celebrated authors and one painter!"

"What are you crying for?"

"At Kherson I killed a horse with my fists. And at Taganrog some
roughs fell upon me at night, fifteen of them. I took off their
caps and they followed me, begging: 'Uncle, give us back our caps.'
That's how I used to go on."

"What are you crying for, then, you silly?"

"But now it's all over . . . I feel it. If only I could go to
Vyazma!"

A pause followed. After a silence Shtchiptsov suddenly jumped up
and seized his cap. He looked distraught.

"Good-bye! I am going to Vyazma!" he articulated, staggering.

"And the money for the journey?"

"H'm! . . . I shall go on foot!"

"You are crazy. . . ."

The two men looked at each other, probably because the same thought
--of the boundless plains, the unending forests and swamps--
struck both of them at once.

"Well, I see you have gone off your head," the _jeune premier_
commented. "I'll tell you what, old man. . . . First thing, go to
bed, then drink some brandy and tea to put you into a sweat. And
some castor-oil, of course. Stay, where am I to get some brandy?"

Brama-Glinsky thought a minute, then made up his mind to go to a
shopkeeper called Madame Tsitrinnikov to try and get it from her
on tick: who knows? perhaps the woman would feel for them and let
them have it. The _jeune premier_ went off, and half an hour later
returned with a bottle of brandy and some castor-oil. Shtchiptsov
was sitting motionless, as before, on the bed, gazing dumbly at the
floor. He drank the castor-oil offered him by his friend like an
automaton, with no consciousness of what he was doing. Like an
automaton he sat afterwards at the table, and drank tea and brandy;
mechanically he emptied the whole bottle and let the _jeune premier_
put him to bed. The latter covered him up with a quilt and an
overcoat, advised him to get into a perspiration, and went away.

The night came on; Shtchiptsov had drunk a great deal of brandy,
but he did not sleep. He lay motionless under the quilt and stared
at the dark ceiling; then, seeing the moon looking in at the window,
he turned his eyes from the ceiling towards the companion of the
earth, and lay so with open eyes till the morning. At nine o'clock
in the morning Zhukov, the manager, ran in.

"What has put it into your head to be ill, my angel?" he cackled,
wrinkling up his nose. "Aie, aie! A man with your physique has no
business to be ill! For shame, for shame! Do you k