"I have made up my mind to go. Building churches is work that I love!" he said. And he suggested to me: "Come with me! It is very easy, brother, for an educated person to get on in Siberia. There, education is a trump card!" I agreed to his proposition, and he cried triumphantly: "There! That is business and not a joke." Toward Petr and Grigori he behaved with good-natured derision, like a grown-up person towards children, and he said to Osip: "Braggarts! Each shows the other his cleverness, as if they were playing at cards. One says: 'My cards are all such and such a color,' and the other says, 'And mine are trumps!'" Osip observed hesitatingly: "How could it be otherwise? Boasting is only human; all the girls walk about with their chests stuck out." "All, yes, all. It is God, God all the time. But they hoard up money themselves!" said Ardalon impatiently. "Well, Grisha does n't." "I am speaking for myself. I would go with this God into the forest, the desert. I am weary of being here. In the spring I shall go to Siberia." The workmen, envious of Ardalon, said: "If we had such a chance in the shape of a brother-in-law, we should not be afraid of Siberia either." And suddenly Ardalon disappeared. He went away from the workshop on Sunday, and for three days no one knew where he was. This made anxious conjectures. "Perhaps he has been murdered." "Or maybe he is drowned." But Ephimushka came, and declared in an embarrassed manner: "He has gone on the drink." "Why do you tell such lies?" cried Petr incredulously. "He has gone on the drink; he is drinking madly. He is just like a corn kiln which burns from the very center. Perhaps his much-loved wife is dead." "He is a widower! Where is he?" Petr angrily set out to save Ardalon, but the latter fought him. Then Osip, pressing his lips together firmly, thrust his hands in his pockets and said: "Shall I go have a look at him, and see what it is all about? He is a good fellow." I attached myself to him. "Here's a man," said Osip on the way, "who lives for years quite decently, when suddenly he loses control of himself, and is all over the place. Look, Maximich, and learn." We went to one of the cheap "houses of pleasure" of Kunavin Village, and we were welcomed by a predatory old woman. Osip whispered to her, and she ushered us into a small empty room, dark and dirty, like a stable. On a small bed slept, in an abandoned attitude, a large, stout woman. The old woman thrust her fist in her side and said: "Wake up, frog, wake up!" The woman jumped up in terror, rubbing her face with her hands, and asked: "Good Lord! who is it? What is it?" "Detectives are here," said Osip harshly. With a groan the woman disappeared, and he spat after her and explained to me: "They are more afraid of detectives than of the devil." Taking a small glass from the wall, the old woman raised a piece of the wall-paper. "Look! Is he the one you want?"