he took to drunk, and, having drank up every thing he had, he
suffered for a long while from poverty in the night-lodging house.
An old man, the cook, took to drink and fell sick. Last year a
footman who had formerly been a hard drinker, but who had refrained
from liquor for five years in the country, while living in Moscow
without his wife who encouraged him, took to drink again, and ruined
his whole life. A young lad from our village lives with my brother
as a table-servant. His grandfather, a blind old man, came to me
during my sojourn in the country, and asked me to remind this
grandson that he was to send ten rubies for the taxes, otherwise it
would be necessary for him to sell his cow. "He keeps saying, I must
dress decently," said the old man: "well, he has had some shoes
made, and that's all right; but what does he want to set up a watch
for?" said the grandfather, expressing in these words the most
senseless supposition that it was possible to originate. The
supposition really was senseless, if we take into consideration that
the old man throughout Lent had eaten no butter, and that he had no
split wood because he could not possibly pay one ruble and twenty
kopeks for it; but it turned out that the old man's senseless jest
was an actual fact. The young fellow came to see me in a fine black
coat, and shoes for which he had paid eight rubles. He had recently
borrowed ten rubles from my brother, and had spent them on these
shoes. And my children, who have known the lad from childhood, told
me that he really considers it indispensable to fit himself out with
a watch. He is a very good boy, but he thinks that people will laugh
at him so long as he has no watch; and a watch is necessary. During
the present year, a chambermaid, a girl of eighteen, entered into a
connection with the coachman in our house. She was discharged. An
old woman, the nurse, with whom I spoke in regard to the unfortunate
girl, reminded me of a girl whom I had forgotten. She too, ten yeans