The artist drank a glass of vodka, and the dark cloud in his soul gradually disappeared, and he felt as though all his inside was smiling within him. He began dreaming.⁠ ⁠… His fancy pictured how he would become great. He could not imagine his future works but he could see distinctly how the papers would talk of him, how the shops would sell his photographs, with what envy his friends would look after him. He tried to picture himself in a magnificent drawing room surrounded by pretty and adoring women; but the picture was misty, vague, as he had never in his life seen a drawing room. The pretty and adoring women were not a success either, for, except Katya, he knew no adoring woman, not even one respectable girl. People who know nothing about life usually picture life from books, but Yegor Savvitch knew no books either. He had tried to read Gogol, but had fallen asleep on the second page.

“It won’t burn, drat the thing!” the widow bawled down below, as she set the samovar. “Katya, give me some charcoal!”

The dreamy artist felt a longing to share his hopes and dreams with someone. He went downstairs into the kitchen, where the stout widow and Katya were busy about a dirty stove in the midst of charcoal fumes from the samovar. There he sat down on a bench close to a big pot and began:

“It’s a fine thing to be an artist! I can go just where I like, do what I like. One has not to work in an office or in the fields. I’ve no superiors or officers over me.⁠ ⁠… I’m my own superior. And with all that I’m doing good to humanity!”

And after dinner he composed himself for a “rest.” He usually slept till the twilight of evening. But this time soon after dinner he felt that someone was pulling at his leg. Someone kept laughing and shouting his name. He opened his eyes and saw his friend Ukleikin, the landscape painter, who had been away all the summer in the Kostroma district.

“Bah!” he cried, delighted. “What do I see?”

There followed handshakes, questions.