said Bugrov, addressing him.
"What a fellow you are really! He's always asleep, always asleep
. . . The sleepy head! Come, play us something lively. . . ."

Groholsky turned the guitar, touched the strings, and began singing:

"Yesterday I waited for my dear one. . . ."

I listened to the singing, looked at Bugrov's well-fed countenance,
and thought: "Nasty brute!" I felt like crying. . . . When he had
finished singing, Groholsky bowed to us, and went out.

"And what am I to do with him?" Bugrov said when he had gone away.
"I do have trouble with him! In the day he is always brooding and
brooding. . . . And at night he moans. . . . He sleeps, but he sighs
and moans in his sleep. . . . It is a sort of illness. . . . What
am I to do with him, I can't think! He won't let us sleep. . . . I
am afraid that he will go out of his mind. People think he is badly
treated here. . . . In what way is he badly treated? He eats with
us, and he drinks with us. . . . Only we won't give him money. If
we were to give him any he would spend it on drink or waste it
. . . . That's another trouble for me! Lord forgive me, a sinner!"

They made me stay the night. When I woke next morning, Bugrov was
giving some one a lecture in the adjoining room. . . .

"Set a fool to say his prayers, and he will crack his skull on the
floor! Why, who paints oars green! Do think, blockhead! Use your
sense! Why don't you speak?"

"I . . . I . . . made a mistake," said a husky tenor apologetically.

The tenor belonged to Groholsky.

Groholsky saw me to the station.

"He is a despot, a tyrant," he kept whispering to me all the way.
"He is a generous man, but a tyrant! Neither heart nor brain are
developed in him. . . . He tortures me! If it were not for that
noble woman, I should have gone away long ago. I am sorry to leave
her. It's somehow easier to endure together."

Groholsky heaved a sigh, and went on:

"She is with child. . . . You notice it? It is really my child. . . .
Mine. . . . She soon saw her mistake, and gave herself to me
again. She cannot endure him. . . ."

"You are a rag," I could not refrain from saying to Groholsky.

"Yes, I am a man of weak character. . . . That is quite true. I was
born so. Do you know how I came into the world? My late papa cruelly
oppressed a certain little clerk--it was awful how he treated
him! He poisoned his life. Well . . . and my late mama was
tender-hearted. She came from the people, she w