The face of Wiseacre wore a triumphant expression, as if he had demonstrated something and rejoiced that what he had prophesied had come true. The unhappy, helpless look of the man in the foxskin coat apparently afforded him considerable gratification. “Rather muddy now for travelling, Vassili Sergeyich,” said he, while the horses were being harnessed. “It wouldn’t be a bad idea to postpone your trip for a week or two, till it gets a bit more dry. Perhaps it were better you didn’t go at all.... If there were only some sense in your going! Well, you yourself know that people travel eternally, day and night, and get nowheres. What do you say?” Vassili Sergeyich gave the ferrymen for vodka, sat himself in the coach, and was off. “There! After the doctor again!” said Simon, trembling from cold.... “Yes, seek a real doctor, catch the wind in the field, seize the devil by the tail, confound your soul! What queer people there are! And forgive me, O Lord, a sinner!” The Tartar walked up to Wiseacre, and looked at him with hatred and repulsion. He trembled, and as he spoke he mingled with his broken Russian several Tartar words: “He is good ... good, but you are bad! You are bad! He is a good soul, a noble soul, but you are a beast, you are bad! He is living, but you are dead.... God created men that they might live, that they might have joys and sorrows; but you want nothing--which means that you are dead, you’re a stone, you’re earth! A stone wants nothing--and you want nothing!... You’re a stone--and God does not love you, but him He loves!” All laughed; the Tartar frowned disgustedly, waved with his hand, and, wrapping his rags around him, walked up to the fire. Simon and the ferrymen went towards the hut. “It’s cold!” hoarsely murmured one ferryman, stretching himself on the straw, with which the entire floor was covered. “Yes, it isn’t warm!” agreed another. “A galley slave’s life!” All lay down. The door flew open before the wind, and the snow drifted into the hut. No one wanted to get up and close the door; they all felt cold and lazy. “Well, things suit me,” said Simon drowsily. “God grant every one such a life!” “You, as every one knows, are a born galley slave. Even the devil won’t take you!” From the outside came sounds resembling the whining of a dog. “What’s that? Who’s there?” “That’s the Tartar crying!” “Well!... What a character!” “He’ll get used to it!” said Simon, and soon was asleep. Soon the others were also asleep. But the door remained unshut. ANDREEV, APOSTLE OF THE TERRIBLE Of contemporary Russian fictionists, Leonid Nikolaevich Andreev rises largest with promise. Just past forty, he has for fourteen years been producing work of strength and individual flavor, and, now that Tolstoi is gone, his place is probably ahead of even Maxim Gorki--at least, he is _primus inter pares_. Andreev’s life is best told in his own brief words: