These backslidings never spoilt the good understanding on either side. The aforementioned schoolmaster was amongst those friends who only got put on his feet in order to be knocked over again. He was intellectually the most on a level with the captain, and this was perhaps just the reason that, once having fallen to the doss-house, he could never rise again.
He was the only one with whom Aristide Kouvalda could philosophise, and be sure that he was understood. He appreciated the schoolmaster for this reason, and when his renovated friend was about to leave the doss-house, having again earned some money with the intention of taking a decent room in town, Aristide Kouvalda would begin such a string of melancholy tirades, that both would recommence drinking, and once more would lose all. In all probability Kouvalda was conscious of what he was doing, and the schoolmaster, much as he desired it, could never get away from the doss-house. Could Aristide Kouvalda, a gentleman by birth, and having received an education, the remnants of which still flashed through his conversation, along with a love of argument acquired during the vicissitudes of fortune—could he help desiring to keep by his side a kindred spirit? It is always ourselves we pity first. This schoolmaster once upon a time used to give lessons in a training school for teachers in a town on the Volga, but as the result of some trouble he was expelled; after that he became a clerk at a tanner's, and was forced, after a time, to leave that place as well; then he became a librarian in a private library, tried various other professions, and at length, having passed an attorney's examination, he began drinking, and came across the captain. He was a bald-headed man, with a stoop, and a sharp-pointed nose. In a thin, yellow face, with a pointed beard, glittered restless, sad, deep-sunk eyes, and the corners of his mouth were drawn down, giving him a depressed expression. His livelihood, or rather the means to get drunk, he earned by being a reporter on the local newspapers. Sometimes he would earn as much as fifteen roubles a week; these he would give to the captain, saying, "This is the last of it! Another week of hard work, and I shall get enough to be decently dressed, and then—addio, mio caro!"
"That's all right; you have my hearty approbation. I won't give you another glass of vodka the whole week," the captain would reply severely.
"I shall be very grateful. You must not give me a single drop."
The captain heard in these words something approaching very near to a humble appeal, and would add still more severely, "You may shout for it, but I won't give you any more."
"Well, that's an end of it," the teacher would sigh, and go off to his work. But in a day or two, feeling exhausted, fatigued, and thirsty, he would look furtively at the captain, with sad, imploring eyes, hoping anxiously that his friend's heart would melt. The captain would keep a severe face, uttering speeches full of the disgrace of weak natures, of the bestial pleasures of drunkenness, and other words applicable to the circumstances. To give him his due, it is right to add that he was sincere in his rôle of mentor and of moralist, but the patrons of his doss-house always inclined to be sceptical, and while listening to the scathing words of the captain, would say to each other with a wink, "He's a sly one for knowing how to get rid of all responsibility himself! 'I told you so; but you wouldn't listen to me; now blame yourself.'"
"The gentleman is an old soldier; he doesn't advance without preparing a retreat."
The schoolmaster would catch his friend in a dark corner, and holding him by his dirty cloak, trembling and moistening his parched lips with his tongue, would look into the captain's eyes with an expression so deeply tragic that no words could describe it.
"Can't you?" the captain would question sombrely.
The schoolmaster would silently nod, and then drop his head on his chest, trembling through all his long, thin body.