I lay in the kibítka. The tinkling of the post bell was monotonous to my ears, and finally brought to me beneficent Morpheus. The grief of my parting persecuted me in my deathlike state, and painted me to my imagination as forlorn. I saw myself in a spacious vale which had lost all its amenity and greenness of leafage through the hot rays of the sun. There was not a spring to offer coolness, nor tree-shade to protect from the heat. I was a hermit, left in the midst of Nature! I shuddered. “Miserable man!” I sighed, “where are you? What has become of all that has enticed you? Where is all that has made your life agreeable? Is it possible that the pleasures which you have tasted are only an idle dream?” Luckily there was a deep rut in the road, and my kibítka, getting into it, jostled me and woke me up. The kibítka stopped. I raised my head and saw three habitations in a barren spot. “What is that?” I asked my driver. “A post station.” “Where are we?” “In Sofíya,” and he unhitched the horses. SOFÍYA All around me was silence. I was absorbed in contemplation and did not notice that the kibítka had been standing quite a while without the horses. My driver broke my meditation: “Master, father, some money for a drink!” This tax is illegal, but no one objects to paying it, in order that he may be able to travel at his ease; the twenty kopeks I gave him were a good investment. Who has travelled by post knows that a passport is a precaution without which any purse, unless it be a general’s, will have to suffer. I took it out of my pocket and went with it, as people sometimes go with the cross for their defence. I found the Post Commissary snoring. I touched his shoulder. “Whom does the devil drive so? What a miserable habit to depart from the city at night? There are no horses here,--it’s too early yet. Go into the inn and drink tea, or go to sleep!” Having said that, the Commissary turned to the wall, and went to snoring again. What was I to do? I once more shook the Commissary by his shoulder. “What is the matter with you? I told you there are no horses!” and, covering himself with the blanket, the Commissary turned away from me. If the horses are all engaged, I thought to myself, then it is not right for me to disturb the Commissary’s sleep. But if there are any horses in the stable ... I made up my mind I would find out whether the Commissary told the truth. I went into the yard, hunted up the stable and found some twenty horses in it. It is true, one could count the bones on them, yet they would have taken me to the next station. From the stable I returned to the Commissary, and shook him harder than before, for I felt I had a right to do so, having discovered that he had told a lie. He jumped up from his bed and without opening his eyes asked who had arrived. “I ...” But coming to his senses, and noticing me, he said: