"Don't be cross. You're always saying I ought to come, and for all that, you've never asked me where I live, much less thought of paying me a visit." "You're right; it's a fact!" said Ilya, laughing. "But tell me now." Pavel looked at him, laughed too, and went on more cheerfully: "I live for myself. I've no friends, can't find any who can put up with me. I've been ill--three months in hospital. Not a soul came to see me all the time." "What was wrong?" "Caught cold once, when I was drunk. Typhus it was. When I was better, that was the worst. I lay alone all day and all night. You feel dumb and blind, like a puppy they throw into a pond. Thanks to the doctor, I had some books at least, else I should have been bored to death." "Were they nice books?" asked Ilya. "Ye-es, they were jolly good, mostly poems--Lermontov, Nekrassov, Pushkin. Lots of times, reading was like drinking milk. Verses, brother! To read verses is like your sweetheart kissing you. A line sometimes goes through your heart and makes the sparks fly--you feel on fire." "And I've given up reading books," said Ilya, with a sigh. "Why?" "Oh, what's the good of them, after all? You read books, and things seem to go one way, and you look at the real thing, and it's all different." "You're right there! Shall we turn in anywhere? We might have a bit of a talk. There's somewhere I must go, but there's plenty of time. Perhaps you'll come along?" Ilya agreed and took Pashka's arm. Pavel looked him in the face, and said, smiling: "We were never really friends, but I'm always very glad to meet you." "That's your look-out," said Ilya, jokingly. "Don't be glad on my account." "Ah, brother," Pavel interrupted him, "it's all very well to joke! I had something very different in my mind when you stopped me. But never mind that." They entered the first public house they came to, sat down in a corner and ordered some beer. Ilya saw in the lamp-light that Pavel's face was thin and sunken. His eyes had a restless look, and his lips, that so often before were half-open in gay mockery, were now pressed close together. "Where are you working now?" asked Ilya. "In a printing works again," said Pavel, gloomily. "Hard work?" "Oh, no; more play than work." Ilya felt a vague pleasure to see Pashka, once so gay and assertive, now sad and careworn. He wanted to find out what had changed his friend, and, filling Pashka's glass, began to question him. "Well, and how does the poetry get on?" "I let it alone now. But I made a lot of poems a while ago. I showed them to the doctor, he praised them. He got one of them printed in a paper. I got thirty-nine kopecks for it." "Oho!" cried Ilya. "That's something like! What sort of verses were they? Let's hear them!"