“Why do you never speak, Cain?” asked Artyom, with a look of annoyance on his face. “Are you still afraid of me? What a man you are!”

Cain lifted his head and started shaking it strangely, showing a face full of piteous discomfiture.

“And what am I to say? With what tongue can I speak to you?…With this?” And the Jew put out the tip of his tongue and pointed to it.…“With this, the same that I use in speaking to everyone else? Ought I not to be ashamed to speak to you with this tongue? Do you think I do not understand that you are ashamed to be seated here beside me? What am I, and what are you? Think of all that, you great- souled Artyom—you, the equal of Judas Maccabeus! What would you do if you knew the purpose for which God had created you? Ah, no one knows the great secrets of the Creator, and no one can guess why life has been given to him. You cannot imagine during how many days and nights of my existence I have asked myself: ‘Of what good is life to me? Of what use my soul and mind? What am I to other men? I am but as a spittoon for their envenomed spit! And what are other men to me?…Vermin who wound me, body and soul, in every possible way.…Why am I on earth at all? And why should I have known nothing but unhappiness? And why is there not a single ray of light for me?’ ”

He spoke in a passionate half-whisper, and as usual when the spirit that had been overwrought with suffering was aroused, his whole face quivered.

Artyom did not understand what he was saying, but he heard and saw that Cain was complaining of something. As a result, Artyom’s feeling of dullness and weariness grew more acute.

“Now, look here! You are at it again!” and he gave an irritable shake to his head. “I have told you, have I not, that I will protect you?”

Cain laughed quietly and bitterly.

“How will you intercede for me before the face of my God? It is He who pursues me.”

“Of course, I can’t go against God,” said Artyom, naïvely acquiescent; and then, in a compassionate tone, he advised the Jew: “Have patience, there is no way of going against God.”

Cain looked at his protector and smiled—it was his turn now to feel pity. First the strong had pitied the intelligent, and now the intelligent pitied the strong, and a breath of something passed between the speakers which drew them a little closer to one another.

“Are you married?” asked Artyom.

“Yes, I have a large family, too large for my feeble strength.” Cain sighed heavily.

“Really!” exclaimed the athlete. It was difficult for him to picture the woman who could love the Jew, and he looked with renewed curiosity at this sickly and diminutive, dirty and timid man.

“I have had five children, but only four are left—my little Khaia was always coughing—and then she died. My God!…My Lord!…And my wife is ill too—she keeps on coughing.”

“You have a hard time,” said Artyom, and he grew thoughtful.

Cain, his head sunk on his breast, also fell into a reverie. Old-clothesmen were now coming into the tavern. They went up to the bar, where they entered into a whispered conversation with Savka. The latter mysteriously communicated something to them, accompanying his words by significant glances in the direction of Cain and Artyom, which led his listeners to stare at them also with looks of mingled astonishment and ridicule. Cain had quickly taken note of these glances, and he grew alert. But Artyom was looking away again towards the fields beyond the river. He heard the whistling of the scythe and the soft rustle made by the grass as it fell.