On the way to the tavern he had made fun of me, and during the first part of the time he was in the tavern, he was railing at me, at the people there, and at the stuffy smell of the place. When the harness-maker began to sing he smiled derisively, and began to pour himself a glass of beer, but he stopped half-way, saying: "Who the devil--?" His hand trembled; he set the bottle down gently, and began to listen with intentness. "Ye-es, Brother," he said with a sigh, when Kleshtchkov had finished singing, "he can sing! The devil take him! He has even made the air hot." The harness-maker sang again, with his head back, gazing up at the ceiling: "On the road from the flourishing village A young girl came over the dewy fields." "He can sing," muttered my master, shaking his head and smiling. And Kleshtchkov poured forth his song, clear as the music of a reed: "And the beautiful maiden answered him: 'An orphan am I, no one wants me.'" "Good!" whispered my master, blinking his reddening eyes. "Phew! it is devilish good!" I looked at him and rejoiced, and the sobbing words of the song conquered the noise of the tavern, sounded more powerful, more beautiful, more touching every moment. I live solitary in our village. A young girl am I; they never ask me out. Oie, poor am I, my dress it is not fine; I am not fit, I know, for a brave young man. A widower would marry me to do his work; I do not wish to bow myself to such a fate. My master wept undisguisedly; he sat with his head bent; his prominent nose twitched, and tears splashed on his knees. After the third song, agitated and dishevelled, he said: "I can't sit here any longer; I shall be stifled with these odors. Let us go home." But when we were in the street he said: "Come along, Pyeshkov, let us go to a restaurant and have something to eat. I don't want to go home!" He hailed a sledge, without haggling about the charge, and said nothing while we were on the way, but in the restaurant, after taking a table in a corner, he began at once in an undertone, looking about him the while, to complain angrily. "He has thoroughly upset me, that goat; to such a state of melancholy he has driven me! Here you are--you read and think about things--just tell me now, what the devil is the use of it all? One lives; forty years pass by; one has a wife and children, and no one to talk to! There are times when I want to unburden my soul, to talk to some one about all sorts of things, but there is no one I can talk to. I can't talk to my wife; I have nothing in common with her. What is she, after all? She has her children and the house; that's her business. She is a stranger to my soul. A wife is your friend till the first child comes. In fact, she is--on the whole--Well, you can see for yourself she does not dance to my piping. Flesh without spirit, the devil take you! It is a grief to me, Brother."