"And what is that to do with you, eh?" Lieutenant Nesterov answered my question by a ferocious: "What-a-t?" Then I concluded that the right person to ask about the Huns was the dispenser at the chemist's. He always looked at me kindly. He had a clever face, and gold glasses on his large nose. "The Huns," said the dispenser, "were a nomad race, like the people of Khirgiz. There are no more of these people now. They are all dead." I felt sad and vexed, not because the Huns were dead, but because the meaning of the word that had worried me for so long was quite simple, and was also of no use to me. But I was grateful to the Huns after my collision with the word ceased to worry me so much, and thanks to Attilla, I made the acquaintance of the dispenser Goldberg. This man knew the literal meaning of all words of wisdom. He had the keys to all knowledge. Setting his glasses straight with two fingers, he looked fixedly into my eyes and said, as if he were driving small nails into my forehead: "Words, my dear boy, are like leaves on a tree. If we want to find out why the leaves take one form instead of another, we must learn how the tree grows. We must study books, my dear boy. Men are like a good garden in which everything grows, both pleasant and profitable." I often had to run to the chemist's for soda-water and magnesia for the adults of the family, who were continually suffering from heartburn, and for castor-oil and purgatives for the children. The short instructions which the dispenser gave me instilled into my mind a still deeper regard for books. They gradually became as necessary to me as vodka to the drunkard. They showed me a new life, a life of noble sentiments and strong desires which incite people to deeds of heroism and crimes. I saw that the people about me were fitted for neither heroism nor crime. They lived apart from everything that I read about in books, and it was hard to imagine what they found interesting in their lives. I had no desire to live such a life. I was quite decided on that point. I would not.