Next day it was late in the morning before he awoke.

Through the window the sun was shining into his eyes, and the flies which, overnight, had been roosting quietly on the walls and ceiling now turned their attention to the visitor.

One settled on his lip, another on his ear, a third hovered as though intending to lodge in his very eye, and a fourth had the temerity to alight just under his nostrils.

In his drowsy condition he inhaled the latter insect, sneezed violently, and so returned to consciousness.

He glanced around the room, and perceived that not all the pictures were representative of birds, since among them hung also a portrait of Kutuzov [14] and an oil painting of an old man in a uniform with red facings such as were worn in the days of the Emperor Paul [15].