“What?” a weak voice was heard in reply, and a thin face with a red beard bent over from the stove. A big, wasted, white hand, covered with hair, pulled up a coat on the bony shoulder in the dirty shirt. “Give me a drink, brother; what do you want?”

The young man handed him a dipper of water.

“Well, Fedya,” he said, hesitating, “you won’t be wanting your new boots now; give them to me; you won’t be going out, you know.”

Pressing his weary head to the shining dipper, and wetting his scanty, hanging moustaches in the dingy water, the sick man drank feebly and eagerly. His tangled beard was not clean, his sunken, lustreless eyes were lifted with an effort to the young man’s face. When he had finished drinking he tried to lift his hand to wipe his wet lips, but he could not, and he wiped them on the sleeve of the coat. Without uttering a sound, but breathing heavily through his nose, he looked straight into the young man’s eyes, trying to rally his strength.