“What sort of happiness is there for her with her father?” he said after a pause. “He loves her, and is comforted in her, it is true; but he’s no fool; he’s a stern, harsh old man--and young girls don’t want sternness.... They want caresses and ha-ha-ha! and hi-ho-ho!--and perfume and pomade. Yes.... Ekh, this business!” sighed Simon, and lifted himself awkwardly. “The vodka’s all gone; that means it’s time to go to bed. Well, I’m going, brother....” Left alone, the Tartar added more brushwood to the fire, lay down facing it, and began to think of his native village and of his wife; if she were to come, even if only for a month, for a day--then let her go back if she wanted to! Better a month, even a day, than nothing! But if his wife were to keep her promise and come, how should he feed her? Where could she live? “If there is nothing to eat, how can one live?” he asked aloud. For working day and night at an oar he was paid but ten copecks a day; it is true, passengers sometimes gave a gratuity for tea and for vodka, but his companions shared it among themselves, and gave the Tartar nothing, only laughing at him. And poverty made him feel hungry, cold, and frightened. Now, since his body ached and trembled, he wished to go into the hut and to bed, but he knew that there was nothing there to cover oneself with, and that it was colder than on the bank; here too there was nothing to cover oneself with, but one could at least keep up the fire.... In another week, when the water should have subsided, and the regular ferry-boat resumed its course, the services of the ferrymen, with the exception of Simon’s, would be dispensed with; then the Tartar must start tramping from village to village and beg for alms and work. His wife was but seventeen years old; pretty, petted, and shy--must she too traverse villages and beg for bread? No, the mere thought of it was terrible. Dawn was already breaking. The barge and the willows stood out clearly; the surging foam too was visible. Glancing behind him, the Tartar could see the clayey slope; the small, brown-thatched hut was at its base, and the huts of the village above. The cocks already crowed in the village. The red clayey slope, the barge, the river, the strange, evil-minded people, hunger, cold, disease--they all seemed not to exist at all. It was all a dream, thought the Tartar. He imagined that he was asleep and could hear himself snoring.... Of course he was at home, in the Simbirsk province, and all he needed to do to have his wife appear was to call her by name; and in the next room was his mother.... What terrible things dreams are! Of what use are they? The Tartar smiled and opened his eyes. What river was this? The Volga? It began to snow. “Ho, there!” came a shout from the other side. “The boat!”