against them.



PART II.

All things are relative in this world, and a man cannot sink into
any condition so bad that it could not be worse. One day, towards
the end of September, Captain Aristid Kuvalda was sitting, as was
his custom, on the bench near the door of the dosshouse, looking
at the stone building built by the merchant Petunikoff close to
Vaviloff's eatinghouse, and thinking deeply. This building,
which was partly surrounded by woods, served the purpose of a
candle factory.

Painted red, as if with blood, it looked like a cruel machine
which, though not working, opened a row of deep, hungry, gaping
jaws, as if ready to devour and swallow anything. The grey
wooden eating-house of Vaviloff, with its bent roof covered with
patches, leaned against one of the brick walls of the factory,
and seemed as if it were some large form of parasite clinging to
it. The Captain was thinking that they would very soon be making
new houses to replace the old building. "They will destroy the
dosshouse even," he reflected. "It will be necessary to look out
for another, but such a cheap one is not to be found. It seems a
great pity to have to leave a place to which one is accustomed,
though it will be necessary to go, simply because some merchant
or other thinks of manufacturing candles and soap." And the
Captain felt that if he could only make the life of such an enemy
miserable, even temporarily, oh! with what pleasure he would do