een by it he had not paid attention to it. Why, it was a decent
sized river, not a trumpery one; he might have gone in for fishing
and sold the fish to merchants, officials, and the bar-keeper at
the station, and then have put money in the bank; he might have
sailed in a boat from one house to another, playing the fiddle, and
people of all classes would have paid to hear him; he might have
tried getting big boats afloat again--that would be better than
making coffins; he might have bred geese, killed them and sent them
in the winter to Moscow Why, the feathers alone would very likely
mount up to ten roubles in the year. But he had wasted his time,
he had done nothing of this. What losses! Ah! What losses! And if
he had gone in for all those things at once--catching fish and
playing the fiddle, and running boats and killing geese--what a
fortune he would have made! But nothing of this had happened, even
in his dreams; life had passed uselessly without any pleasure, had
been wasted for nothing, not even a pinch of snuff; there was nothing
left in front, and if one looked back--there was nothing there
but losses, and such terrible ones, it made one cold all over. And
why was it a man could not live so as to avoid these losses and
misfortunes? One wondered why they had cut down the birch copse and
the pine forest. Why was he walking with no reason on the grazing
ground? Why do people always do what isn't needful? Why had Yakov
all his life scolded, bellowed, shaken his fists, ill-treated his
wife, and, one might ask, what necessity was there for him to
frighten and insult the Jew that day? Why did people in general
hinder each other from living? What losses were due to it! what
terrible losses! If it were not for hatred and malice people would
get immense benefit from one another.

In the evening and the night he had visions of the baby, of the
willow, of fish, of slaughtered geese, and Marfa looking in profile
like a bird that wants to drink, and the pale, pitiful face of
Rothschild, and faces moved down from all sides and muttered of
losses. He tossed from side to side, and got out of bed five times
to play the fiddle.

In the morning he got up with an effort and went to the hospital.
The same Maxim Nikolaitch told him to put a cold compress on his
head, and gave him some powders, and from his tone and expression
of face Yakov realized that it was a bad case and that no powders
would be any use. As he went home afterwa