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The foolish face of Meteor, who was lying on the ground, showed that he was drinking in the Deacon's strong words. Martyanoff sat, clasping his large hairy hands round his knees, looking silently and sadly at the bottle of vodki and pulling his moustache as if trying to bite it with his teeth, while Abyedok was teasing Tyapa. "I have seen you watching the place where your money is hidden!"
"Wait, I will help you . . . He is very ill . . . he has been with me for the last two days . . . Take him under the arms . . . The doctor has seen him. He is very bad." Tyapa got up and walked to the entrance, but Abyedok laughed, and took another drink. "Strike a light, there!" shouted the Captain. Meteor went into the house and lighted the lamp.
Tyapa bent further forward than usual and crossed himself respectfully. Martyanoff dropped to the ground and lay there. Abyedok moved quietly, and said in a low and wicked tone: "May you all go to the Devil! Dead? What of that? Why should I care? Why should I speak about it? It will be time enough when I come to die myself.... I am not worse than other people."
The ribs of his left side had been broken in a quarrel, and the sharp, yellow face, like that of a fox, always wore a malicious smile. The thin lips, when opened, exposed two rows of decayed black teeth, and the rags on his shoulders swayed backwards and forwards as if they were hung on a clothes pole. They called him "Abyedok."
The "creatures that once were men" sprang aside quickly to let the merchant fall. And down he fell at their feet, crying wildly: "Murder! Help! Murder!" Martyanoff slowly raised his foot, and brought it down heavily on the merchant's head. Abyedok spat in his face with a grin. The merchant, creeping on all-fours, threw himself into the courtyard, at which everyone laughed.
"Seeing what we are" . . . puts in Deacon Taras. "Be quiet, Abyedok," says the teacher good-naturedly. "Why do you provoke him?" He does not love either discussion or noise, and when they quarrel all around him his lips form into a sickly grimace, and he endeavors quietly and reasonably to reconcile each with the other, and if he does not succeed in this he leaves the company.
Silence reigned once more. The cloudy sky threatened thunder, and the earth was covered with the thick darkness of an autumn night. "Let us go on drinking!" proposed Kuvalda, filling up the glasses. "I will go and see if he wants anything," said Tyapa. "He wants a coffin!" jeered the Captain. "Don't speak about that," begged Abyedok in a low voice. Meteor rose and followed Tyapa.
"That means that people would all go about cutting one another's throats," explained Abyedok smilingly. "Well, what about it?" asked the Captain angrily. He did not like to hear his thoughts illustrated. "Oh! Nothing! When a person wants to get anywhere quickly he whips up the horses, but of course it needs fire to make engines go. . . ."
Petunikoff put out his trembling hand towards his mite, and protecting his head from Kuvalda's fist with the other hand, said: "You are my witnesses, Sir Inspector, and you good people!" "We are not good people, merchant!" said the voice of Abyedok, trembling with anger.
I care now for nothing and nobody . . . and all my life has been tame a sweetheart who has jilted me therefore I despise life, and am indifferent to it." "You lie!" says Abyedok. "I lie?" roars Aristid Kuvalda, almost crimson with anger. "Why shout?" comes in the cold sad voice of Martyanoff. "Why judge others? Merchants, noblemen. . .what have we to do with them?"
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