I put the _Vòlos_ and _Listòk_ into my pocket and took, in addition to them, all the back numbers I could find, for the evening recreation of Ivan Matvyèich, and, although it was still early, slipped away out of the Department in order to visit the Passage, to look on, if only from the distance, at what was taking place there, and to overhear various expressions of opinions and views. I was convinced that there would be a tremendous crowd, and drew up the collar of my cloak to hide my face, for somehow I felt a little bit ashamed—so unaccustomed are we to publicity. But I feel that I have no right to dilate upon my personal, prosaic feelings in presence of so extraordinary and original an event. THE STEAM-CHICKEN. [Illustration] (_A Story fit to be printed only in the Christmas holidays._)[42] BY GLYEB USPÈNSKY. Although I cannot protest against the above observation, which very truly characterises this little sketch, I am bound to remark that the title—“A Story”—given to this production by the editor in question, is entirely out of character with both the subject under discussion and the manner in which that subject is treated. The sketch contains no coherent story at all, nor is it founded upon any story in real life. A group of people were simply discussing “_the soul_,” and one of the disputants, a poultry-farmer on a journey, delivered a kind of lecture upon the subject, bringing forward some very interesting facts concerning gallinaceous psychology. That is all. This is how it happened:— I got tired of waiting for my train in the stuffy little general waiting-hole of the most microscopic station on the whole N—— Railway, so I went out to sit and smoke on the platform. It was getting on for eleven o’clock on a warm, dark autumn night. The only light on the platform came from three small paraffin lamps, placed at long distances from one another, and giving so little light that I was quite unable to see clearly the group of dark human silhouettes collected on the platform close to me, and, like myself, waiting for the train. I could see several black shadows, but it was impossible to form an idea what sort of people they were. The conversation that they were carrying on together was, however, distinctly audible in the motionless silence of the dusky, sultry night. Unfortunately, this conversation was of a most gloomy character. It referred to an unusual misfortune which had happened early that morning at a neighbouring station, and had been a subject of general conversation along the whole line. A certain publichouse keeper, well known to every one connected with the railway, had thrown himself in front of the train. He had been a confirmed drunkard for some years, and had arrived at absolute beggary.