"I emptied the whole flagon. It was disgusting, but I could not sleep without it, and the next night again . . . I drank . . . and now I can't go to sleep without it . . . I got my own flagon and buy vodka. . . . You are a good boy, you will never tell mother about it, you must never betray poor people, because one must take care of poor people; poor people are all sufferers. On the way home I shall go round the corner to the dram-shop, and knock at the window. We shall not go into it, but I shall give my empty flagon, and they will shove me out a new one."
I was touched and promised that I would tell no one, on any account, of her flagon.
"Thank you, little dove, never tell anyone; it is necessary for me."
I can see her, and hear her, as if she were before me even now. Every night, when all were asleep, she would rise from her bed, so quietly that not even a bone cracked; she would listen, then creep on her long frozen legs to the window. There she would stand for a minute looking round, listening to see if mother were not coming from her bedroom, then she tapped the neck of the flagon gently on her teeth, put it to her mouth and sipped . . . one drop, another and another. Was it coal that was being drenched? or Arkadie's memory commemorated? Then she returned to her bed, slipped
