He was walking along in a light gray overcoat, with his hands in his pockets, a cigarette between his teeth, his hat on the back of his head. His pleasant face smiled kindly at me. He had the appearance of a man who is at liberty and is happy, and there was no one beside ourselves in the fields. "Ah, Pyeshkov, Christ is risen!" After we had exchanged the Easter kiss, he asked how I was living, and I told him frankly that the workshop, the town and everything in general were abhorrent to me, and that I had made up my mind to go to Persia. "Give it up," he said to me gravely. "What the devil is there in Persia? I know exactly how you are feeling, brother; in my youth I also had the wander fever." I liked him for telling me this. There was something about him good and springlike; he was a being set apart. "Do you smoke?" he asked, holding out a silver cigarette-case full of fat cigarettes. That completed his conquest of me. "What you had better do, Pyeshkov, is to come back to me again," he suggested. "For this year I have undertaken contracts for the new market-place, you understand. And I can make use of you there; you will be a kind of overseer for me; you will receive all the material; you will see that it is all in its proper place, and that the workmen do not steal it. Will that suit you? Your wages will be five rubles a month, and five copecks for dinner! The women-folk will have nothing to do with you; you will go out in the morning and return in the evening. As for the women; you can ignore them; only don't let them know that we have met, but just come to see us on Sunday at Phomin Street. It will be a change for you!" We parted like friends. As he said good-by, he pressed my hand, and as he went away, he actually waved his hat to me affably from a distance. When I announced in the workroom that I was leaving, most of the workmen showed a flattering regret. Pavl, especially, was upset. "Think," he said reproachfully; "how will you live with men of all kinds, after being with us? With carpenters, house-painters--Oh, you--It is going out of the frying-pan into the fire." Jikharev growled: "A fish looks for the deepest place, but a clever young man seeks a worse place!" The send-off which they gave me from the workshop was a sad one. "Of course one must try this and that," said Jikharev, who was yellow from the effects of a drinking bout. "It is better to do it straight off, before you become too closely attached to something or other." "And that for the rest of your life," added Larionich softly. But I felt that they spoke with constraint, and from a sense of duty. The thread which had bound me to them was somehow rotted and broken. In the loft drunken Golovev rolled about, and muttered hoarsely: "I would like to see them all in prison. I know their secrets! Who believes in God here? Aha-a--!"