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"Of course he'll die! What could he do?" said Nikandr. "He's fit for the hospital now.... For sure!"
The peasants called up a picture of a free life such as they had never lived; whether they vaguely recalled the images of stories heard long ago or whether notions of a free life had been handed down to them with their flesh and blood from far-off free ancestors, God knows! The first to break the silence was Nikandr Sapozhnikov, who had not till then let fall a single word.
The man who had forgotten his name looked at the stern, unconcerned faces of his sinister companions, and without taking off his cap, hurriedly crossed himself, staring with wide-open eyes.... He trembled, his head shook, and he began twitching all over, like a caterpillar when it is stepped upon.... "Well, it's time to go," said Nikandr, getting up; "we've had a rest."
And I observe my religious duties punctually...." "Well, what are you called, then?" "Call me what you like, good man." Ptaha shrugged his shoulders and slapped himself on the haunches in extreme perplexity. The other constable, Nikandr Sapozhnikov, maintained a staid silence.
The shadows of the coaches and sledges with their shafts tipped upwards stretched from the walls to the doors, quivering and cutting across the shadows cast by the lantern and the players.... On the other side of the thin partition that divided the coach-house from the stable were the horses. There was a scent of hay, and a disagreeable smell of salt herrings coming from old Nikandr.
Just look what a weakling you are! Here you've hardly gone five miles and you can't get your breath." The tramp turned slowly toward Nikandr, and the blissful smile vanished from his face. He looked with a scared and guilty air at the peasant's staid face, apparently remembered something, and bent his head. A silence followed again.... All three were pondering.
Stepan the coachman, Mihailo the house-porter, Alyoshka the coachman's grandson, who had come up from the village to stay with his grandfather, and Nikandr, an old man of seventy, who used to come into the yard every evening to sell salt herrings, were sitting round a lantern in the big coach-house, playing "kings."
Ptaha listened and looked askance at him in wonder, continually shrugging his shoulders. After going nearly five miles the constables and the tramp sat down on a mound to rest. "Even a dog knows his name," Ptaha muttered. "My name is Andryushka, his is Nikandr; every man has his holy name, and it can't be forgotten. Nohow."
"For his wisdom God had added to his forehead" that is, he was bald which increased the resemblance referred to. The first was called Andrey Ptaha, the second Nikandr Sapozhnikov. The man they were escorting did not in the least correspond with the conception everyone has of a tramp. He was a frail little man, weak and sickly-looking, with small, colourless, and extremely indefinite features.
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