"Come, read it once more!" Several men rose from their beds, came to the table, and sat themselves round it, undressed as they were, with their legs crossed. And again when I had finished reading, Jikharev said, strumming his fingers on the table: "That is a living picture of him! Ach, devil, devil--that's how he is, brothers, eh?" Sitanov leaned over my shoulder, read something, and laughed, as he said: "I shall copy that into my own note-book." Jikharev stood up and carried the book to his own table, but he turned back and said in an offended, shaky voice: "We live like blind puppies--to what end we do not know. We are not necessary either to God or the devil! How are we slaves of the Lord? The Jehovah of slaves and the Lord Himself speaks with them! With Moses, too! He even gave Moses a name; it means 'This is mine'--a man of God. And we--what are we?" He shut up the book and began to dress himself, asking Sitanov: "Are you coming to the tavern?" "I shall go to my own tavern," answered Sitanov softly. When they had gone out, I lay down on the floor by the door, beside Pavl Odintzov. He tossed about for a long time, snored, and suddenly began to weep quietly. "What is the matter with you?" "I am sick with pity for all of them," he said. "This is the fourth year of my life with them, and I know all about them." I also was sorry for these people. We did not go to sleep for a long time, but talked about them in whispers, finding goodness, good traits in each one of them, and also something which increased our childish pity. I was very friendly with Pavl Odintzov. They made a good workman of him in the end, but it did not last long; before the end of three years he had begun to drink wildly, later on I met him in rags on the Khitrov market-place in Moscow, and not long ago I heard that he had died of typhoid. It is painful to remember how many good people in my life I have seen senselessly ruined. People of all nations wear themselves out, and to ruin themselves comes natural but nowhere do they wear themselves out so terribly quickly, so senselessly, as in our own Russia. Then he was a round-headed boy two years older than myself; he was lively, intelligent, and upright; he was talented, for he could draw birds, cats, and dogs excellently, and was amazingly clever in his caricatures of the workmen, always depicting them as feathered. Sitanov was shown as a sad-looking woodcock standing on one leg, Jikharev as a cock with a torn comb and no feathers on his head; sickly Davidov was an injured lapwing. But best of all was his drawing of the old chaser, Golovev, representing him as a bat with large whiskers, ironical nose, and four feet with six nails on each. From the round, dark face, white, round eyes gazed forth, the pupils of which looked like the grain of a lentil. They were placed crossways, thus giving to the face a lifelike and hideous expression.