d beautiful), and the dusty, dimly
lighted storeroom across the passage emits a perennial odour of dried
mushroom, tobacco leaves, and hemp oil.

Vologonov stirs his strong, stewed tea with a battered old teaspoon,
and says with a sigh as he sips a little:

"All my life I have been engaged in gaining experience so that now I
know most things, and ought to be listened to with attention. Usually
folk do so listen to me, but though here and there one may find a
living soul, of the rest it may be said: 'In the House of David shall
terrible things come to pass, and fire shall consume the spirit of
lechery.'"

The words resemble bricks in that they seem, if possible, to increase
the height of the walls of strange and extraneous events, and even
stranger dramas, which loom for ever around, me.

"For example," continues the old man, "why is Mitri Ermolaev Polukonov,
our ex-mayor, lying dead before his time? Because he conceived a number
of arrogant projects. For example, he sent his eldest son to study at
Kazan--with the result that during the son's second year at the
University he, the son, brought home with him a curly-headed Jewess,
and said to his father: 'Without this woman I cannot live--in her are
bound up my whole soul and strength.' Yes, a pass indeed! And from that
day forth nothing but misfortune befell in that Yashka took to drink,
the Jewess gave way to repining, and Mitri had to go perambulating the
town with piteous invitations to 'come and see, my brethren, to what
depths I have sunk!' And though, eventually, the Jewess died of a
bloody flux, of a miscarriage, the past was beyond mending, and, while
the son went to the bad, and took to drink for good and all, the father
'fell a victim by night to untimely death.' Yes, the lives of two folk
were thus undone by 'the thorn-bearing company of Judaea.' Like
ourselves, the Hebrew has a destiny of his own. And destiny cannot be
driven out with a stick. Of each of us the destiny is unhasting. It
moves slowly and quietly, and can never be avoided. 'Wait,' it says.
'Seek not to press onward.'"

As he discourses, Vologonov's eyes ceaselessly change colour--now
turning to a dull grey, and wearing a tired expression, and now
becoming blue, and assuming a mournful air, and now (and most
frequently of all) beginning to emit green flashes of an impartial
malevolence.

"Similarly, the Kapustins, once a powerful family, came at length to
dust-became as nothing. It was a f