The words were spoken quickly, in a soft timid voice. Artyom recognized it, but could not remember to what woman it belonged.

“Give me some,” he said.

Again someone, who apparently did not wish to be seen, handed him a bottle over his head. As, with some difficulty, he was swallowing the brandy, Artyom’s eyes wandered round the dark moist bottom of the barge, which was overgrown with fungi.

When he had drunk about a quarter of the contents of the bottle, he gave a deep sigh of relief; then in a low, feeble voice, his chest rattling the while, he said:

“They did nicely for me that time—but wait—I shall get over it—and then—look out!”

There was no answer, but he detected a slight movement as if someone was edging away from him, then all was silence; there was only the lapping of the waves and somebody in the distance was singing “Dubinushka,” to the accompaniment of groans: apparently a heavy load was being dragged along. Then came, cutting through the air, the shrill whistle of a steamer, and a few seconds later he heard the melancholy wail of the siren as if the boat were bidding farewell forever to the land.

Artyom lay a long time waiting for an answer to his remarks, but the silence under the barge remained unbroken; the rotten, massive hull, green with mildew, heaved up and down above his head, looking as if at any moment it might fall over and mercilessly crush him to death.

Artyom was seized with pity for himself. He was suddenly conscious of his almost childish helplessness, and at the same time he felt aggrieved. He, so strong, so handsome, and they had thus maimed and disfigured him! He raised his weak hands and began to feel the bruises and swellings on his chest and on his face, and then he began to curse bitterly and to cry.

He sobbed and sniffled, swore dully, and hardly able to move his eyelids, he pressed out with them the tears that filled his eyes: they rolled, large, hot tears, down his cheeks, and fell into his ears, and he felt as if, thanks to them, something within him was being cleansed.

“Good—wait,” he murmured through his sobs.

Then suddenly he heard sobs and stifled murmurs close beside him; it was as if someone were mimicking him.

“Who is it?” he cried in a threatening tone of voice, although for some reason or other he felt afraid.

No answer came to his question.

Then gathering all his strength together, Artyom turned on his side, roared with pain like an animal, raised himself on his elbows, and was then able to distinguish in the dark a little figure curled up into a ball on the edge of the barge. It was a man, who pressed his head against his knees, which he grasped tightly between his long skinny hands, his shoulders the while trembling violently. To Artyom he appeared to be a boy in his teens.

“Come here,” he said.

But the other did not move; he continued to tremble as if shaken by fever.

A look of pain and horror came into Artyom’s eyes at the sight of this figure, and he howled:

“Come!”