a week he would do so, if he
wished to eat for a week he would do so. If he died to-morrow he did
not care ... it was all so absurd that it was not worth while to give
it any attention. He would grow very fat, he would die--he would love
women, play cards, drink, quarrel, give his life for a sentimental
moment, pour every farthing of his possessions into the lap of a
friend, incur debts which he would not pay, quarrel wildly with a man
about a rouble, remember things that you would expect him to forget,
forget everything that he should remember--a pagan, a saint, a
blackguard, a hero--anything you please so long as you do not take it
seriously.

This morning he was dirty and looked as though he had slept for many
nights without taking off his clothes--unshaven, his shirt open
showing his hairy chest, his eyes blinking in the light.

"That's good," he said, seeing us. "I've got to be off, leaving the
place to you.... Fearful time they're having over there," pointing
across the garden. "Yes, five versts away. Plenty of work in a minute.
Brought food with you? Very little here." Then I heard him begin, as
he walked into the house with Nikitin, "Terrible thing, Doctor, about
your Sister yesterday.... Terrible.... I--"

I remember that my great desire was that I should not be left alone
with Trenchard. I clung to Andrey Vassilievitch, and a poor resource
he was, watching with nervous eyes the building and the glimmering
forest, dusting his clothes and beginning sentences which he did not
finish, Trenchard was quite silent. We entered the horrible room of
yesterday. The dirty plate and the sardine-tin were still there with
the flies about them: the highly coloured German supplement watched us
from its rakish position on the wall, the treatise on New Mexico was
lying on the table. I picked up the book and it opened naturally at a
place where the last reader had turned down the corner of the page.
The same page happens to be quoted exactly in Trenchard's diary on an
occasion about which afterwards I shall have to speak. There is an
account of the year's work of some New Mexican school and it runs:

"Besides the regular class work there have been other
features of special merit, programmes of which we append:

"Lectures: Rev. H. W. Ruffner, Titles and Degrees; Mr. Fred
A. Bush, What the Community owes the Newspaper and what the
Newspaper owes the Community; Dr. E. H. Woods, Tuberculosis;
Rev.