“Don’t speak like that,” begged Bag of Bones in a low voice.

Meteor rose and followed Tyapa. The Deacon tried to get up, but fell and swore loudly.

When Tyapa had gone the Captain touched Martyanoff’s shoulder and said in low tones:

“Well, Martyanoff…you must feel it more than the others. You were…But to the Devil with that.… Won’t you miss Philip?”

“No,” said the ex-jailer, after a moment’s silence, “I do not feel things of that sort, brother.…I have lost the habit…this life is disgusting, it is really, I mean it when I say I want to kill someone.”

“Do you?” said the Captain vaguely. “Well…let’s have another drink.…”

“Ours is a small job, a little drink and then one more…”

Simtsoff had waked up and drawled this in a rapt voice: “Is there someone there to pour out a glass for an old man!”

They poured out a glass and gave it to him. Having drunk it, he tumbled down again, knocking against another body as he fell. Two or three minutes’ silence ensued, dark and eerie as the autumn night.

“What do you say?” a voice was heard asking.

“I say that he was a good man…with brains and so gentle,” whispered another.

“Yes, and he had money too…and never refused it to a friend.…” Again came silence.

“He is sinking fast,” said Tyapa, hoarsely, from behind the Captain’s head. Aristid Fomich got up, and went with exaggeratedly firm steps into the doss-house.

“Don’t go!” Tyapa stopped him. “Don’t go! You are drunk! It is not right.” The Captain stopped and thought for a moment.

“And what is right on this earth? Go to the Devil!” And he pushed Tyapa aside.

On the walls of the doss-house the shadows were creeping as though chasing one another. The teacher lay stretched out on the shelf at full length and rattled. His eyes were wide open, his naked breast rose and fell heavily, foam stood out at the corners of his mouth, and on his face was a tense expression as if he wished to say something grave, very important, but could not utter it and was tormented by it. The Captain stood with his hands folded behind his back and looked at him in silence for a moment. Then he spoke, wrinkling his forehead in distress.

“Philip! Say something to me…a word of comfort to a friend…come…I love you, brother!…All men are beasts.…You were the only man for me… though you were a drunkard. Ah! how you drank, Philip! That was the ruin of you! You ought to have listened to me and controlled yourself.…Did I not say to you…?”

The mysterious, all-destroying reaper, called Death, as if insulted by the presence of this drunken man at the dark and solemn act of its struggle with life, made up its mind to finish the unrelenting work quickly. The teacher sighed deeply, moaned, quivered all over, stretched himself out, and then all was silent. The Captain stood staggering on his feet and continued to talk to him.

“Do you want me to bring you some vodka? It would be better of course if you did not drink, Philip…pull yourself together. Or perhaps better drink! On the whole, why control yourself? For what reason, Philip? For whose sake, eh?”