“That’s how I feel, too…” says Yakov.

“What a foul and narrow life we lead, brothers! There is no real fling for us anywhere!”

“Even when beating one’s wife, one has to be on the watch,” someone remarks humorously. And thus they speak till far on in the night, or till they have quarreled, the usual result of drink or of passions engendered by such discussions.

The rain beats on the windows, and outside the cold wind is blowing hard. The pub is reeking with tobacco smoke, but it is warm, while the street is cold, wet and dark. Now and then the wind beats threateningly on the windows, as if impudently bidding these men to come out and be scattered like dust over the face of the earth. Sometimes a stifled and hopeless groan is heard in its howling, then again it is drowned by cold, cruel laughter. This music fills one with gloomy thoughts of the approaching winter, of tedious short days without sun, of interminable nights, of the need for warm garments and plenty to eat. It is hard to sleep through the long winter nights on an empty stomach. Winter is approaching. Yes, it is approaching…How to live through it?

These gloomy forebodings created a strong thirst among the inhabitants of the street, and the heavy sighs of “the creatures that once were men” increased together with the wrinkles on their brows, their voices became thick and their behavior to each other coarser. And suddenly a fierce anger would break out amongst them, awakening the cruelty of persecuted people wearied by their hard fate. They began beating each other roughly and brutally and, then making it up, drank again till there was nothing more to pawn with undiscriminating Vaviloff. Thus in dumb anger and misery, which was squeezing their hearts, they spent the days of autumn, not knowing how to find a way out of this vile life, and in dread of the still crueler days of winter.

Kuvalda in such cases came to their assistance with his philosophy.

“Don’t lose heart, brothers, everything has its end, this is the chief quality of life. The winter will pass, summer will follow…a glorious time, when, as they say, the sparrows themselves get their fill of beer.” But his speeches did not have any effect—a mouthful of the freshest water will not satisfy a hungry man.

Deacon Taras also tried to entertain his friends by singing his songs and relating his tales. He was more successful, and sometimes his endeavors ended in a wild and desperate orgy at the pub. They sang, laughed and danced, and for hours behaved like sheer madmen. After this they again fell into gloom and despair, sitting at the tables of the pub, in the black smoke of the lamp and the tobacco, sullen and tattered, lazily speaking to each other, listening to the wild howling of the wind, and thinking only of getting enough drink to deaden their senses.

And each was filled with disgust for the other and fondled a helpless hatred against the whole world.

II

All things are relative in this world, and a man cannot sink into a condition so bad that it could not be any worse.

One bright day, towards the end of September, Captain Aristid Kuvalda was sitting, as was his custom, on the bench near the door of the doss-house, looking at the stone building in process of being erected by the merchant Petunikoff close to Vaviloff’s pub, and thinking deeply. This building, which was still unfinished, was intended for a soap factory and had for a long time been an eyesore for the Captain, with the dark, bare gaps made by the long rows of windows and the cobweb of scaffolding surrounding it from roof to foundation.

Painted red, as if with blood, it looked like a cruel machine which, though not working yet, had already opened a row of deep, hungry, gaping jaws, as if ready to devour and swallow anything. The gray wooden