e-charring factory were all terrible. Behind him
there was the sound of a sigh. Andrey Yefimitch looked round and
saw a man with glittering stars and orders on his breast, who was
smiling and slyly winking. And this, too, seemed terrible.

Andrey Yefimitch assured himself that there was nothing special
about the moon or the prison, that even sane persons wear orders,
and that everything in time will decay and turn to earth, but he
was suddenly overcome with desire; he clutched at the grating with
both hands and shook it with all his might. The strong grating did
not yield.

Then that it might not be so dreadful he went to Ivan Dmitritch's
bed and sat down.

"I have lost heart, my dear fellow," he muttered, trembling and
wiping away the cold sweat, "I have lost heart."

"You should be philosophical," said Ivan Dmitritch ironically.

"My God, my God. . . . Yes, yes. . . . You were pleased to say once
that there was no philosophy in Russia, but that all people, even
the paltriest, talk philosophy. But you know the philosophizing of
the paltriest does not harm anyone," said Andrey Yefimitch in a
tone as if he wanted to cry and complain. "Why, then, that malignant
laugh, my friend, and how can these paltry creatures help philosophizing
if they are not satisfied? For an intelligent, educated man, made
in God's image, proud and loving freedom, to have no alternative
but to be a doctor in a filthy, stupid, wretched little town, and
to spend his whole life among bottles, leeches, mustard plasters!
Quackery, narrowness, vulgarity! Oh, my God!"

"You are talking nonsense. If you don't like being a doctor you
should have gone in for being a statesman."

"I could not, I could not do anything. We are weak, my dear friend
. . . . I used to be indifferent. I reasoned boldly and soundly, but
at the first coarse touch of life upon me I have lost heart. . . .
Prostration. . . . . We are weak, we are poor creatures . . . and
you, too, my dear friend, you are intelligent, generous, you drew
in good impulses with your mother's milk, but you had hardly entered
upon life when you were exhausted and fell ill. . . . Weak, weak!"

Andrey Yefimitch was all the while at the approach of evening
tormented by another persistent sensation besides terror and the
feeling of resentment. At last he realized that he was longing for
a smoke and for beer.

"I am going out, my friend," he said. "I will tell them to bring a
light; I can't put up wit