“He barks finely, the shaggy cur!”
It was easy to become acquainted with him; it cost no more than to offer him hospitality; he required a decanter of vodka and a portion of ox liver.
When I asked him to tell me what kind of books one ought to read, he answered me with stubborn ferocity by another question:
“Why read at all?”
But mollified by my confusion, he added in ringing tones:
“Have you read Ecclesiastes?”
“Yes.”
“Read Ecclesiastes.
You need nothing more.
There is all the wisdom of the world, only there are sheep who do not understand it; that is to say, no one understands it.
Can you sing at all?”
“No.”
“Why?
You ought to sing.
It is the most ridiculous way of passing time.”
Some one asked him from an adjacent table:
“But you sing yourself?”
“Yes; but I am a vagrant.
Well?”
“Nothing.”
“That is nothing new.
Every one knows that there is nothing in that blockhead of yours, and there never will be anything.
Amen!”
In this tone he was in the habit of speaking to me and to every one else, although after the second or third time of my treating him, he began to be more gentle with me. One day he actually said with a shade of surprise:
“I look at you and I cannot make out what you are, who are you, or why you are!
But whatever you are, may the devil take you!”
He behaved in an incomprehensible manner to Kleshtchkov. He listened to him with manifest enjoyment sometimes even with a benign smile, but he would not make closer acquaintance with him, and spoke about him coarsely and contemptuously.
“That barber’s block!
He knows how to breathe, he understands what to sing about, but for the rest, he is an ass.”
“Whyr’
“Like all his kind.”
I should have liked to talk with him when he was sober, but when sober he only bellowed, and looked upon all the world with misty, dull eyes.
I learned from some one that this permanently inebriated man had studied in the Kazan Academy, and might have become a prelate. I did not believe this.
But one day when I was telling him about myself, I recalled the name of the bishop, Chrisanph. He tossed his head and said:
“Chrisanph?
I know him.
He was my tutor and benefactor.
At Kazan, in the academy, I remember!
Chrisanph means ‘golden flower.’ Yes, that was a true saying of Pavm Beruind.
Yes, he was a flower of gold, Chrisanph!”
“And who is Pavm Beruind?” I added, but Mitropolski replied shortly:
“That is none of your business.”
When I reached home I wrote in my note-book,
“I must read the works of Pavm Beruind.” I felt, somehow, that I should find therein the answers to many questions which perplexed me.
The singer was very fond of using names which were unknown to me, and curiously coined words. This irritated me greatly.
“Life is not aniso?” he said.
“What is aniso?” I asked.
“Something advantageous to you,” he answered, and my perplexity amused him.
These little sayings, and the fact that he had studied in the academy, led me to think that he knew a great deal, and I was offended with him for not speaking of his knowledge, or if he did allude to it, being so unintelligible.
Or was it that I had no right to ask him,?