Stepan Golovliov was not quite forty, but he looked like fifty. Life had so thoroughly worn him out that there was not a vestige of his noble origin left, not a single trace of his university education nor of the enlightening word of science which in days bygone had been addressed to him, too. He was tall as a Maypole, racked by hunger, unkempt, untidy, with a sunken chest and long bony arms. His bloated face, his dishevelled hair, streaked with grey, his loud, hoarse voice, his bulging, bloodshot eyes were unmistakable signs of heavy drinking and a weather-beaten life. He wore an old, threadbare uniform, with the galloons gone--they had been sold to a smelter--and a pair of reddish boots, patched and sadly worn. Beneath his coat, when unbuttoned, peeped a dirty shirt, as black as if it had been smeared with soot. With the cynicism of a militiaman, he called it "a flea nest." His glance was stealthy and gloomy, the expression not of inner discontent, but rather of a vague anxiety which seemed to come from an ever-present fear of death by starvation. He talked ceaselessly and disconnectedly, passing without transition from one subject to another. He spoke whether Ivan Mikhailych listened or dozed off under the soporific of his garrulousness. He was dreadfully uncomfortable, because there were four people in the diligence and he had to sit with his legs bent, so that at the end of three or four versts he had an intolerable pain in his knee-joints. Nevertheless the pain did not prevent him from talking. Clouds of dust entered through the side windows of the vehicle, at times flooded by a flaming, scorching sheet of sunlight. But Stepan Golovliov kept on talking. "Yes, brother," he held forth, "I have lived hard all my life. It is high time to rest. I shan't be eating her out of house and home, shall I? She has enough and to spare. What d'you think, Ivan Mikhailych?" "Oh, your mother has plenty to eat." "Yes, but not for me, you mean to say? Yes, friend, she has heaps of money, but not a copper for me. And to think the hag has always hated me. Why? But now I'll sing her a different song. I've made up my mind. I'm desperate. If she tries to drive me out, I won't go. If she doesn't give me food, I'll take it. I've served my country, brother. Now it's everyone's duty to help me. There's only one thing I'm afraid of, that she won't give me tobacco." "Yes, you'll have to say good-by to tobacco." "Then I'll put the screw on the bailiff. The devil can well afford to give his master a present now and then." "Oh, yes, he may do that, but what if your mother forbids him to?" "Well, in that case I'll be done for. Tobacco is the only luxury that has remained of my former style. When I had money I used to smoke not less than a quarter of a pound of Zhukov's tobacco every day." "I guess you'll have to do without brandy, too."