my family,
throwing it in their teeth that they were living upon me; I would
make a row and carry on so that half a dozen policemen couldn't
have managed me. The frost makes one spiteful and drives one to
drink."

Yegor Ivanitch clasped his hands and went on:

"And when we were taking fish to Moscow in the winter, Holy Mother!"
And spluttering as he talked, he began describing the horrors he
endured with his shopmen when he was taking fish to Moscow. . . .

"Yes," sighed the governor, "it is wonderful what a man can endure!
You used to take wagon-loads of fish to Moscow, Yegor Ivanitch,
while I in my time was at the war. I remember one extraordinary
instance. . . ."

And the governor described how, during the last Russo-Turkish War,
one frosty night the division in which he was had stood in the snow
without moving for thirteen hours in a piercing wind; from fear of
being observed the division did not light a fire, nor make a sound
or a movement; they were forbidden to smoke. . . .

Reminiscences followed. The governor and the mayor grew lively and
good-humoured, and, interrupting each other, began recalling their
experiences. And the bishop told them how, when he was serving in
Siberia, he had travelled in a sledge drawn by dogs; how one day,
being drowsy, in a time of sharp frost he had fallen out of the
sledge and been nearly frozen; when the Tunguses turned back and
found him he was barely alive. Then, as by common agreement, the
old men suddenly sank into silence, sat side by side, and mused.

"Ech!" whispered the mayor; "you'd think it would be time to forget,
but when you look at the water-carriers, at the schoolboys, at the
convicts in their wretched gowns, it brings it all back! Why, only
take those musicians who are playing now. I'll be bound, there is
a pain in their hearts; a pinch at their stomachs, and their trumpets
are freezing to their lips. . . . They play and think: 'Holy Mother!
we have another three hours to sit here in the cold.'"

The old men sank into thought. They thought of that in man which
is higher than good birth, higher than rank and wealth and learning,
of that which brings the lowest beggar near to God: of the helplessness
of man, of his sufferings and his patience. . . .

Meanwhile the air was turning blue . . . the door opened and two
waiters from Savatin's walked in, carrying trays and a big muffled
teapot. When the glasses had been filled and there was a strong
smell of ci