“Your honor, the people are anxious,” said Loshadin, smiling naively all over his face, and evidently pleased at seeing at last the people he had waited for so long. “The people are very uneasy, the children are crying.... They thought, your honor, that you had gone back to the town again. Show us the heavenly mercy, our benefactors!...” The doctor and the examining magistrate said nothing, got into the sledge, and drove to Syrnya. THE FIRST-CLASS PASSENGER A FIRST-CLASS passenger who had just dined at the station and drunk a little too much lay down on the velvet-covered seat, stretched himself out luxuriously, and sank into a doze. After a nap of no more than five minutes, he looked with oily eyes at his _vis-a-vis,_ gave a smirk, and said: “My father of blessed memory used to like to have his heels tickled by peasant women after dinner. I am just like him, with this difference, that after dinner I always like my tongue and my brains gently stimulated. Sinful man as I am, I like empty talk on a full stomach. Will you allow me to have a chat with you?” “I shall be delighted,” answered the _vis-a-vis._ “After a good dinner the most trifling subject is sufficient to arouse devilishly great thoughts in my brain. For instance, we saw just now near the refreshment bar two young men, and you heard one congratulate the other on being celebrated. ‘I congratulate you,’ he said; ‘you are already a celebrity and are beginning to win fame.’ Evidently actors or journalists of microscopic dimensions. But they are not the point. The question that is occupying my mind at the moment, sir, is exactly what is to be understood by the word _fame_ or _charity_. What do you think? Pushkin called fame a bright patch on a ragged garment; we all understand it as Pushkin does--that is, more or less subjectively--but no one has yet given a clear, logical definition of the word.... I would give a good deal for such a definition!” “Why do you feel such a need for it?”