superintendent, and therefore earned little; every holiday he beat
somebody, and everyone disliked and feared him.

More than one attempt was made to beat him in turn, but without
success. When Vlasov found himself threatened with attack, he
caught a stone in his hand, or a piece of wood or iron, and
spreading out his legs stood waiting in silence for the enemy. His
face overgrown with a dark beard from his eyes to his neck, and his
hands thickly covered with woolly hair, inspired everybody with
fear. People were especially afraid of his eyes. Small and keen,
they seemed to bore through a man like steel gimlets, and everyone
who met their gaze felt he was confronting a beast, a savage power,
inaccessible to fear, ready to strike unmercifully.

"Well, pack off, dirty vermin!" he said gruffly. His coarse, yellow
teeth glistened terribly through the thick hair on his face. The
men walked off uttering coward abuse.

"Dirty vermin!" he snapped at them, and his eyes gleamed with a smile
sharp as an awl. Then holding his head in an attitude of direct
challenge, with a short, thick pipe between his teeth, he walked
behind them, and now and then called out: "Well, who wants death?"

No one wanted it.

He spoke little, and "dirty vermin" was his favorite expression.
It was the name he used for the authorities of the factory, and
the police, and it was the epithet with which he addressed his wife:
"Look, you dirty vermin, don't you see my clothes are torn?"