"Eh, stop that; I see that thou art drunk early, and to-day is a feast-day, to boot."
Efrém suddenly, and quite unexpectedly, fell to weeping.
"I am drunk, but I 'm speaking the truth,"—he blurted out.—"But do you release him, in honour of Christ's festival."
"Come, let 's be starting, cry-baby."
And Naúm went out on the porch....
"Forgive him for Avdótya Aréfyevna's sake,"—said Efrém, following him.
Naúm approached the cellar, and threw the door wide open. Efrém, with timorous curiosity, craned his neck from behind Naúm's back, and with difficulty made out Akím in one corner of the shallow cellar. The former wealthy householder, the man respected in all the countryside, was sitting with pinioned arms on the straw, like a criminal... On hearing the noise, he raised his head.... He seemed to have grown frightfully thin in the last two days, especially during the last night—his sunken eyes were hardly visible beneath his lofty brow, yellow as wax, his parched lips had turned dark ... his whole face had undergone a change, and assumed a strange expression: both harsh and terrified.
"Get up and come out,"—said Naúm.
Akím rose, and stepped across the threshold.
"Akím Semyónitch,"—roared Efrém,—"thou hast ruined thyself, my dear man!"