“I used to be drunk from morning till night, my lad. Our house was all right, though it was tumbledown, it was our own, but it was empty as a drum. We used to sit hungry, we had hardly a morsel from one week’s end to another. My mother used to keep on nagging at me; but what did I care? I was always with Filka Morozov in those days. I never left him from morning till night. ‘Play on the guitar and dance,’ he’d say to me, ‘and I’ll lie down and fling money at you, for I’m an extremely wealthy man!’ And what wouldn’t he do! But he wouldn’t take stolen goods. ‘I’m not a thief,’ he says, ‘I’m an honest man. But let’s go and smear Akulka’s gate with pitch, for I don’t want Akulka to marry Mikita Grigoritch. I care more for that than for jelly.’ The old man had been meaning to marry Akulka to Mikita Grigoritch for some time past. Mikita, too, was an old fellow in spectacles and a widower with a business. When he heard the stories about Akulka he drew back: ‘That would be a great disgrace to me, Ankudim Trofimitch,’ says he, ‘and I don’t want to get married in my old age.’ So we smeared Akulka’s gate.