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Updated: May 7, 2025
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."
"Don't count your chickens before they are hatched . . . my friend," said Aristid Fomich. The Doctor, a young man with eye-glasses, looked at him curiously, the Coroner with an attention that boded him no good, Petunikoff with triumph, while the Inspector could hardly restrain himself from throwing himself upon him. The dark figure of Martyanoff appeared at the door of the dosshouse.
He took a cucumber in his hand without looking at it, put nearly half of it into his mouth, and bit it with his yellow teeth, so that the juice spurted out in all directions and ran over his cheeks. He did not seem to want to eat, but this process pleased him. Martyanoff sat motionless on the ground, like a statue, and looked in a dull manner at the half-vedro bottle, already getting empty.
Besides reading newspapers, fighting and indulging in general conversation, they amused themselves by playing cards. They played without Martyanoff because he could not play honestly. After cheating several times, he openly confessed: "I cannot play without cheating . . . it is a habit of mine." "Habits do get the better of you," assented Deacon Taras.
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.
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?"
Besides that, whenever he fought or quarrelled, he was assisted by Martyanoff, who was accustomed during a general fight to stand silently and sadly back to back with Kuvalda, when he became an all destroying and impregnable engine of war. Once when Simtsoff was drunk, he rushed at the teacher for no reason whatever, and getting hold of his head tore out a bunch of hair.
"That is your luck," shouted Tyapa. "I will go halves with you, brother." "All right, take it and welcome." Kuvalda felt angry with these men. Among them all there was not one worthy of hearing his oratory or of understanding him. "I wonder where the teacher is?" he asked loudly. Martyanoff looked at him and said, "He will come soon.. . ."
After him, Kanets appeared from some corner a dark, sad-looking, silent drunkard: then the former governor of the prison, Luka Antonovitch Martyanoff, a man who existed on "remeshok," "trilistika," and "bankovka,"* and many such cunning games, not much appreciated by the police.
Martyanoff, with his strong face, followed him. The courtyard of the merchant Petunikoff emptied quickly. "Now then, go on!" called the driver, striking the horses with the whip. The cart moved off over the rough surface of the courtyard. The teacher was covered with a heap of rags, and his belly projected from beneath them.
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