at with Hebrew letters on
it, and this talisman keeps me from infatuations. All things pass,
life will pass, one wants nothing. Or at least one wants nothing
but the sense of freedom, for when anyone is free, he wants nothing,
nothing, nothing. Break the thread. A warm hug to you and your
sister. Forgive and forget your M."

My sister used to lie down in one room, and Radish, who had been
ill again and was now better, in another. Just at the moment when
I received this letter my sister went softly into the painter's
room, sat down beside him and began reading aloud. She read to him
every day, Ostrovsky or Gogol, and he listened, staring at one
point, not laughing, but shaking his head and muttering to himself
from time to time:

"Anything may happen! Anything may happen!"

If anything ugly or unseemly were depicted in the play he would say
as though vindictively, thrusting his finger into the book:

"There it is, lying! That's what it does, lying does."

The plays fascinated him, both from their subjects and their moral,
and from their skilful, complex construction, and he marvelled at
"him," never calling the author by his name. How neatly _he_ has
put it all together.

This time my sister read softly only one page, and could read no
more: her voice would not last out. Radish took her hand and, moving
his parched lips, said, hardly audibly, in a husky voice:

"The soul of a righteous man is white and smooth as chalk, but the
soul of a sinful man is like pumice stone. The soul of a righteous
man is like clear oil, but the soul of a sinful man is gas tar. We
must labour, we must sorrow, we must suffer sickness," he went on,
"and he who does not labour and sorrow will not gain the Kingdom
of Heaven. Woe, woe to them that are well fed, woe to the mighty,
woe to the rich, woe to the moneylenders! Not for them is the Kingdom
of Heaven. Lice eat grass, rust eats iron. . ."

"And lying the soul," my sister added laughing. I read the letter
through once more. At that moment there walked into the kitchen a
soldier who had been bringing us twice a week parcels of tea, French
bread and game, which smelt of scent, from some unknown giver. I
had no work. I had had to sit at home idle for whole days together,
and probably whoever sent us the French bread knew that we were in
want.

I heard my sister talking to the soldier and laughing gaily. Then,
lying down, she ate some French bread and said to me:

"When you wouldn't