“While I was doing the practical work, I had such an accident one day!” he said, raising both eyebrows. “I was at a mine here in the Donets district. You have seen, I dare say, how people are let down into the mine. You remember when they start the horse and set the gates moving one bucket on the pulley goes down into the mine, while the other comes up; when the first begins to come up, then the second goes down⁠—exactly like a well with two pails. Well, one day I got into the bucket, began going down, and can you fancy, all at once I heard, ‘Trrr!’ The chain had broken and I flew to the devil together with the bucket and the broken bit of chain.⁠ ⁠… I fell from a height of twenty feet, flat on my chest and stomach, while the bucket, being heavier, reached the bottom before me, and I hit this shoulder here against its edge. I lay, you know, stunned. I thought I was killed, and all at once I saw a fresh calamity: the other bucket, which was going up, having lost the counterbalancing weight, was coming down with a crash straight upon me.⁠ ⁠… What was I to do? Seeing the position, I squeezed closer to the wall, crouching and waiting for the bucket to come full crush next minute on my head. I thought of papa and mamma and Mogilev and Grumaher.⁠ ⁠… I prayed.⁠ ⁠… But happily⁠ ⁠… it frightens me even to think of it.⁠ ⁠…”

Alexandr Ivanitch gave a constrained smile and rubbed his forehead with his hand.

“But happily it fell beside me and only caught this side a little.⁠ ⁠… It tore off coat, shirt and skin, you know, from this side.⁠ ⁠… The force of it was terrific. I was unconscious after it. They got me out and sent me to the hospital. I was there four months, and the doctors there said I should go into consumption. I always have a cough now and a pain in my chest. And my psychic condition is terrible.⁠ ⁠… When I am alone in a room I feel overcome with terror. Of course, with my health in that state, to be a mining foreman is out of the question. I had to give up the school of mines.⁠ ⁠…”

“And what are you doing now?” I asked.

“I have passed my examination as a village schoolmaster. Now I belong to the orthodox church, and I have a right to be a teacher. In Novotcherkassk, where I was baptized, they took a great interest in me and promised me a place in a church parish school. I am going there in a fortnight, and shall ask again.”