He turned, looked at the black crumbling walls for a moment, then, crossing himself and uttering a brief exhortation to the Virgin, gathered up his reins. “_Shiväi! shiväi!_” (“Faster! faster!”) he cried to his horses, and as he brought the long thongs of his whip into play we redoubled our pace and quickly left the dilapidated building far behind. I did not seek any explanation just then, but a couple of hours later, when we were sitting together in the post-house at Gorodezkoi, where we had put up for the night, I referred to the incident. The bare room had that air of discomfort characteristic of the Russian post-station. A table, a few chairs, and a large round stove comprised the furniture, while upon the walls hung a cheap portrait of his Majesty the Tzar and a badly executed picture of the Virgin. A steaming _samovar_ stood on the table between us, for we were taking tea and cigarettes after our meal, and conversing in French so that the inquisitive keeper of the place should not understand what we said. When I mentioned the ruined house and his apparent desire to get away from it, Vassilii drew a long breath, passed his hand across his eyes, and gazed up to the _ikon_ hanging opposite. His _papiroska_ trembled a little in his lean brown hand, and he began in a voice that had a strange quiver in it. “You noticed that woman—the one with fair hair and pale complexion—who came in for a letter just now? I spoke to her. There was such a remarkable resemblance that I could not refrain from asking her a question—and yet how foolish! “I am not an old man, scarcely sixty, nevertheless I might have seen a century of things in the years that have passed since I last sat in this post-station. I feel as though I have utterly wasted my life; still I do not know that I regret that the sweets came first, all at once, and the dregs afterwards. Why not? One may at least sit and rail at the present, though he envy his neighbours. “You know nothing of the tragedy that has overshadowed my life? No. Then I will tell you. See! I wear the ribbon of St. Andrew in my buttonhole. It is worn, and the colours have faded. The Tzar bestowed it upon me for bravery in the Crimea. Bravery! Bah! it was not valour but sheer recklessness, because I had no desire to live longer. “The story is a queer one, and still more queer perhaps that it should be I who tell it.