parasites! . . . You are my lawyer. You get
six thousand a year out of me and what for? But excuse me, . . . I
don't know what I am saying."

As he was returning home with Almer, Frolov murmured:

"Going home is awful to me! Yes! . . . There isn't a human being I
can open my soul to. . . . They are all robbers . . . traitors
. . . . Oh, why did I tell you my secret? Yes . . . why? Tell me why?"

At the entrance to his house, he craned forward towards Almer and,
staggering, kissed him on the lips, having the old Moscow habit of
kissing indiscriminately on every occasion.

"Good-bye . . . I am a difficult, hateful man," he said. "A horrid,
drunken, shameless life. You are a well-educated, clever man, but
you only laugh and drink with me . . . there's no help from any of
you. . . . But if you were a friend to me, if you were an honest
man, in reality you ought to have said to me: 'Ugh, you vile, hateful
man! You reptile!'"

"Come, come," Almer muttered, "go to bed."

"There is no help from you; the only hope is that, when I am in the
country in the summer, I may go out into the fields and a storm
come on and the thunder may strike me dead on the spot. . . .
Good-bye."

Frolov kissed Almer once more and muttering and dropping asleep as
he walked, began mounting the stairs, supported by two footmen.

THE MARSHAL'S WIDOW

ON the first of February every year, St. Trifon's day, there is an
extraordinary commotion on the estate of Madame Zavzyatov, the widow
of Trifon Lvovitch, the late marshal of the district. On that day,
the nameday of the deceased marshal, the widow Lyubov Petrovna has
a requiem service celebrated in his memory, and after the requiem
a thanksgiving to the Lord. The whole district assembles for the
service. There you will see Hrumov the present marshal,