Having completed his task and ordered the samovar, Tikhon Ilitch went with his lantern into the cold shop, reeking with smells, and picked out the best pickled herring he could find. That was all right, not a bad idea: to cheer oneself up a bit before tea! And at tea he ate it, drank several small glasses of bitter-sweet, yellowish-red liqueur made of mountain-ash berries, poured himself out a brimming cup of tea, and drew towards him his large old counting-frame. But, after some reflection, he hunted out Deniska’s letter and set himself to the task of deciphering its scrawl. “Denya reseved 40 rubles in munny, and than kolected his thinges....” (“Forty!” said Tikhon Ilitch to himself. “Akh, the poor beggar!”) “Denya wint to Tula station and hee wos enstantly robbt they tuk Evrything to the last kopak hee had nowere to gow and sadness Sezed heem....” This absurd scrawl was difficult and tiresome to decipher, but the evening was long, and he had nothing else to do. The samovar purred busily, the lamp shone with a quiet light--and there was sadness in the tranquillity and repose of the evening. The watchman’s mallet was working away as he made his rounds noisily, beating out a dance-tune upon the frosty air. “Aftr thot I hainkrd to goa hoam thoa fader wo vairy brutl....” “Well, and there’s a fool for you, Lord forgive me!” thought Tikhon Ilitch. “The Grey Man brutal, forsooth!” “I wint Into the tik foarest to peck out the talest fur-tre and taik a cord frum a shuger-loof and fixe myselff in iternl laife in my nu briches but witaut boots....” (“Without his boots, he means, I suppose?” said Tikhon Ilitch, holding the paper at a distance from his tired eyes. “Yes, that’s right; that’s what he means.”) “Eftrwords come strung wind blu clauds and thunr-strum and a kwik bige litul rayne poared the son kam frum behain foarest the coard bend bend and asuden brooke and Denya fall on the grond the ents krall and bigin to bite and wurk on hem and thair crold alzo a snaek and a green krawfish....” Tossing the letter into the slop-bowl, Tikhon Ilitch sipped his tea, planted his elbows on the table, and stared at the lamp. What a queer nation! A soul of many hues! Now a man is just a plain dog, then again he is melancholy, pities himself, turns soft, weeps over himself--after the fashion of Deniska, or of himself, Tikhon Ilitch. The window-panes were perspiring vigorously and clearly, as they do in winter; the watchman’s mallet said something melodiously coherent. Ekh, if he only had children! If--well, if he only had a nice mistress instead of that bloated old woman, who made his flesh crawl merely by what she said; by her words about the Princess, and about some pious nun or other named Polikarpia, who was called in the town “Polukarpia.”[12] But it was too late, too late.