sh old man. And girls don't want strictness; they
want kisses and laughter, scents and pomade. Yes.... Ah! What a life!"
Simeon swore heavily. "No more vodka! That means bedtime. What? I'm
going, my man."

Left alone, the Tartar threw more branches on the fire, lay down, and,
looking into the blaze, began to think of his native village and of his
wife; if she could come if only for a month, or even a day, and then, if
she liked, go back again! Better a month or even a day, than nothing.
But even if his wife kept her promise and came, how could he provide for
her? Where was she to live?

"If there is nothing to eat; how are we to live?" asked the Tartar
aloud.

For working at the oars day and night he was paid two copecks a day; the
passengers gave tips, but the ferrymen shared them out and gave nothing
to the Tartar, and only laughed at him. And he was poor, cold, hungry,
and fearful.... With his whole body aching and shivering he thought it
would be good to go into the hut and sleep; but there was nothing to
cover himself with, and it was colder there than on the bank. He had
nothing to cover himself with there, but he could make up a fire....

In a week's time, when the floods had subsided and the ferry would be
fixed up, all the ferrymen except Simeon would not be wanted any longer
and the Tartar would have to go from village to village, begging and
looking for work. His wife was only seventeen; beautiful, soft, and
shy.... Could she go unveiled begging through the villages? No. The idea
of it was horrible.

It was already dawn. The barges, the bushy willows above the water, the
swirling flood began to take shape, and up above in a clayey cliff a hut
thatched with straw, and above that the straggling houses of the
village, where the cocks had begun to crow.

The ginger-coloured clay cliff, the barge, the river, the strange wild
people, hunger, cold, illness--perhaps all these things did not really
exist. Perhaps, thought the Tartar, it was only a dream. He felt that he
must be asleep, and he heard his own snoring.... Certainly he was at
home in the Simbirsk province; he had but to call his wife and she would
answer; and his mother was in the next room.... But what awful dreams
there are! Why? The Tartar smiled and opened his eyes. What river was
that? The Volga?

It was snowing.

"Hi! Ferry!" some one shouted on the other bank. "_Karba-a-ass!_"

The Tartar awoke and went to fetch his mates to row over to t