"Not a minute, not a second of respite!"--retorted Mikhalevitch, with an imperious gesture of the hand.--"Not one second!--Death does not wait, and life ought not to wait."... "And when, where did men get the idea of becoming triflers?"--he shouted, at four o'clock in the morning, but his voice had now begun to be rather hoarse: "among us! now! in Russia! when on every separate individual a duty, a great obligation is incumbent toward God, toward the nation, toward himself! We are sleeping, but time is passing on; we are sleeping...." "Permit me to observe to thee,"--said Lavretzky,--"that we are not sleeping at all, now, but are, rather, preventing others from sleeping. We are cracking our throats like cocks. Hark, isn't that the third cock-crow?" This sally disconcerted and calmed down Mikhalevitch. "Farewell until to-morrow,"--he said, with a smile,--and thrust his pipe into his tobacco-pouch. "Farewell until to-morrow," repeated Lavretzky. But the friends conversed for an hour longer. However, their voices were no longer raised, and their speeches were quiet, sad, and kind. Mikhalevitch departed on the following day, in spite of all Lavretzky's efforts to detain him. Feodor Ivanitch did not succeed in persuading him to remain; but he talked with him to his heart's content. It came out, that Mikhalevitch had not a penny in the world. Already, on the preceding evening, Lavretzky, with compassion, had observed in him all the signs and habits of confirmed poverty; his boots were broken, a button was missing from the back of his coat, his hands were guiltless of gloves, down was visible in his hair; on his arrival, it had not occurred to him to ask for washing materials, and at supper he ate like a shark, tearing the meat apart with his hands, and cracking the bones noisily with his strong, black teeth. It appeared, also, that the service had been of no benefit to him, that he had staked all his hopes on the revenue-farmer, who had engaged him simply with the object of having in his counting-house "an educated man." In spite of all this, Mikhalevitch was not dejected, and lived on as a cynic, an idealist, a poet, sincerely rejoicing and grieving over the lot of mankind, over his own calling,--and troubled himself very little as to how he was to keep himself from dying with hunger. Mikhalevitch had not married, but had been in love times without number, and wrote verses about all his lady-loves; with especial fervour did he sing the praises of one mysterious "panna" with black and curling locks.... Rumours were in circulation, it is true, to the effect that the "panna" in question was a plain Jewess, well known to many cavalry officers ... but, when you come to think of it,--does that make any difference?