"Well, then, Devil take him! . . . We all live in the world
without sufficient reason. . . . We live, and why? Because! He
also because . . . let him alone. . . ."

"But it is better for you, young man, to go away from us," the
teacher advised him, looking him up and down with his sad eyes.
He made no answer, but remained. And they soon became accustomed
to his presence, and ceased to take any notice of him. But he
lived among them, and observed everything.

The above were the chief members of the Captain's company, and he
called them with kind-hearted sarcasm "Creatures that once were
men." For though there were men who had experienced as much of
the bitter irony of fate as these men, yet they were not fallen
so low. Not infrequently, respectable men belonging to the
cultured classes are inferior to those belonging to the
peasantry, and it is always a fact that the depraved man from the
city is immeasurably worse than the depraved man from the
village. This fact was strikingly illustrated by the contrast
between the formerly well-educated men and the mujiks who were
living in Kuvalda's shelter.

The representative of the latter class was an old mujik called
Tyapa. Tall and angular, he kept his head in such a position
that his chin touched his breast. He was the Captain's first
lodger, and it was said of him that he had a great deal of money
hidden somewhere, and for its sake had nearly had his throat cut
some two years ago: ever since then he carried his head thus.
Over his eyes hung greyish eyebrows, and, looked at in profile,