er adverse to talking about himself. It would seem as
though he is never sure of his personality, as though he is ever
yearning to have that personality confirmed from some source other
than, extraneous to, his own ego. The reason for this must be that we
Russians live diffused over a land of such vastness that, the more we
grasp the immensity of the same, the smaller do we come to appear in
our own eyes; wherefore, traversing, as we do, roads of a length of a
thousand versts, and constantly losing our way, we come to let slip no
opportunity of restating ourselves, and setting forth all that we have
seen and thought and done.

Hence, too, must it be that in conversations one seems to hear less of
the note of "I am I" than of the note of "Am I really and truly myself?"

"What may be your name?" next I inquired of the figure on the bench.

"A name of absolute simplicity--the name of Alexei Kalinin."

"You are a namesake of mine, then."

"Indeed? Is that so?"

With which, tapping me on the knee, the figure added:

"Come, then, namesake. 'I have mortar, and you have water, so together
let us paint the town.'"

Murmuring amid the silence could be heard small, light waves that were
no more than ripples. Behind us the busy clamour of the monastery had
died down, and even Kalinin's cheery voice seemed subdued by the
influence of the night--it seemed to have in it less of the note of
self-confidence.

"My mother was a wet-nurse," he went on to volunteer, "and I her only
child. When I was twelve years of age I was, owing to my height,
converted into a footman. It happened thus. One day, on General Stepan
(my mother's then employer) happening to catch sight of me, he
exclaimed: 'Evgenia, go and tell Fedor' (the ex-soldier who was then
serving the General as footman) 'that he is to teach your son to wait
at table! The boy is at least tall enough for the work.' And for nine
years I served the General in this capacity. And then, and then--oh,
THEN I was seized with an illness.... Next, I obtained a post under
a merchant who was then mayor of our town, and stayed with him
twenty-one months. And next I obtained a situation in an hotel at
Kharkov, and held it for a year. And after that I kept changing my
places, for, steady and sober though I was, I was beginning to lack
taste for my profession, and to develop a spirit of the kind which
deemed all work to be beneath me, and considered that I had been
created to serve only my