"Don't boast of your strength!" Gasped a wheezing old peasant, Half stifled with asthma. (His nose pinched and shrivelled Like that of a dead man, His eyes bright and sunken, His hands like a rake-- Stiffened, scraggy, and bony, 120 His legs long and narrow Like spokes of a wheel, A human mosquito.) "I was not a worse man Than he, the young mason, And boasted of _my_ strength. God punished me for it! The manager knew I was simple--the villain! He flattered and praised me. 130 I was but a youngster, And pleased at his notice I laboured like four men. One day I had mounted Some bricks to my shoulder, When, just then, the devil Must bring him in sight. "'What's that!' he said laughing, 'Tis surely not Trifon With such a light burden? 140 Ho, does it not shame Such a strapping young fellow?' 'Then put some more bricks on, I'll carry them, master,' Said I, sore offended. For full half an hour I stood while he piled them, He piled them--the dog! I felt my back breaking, But would not give way, 150 And that devilish burden I carried right up To the high second story! He stood and looked on, He himself was astounded, And cried from beneath me: 'Well done, my brave fellow! You don't know yourself, man, What you have been doing! It's forty stone, Trifon, 160 You've carried up there!' "I _did_ know; my heart Struck my breast like a hammer, The blood stood in circles Round both of my eyeballs; My back felt disjointed, My legs weak and trembling ... 'Twas then that I withered. Come, treat me, my friends!" "But why should we treat you? In what are you happy? 171 In what you have told us?"