And here there is a blank in our biographical record--a blank, however, which may, partially, be filled up from conjecture. To this period belongs, I opine, the first of Pyeshkov's gipsy-like wanderings through Russia. The most casual reader of his tales is struck at once by his delight for the free, careless life of a vagabond. The justification, the philosophy of that life, so to speak, he has put into the mouth of that prince of vagabonds, Promtov[2], evidently a real person, whose antitype Pyeshkov must have met with on his rambles, and who is one of his best creations It was now, too, that he must have made the acquaintance of the so-called "Buivshie Lyudi,"[2]--or "Have-beens," whom he has immortalized in so many of his tales, that numerous and unhappy class who have fallen, beyond recovery, from positions of trust or emolument. These, too, were the days when, as he tells us, "I sawed wood, dragged loads," and, in fact, did all sorts of ill-paid, menial labour. On the other hand, he made the acquaintance of numerous students at Kazan, was admitted into their clubs, and his unquenchable ardour for learning revived. We do not know what he read during these years, but he must have read a very great deal. None can take up his works without being impressed by the richness and variety of his vocabulary, and it is not too much to say that no other Russian writer ever uses, or has used, so many foreign terms (English and French especially), or has coined so many new words from extraneous western sources. It is also plain from internal evidence that he has studied history, philosophy, and science with enthusiasm, and I agree with those Russian critics who complain that he has assimilated more Nietzschianism than is good for him, although, on the other hand, I consider that his obligations to Nietzsche are far less considerable than is commonly supposed. And at the same time he was consorting freely with ruffians of every description,[4] sleeping round camp fires with murderers and thieves, for the sake of a crust of bread, and once would actually have starved to death but for the charity of a kind-hearted prostitute[5] Naturally courageous, and with the buoyancy of youth to hold him up, he seems to have endured these hardships cheerfully enough, and a fine sunset, or a majestic seascape, or even a glimpse of the monotonous grandeur of the endless steppe, would, as a rule, be compensation enough for the fatigues of a hard day at its close. But he, too, had his dark moments, and in 1888 (when only nineteen) he tried to commit suicide from sheer wretchedness. Fortunately the bullet struck no vital part, and he was nursed into convalescence at a hospital in Kazan. "Having sufficiently recovered," says Gorky, sarcastically summing up his position at this period, "I survived in order to devote myself to the apple-selling trade."