The “creatures that once were men” disappeared one after the other. A cart entered the yard. Some ragged wretches carried out the dead man’s body.

“I’ll teach you! You just wait!” thundered the Inspector at Kuvalda.

“What now, robbers’ chief?” asked Petunikoff, maliciously, exhilarated and happy at the sight of his enemy in bonds. “Caught, are you? Eh? You just wait.…”

But Kuvalda was quiet now. He stood imposingly straight and silent between the two policemen, watching the teacher’s body being placed in the cart. The man who was holding the corpse under the arms was very short, and could not manage to place the head on the cart at the same time as the legs were being lifted onto it. For a moment the body hung as if it wanted to fall headlong and hide itself beneath the earth, away from these foolish and wicked men, disturbers of its peace.

“Take him away!” ordered the Inspector, pointing to the Captain.

Kuvalda, with a frowning face, silently moved forward without protestation, passing the cart on which the teacher’s body lay. He bowed his head before it without looking up. Martyanoff, with his stone-like face, followed him. The court-yard of the merchant Petunikoff emptied quickly.

“Now then, go on!” called the driver, pulling the horses’ reins. The cart clattered along the rough surface of the court-yard. The teacher’s stretched-out body was covered with a heap of rags, and his belly was shaking beneath them. It seemed as if he were laughing softly and contentedly at the prospect of leaving the doss-house at last, never to return to it, never.

Petunikoff, who was following him with his eyes, crossed himself, and then carefully began to shake off with his cap the dust and rubbish which had clung to his clothes. As the dust disappeared from his cloak a quiet smile of self-satisfaction appeared on his face. He could still see the tall gray figure of the Captain, in a cap with a red band, which looked like a stripe of blood, his arms tied behind his back, being led away along the street up the mountain.

Petunikoff smiled the smile of the conqueror, and walked back to the doss-house, but suddenly he stopped and staggered. At the door facing him stood an old man with a stick in his hand and a large bag on his back, a terrible old man in rags and tatters, which covered his bony figure. He stooped under the weight of his burden, and bent his head towards his breast, as if preparing to attack the merchant.

“What are you? Who are you?” cried Petunikoff.

“A man…” came in a hoarse voice. This hoarseness reassured Petunikoff, he even smiled.

“A man! Are there such men as you?” Stepping aside, he let the old man pass. He pursued his way, muttering slowly:

“There are men of different kinds…as God wills them to be.…There are some even worse than me… even worse.…Yes.…”

An overcast sky hung silently over the dirty yard and over the neatly dressed little man with the pointed gray beard, who was walking about the earth measuring everything with his steps and with his sharp little eyes. On the roof of the old house a crow perched and solemnly croaked, thrusting its head forward and rocking to and fro. In the gray, stern clouds, which entirely concealed the sky, there was something tense and merciless, as if they had gathered together in order to pour out streams of rain, firmly set on washing all the filth from this unfortunate, suffering and sorrowful earth.

1897.