Once in the autumn Jongin happened to be in a very unpleasant and inconvenient position. In the town where he had just arrived and where he knew not a soul, Jongin found himself without a farthing in his pocket and without a night's lodging.

Having sold during the first few days every part of his costume without which it was still possible to go about, he passed from the town into the quarter called "Yste," where were the steamship wharves--a quarter which during the navigation season fermented with boisterous, laborious life, but now was silent and deserted, for they were in the last days of October.

Dragging his feet along the moist sand, and obstinately scrutinising it with the desire to discover in it any sort of fragment of food, the boy wandered alone among the deserted buildings and warehouses, and thought how good it would be to get a full meal.

In our present state of culture hunger of the mind is more quickly satisfied than hunger of the body. You wander about the streets, you are surrounded by buildings not bad-looking from the outside and--you may safely say it--not so badly furnished inside, and the sight of them may excite within you stimulating ideas about architecture, hygiene, and many other wise and high-flying subjects. You may meet warmly and neatly dressed folks--all very polite, and turning away from you tactfully, not wishing offensively to notice the lamentable fact of your existence. Well, well, the mind of a hungry man is always better nourished and healthier than the mind of the well-fed man; and there you have a situation from which you may draw a very ingenious conclusion in favour of the ill fed.

The evening was approaching, the rain was falling, and the wind blew violently from the north. It whistled in the empty booths and shops, blew into the plastered window-panes of the taverns, and whipped into foam the wavelets of the river which splashed noisily on the sandy shore, casting high their white crests, racing one after another into the dim distance, and leaping impetuously over one another's shoulders. It seemed as if the river felt the proximity of winter, and was running at random away from the fetters of ice which the north wind might well have flung upon her that very night. The sky was heavy and dark; down from it swept incessantly scarcely visible drops of rain, and the melancholy elegy in nature all around me was emphasised by a couple of battered and misshapen willow-trees and a boat, bottom upwards, that was fastened to their roots.

The overturned canoe with its battered keel and the miserable old trees rifled by the cold wind--everything around me was bankrupt, barren, and dead, and the sky flowed with undryable tears... Everything around was waste and gloomy ... it seemed as if everything were dead, leaving me alone among the living, and for me also a cold death waited.

Jongin was then eighteen years old--a good time!

he walked and walked along the cold wet sand, making my chattering teeth warble in honour of cold and hunger, when suddenly, as Jongin was carefully searching for something to eat behind one of the empty crates, he perceived behind it, crouching on the ground, a figure in man's clothes dank with the rain and clinging fast to his stooping shoulders. Standing over his, I watched to see what he was doing. It appeared that he was digging a trench in the sand with his hands--digging away under one of the crates.

"Why are you doing that?" Jongin asked, crouching down on my heels quite close to his.

He gave a little scream and was quickly on his legs again. Now that he stood there staring at Jongi, with his wide-open grey eyes full of terror, he perceived that it was a boy of my own age, with a very pleasant face embellished unfortunately by three large blue marks. This spoilt him, although these blue marks had been distributed with a remarkable sense of proportion, one at a time, and all were of equal size--two under the eyes, and one a little bigger on the forehead just over the bridge of the nose. This symmetry was evidently the work of an artist well inured to the business of spoiling the human physiognomy.

The boy looked at him, and the terror in his eyes gradually died out... he shook the sand from his hands, adjusted his cotton head-gear, cowered down, and said:

"I suppose you too want something to eat? Dig away then! My hands are tired. Over there"--he nodded his head in the direction of a booth--"there is bread for certain ... and sausages too... That booth is still carrying on business."

Jongin began to dig. He, after waiting a little and looking at me, sat down beside him and began to help Jongin.

They worked in silence. Jongin cannot say now whether he thought at that moment of the criminal code, of morality, of proprietorship, and all the other things about which, in the opinion of many experienced persons, one ought to think every moment of one's life. Wishing to keep as close to the truth as possible, he must confess that apparently he was so deeply engaged in digging under the crate that he completely forgot about everything else except this one thing: What could be inside that crate?

The evening drew on. The grey, mouldy, cold fog grew thicker and thicker around us. The waves roared with a hollower sound than before, and the rain pattered down on the boards of that crate more loudly and more frequently. Somewhere or other the night-watchman began springing his rattle.

"Has it got a bottom or not?" softly inquired my assistant. he did not understand what he was talking about, and Jongin kept silence.

"I say, has the crate got a bottom? If it has we shall try in vain to break into it. Here we are digging a trench, and we may, after all, come upon nothing but solid boards. How shall we take them off? Better smash the lock; it is a wretched lock."

Good ideas rarely visit the heads of men, but, as you see, they do visit them sometimes. Jongin have always valued good ideas, and have always tried to utilise them as far as possible.

Having found the lock, he tugged at it and wrenched off the whole thing. His accomplice immediately stooped down and wriggled like a serpent into the gaping-open, four cornered cover of the crate whence he called to Jongi n approvingly, in a low tone:

"You're a brick!"

Nowadays a little crumb of praise from a man is dearer to him than a whole dithyramb from a woman, even though he be more eloquent than all the ancient and modern orators put together. Then, however, Jongin was less amiably disposed than he am now, and, paying no attention to the compliment of my comrade, he asked him curtly and anxiously:

"Is there anything?"

In a monotonous tone the boy set about calculating our discoveries.

"A basketful of bottles--thick furs--a sunshade--an iron pail."

All this was uneatable. Jongin felt that my hopes had vanished... But suddenly the strange boy exclaimed vivaciously:

"Aha! here it is!"

"What?"

"Bread ... a loaf ... it's only wet ... take it!"

A loaf flew to my feet and after it herself, my valiant comrade. Jongin had already bitten off a morsel, stuffed it in his mouth, and was chewing it...

"Come, give me some too!... And we mustn't stay here... Where shall we go?" the odd boy looked inquiringly about on all sides... It was dark, wet, and boisterous.

"Look! there's an upset canoe yonder ... let us go there."

"Let us go then!" And off we set, demolishing our booty as we went, and filling our mouths with large portions of it... The rain grew more violent, the river roared; from somewhere or other resounded a prolonged mocking whistle--just as if Someone great who feared nobody was whistling down all earthly institutions and along with them this horrid autumnal wind and us its heroes. This whistling made Jongin's heart throb painfully, in spite of which he greedily went on eating, and in this respect the boy, walking on his left hand, kept even pace with him.

"What do they call you?" Jongin asked him--why he know not.

"Kyungsoo," he answered shortly, munching loudly.

Jongin stared at him. His heart ached within himself; and then he stared into the mist before him, and it seemed to him as if the inimical countenance of his Destiny was smiling at him enigmatically and coldly.

* * * * * * *

The rain scourged the timbers of the skiff incessantly, and its soft patter induced melancholy thoughts, and the wind whistled as it flew down into the boat's battered bottom through a rift, where some loose splinters of wood were rattling together--a disquieting and depressing sound. The waves of the river were splashing on the shore, and sounded so monotonous and hopeless, just as if they were telling something unbearably dull and heavy, which was boring them into utter disgust, something from which they wanted to run away and yet were obliged to talk about all the same. The sound of the rain blended with their splashing, and a long-drawn sigh seemed to be floating above the overturned skiff--the endless, labouring sigh of the earth, injured and exhausted by the eternal changes from the bright and warm summer to the cold misty and damp autumn. The wind blew continually over the desolate shore and the foaming river--blew and sang its melancholy songs...

Our position beneath the shelter of the skiff was utterly devoid of comfort; it was narrow and damp, tiny cold drops of rain dribbled through the damaged bottom; gusts of wind penetrated it. We sat in silence and shivered with cold. Jongin remembered that he  wanted to go to sleep,Kyungsoo leaned his back against the hull of the boat and curled herself up into a tiny ball. Embracing his knees with his hands, and resting his chin upon them, he stared doggedly at the river with wide-open eyes; on the pale patch of his face they seemed immense, because of the blue marks below them. he never moved, and this immobility and silence--I felt it--gradually produced within me a terror of my neighbour. I wanted to talk to him, but I knew not how to begin.

It was he himself who spoke.

"What a cursed thing life is!" he exclaimed plainly, abstractedly, and in a tone of deep conviction.

But this was no complaint. In these words there was too much of indifference for a complaint. This simple soul thought according to him understanding--thought and proceeded to form a certain conclusion which he expressed aloud, and which Jongin could not confute for fear of contradicting myself. Therefore he was silent, and he, as if he had not noticed me, continued to sit there immovable.

"Even if we croaked ... what then...?" Kyungsoo began again, this time quietly and reflectively, and still there was not one note of complaint in his words. It was plain that this person, in the course of his reflections on life, was regarding his own case, and had arrived at the conviction that in order to preserve herself from the mockeries of life, he was not in a position to do anything else but simply "croak"--to use his own expression.

The clearness of this line of thought was inexpressibly sad and painful to me, and Jongin felt that if he kept silence any longer he was really bound to weep... And it would have been shameful to have done this before a boy, especially as he was not weeping himself. Jongin resolved to speak to him.

"Who was it that knocked you about?" he asked. For the moment he could not think of anything more sensible or more delicate.

"Chanyeol did it all," he answered in a dull and level tone.

"And who is he?"

"My lover... He was a baker."

"Did he beat you often?"

"Whenever he was drunk he beat me... Often!"

And suddenly, turning towards me, he began to talk about himself, Chanyeol, and their mutual relations. He was a baker with red moustaches and played very well on the banjo. He came to see him and greatly pleased him, for he was a merry chap and wore nice clean clothes. He had a vest which cost fifteen rubles and boots with dress tops. For these reasons he had fallen in love with him, and he became his "creditor." And when he became his creditor he made it his business to take away from his the money which his other friends gave to his for bonbons, and, getting drunk on this money, he would fall to beating him; but that would have been nothing if he hadn't also begun to "run after" other boyss before his very eyes.

"Now, wasn't that an insult? I am not worse than the others. Of course that meant that he was laughing at me, the blackguard. The day before yesterday I asked leave of my mistress to go out for a bit, went to him, and there I found Eunji sitting beside him drunk. And he, too, was half seas over. I said, 'You scoundrel, you!' And he gave me a thorough hiding. He kicked me and dragged me by the hair. But that was nothing to what came after. He spoiled everything I had on--left me just as I am now! How could I appear before my mistress? He spoiled everything ... my dress and my jacket too--it was quite a new one; I gave a fiver for it ... and tore my kerchief from my head... Oh, Lord! What will become of me now?" he suddenly whined in a lamentable overstrained voice.

The wind howled, and became ever colder and more boisterous... Again Jongin's teeth began to dance up and down, and he, huddled up to avoid the cold, pressed as closely to Jongin as he could, so that he could see the gleam of his eyes through the darkness.

"What wretches all you people are! I'd burn you all in an oven; I'd cut you in pieces. If any one of you was dying I'd spit in his mouth, and not pity him a bit. Mean skunks! You wheedle and wheedle, you wag your tails like cringing dogs, and we fools give ourselves up to you, and it's all up with us! Immediately you trample us underfoot... Miserable loafers'"

he cursed us up and down, but there was no vigour, no malice, no hatred of these "miserable loafers" in his cursing that I could hear. The tone of his language by no means corresponded with its subject-matter, for it was calm enough, and the gamut of his voice was terribly poor.

Yet all this made a stronger impression on me than the most eloquent and convincing pessimistic bocks and speeches, of which Jongin had read a good many and which he still read to this day. And this, you see, was because the agony of a dying person is much more natural and violent than the most minute and picturesque descriptions of death.

Jongin felt really wretched--more from cold than from the words of my neighbour. He groaned softly and grounded his teeth.

Almost at the same moment he felt two little arms about him--one of them touched his neck and the other lay upon his face--and at the same time an anxious, gentle, friendly voice uttered the question:

"What ails you?"

Jongin was ready to believe that some one else was asking him this and not Kyungsoo, who had just declared that all men were scoundrels, and expressed a wish for their destruction. But here it was, and now he began speaking quickly, hurriedly.

"What ails you, eh? Are you cold? Are you frozen? Ah, what a one you are, sitting there so silent like a little owl! Why, you should have told me long ago that you were cold. Come ... lie on the ground ... stretch yourself out and I will lie ... there! How's that? Now put your arms round me?... tighter! How's that? You shall be warm very soon now... And then we'll lie back to back... The night will pass so quickly, see if it won't. I say ... have you too been drinking?... Turned out of your place, eh?... It doesn't matter."

And he comforted me... he encouraged me.

May Jongin be thrice accursed! What a world of irony was in this single fact for me! Just imagine! Here was Jongin, seriously occupied at this very time with the destiny of humanity, thinking of the re-organisation of the social system, of political revolutions, reading all sorts of devilishly-wise books whose abysmal profundity was certainly unfathomable by their very authors--at this very time. Jongin says, he was trying with all his might to make of himself "a potent active social force." It even seemed to him that he had partially accomplished his object; anyhow, at this time, in his ideas about himself, he had got so far as to recognise that he had an exclusive right to exist, that he had the necessary greatness to deserve to live his life, and that he was fully competent to play a great historical part therein. And a man was now warming his with his body, a wretched, battered, hunted creature, who had no place and no value in life, and whom I had never thought of helping till he helped me himself, and whom Jongin really would not have known how to help in any way even if the thought of it had occurred to him.

Ah! Jongin was ready to think that all this was happening to him in a dream--in a disagreeable, an oppressive dream.

But, ugh! it was impossible for him to think that, for cold drops of rain were dripping down upon him,Kyungsoo was pressing close to him, his warm breath was fanning my face, and--despite a slight odor of vodka--it did him good. The wind howled and raged, the rain smote upon the skiff, the waves splashed, and both of them, embracing each other convulsively, nevertheless shivered with cold. All this was only too real, and Jongin was certain that nobody ever dreamed such an oppressive and horrid dream as that reality.

But Kyungsoo was talking all the time of something or other, talking kindly and sympathetically, as only people like him can talk. Beneath the influence of his voice and kindly words a little fire began to burn up within Jongin, and something inside his heart thawed in consequence.

Then tears poured from his eyes like a hailstorm, washing away from his heart much that was evil, much that war, stupid, much sorrow and dirt which had fastened upon it before that night. Kyungsoo comforted him.

"Come, come, that will do, little one! Don't take on! That'll do! God will give you another chance ... you will right yourself and stand in your proper place again ... and it will be all right..."

And he kept kissing him ... many kisses did he give him ... burning kisses ... and all for nothing...

Those were the first kisses from a woman that had ever been bestowed upon Jongin, and they were the best kisses too, for all the subsequent kisses cost him frightfully dear, and really gave him nothing at all in exchange.

"Come, don't take on so, funny one! I'll manage for you to-morrow if you cannot find a place." His quiet persuasive whispering sounded in Jongin's ears as if it came through a dream...

There they lay till dawn...

And when the dawn came, they crept from behind the skiff and went into the town... Then they took friendly leave of each other and never met again, although for half a year Jongin searched in every hole and corner for that kind Kyungsoo, with whom he spent the autumn night just described.

If kyungsoo be already dead--and well for him if it were so--may he rest in peace! And if he be alive ... still he says "Peace to his soul!" And may the consciousness of his fall never enter his soul ... for that would be a superfluous and fruitless suffering if life is to be lived...