Pagina 4 van 1294

The heat in the street was terrible: and the airlessness, the

bustle and the plaster, scaffolding, bricks, and dust all about

him, and that special Petersburg stench, so familiar to all who

are unable to get out of town in summer--all worked painfully

upon the young man's already overwrought nerves. The insufferable

stench from the pot-houses, which are particularly numerous in

that part of the town, and the drunken men whom he met

continually, although it was a working day, completed the

revolting misery of the picture. An expression of the profoundest

disgust gleamed for a moment in the young man's refined face. He

was, by the way, exceptionally handsome, above the average in

height, slim, well-built, with beautiful dark eyes and dark brown

hair. Soon he sank into deep thought, or more accurately speaking

into a complete blankness of mind; he walked along not observing

what was about him and not caring to observe it.