"Well, I am getting on in years, and I have made very little of my life. That song is not mine; it was composed by a teacher in the seminary. What was his name now? He is dead; I have forgotten. We were great friends. He was a bachelor. He died in his sleep, in a fit. How many people have gone to sleep that I can remember? It would be hard to count them. You don't drink? That is right; don't! Do you see your grandfather often? He is not a happy old man. I believe he is going out of his mind." After a few drinks he became more lively, held himself up, looked younger, and began to speak with more animation. I asked him for the story of the convicts. "You heard about it?" he inquired, and with a glance around, and lowering his voice, he said; "What about the convicts? I was not their judge, you know; I saw them merely as human creatures, and I said: 'Brothers, let us live together in harmony, let us live happily! There is a song,' I said, 'which runs like this: "Imprisonment to happiness is no bar, Let them do with us as they will! Still we shall live for sake of laughter, He is a fool who lives otherwise." He laughed, glanced out of the window on the darkening causeway, and continued, smoothing his whiskers: "Of course they were dull in that prison, and as soon as the roll-call was over, they came to me. We had vodka and dainties, sometimes provided by me, sometimes by themselves. I love songs and dancing, and among them were some excellent singers and dancers. It was astonishing! Some of them, were in fetters, and it was no calumny to say that I undid their chains; it is true. But bless you, they knew how to take them off by themselves without a blacksmith; they are a handy lot of people; it is astonishing! But to say that I let them wander about the town to rob people is rubbish, and it was never proved!" He was silent, gazing out of the window on the causeway where the merchants were shutting up their chests of goods; iron bars rattled, rusty hinges creaked, some boards fell with a resounding crash. Then winking at me gaily, he continued in a low voice: "To speak the truth, one of them did really go out at night, only he was not one of the fettered ones, but simply a local thief from the lower end of the town; his sweetheart lived not far away on the Pechorka. And the affair with the deacon happened through a mistake; he took the deacon for a merchant. It was a winter night, in a snowstorm; everybody was wearing a fur coat; how could he tell the difference in his haste between a deacon and a merchant?" This struck me as being funny, and he laughed himself as he said: "Yes, by gad! It was the very devil--" Here my uncle became unexpectedly and strangely angry. He pushed away his plate of savories, frowned with an expression of loathing, and, smoking a cigarette, muttered: