I, sinful man that I am, have grown effeminate beyond measure;—­their hair is so long[35] and oily, and they comb it out in all directions, thinking thereby to show me respect, and they clear their throats loudly in the middle of conversation, either out of timidity or because they wish to please me in that way also.  Well, but they remind me of my hour of death.  But be that as it may, I want to live a while longer.  Only, little sir, don’t repeat these remarks of mine; respect the ecclesiastical profession—­only fools do not respect it; and I am to blame for talking nonsense in my old age.”

Alexyei Sergyeitch had received a scanty education,[36] like all nobles of that epoch; but he had completed it, to a certain degree, by reading.  He read only Russian books of the end of the last century; he considered the newer writers unleavened and weak in style.  During his reading he placed beside him, on a round, one-legged little table, a silver jug filled with a special effervescent kvas flavoured with mint, whose pleasant odour disseminated itself through all the rooms.  He placed large, round spectacles on the tip of his nose; but in his later years he did not so much read as stare thoughtfully over the rims of the spectacles, elevating his brows, mowing with his lips and sighing.  Once I caught him weeping, with a book on his knees, which greatly surprised me, I admit.

He recalled the following wretched doggerel: 

    O all-conquering race of man! 
    Rest is unknown to thee! 
    Thou findest it only
    When thou swallowest the dust of the grave.... 
    Bitter, bitter is this rest! 
    Sleep, ye dead....  But weep, ye living!

These verses were composed by a certain Gormitch-Gormitzky, a roving poetaster, whom Alexyei Sergyeitch had harboured in his house because he seemed to him a delicate and even subtle man; he wore shoes with knots of ribbon, pronounced his o’s broadly, and, raising his eyes to heaven, he sighed frequently.  In addition to all these merits, Gormitch-Gormitzky spoke French passably well, for he had been educated in a Jesuit college, while Alexyei Sergyeitch only “understood” it.  But having once drunk himself dead-drunk in a dram-shop, this same subtle Gormitzky displayed outrageous violence.  He thrashed “to flinders” Alexyei Sergyeitch’s valet, the cook, two laundresses who happened along, and even an independent carpenter, and smashed several panes in the windows, yelling lustily the while:  “Here now, I’ll just show these Russian sluggards, these unlicked katzapy!"[37]—­And what strength that puny little man displayed!  Eight men could hardly control him!  For this turbulence Alexyei Sergyeitch gave orders that the rhymster should be flung out of the house, after he had preliminarily been rolled in the snow (it happened in the winter), to sober him.