Matrona caught hold of him by the shoulders to hold him back; he felt how her hand trembled, but he shook her off against her will. "Get away, or something will happen!" he shouted out, pushing her back, and he strode out by the door. The courtyard seemed empty and quiet.... Whilst Grigori walked towards the accordion-player's room a feeling of fear took possession of him; but this was followed by an immediate sense of satisfaction that he should be the only one in the house who had the courage to visit the sick man. This feeling increased when he noticed that the tailor's apprentices were watching him from the windows of the second-floor. In order to appear quite free from fear he whistled as he went along. At the door, however, of the accordion-player's room he met with a slight surprise. He was not the first to visit the sick man; Senka Tschischik was there before him. Senka was just sticking his nose through the crack of the door, and observing in his usual fashion, with intense curiosity, all that was going on in the room. He did not notice Orloff's approach till the latter took him by the ear. "Just look, Uncle Grischka, how the cramps have got hold of him!" he whispered, lifting his dirty little face, which, under the impression of what he had just been witnessing, seemed more sharp-set than ever. "How parched and dried up he looks. By Jove! he looks like a dry cask!" Orloff was quite overcome by the pestiferous atmosphere which was issuing from the room. He stood there silently, listening to Tschischik, whilst watching with one eye through the narrow crack of the partly open door. "We ought, perhaps, to give him some water to drink, Uncle Grigori," said Tschischik. Orloff glanced at the excited, nervous, trembling face of the child, and felt within himself the desire to help the sufferer. "Be off, quick, and get some water!" he ordered Senka. Then he opened wide the door of the sick man's room, and stepped boldly across the threshold. Through the mist, which seemed to have arisen before his eyes, Grigori saw poor Kisljakoff. The accordion-player, dressed in his best clothes, leant all of a heap against the table, pressing convulsively his body against the edge, which he held with both his hands. His feet, still wearing the patent leather boots, dangled helplessly on the damp floor. "Who is there?" asked the sick man in a hollow, apathetic, changed voice. Grigori moved a step nearer, treading carefully over the damp boards, and trying to speak in even cheerful tone of voice. "It is!--brother Mitri Pawlow.... What's the matter with you, then? This is a queer sort of music you are making here! Did you have a drop too much yesterday?"