The students took the food and they cried, "Rah, Rah,"
and beat the fish against the table. But the pudding they
would not take. "We have no axe," they said. "Keep it."

Then they poured out golgol for Serge and said, "Drink it."

But Serge would not.

"I must work," he said, and all the students laughed.
"He wants to work!" they cried. "Rah, Rah."

But Serge went up to his room and lighted his taper, made
of string dipped in fat, and set himself to study. "I
must work," he repeated.

So Serge sat at his books. It got later and the house
grew still. The noise of the students below ceased and
then everything was quiet.

Serge sat working through the night. Then presently it
grew morning and the dark changed to twilight and Serge
could see from his window the great building with the
barred windows across the street standing out in the grey
mist of the morning.

Serge had often studied thus through the night and when
it was morning he would say, "It is morning," and would
go down and help Madame Vasselitch unbar the iron shutters
and unchain the door, and remove the bolts from the window