inquired where he came from? he answered readily, and we began to
talk; others approached. He was from Smolensk, and had come to seek
employment that he might earn his bread and taxes. "There is no
work," said he: "the soldiers have taken it all away. So now I am
loafing about; as true as I believe in God, I have had nothing to eat
for two days." He spoke modestly, with an effort at a smile. A
sbiten{4}-seller, an old soldier, stood near by. I called him up.
He poured out his sbiten. The peasant took a boiling-hot glassful in
his hands, and as he tried before drinking not to let any of the heat
escape in vain, and warmed his hands over it, he related his
adventures to me. These adventures, or the histories of them, are
almost always identical: the man has been a laborer, then he has
changed his residence, then his purse containing his money and ticket
has been stolen from him in the night lodging-house; now it is
impossible to get away from Moscow. He told me that he kept himself
warm by day in the dram-shops; that he nourished himself on the bits
of bread in these drinking places, when they were given to him; and
when he was driven out of them, he came hither to the Lyapinsky house
for a free lodging. He was only waiting for the police to make their
rounds, when, as he had no passport, he would be taken to jail, and
then despatched by stages to his place of settlement. "They say that
the inspection will be made on Friday," said he, "then they will
arrest me. If I can only get along until Friday." (The jail, and
the journey by stages, represent the Promised Land to him.)

As he told his story, three men from among the throng corroborated
his statements, and said that they were in the same predicament. A
gaunt, pale, long-nosed youth, with merely a shirt on the upper
portion of his body, and that torn on the shoulders, and a cap
without a visor, forced his way sidelong through the crowd. He