And all at once, I fancied that between the two windows my adversary was standing, and was slowly and mournfully nodding his head up and down. I was not frightened; I was not even surprised ... but raising myself a little, and propping myself on my elbow, I stared still more intently at the unexpected apparition. The latter continued to nod his head. ‘Well?’ I said at last; ‘are you triumphant or regretful? What is this--warning or reproach?... Or do you mean to give me to understand that you were wrong, that we were both wrong? What are you experiencing? The torments of hell? Or the bliss of paradise? Utter one word at least!’ But my opponent did not utter a single sound, and only, as before, mournfully and submissively nodded his head up and down. I laughed ... he vanished. _February 1878._ THE BEGGAR I was walking along the street ... I was stopped by a decrepit old beggar. Bloodshot, tearful eyes, blue lips, coarse rags, festering wounds.... Oh, how hideously poverty had eaten into this miserable creature! He held out to me a red, swollen, filthy hand. He groaned, he mumbled of help. I began feeling in all my pockets.... No purse, no watch, not even a handkerchief.... I had taken nothing with me. And the beggar was still waiting ... and his outstretched hand feebly shook and trembled. Confused, abashed, I warmly clasped the filthy, shaking hand ... ‘Don’t be angry, brother; I have nothing, brother.’ The beggar stared at me with his bloodshot eyes; his blue lips smiled; and he in his turn gripped my chilly fingers. ‘What of it, brother?’ he mumbled; ‘thanks for this, too. That is a gift too, brother.’ I knew that I too had received a gift from my brother. _February 1878._ ‘THOU SHALT HEAR THE FOOL’S JUDGMENT....’--_PUSHKIN_ ‘Thou shalt hear the fool’s judgment....’ You always told the truth, O great singer of ours. You spoke it this time, too. ‘The fool’s judgment and the laughter of the crowd’ ... who has not known the one and the other? All that one can, and one ought to bear; and who has the strength, let him despise it! But there are blows which pierce more cruelly to the very heart.... A man has done all that he could; has worked strenuously, lovingly, honestly.... And honest hearts turn from him in disgust; honest faces burn with indignation at his name. ‘Be gone! Away with you!’ honest young voices scream at him. ‘We have no need of you, nor of your work. You pollute our dwelling-places. You know us not and understand us not.... You are our enemy!’ What is that man to do? Go on working; not try to justify himself, and not even look forward to a fairer judgment. At one time the tillers of the soil cursed the traveller who brought the potato, the substitute for bread, the poor man’s daily food.... They shook the precious gift out of his outstretched hands, flung it in the mud, trampled it underfoot. Now they are fed with it, and do not even know their benefactor’s name.