"An actress--that sums her up," said the assistant, contemptuously. They began to talk of the lovers of the lady and the luxury in which she lived. After dinner the master went to sleep in the room behind the shop, and I, opening his gold watch, poured vinegar into the works. It was a moment of supreme joy to me when he awoke and came into the shop, with his watch in his hand, muttering wildly: "What can have happened? My watch is all wet. I never remember such a thing happening before. It is all wet; it will be ruined." In addition to the burden of my duties in the shop and the housework, I was weighed down by depression. I often thought it would be a good idea to behave so badly that I should get my dismissal. Snow-covered people passed the door of the shop without making a sound. They looked as if on their way to somebody's funeral. Having meant to accompany the body to the grave, they had been delayed, and, being late for the funeral procession, were hurrying to the grave-side. The horses quivered with the effort of making their way through the snow-drifts. From the belfry of the church behind the shop the bells rang out with a melancholy sound every day. It was Lent, and every stroke of the bell fell upon my brain as if it had been a pillow, not hurting, but stupefying and deafening, me. One day when I was in the yard unpacking a case of new goods just received, at the door of the shop, the watchman of the church, a crooked old man, as soft as if he were made of rags and as ragged as if he had been torn to pieces by dogs, approached me. "Are you going to be kind and steal some goloshes for me?" he asked. I was silent. He sat down on an empty case, yawned, made the sign of the cross over his mouth, and repeated: "Will you steal them for me?" "It is wrong to steal," I informed him. "But people steal all the same. Old age must have its compensations." He was pleasantly different from the people among whom I lived. I felt that he had a firm belief in my readiness to steal, and I agreed to hand him the goloshes through the window. "That's right," he said calmly, without enthusiasm. "You are not deceiving me? No, I see that you are not." He was silent for a moment, trampling the dirty, wet snow with the soles of his boots. Then he lit a long pipe, and suddenly startled me. "But suppose it is I who deceive you? Suppose I take the goloshes to your master, and tell him that you have sold them to me for half a ruble? What then? Their price is two rubles, and you have sold them for half a ruble. As a present, eh?" I gazed at him dumbly, as if he had already done what he said he would do; but he went on talking gently through his nose, looking at his boots, and blowing out blue smoke. "Suppose, for example, that your master has said to me, 'Go and try that youngster, and see if he is a thief? What then?" "I shall not give you the goloshes," I said, angry and frightened. "You must give them now that you have promised."