Chapter 4 - Page 2

beautiful. Even the servants from all the flats came to our back entrance to hear him."

"Well, and did you get him dressed?" his master interrupted him.

"Of course. I gave him a night-shirt of yours and put my own paletot on him. A man like that is worth helping - he really is a dear fellow!" Zakhar smiled.

"He kept asking me what your rank is, whether you have influential acquaintances, and how many serfs you own."

"Well, all right, but now he must be found, and in future don't let him have anything to drink, or it'll be worse for him."

"That's true," Zakhar interjected. "He is evidently feeble; our old master had a clerk like that..."

But Delesov who had long known the story of the clerk who took hopelessly to drink, did not let Zakhar finish, and telling him to get everything ready for the night, sent him out to find Albert and bring him back.

He then went to bed and put out the light, but could not fall asleep for a long time, thinking about Albert. "Though it may seem strange to many of my acquaintances," he thought, "yet one so seldom does anything for others that one ought to thank God when such an opportunity presents itself, and I will not miss it. I will do anything - positively anything in my power - to help him. He may not be mad at all, but only under the influence of drink. It won't cost me very much. Where there's enough for one there's enough for two. Let him live with me awhile, then we'll find him a place or arrange a concert for him and pull him out of the shallows, and then see what happens."

He experienced a pleasant feeling of self-satisfaction after this reflection. "Really I'm not altogether a bed fellow," he thought. "Not at all bad even - when I compare myself with others."

He was already falling asleep when the sound of opening doors and of footsteps in the hall roused him.

"Well, I'll be stricter with him," he thought, "that will be best; and I must do it."

He rang.

"Have you brought him back?" he asked when Zakhar entered.

"A pitiable man, sir," said Zakhar, shaking his head significantly and closing his eyes.

"Is he drunk?"

"He is very weak."

"And has he the violin?"

"I've brought it back. The lady gave it me."

"Well, please don't let him in here now. Put him to bed, and tomorrow be sure not to let him leave the house on any account."

But before Zakhar was out of the room Albert entered it.