h paper suggestive of a cabman's faded shirt. Between the
two dingy, perspiring windows there is a thin, creaking, rickety
door, above it, green from the damp, a bell which trembles and gives
a sickly ring of itself without provocation. Glance into the
looking-glass which hangs on one of the walls, and it distorts your
countenance in all directions in the most merciless way! The shaving
and haircutting is done before this looking-glass. On the little
table, as greasy and unwashed as Makar Kuzmitch himself, there is
everything: combs, scissors, razors, a ha'porth of wax for the
moustache, a ha'porth of powder, a ha'porth of much watered eau de
Cologne, and indeed the whole barber's shop is not worth more than
fifteen kopecks.

There is a squeaking sound from the invalid bell and an elderly man
in a tanned sheepskin and high felt over-boots walks into the shop.
His head and neck are wrapped in a woman's shawl.

This is Erast Ivanitch Yagodov, Makar Kuzmitch's godfather. At one
time he served as a watchman in the Consistory, now he lives near
the Red Pond and works as a locksmith.

"Makarushka, good-day, dear boy!" he says to Makar Kuzmitch, who
is absorbed in tidying up.

They kiss each other. Yagodov drags his shawl off his head, crosses
himself, and sits down.

"What a long way it is!" he says, sighing and clearing his throat.
"It's no joke! From the Red Pond to the Kaluga gate."

"How are you?"

"In a poor way, my boy. I've had a fever."

"You don't say so! Fever!"

"Yes, I have been in bed a month; I thought I should die. I had
extreme unction. Now my hair's coming out. The doctor says I must
be shaved. He says the hair will grow again strong. And so, I
thought, I'll go to Makar. Better to a relation than to anyone else.
He will do it better and he won't take anything for it. It's rather
far, that's true, but what of it? It's a walk."

"I'll do it with pleasure. Please sit down."

With a scrape of his foot Makar Kuzmitch indicates a chair. Yagodov
sits down and looks at himself in the glass and is apparently pleased
with his reflection: the looking-glass displays a face awry, with
Kalmuck lips, a broad, blunt nose, and eyes in the forehead. Makar
Kuzmitch puts round his client's shoulders a white sheet with yellow
spots on it, and begins snipping with the scissors.

"I'll shave you clean to the skin!" he says.

"To be sure. So that I may look like a Tartar, like a bomb. The
hair will grow all the thi