ittle more and she, in all probability,
would have burst out crying in the middle of the street; but
fortunately, they by this time had driven up to the house where
Lichonin was staying.

"Well, here we are at home," said the student. "Stop, driver!"

And when he had paid him, he could not refrain from declaiming with
pathos, his hand extended theatrically straight before him:

"And into my house, calm and fearless,
As its full mistress walk thou in!"

And again the unfathomable, prophetic smile wrinkled the aged brown
face of the cabby.

CHAPTER X.

The room in which Lichonin lived was situated on the fifth story and a
half. And a half, because there are such five, six, and seven-story
profitable houses, packed to overflowing and cheap, on top of which are
erected still other sorry bug-breeders of roof iron, something in the
nature of mansards; or more exactly, bird-houses, in which it is
fearfully cold in winter, while in the summer time it is just as torrid
as in the tropics. Liubka with difficulty clambered upward. It seemed
to her that now, now, two steps more, and she would drop straight down
on the steps and fall into a sleep from which nothing would be able to
wake her. But Lichonin was saying all the time:

"My dear! I can see you are tired. But that's nothing. Lean upon me. We
are going upwards all the time! Always higher and higher! Is this not a
symbol of all human aspirations? My comrade, my sister, lean upon my
arm!"

Here it became still worse for poor Liubka. As it was, she could barely
go up alone, but here she also had to drag in tow Lichonin, who had
grown extremely heavy. And his weight would not really have mattered;
his wordiness, however, was beginning to irritate her little by little.
So irritates at times the ceaseless, wearisome crying, like a
toothache, of an infant at breast; the piercing whimpering of a canary;
or someone whistling without pause and out of tune in an adjoining room.

Finally, they reached Lichonin's room. There was no key in the door.
And, as a rule, it was never even locked with a key. Lichonin pushed
the door and they entered. It was dark in the room, because the window
curtains were lowered. It smelt of mice, kerosene, yesterday's
vegetable soup, long-.used bed linen, stale tobacco smoke. In the
half-dusk some one who could not be seen was snoring deafeningly and
with variations.

Lichonin raised the shade. There were the usual furnishings of