The Beggar

--Anton Chekhov

The mendicant

Sergei, an advocate, was approached by a man in a fawn-coloured, ragged overcoat. He had dull, drunken eyes and red spots on his cheeks. He asked Sergei to have pity on him as he had not eaten for three days. He did not even have five copecks for lodging. He had been a village schoolteacher for eight years and then lost his job to calumny. He wanted Sergei to help h…