is your face? Go on!"

A deafening, drunken laughter smote the air about them, and choking with
laughter, the son of the brandy-distiller roared to someone hoarsely:

"Come to me! A hundred roubles a month with board and lodging! Throw the
paper to the dogs. I'll give you more!"

And everything rocked from side to side in rhythmic, wave-like movement.
Now the people moved farther away from Foma, now they came nearer to
him, the ceiling descended, the floor rose, and it seemed to Foma that
he would soon be flattened and crushed. Then he began to feel that he
was floating somewhere over an immensely wide and stormy river, and,
staggering, he cried out in fright:

"Where are we floating? Where is the captain?"

He was answered by the loud, senseless laughter of the drunken crowd,
and by the shrill, repulsive shout of the swarthy little man:

"True! we are all without helm and sails. Where is the captain? What?
Ha, ha, ha!"

Foma awakened from this nightmare in a small room with two windows, and
the first thing his eyes fell upon was a withered tree. It stood near
the window; its thick trunk, barkless, with a rotten heart, prevented
the light from entering the room; the bent, black branches, devoid of
leaves, stretched themselves mournfully and helplessly in the air,
and shaking to and fro, they creaked softly, plaintively. A rain was
falling; streams of water were beating against the window-panes, and
one could hear how the water was falling to the ground from the roof,
sobbing there. This sobbing sound was joined by another sound--a shrill,
often interrupted, hasty scratching of a pen over paper, and then by a
certain spasmodic grumbling.

When he turned with difficulty his aching, heavy head on the pillow,
Foma noticed a small, swarthy man, who sat by the table hastily
scratching with his pen over the paper, shaking his round head
approvingly, wagging it from side to side, shrugging his shoulders,
and, with all his small body clothed in night garments only, constantly
moving about in his chair, as though he were sitting on fire, and could
not get up for some reason or other. His left hand, lean and thin, was
now firmly rubbing his forehead, now making certain incomprehensible
signs in the air; his bare feet scraped along the floor, a certain vein
quivered on his neck, and even his ears were moving. When he turned
toward Foma, Foma saw his thin lips whispering something, his
sharp-pointed nose turned down to his