‘Why! how can you ask? If one comes, anyway, to one’s self, begins to feel, to think of the poverty, of the injustice, of Russia.... Well, it’s all over with me! ... one’s so wretched at once--one wants to put a bullet through one’s head! One’s forced to start drinking.’ ‘Why ever do you drag Russia in?’ ‘How can I help it? Can’t be helped! That’s why I’m afraid to think.’ ‘It all comes, and your wretchedness too, from having nothing to do.’ ‘But I don’t know how to do anything, uncle! dear fellow! Take one’s life, and stake it on a card--that I can do! Come, you tell me what I ought to do, what to risk my life for? This instant ... I’ll ...’ ‘But you must simply live.... Why risk your life?’ ‘I can’t! You say I act thoughtlessly.... But what else can I do? ... If one starts thinking--good God, all that comes into one’s head! It’s only Germans who can think! ...’ What use was it talking to him? He was a desperate man, and that’s all one can say. Of the Caucasus legends I have spoken about, I will tell you two or three. One day, in a party of officers, Misha began boasting of a sabre he had got by exchange--‘a genuine Persian blade!’ The officers expressed doubts as to its genuineness. Misha began disputing. ‘Here then,’ he cried at last; ‘they say the man that knows most about sabres is Abdulka the one-eyed. I’ll go to him, and ask.’ The officers wondered. ‘What Abdulka? Do you mean that lives in the mountains? The rebel never subdued? Abdul-khan?’ ‘Yes, that’s him.’ ‘Why, but he’ll take you for a spy, will put you in a hole full of bugs, or else cut your head off with your own sabre. And, besides, how are you going to get to him? They’ll catch you directly.’ ‘I’ll go to him, though, all the same.’ ‘Bet you won’t!’ ‘Taken!’ And Misha promptly saddled his horse and rode off to Abdulka. He disappeared for three days. All felt certain that the crazy fellow had come by his end. But, behold! he came back--drunk, and with a sabre, not the one he had taken, but another. They began questioning him. ‘It was all right,’ said he; ‘Abdulka’s a nice fellow. At first, it’s true, he ordered them to put irons on my legs, and was even on the point of having me impaled. Only, I explained why I had come, and showed him the sabre. “And you’d better not keep me,” said I; “don’t expect a ransom for me; I’ve not a farthing to bless myself with--and I’ve no relations.” Abdulka was surprised; he looked at me with his solitary eye. “Well,” said he, “you are a bold one, you Russian; am I to believe you?” “You may believe me,” said I; “I never tell a lie.” (And this was true; Misha never lied.) Abdulka looked at me again. “And do you know how to drink wine?” “I do,” said I; “give me as much as you will, I’ll drink it.” Abdulka was surprised again; he called on Allah. And he told his--daughter, I suppose--such a pretty creature, only with an eye like a jackal’s--to bring a wine-skin. And I began to get to work on it.