was a youthful deacon, rather a queer fellow, after the pattern of seminary queer sticks. A relative of his came to see him, but the visit ended in nothing: the deacon was absent in the bazaar, and his name, Krasnobaeff, was written up on the board after the Latin fashion: Benedictoff.
As autumn drew near, Kuzma persuaded himself that it was indispensable for him to make a pilgrimage to the holy places, to some monastery, or—to give up the struggle for good and all and take to drinking again in order to spite someone or other. One day, having unlocked his chest, he found Tolstoy’s Confession , opened it, and read the pencilled inscription which he had written while in a state of intoxication, during his services with Kasatkin: “It is impossible to wean all men from vodka.” A couple of months earlier he would merely have contracted his brows in a frown—what a stupid inscription!—but now he grinned and said to himself: “Why not consign everything to the devil’s mother, burn everything to the last thread, and draw a razor across my throat?”
Autumn set in. In the bazaar there was a fragrance of apples and plums. The schoolboys were brought back to the gymnasium from their vacation in the country. The horse races began. The sun began to set behind Chips Square. If one emerged from the gate in the evening and crossed the intersection of the streets, one was blinded: to the left the whole street, ending at the square in the distance, was flooded with a low, mournful light. The gardens, behind their fences, were full of dust and spiders’ webs. Polozoff came to meet one, wearing a coat with sleeve-flaps, but he had already exchanged his hat for a peaked cap with military insignia. There was not a soul in the town park. The bandstand for the musicians was boarded up; so was the kiosk where, in summer, kumiss and lemonade were sold; the wooden refreshment counter was closed. And one day, as he sat near the bandstand, Kuzma was so overwhelmed with depression that he seriously meditated committing suicide. The sun