“‘With a skvvvveak’! Well, I’m not asking you to do anything of the sort.” “You’re wearing leg-wrappers now.” And Akim began anxiously to take a test sip of the porridge from the spoon. The baker was disconcerted, and heaved a sigh: “Why should the likes of us wear boots?” “Oh, stop that,” said Kuzma. “You had better tell me whether you have this porridge day in and day out, for ever and ever, as I think you do.” “Well, and what would you like--fish, and ham?” inquired Akim, without turning round, as he licked the spoon. “That really wouldn’t be so bad: a dram of vodka, about three pounds of sturgeon, a knuckle of ham, a little glass of fruit cordial. But this isn’t porridge: it’s called thin gruel. The porridge is for the appetizer snack.” “But do you make cabbage soup, or any other sort of soup?” “We have had that, brother--cabbage soup; and what soup it was! If you were to spill it on the dog his hair would peel off!” “Well, you might make a little soup.” “But where would we get the potatoes? You can’t buy any from a peasant, any more than from the devil, brother! You couldn’t wheedle even snow out of a peasant in the middle of winter.” Kuzma shook his head. “Probably ’tis your illness that makes you so bitter! You ought to get a little treatment--” Akim, without replying, squatted down on his heels in front of the fire. The fire had already died down; only a little heap of thin coals glowed red under the kettle; the garden grew darker and darker, and the blue aurora had already begun faintly to illuminate their faces, as the gusts of wind inflated Akim’s shirt. Mitrofan was sitting beside Kuzma, leaning on his stick; the baker sat on a stump under a linden tree. On hearing Kuzma’s last words, he grew serious. “This is the way I look at it,” he said submissively and sadly: “that nothing can be otherwise than as the Lord decrees. If the Lord does not grant health, then all the doctors cannot help. Akim, yonder, speaks the truth: no one can die before his death-hour comes.” “Doctors!” interposed Akim, staring at the coals and pronouncing the word in a specially vicious way--“doktogga!” “Doctors, brother, have an eye on their pockets. I’d let out his guts for him, for such a doctor, so I would!” “Not all of them are thinking of their pockets,” said Kuzma. “I haven’t seen all of them.” “Well, then, don’t chatter nonsense about what you haven’t seen,” said Mitrofan severely, and turned to the baker: “Yes, and you’re a nice one, too: making yourself out a hopeless beggar! Perchance, if you didn’t wallow round on the ground, dog-fashion, you wouldn’t have that acute pain.” “Why, you see, I--” the baker began.