Abandoning the shop counter, and having sold off what their mother had left, they had begun to trade--had gone out among the Little Russians, and to Voronezh. They were frequently in their native town, and Kuzma kept up his friendship with Balashkin as of yore, and read avidly the books which Balashkin gave him or recommended to him. This was not at all like Tikhon. Tikhon, when there was nothing to do, was fond of reading, also; a year might pass without his taking a book in his hand, but if he did begin one, he read swiftly to the very last line and, once he had finished that, instantly severed all connection with the book; on one occasion he had read through an entire volume of the “Contemporary” in one night, had not understood much, had pronounced what he had read extremely interesting--and then had forgotten the “Contemporary” for ever. Neither did Kuzma understand much of what he read--even in the writings of Byelinsky, Gogol, and Pushkin. But his comprehension increased, not by days but by hours: he was able to grasp the gist of the matter and rivet it in his heart to a positively amazing degree. Why, then, when he comprehended the words of Dobroliuboff, did he disfigure his speech in the bazaar and say “khvakt” instead of “fact”? Why, when conversing with Balashkin about Schiller, did he passionately long to borrow his “ekordeon”? Waxing enthusiastic over Turgenieff’s “Smoke,” he maintained nevertheless that “he who is intelligent but not educated, has much knowledge even without education.” On visiting the grave of Koltzoff, in rapture he wrote upon the gravestone an illiterate epitaph: “Binith this munament is intered the boady of citazen alesei vasilevitch Kaltzoff campoaser and poet of Voronezh riworded by the munarch’s greciousnes _a lerningles man enlitend by natur_.” Balashkin explained the meaning of things to him and impressed on Kuzma’s soul a profound stamp of himself. Old, gigantic, lean, garbed summer and winter alike in a peasant overcoat which had turned green with age and a winter-weight peaked cap, huge-faced, clean-shaven, and wry-mouthed, Balashkin was almost terrifying with his malicious speeches, his deep, senile bass voice, the prickly, silvery bristles on his grey cheeks and lips, and his green left eye, bulging, flashing, and squinting in the direction in which his mouth was drawn awry. And he fairly took to barking one day at Kuzma’s remark about “enlightenment without education.” That eye of his blazed as he hurled aside his cigarette, which he had filled with the cheap tobacco on top of a tin which had contained pilchards. “Jaw of an ass! What’s that you’re jabbering? Have you ever considered what our ‘enlightenment without education’ signifies? The death of Zhadovskaya--that’s its devilish symbol!” “But what about the death of Zhadovskaya?” inquired Kuzma.