busive man; he is the torment of his relations and workmen,
and constantly out of humour. Last Sunday I asked him in an amiable
way, 'Brother, let us go to Pahomovo for the Mass!' but he said 'I
am not going; the priest there is a gambler;' and he would not come
here to-day because, he said, the priest from Vedenyapino smokes
and drinks vodka. He doesn't like the clergy! He reads Mass himself
and the Hours and the Vespers, while his sister acts as sacristan;
he says, 'Let us pray unto the Lord'! and she, in a thin little
voice like a turkey-hen, 'Lord, have mercy upon us! . . .' It's a
sin, that's what it is. Every day I say to him, 'Think what you are
doing, brother! Repent, brother!' and he takes no notice."

Sergey Nikanoritch, the waiter, poured out five glasses of tea and
carried them on a tray to the waiting-room. He had scarcely gone
in when there was a shout:

"Is that the way to serve it, pig's face? You don't know how to
wait!"

It was the voice of the station-master. There was a timid mutter,
then again a harsh and angry shout:

"Get along!"

The waiter came back greatly crestfallen.

"There was a time when I gave satisfaction to counts and princes,"
he said in a low voice; "but now I don't know how to serve tea. . . .
He called me names before the priest and the ladies!"

The waiter, Sergey Nikanoritch, had once had money of his own, and
had kept a buffet at a first-class station, which was a junction,
in the principal town of a province. There he had worn a swallow-tail
coat and a gold chain. But things had gone ill with him; he had
squandered all his own money over expensive fittings and service;
he had been robbed by his staff, and getting gradually into
difficulties, had moved to another station less bustling. Here his
wife had left him, taking with her all the silver, and he moved to
a third station of a still lower class, where no hot dishes were
served. Then to a fourth. Frequently changing his situation and
sinking lower and lower, he had at last come to Progonnaya, and
here he used to sell nothing but tea and cheap vodka, and for lunch
hard-boiled eggs and dry sausages, which smelt of tar, and which
he himself sarcastically said were only fit for the orchestra. He
was bald all over the top of his head, and had prominent blue eyes
and thick bushy whiskers, which he often combed out, looking into
the little looking-glass. Memories of the past haunted him continually;
he could never get used