"Here one must reckon in a special way." The words of the merchant Strogany returned to Ilya's mind. "If there is one honest man to nine rogues, no one is any the better, and the one goes to the wall--it is the majority that is right." Ilya laughed involuntarily. Through his heart glided a cold, evil feeling of anger against men, like an adder. Well-known pictures rose before him--big, fat Matiza turned in the mud in the midst of the court and groaned: "A--ah! my dearest mother--my darling mother--if only you would forgive me." Perfishka, quite drunk, was standing by, swaying to and fro, and said reproachfully: "How drunk she is! the pig!" And Petrusha, healthy and red-cheeked, stood on the steps and laughed contemptuously. Ilya thought of all these things, and his heart contracted, and became even more sober, more hardened. The disturbance was over in the bar room. Three voices, those of two women and a man, were attempting to sing a song, but without great success. Some one had brought a harmonica; he played a little, very badly, then stopped. By the wall against Ilya's bed, two people conversed half aloud with frequent heavy sighs. Ilya listened with a strange sense of enmity: "One lives, and works, and toils all one's life; there isn't any sense in it, and all the others live, and our sort goes hungry; we can't stand fast, brother, for all we straddle our legs." "It's a fact." "And one can't see how it's ever going to get better. Honest work's no good; builds no stone houses. How long can a man stand such a jolly life? His bit of strength's gone before he knows, then, that means the end." "Ah! yes--yes--but what's a man to do?" "And one isn't strong enough or quick enough, for dishonest work. The frog would like to taste the nut, but he's no teeth." "O God, our Father." Ilya sighed involuntarily. Suddenly he recognised Perfishka's voice, ringing clearly through the bustle and noise. The cobbler shouted in his quick, sing-song way: "Fill your cup! fill it up to the brim. 'Tis your master pays, leave it to him. Let us drink, let us love! Through the world let us rove. And who ever says no, to the devil may go." Cheerful laughter and applause followed. Then again the low voice near the wall: "I've worked since I was a youngster. I'm near forty. Never once I've earned enough to eat. Sweat comes every day, but not soup, and at home it's all misery and crying. The children whimper, and the wife grumbles; a fellow can't stand it--you just lose your patience and go out and get properly drunk, and when you're sober, all you see is that the trouble's got worse." "Yes--yes, it's true." "One prays, 'Father in Heaven, have mercy. Why dost Thou send this misery?' but it looks as if He didn't hear." "No, He doesn't seem to hear."