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Updated: May 3, 2025
The others began to wake up, and Simtsoff shouted in a blissful voice: "Brothers! One of you pour out a glass for the old man!" They poured out a glass and gave it to him. Having drunk it he tumbled down again, knocking against another man as he fell. Two or three minutes' silence ensued, dark as the autumn night. "What do you say?"
Then a hand stretched over the Deacon's head and took away the bottle, and the characteristic sound of vodki being poured into a glass was heard. Then they all protested loudly. "Oh this is sad!" shouted the Deacon. "Krivoi, let us remember the ancients! Let us sing 'On the Banks of Babylonian Rivers." "But can he?" asked Simtsoff. "He? He was a chorister in the Bishop's choir.
"Just look at the old devil!" swore Abyedok, looking at Simtsoff, who was smiling in a self-satisfied way. "And do you know why they love me? Because I know how to cheer up their souls." "Do you?" inquired Kuvalda. "And I can make them pity me . . . And a woman, when she pities! Go and weep to her, and ask her to kill you . . . she will pity you and she will kill you."
"Just look at the old devil!" swore Abyedok, looking at Simtsoff, who was smiling in a self-satisfied way. "And do you know why they love me? Because I know how to cheer up their souls." "Do you?" inquired Kuvalda. "And I can make them pity me.... And a woman, when she pities! Go and weep to her, and ask her to kill you ... she will pity you and she will kill you."
When the laughter stopped, Aleksei Maksimovitch Simtsoff remembered that he too had once had a daughter. "Her name was Lidka ... she was very stout ..." More than this he did not seem to remember, for he looked at them all, was silent and smiled ... in a guilty way. Those men spoke very little to each other about their past, and they recalled it very seldom and then only its general outlines.
On seeing him, they would come forward from all corners of the court-yard, drunk, or suffering from drunken headache, dishevelled, tattered, miserable, and pitiable. Then would come the barrel-like, stout Aleksei Maksimovitch Simtsoff, formerly Inspector of Woods and Forests, under the Department of Appendages, but now trading in matches, ink, blacking, and lemons.
The others began to wake up, and Simtsoff shouted in a blissful voice: "Brothers! One of you pour out a glass for the old man!" They poured out a glass and gave it to him. Having drunk it he tumbled down again, knocking against another man as he fell. Two or three minutes' silence ensued, dark as the autumn night. "What do you say?"
When the teacher was absent his speeches, as a rule, fell on the empty air, and received no attention, and he knew this, but still he could not help speaking. And now, having quarrelled with his companion, he felt rather deserted; but, still longing for conversation, he turned to Simtsoff with the following question: "And you, Aleksei Maksimovitch, where will you lay your grey head?"
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