rors that lie hidden in these houses. Our town has existed for
hundreds of years, and all that time it has not produced one man
of service to our country--not one. You have stifled in the germ
everything in the least living and bright. It's a town of shopkeepers,
publicans, counting-house clerks, canting hypocrites; it's a useless,
unnecessary town, which not one soul would regret if it suddenly
sank through the earth."

"I don't want to listen to you, you scoundrel!" said my father, and
he took up his ruler from the table. "You are drunk. Don't dare
come and see your father in such a state! I tell you for the last
time, and you can repeat it to your depraved sister, that you'll
get nothing from me, either of you. I have torn my disobedient
children out of my heart, and if they suffer for their disobedience
and obstinacy I do not pity them. You can go whence you came. It
has pleased God to chastise me with you, but I will bear the trial
with resignation, and, like Job, I will find consolation in my
sufferings and in unremitting labour. You must not cross my threshold
till you have mended your ways. I am a just man, all I tell you is
for your benefit, and if you desire your own good you ought to
remember all your life what I say and have said to you. . . ."

I waved my hand in despair and went away. I don't remember what
happened afterwards, that night and next day.

I am told that I walked about the streets bareheaded, staggering,
and singing aloud, while a crowd of boys ran after me, shouting:

"Better-than-nothing!"

XX

If I wanted to order a ring for myself, the inscription I should
choose would be: "Nothing passes away." I believe that nothing
passes away without leaving a trace, and that every step we take,
however small, has significance for our present and our future
existence.

What I have been through has not been for nothing. My great troubles,
my patience, have touched people's hearts, and now they don't call
me "Better-than-nothing," they don't laugh at me, and when I walk
by the shops they don't throw water over me. They have grown used
to my being a workman, and see nothing strange in my carrying a
pail of paint and putting in windows, though I am of noble rank;
on the contrary, people are glad to give me orders, and I am now
considered a first-rate workman, and the best foreman after Radish,
who, though he has regained his health, and though, as before, he
paints the cupola on the belfry withou