n silence. When they brought in the samovar, to satisfy the
old man, he drank two cups of disgusting tea in silence, with a
melancholy face. Without a word he listened to the virago dropping
hints about there being in this world cruel, heartless children who
abandon their parents.

"I know what you are thinking now!" said the old man, after drinking
more and passing into his habitual state of drunken excitement.
"You think I have let myself sink into the mire, that I am to be
pitied, but to my thinking, this simple life is much more normal
than your life, . . . I don't need anybody, and . . . and I don't
intend to eat humble pie. . . . I can't endure a wretched boy's
looking at me with compassion."

After tea he cleaned a herring and sprinkled it with onion, with
such feeling, that tears of emotion stood in his eyes. He began
talking again about the races and his winnings, about some Panama
hat for which he had paid sixteen roubles the day before. He told
lies with the same relish with which he ate herring and drank. His
son sat on in silence for an hour, and began to say good-bye.

"I don't venture to keep you," the old man said, haughtily. "You
must excuse me, young man, for not living as you would like!"

He ruffled up his feathers, snorted with dignity, and winked at the
women.

"Good-bye, young man," he said, seeing his son into the entry.
"Attendez."

In the entry, where it was dark, he suddenly pressed his face against
the young man's sleeve and gave a sob.

"I should like to have a look at Sonitchka," he whispered. "Arrange
it, Borenka, my angel. I'll shave, I'll put on your suit . . . I'll
put on a straight face . . . I'll hold my tongue while she is there.
Yes, yes, I will hold my tongue!"

He looked round timidly towards the door, through which the women's
voices were heard, checked his sobs, and said aloud:

"Good-bye, young man! Attendez."

ON THE ROAD

_"Upon the breast of a gigantic crag,
A golden cloudlet rested for one night."_

LERMONTOV.

IN the room which the tavern keeper, the Cossack Semyon Tchistopluy,
called the "travellers' room," that is kept exclusively for travellers,
a tall, broad-shouldered man of forty was sitting at the big unpainted
table. He was asleep with his elbows on the table and his head
leaning on his fist. An end of tallow candle, stuck into an old
pomatum pot, lighted up his light brown beard, his thick, broad
nose, his sunburnt cheeks, and the thick, black