"Oh yes! the women have turned me out!--get out, you villain, they screamed--old tippler, they called me. But I don't mind a bit. I'm a patient lamb. Blackguard me as much as you like, hit me if you like. Only let me live a little--just a little if you please. Aha! my brothers, every man likes to enjoy his life, eh? Call it Vaska, call it Jakov, the soul's the same all the time." "Tell me who is weeping there? What does he want, in this affair? Be still my friend and don't complain, But stuff your mouth with bread again." Perfishka's face wore an expression of idiotic happiness. Ilya looked at him and felt disgust and fear. He thought in his heart that without a doubt God would punish the cobbler heavily for such behaviour on the day of his wife's death. But Perfishka was drunk the next day too, even behind his wife's coffin he reeled as he walked and winked and laughed. All held his conduct blameworthy, he was even struck in the face. "Do you know," said Ilya to Jakov the day of the funeral, "Perfishka is a downright unbeliever!" "Oh! bother him!" answered Jakov indifferently. Ilya had noticed already that Jakov had altered considerably. He hardly ever appeared in the courtyard, but sat indoors all the time and seemed to take pains to avoid Ilya. At first Ilya thought that Jakov envied him his success at school and was sitting indoors over his school work. But he soon showed that he learned with even more difficulty than before; constantly his teacher had to reprove him for his inattention and his failure to understand the simplest things. Ilya did not wonder at Jakov's indifference over Perfishka, for Jakov took no special interest in the affairs of the house, but he did wish to understand what was passing in his friend's mind and he asked him: "Why are you so down on me now? Don't you want to be friends?" "I? Not be your friend? What on earth are you saying?" said Jakov taken aback, and then called quickly with an eager expression: "See now, go into the house. I'm coming in a moment--I'll show you." He jumped up and ran off, while Ilya went to his room in great perplexity. Jakov soon appeared. He closed the door behind him, went to the window, and took a red book from his coat pocket. "Come here!" he said, softly, with an important air, sitting down on Terenti's bed and making room for Ilya beside him. Then he opened the book, laid it on his knee, bent over it and began to read aloud, following the words along the grey paper with his finger: