you read in the paper about the theft at Basoff’s? Do you understand? You won’t have time to hide anything, we will see to that… and this very night…you understand?”

“Aristid Fomich, have pity!” sobbed the cowering sergeant.

“No more words! Did you understand or not?”

Tall, gray, and imposingly stern Kuvalda spoke in a whisper, and his hoarse bass voice rang through the empty house in sinister notes. Vaviloff had always feared him, not only as a retired soldier, but also as a man who had nothing to lose. But now Kuvalda appeared before him in a new rôle. He did not speak as much and as jocosely as usual, but in the tone of a commander, convinced of the other’s obedience, and that was no poor threat. And Vaviloff felt that the Captain could and would ruin him with the greatest delight. He must incline himself before this power. Nevertheless, boiling with rage, the soldier decided to make a last desperate attempt. He sighed deeply, and began with apparent meekness.

“It is justly said that a man’s sin will find him out. …I lied to you, Aristid Fomich…I tried to be cleverer than I am…I only received one hundred rubles.”

“Go on!” said Kuvalda.

“And not four hundred as I told you.…That means…”

“It does not mean anything. I don’t know whether you are lying now or lied before. You owe me sixty- five rubles. That is not much, eh?”

“Oh! Good God! Aristid Fomich! I have always been attentive to your honor’s wishes and done my best to please you.”

“Drop all that, Egorka, grandchild of Judas!”

“All right! I will give it to you…only God will punish you for this.…”

“Silence! You pimple on the face of the earth!” shouted the Captain, rolling his eyes fiercely. “He has punished me enough already in forcing me to talk with you…to see you…I will kill you on the spot like a fly!”

He shook his fist in Vaviloff’s face and gnashed his teeth.

After he had gone Vaviloff began grimacing and blinking nervously. Then two large tears rolled down his cheeks. They were of a grayish hue, and when they had hid themselves in his mustache, two others followed them. Then Vaviloff went into his own room and stood before the icon, without praying, immovable, letting the salt tears run down his wrinkled brown cheeks.…

Deacon Taras, whose favorite occupation was to loiter among woods and prairies, proposed to the “creatures that once were men” to go into the fields to a ravine there and drink Vaviloff’s vodka in the bosom of Nature. But the Captain and all the rest unanimously swore both at the Deacon and at Nature, and decided to drink it in the court-yard.

“One, two, three,” counted Aristid Fomich. “We are thirteen, the teacher is not here…but probably many other brigands will join us. Let us count, say, twenty persons, and to every person two-and-a-half cucumbers, a pound of bread, and a pound of meat.…That’s not so bad! One bottle of vodka each, and there is plenty of sour cabbage, apples, and three watermelons. I ask you, what the devil could you want more, my scoundrels of friends? Now then, let us prepare to devour Egorka Vaviloff, because all this is his flesh and blood!”

They spread some old clothes on the ground, setting the delicacies and the drink on them, and sat around the feast, solemnly and quietly, almost unable to control the craving for drink that shone in their eyes.