It really was cold, not only because of the wind, which impudently blew right in upon us, but because of our wet clothes. "Perhaps you'd like something to eat? I have bread, potatoes, and two roasted ravens ... have some?" "Ravens?" I inquired inquisitively. "Never tasted them? They're not bad...." He chucked me a large piece of bread. I didn't try the raven. "Come, try them! In the autumn they're capital. And after all it is much more pleasant to eat raven angled for by your own hands than bread or fat given to you by the hand of a neighbour out of the window of his house, which, after you have accepted it as an alms, you always want to burn." His remarks were reasonable--reasonable and interesting. The use of raven as an article of food was new to me but did not cause me any surprise I knew that in winter at Odessa "the lower orders" eat rats, and at Rostov--slugs. There was nothing improbable in it Even the Parisians, when in a state of siege, were glad to eat all sorts of rubbish, and there are people who all their life long live in a state of siege. [1] Himself. "And how do you catch your ravens?" my desire for information led me to ask. "Not with your mouth, anyhow. You can knock them down with a stick or a stone, but the surest way is to fish for them! You must tie a piece of fat meat or a bit of bread at the end of a long piece of cord. The raven seizes it, gulps it down, and you haul him in. Then you twist his neck, pluck him, draw him, and, fastening him on to a stick, roast him over a fire." "Ah! it would be nice to be sitting by a fire now," I sighed. The cold had become more sensible. It seemed as if the very wind were freezing, it beat against the walls of the magazine with such a painful tremulous whine. Sometimes it was wafted to us along with the howl of some dog, the crowing of a cock, and the melancholy sound of the bell of the village church, hidden in the darkness. Drops of rain fell heavily from the roof of the magazine on to the wet earth. "'Tis dull to be silent," observed my fellow night-lodger. "It's rather cold ... to talk," I said. "Put your tongue in your pocket ... it will warm it up." "Thanks for the hint!" "We will go together, eh? When we take the road I mean...?" "All right!" "Let us introduce ourselves then ... I, for instance, am Pavel Ignat'ev Promtov, Esq." I introduced myself likewise. "That's right, now we know where we are! And now I'll ask you how you came to fall into these paths. Was it through a weakness for vodka, eh?" "It was from disgust of life." "That's possible, too. Do you know that publication of the Senate, entitled: Judicial Investigations?" "Yes." "Is your name also printed there?" At that time I had had nothing printed about me, and so I told him. "I also am not in print." "But have you done anything?" "Everything is in God's hands." "But you are a merry fellow, apparently?" "What's the good of grizzling?"