While on his way to Masha to take part in her birthday celebration, the thought occurred to Yevsey:

"I am going to get acquainted with the joiner to-day. He's a revolutionist."

Yevsey was the first guest to arrive. He gave Masha a string of blue beads, and Anfisa a shell comb. In return for the gifts, with which both were greatly pleased, they treated him to tea and nalivka (a sort of wine made of berries with whiskey or water). Masha prettily arching her full white neck looked into his face with a kind smile. Her glance softly caressed his heart, enlivened and emboldened him. Anfisa poured the tea and said winking her eyes:

"Well, merchant, you are our generous donor. When will we celebrate your wedding?"

Yevsey trying not to show his embarrassment, said quietly and confidingly:

"I cannot decide to get married. It's very hard."

"Hard? Oh, you modest man! Marya, do you hear? He says it's hard to get married."

Masha smiled in answer to the cook's loud laugh, looking at Klimkov from the corner of her eyes.

"Maybe he has his own meaning of hard."

"Yes, I have my own meaning," said Yevsey, raising his head. "You see I am thinking of the fact that it is hard to find a person with whom you can live soul to soul, so that the one would not fear the other. It is hard to find a person whom you could believe."

Masha sat beside him. He glanced sidewise at her neck and breast, and sighed.

"Suppose I were to tell them where I work."

He started, frightened by the desire, and with a quick effort he suppressed it.

"If a man does not understand life," he continued, raising his voice, "it's better for him to remain alone."

"For one person to live all alone is hard, too," said Masha, pouring out another glass of nalivka for him. "Drink."

Yevsey longed to speak much and openly. He observed that the women listened to him willingly; and this in conjunction with the two glasses of wine aroused him. But the journalist's servant girl Liza, who came in at that moment also excited, at once usurped the attention of Anfisa and Masha. She was bony and had a cast in one eye. Her hair was handsomely dressed, and she was cleverly gowned. With her sprightly manner she seemed a good forward little girl.

"My good people invited guests for to-day, and did not want to let me go," she said sitting down. "'Well,' said I, 'you can do as you please.' And I went off. Let them bother themselves."

"Many guests?" Klimkov asked wearily, remembering his duty.

"A good many. But what sort of guests! Not one of them ever sticks a dime into your hand. On New Year's all I got was two rubles and thirty kopeks."

"So they're not rich?" asked Yevsey.

"Oh, rich! No! Not one of them has a whole overshoe."

"Who are they? What's their business?"

"Different things. Some write for the newspapers, another is simply a student. Oh, what a good fellow one of them is! He has black eyebrows, and curly hair, and a cute little mustache, white, even teeth—a lively, jolly fellow. He came from Siberia not long ago. He keeps talking about hunting."

Yevsey looked at Liza, and bent his head. He wanted to say "Stop!" to her. Instead he apathetically asked, "I suppose he must have been exiled."

"Who can tell? Maybe. My master and mistress were exiles, too. The sergeant told me so."

"Yes, who nowadays hasn't been an exile?" exclaimed the cook. "I lived at Popov's, an engineer, a rich man. He had his own house and horses and was getting ready to marry. Suddenly the gendarmes came at night, seized him, and broke up everything, and then he was sent off to Siberia."

"I don't condemn my people," Liza interrupted, "not a bit of it. They are good folks. They don't scold. They're not grasping. Altogether they're not like other people. And they're very interesting. They know everything and speak about everything."

Yevsey looked at Masha's ruddy face, and thought:

"I'd better go; I'll ask her about her master next time. But I can't make up my mind to go. If only she kept quiet, the silly!"

"Our people understand everything, too," Masha announced with pride.

"When that affair happened, that revolt in St. Petersburg," Liza began with animation, "they stayed up nights at a time talking."

"Why our people were in your house then," observed the nurse.

"Yes, indeed, there were lots of people at the house. They talked, and wrote complaints. One of them even began to cry. Upon my word!"

"There's enough to cry about," sighed the cook.

"He clutched his head, and sobbed. 'Unhappy Russia!' he said, 'Unhappy people that we are!' They gave him water, and even I got sorry for everybody, and began to cry."

Masha looked around frightened.

"God, when I think of my sister!" She rose and went into the cook's room. The women looked after her sympathetically. Klimkov sighed with relief. Against his will he asked Liza wearily and with an effort:

"To whom did they write complaints?"

"I don't know," answered Liza.

"Marya went off to cry," remarked the cook.

The door opened, and the cook's brother entered coughing.

"It's chilly," he said, untwisting the scarf from his neck.

"Here, take a drink, quick!"

"Yes, indeed. And here's health to you."

He was a thin person, who moved about freely and deliberately. The gravity of his voice did not accord very well with his small light beard and his sharp, somewhat bald skull. His face was small, thin, insignificant, his eyes, large and hazel.

"A revolutionist," was Yevsey's mental observation, as he silently pressed the joiner's hand.

"Time for me to be going," he announced unexpectedly to everybody.

"Where to?" cried Anfisa, unceremoniously seizing his hand. "Say, you merchant, don't break up our company. Look, Matvey, what a present he gave me."

Zimin looked at Yevsey, and said thoughtfully:

"Yesterday they got another order in our factory for fifteen thousand rubles. A drawing-room, a cabinet, a bed-room, and a salon—four rooms. All the orders come from the military. They stole a whole lot of money, and now they want to live after the latest fashion."

"There you are!" Yevsey exclaimed mentally, vexed and heated. "Begins the minute he comes in! Oh, Lord!"

He felt a painful ache in his chest, as if something inside him had been torn. Without thinking of what his question would lead to, he quickly asked the joiner:

"Are there any revolutionists in the factory?"

As if touched to the quick, Zimin quickly turned to him, and looked into his eyes. The cook frowned, and said in a voice dissatisfied but not loud:

"They say revolutionists are everywhere nowadays."

"From smartness or stupidity?" asked Liza.

Unable to withstand the hard searching look of the joiner, Klimkov slowly bowed his head, though he followed the workingman with a sidelong glance.

"Why does that interest you?" Zimin inquired politely but sternly.

"I have no interest in it," Yevsey answered lazily.

"Ah! Then why do you ask?"

"Just so," said Yevsey; and in a few seconds added, "Out of politeness."

The joiner smiled.

It seemed to Yevsey that three pairs of eyes were looking at him suspiciously and severely. He felt awkward, and something bitter nipped his throat. Masha came out of the cook's room, smiling guiltily. When she looked at the others' faces, the smile disappeared.

"What's the matter?"

"It's the wine," flashed through Yevsey's mind. He rose to his feet, shook himself, and said. "Don't think I asked for no reason at all. I asked because I wanted to tell her long ago—your sister—about you."

Zimin also rose. His face gathered in wrinkles, and turned yellow.

"What can you tell her about me?" he asked with calm dignity.

Masha's quiet whisper reached Yevsey's ear. "What's up between them?"

"Wait," said Anfisa.

"I know," said Yevsey. He had the sensation that he was being swung from the floor into the air light as a feather. He seemed to see everything, observe everything with marvellous plainness. "I know you're being followed—followed by the agents of the Department of Safety, I know you're a revolutionist."

The cook shook in her chair, crying out in astonishment and fright:

"Matvey, what does this mean?"

"Excuse me," said Zimin, passing his hand reassuringly before her face. "This is a serious matter." Then he said to Yevsey in a decided stern tone, "Young man, put your overcoat on. You must go home. And I, too, must go. Put your overcoat on."

Yevsey smiled. He still felt empty and light. It was a pleasant sensation, but his eyes were dim, and the caustic tickling taste in his mouth came back again. He scarcely realized how he walked away, but he did not forget that all were silent, and no one said good-by to him.

In the street Zimin nudged his shoulder, and said not aloud but emphatically:

"I beg you not to come to my sister any more."

"Why? Did I offend you?" asked Yevsey.

"No, not in the least."

"Why, then?"

"Who are you?"

"A peddler."

"Then how do you know what I am, and that I am being followed?"

"An acquaintance told me."

"A spy?"

"Yes."

"So? And you are a spy, too?"

"No," said Yevsey. But looking into Zimin's lean, pale face, he remembered the calm and dull sound of his voice, and without an effort corrected himself. "Yes, I, too."

They walked a few steps in silence.

"Well, go," said Zimin, suddenly halting. His voice sounded subdued and sorrowful. He shook his head strangely. "Go away."

Yevsey leaned his back against the enclosure, and gazed at the man, blinking his eyes. Zimin, too, looked at Yevsey, shaking his right hand.

"Why?" said Yevsey, in perplexity. "Didn't I tell you the truth? That you are being tracked?"

"Well?"

"And you are angry?"

Zimin bent toward him, and poured a wave of hissing words upon Klimkov.

"Yes, go to the devil! I know without you that they are tracking me. What's the matter? Is business going badly among you? Did you think you'd buy me? And betray people behind my back? Or did you want to throw a sop to your conscience? Go to hell! I say, go, or else I'll give you a black eye."

Yevsey started from his leaning posture, and walked off.

"Vermin!" he heard breathed behind him contemptuously.

Klimkov stopped, turned around, and for the first time swore at anybody with the whole power of his voice:

"Vermin yourself! You —— —— cur!"

Zimin did not rejoin. His steps were inaudible. Somewhere Yevsey heard the snow crunching under the runners of a cab and the grinding of iron on stone.

"He went back there," thought Klimkov, walking slowly along the pavement. "He will tell. Masha will curse me." He spat out, then hummed:

"Oh, garden, garden mine!" He stopped at a lamp-post, feeling he had to calm himself.

"Here I am, and I can sing if I want to. If a policeman hears it and asks, 'What are you bawling there?' I'll show him my ticket from the Department of Safety. 'Oh, excuse me!' he'll say. But if the joiner should sing, he'll be hustled off to the station-house, and they'll give him a cudgelling. 'Don't disturb the peace!'" Klimkov smiled, and peered into the darkness. "Well, brother, won't you strike up a song?"

However this failed to calm him as he had expected. His heart was sad, and a bitter soapy saliva seemed to be glued in his mouth, making tears well up in his eyes.

He sang with the full power of his lungs, shutting his eyes tight. This did not help either. The dry, prickly tears trickled through his lids, and chilled his cheeks.

"Ky-a-b!" Klimkov called in a low voice, still trying to put on a bold front. But when he had seated himself in the sleigh, his body grew faint, as if a great many tightly drawn fibres had suddenly burst within him. His head drooped, and swaying from side to side in his seat he mumbled:

"A fine insult—very strong—thank you! Oh, you good people, wise people—"

This complaining was pleasant. It filled his heart with drunken sweetness. Yevsey had often felt this sweetness in his childhood. It set him in a martyr-like attitude toward people, and made him more significant to himself.