Sometimes in the evening he sat for hours in the hatchway, looking large and white, without breaking his silence, and his eyes were fixed gloomily on the distant horizon. At those times they were all more afraid of him than ever, but I was sorry for him. Jaakov Ivanich would come out from the kitchen, perspiring and glowing with the heat. Scratching his bald skull and waving his arm, he would take cover or say from a distance: "The fish has gone off." "Well, there is the salted cabbage." "But if they ask for fish-soup or boiled fish?" "It is ready. They can begin gobbling." Sometimes I plucked up courage to go to him. He looked at me heavily. "What do you want?" "Nothing." "Good.". On one of these occasions, however, I asked him: "Why is every one afraid of you? For you are good." Contrary to my expectations, he did not get angry. "I am only good to you." But he added distinctly, simply, and thoughtfully: "Yes, it is true that I am good to every one, only I do not show it. It does not do to show that to people, or they will be all over you. They will crawl over those who are kind as if they were mounds in a morass, and trample on them. Go and get me some beer." Having drunk the bottle, he sucked his mustache and said: "If you were older, my bird, I could teach you a lot. I have something to say to a man. I am no fool. But you must read books. In them you will find all you need. They are not rubbish--books. Would you like some beer?" "I don't care for it." "Good boy! And you do well not to drink it. Drunkenness is a misfortune. Vodka is the devil's own business. If I were rich, I would spur you on to study. An uninstructed man is an ox, fit for nothing but the yoke or to serve as meat. All he can do is to wave his tail." The captain's wife gave him a volume of Gogol. I read "The Terrible Vengeance" and was delighted with it, but Smouri cried angrily: "Rubbish! A fairy-tale! I know. There are other books." He took the book away from me, obtained another one from the captain's wife, and ordered me harshly: "Read Tarass'--what do you call it? Find it! She says it is good; good for whom? It may be good for her, but not for me, eh? She cuts her hair short. It is a pity her ears were not cut off too." When _Tarass_ called upon _Ostap_ to fight, the cook laughed loudly. "That's the way! Of course! You have learning, but I have strength. What do they say about it? Camels!" He listened with great attention, but often grumbled: "Rubbish! You could n't cut a man in half from his shoulders to his haunches; it can't be done. And you can't thrust a pike upward; it would break it. I have been a soldier myself." Andrei's treachery aroused his disgust. 'There's a mean creature, eh? Like women! _Tfoo!_ But when _Tarass_ killed his son, the cook let his feet slip from the hammock, bent himself double, and wept. The tears trickled down his cheeks, splashed upon the deck as he breathed stertorously and muttered: "Oh, my God! my God!"