Even in school there is much the same confusion; the boys cry out and do all sorts of mischief, and the grown-up people in the streets roar and insult one another and fight and get drunk. And all this not only causes unrest, at times it is absolutely horrible. Mankind here is mad, some are liars, like Petrusha, some evil-tempered and passionate like Savel, others miserably wretched like Perfishka or Uncle Terenti or Matiza. Ilya was specially surprised and provoked at the hateful conduct which the cobbler had lately displayed. One morning, as Ilya was getting ready for school, Perfishka came into the bar, all dishevelled and heavy with want of sleep. He stood silently at the counter and looked at Terenti. His left eyelid quivered and blinked constantly and his underlip hung down in a strange manner. Terenti looked at him, smiled, and poured him out a small glass, three kopecks worth, Perfishka's usual morning allowance. Perfishka took it with a shaking hand and tossed it off, but neither smacked his lips after it as usual, nor showed his approval by an oath, and forgot entirely to take his accustomed morsel of food. With his blinking left eye he looked once more at the new barman searchingly, while his right eye remained dull and motionless and seemed to see nothing. "What's wrong with your eye?" asked Terenti. Perfishka rubbed his eye with his hand, then looked at his hand and said loudly and emphatically: "My wife, Avdotya Petrovna is dead." "What? Truly?" asked Terenti, crossing himself with a glance at the sacred image. "The Lord have mercy on her soul!" "Eh?" said Perfishka sharply, still gazing into Terenti's face. "I said, 'The Lord have mercy on her soul!'" "Oh!--yes--yes! She is dead," said the cobbler. Then he turned suddenly on his heel and went out. "A strange man," muttered Terenti, shaking his head. Ilya, too, found the cobbler's behaviour very strange. On his way to school he went for a moment into the cellar to see the dead woman. It was all dark and stuffy; the women had come from the attics and were talking half aloud in a group round the death-bed. Matiza was dressing the little Masha and asked her: "Does it catch you under the arm?" And Masha, standing with her arms stretched out sideways said crossly: "Yes--ye--es!" The cobbler sat bent forward at the table and looked at his daughter, his eye blinking all the time. Ilya gave a glance at the pale, swollen face of the dead; he remembered her dark eyes, now closed for ever, and went out with a painful gnawing feeling at his heart. When he returned from school and went into the bar room, he heard Perfishka playing the harmonica and singing in a merry tone: "Ah, my bride, my only dear, My heart is gone, I sadly fear, Why have you stolen it away, And where on earth is it to-day?"